7 global warming 'skeptics' who are massively missing the point

Earlier this year Patrick Moore told Energy Live News "I am firmly of the belief that the future will show that this whole hysteria over climate change was a complete fabrication."

According to Greenpeace, Moore "exploits long-lost ties" with the organization to sell his anti-environmental opinions on carbon dioxide. Moore thinks that this greenhouse gas is in no way related to global warming and that it's a "good thing" that we're putting more into the atmosphere. He's forgetting the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Anastasios Tsonis has said he's not a climate change denier, but he also is of the belief that Earth is not necessarily getting any warmer. Tsonis is part of a group of scientists who think that Earth's climate flips between a "warm mode" and "cool mode" every 20 to 30 years, driven by oceanic temperatures, particularly the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) current.

Right now we're in a "cool mode," he told British journalist David Rose in 2010. "We have such a change now and can therefore expect 20 or 30 years of cooler temperatures." While the AMO is a confirmed natural phenomenon, there is controversy as to its periodic changes and influence on climate.

Despite his training and research in physics, Denis Rancourt calls himself the "Climate Guy" in one of his climate-change-disputing blogs. In 2007, Rancourt published a detailed essay of his opinions that has since served as platform for certain politicians, like American Senator James Inhofe, to discredit scientific results supporting climate change.

"This idea that a global warming could actually negatively impact the environment on its own is very very tenuous," Rancourt told ClimateDepot.com in 2010. "I see no evidence of that."

Rancourt is obviously ignoring — or simply choosing to be ignorant of — the thousands of walruses that were stranded last year due to melting ice they would otherwise rest on and the the Great Barrier Reef's continued degradation.

Famed physicist Freeman Dyson has gone on record as a skeptic of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC's) — the internationally accepted authority on climate change — approach on climate change. He's not the only one.

Over a dozen other distinguished scientists, including MIT meteorologist Richard Lindzen, have raised concerns about the predictive power of computer-based climate change models that drive the IPCC's policy guidelines to addressing climate change. Specifically, Lindzen — who has isolated himself from the scientific community — has gone so far as to say that Earth is not sensitive enough to increases in atmospheric CO2 to generate disastrous climate change.

Though no one can predict the future, these computer models play a significant role in driving policy to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, which many climate experts say is a good thing.

Harrison Schmitt was one of 16 scientists to sign in support of a 2012 statement regarding how political candidates should attack the issue of climate change. Among the descriptions in the statement, the most vexing read as follows:

"Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically."

Some argue that life survived past peaks in CO2 atmospheric levels in Earth's ancient past, however the rate at which these levels rose was far slower and therefore enabled time for adaptation. There's no telling what these faster rates will do to the ecosystem, but most agree it won't be anything good.

Steven E. Koonin is what you might call a moderate skeptic. He does not deny the basic facts: Earth's climate is changing and humans play a key role.

However, in a Wall Street Journal editorial in 2014, Koonin voiced concerns that climate change projection models are not sophisticated enough to accurately predict how climate will change over the next 100 years and how humanity will influence that change.

"Society's choices in the years ahead will necessarily be based on uncertain knowledge of future climates," he wrote. Koonin also urged immediate action for an "international commitment" of dedicated, detailed climate observations that would help build better predictive models.

While Koonin has a point, we shouldn't necessarily attack current policies to mitigate emissions that scientists have fought so hard for — we should continue to adjust our policies as climate models improve.