Tricks of the Trade

The global warming deniers like to trot out graphs to lend credibility to their claims. One of the current stars of their community is a German school teacher E.G. Beck. In books and pamphlets and through television appearances, Beck disputes the notion of man-made global warming. He's even come up with the graph above to prove his contention that it was warmer in medieval times than today and that all we're experiencing today is a peak in a natural, 1500-year cycle.

The chart above shows temperatures climbing and dropping in wonderfully predictable sine wave cycles. Clearly Beck has proved his point. But wait. What are those two broken, diagonal lines on the bottom time line? If you notice carefully, to the left of the break, time is measured in 400-year gradations. To the right, it's in 200-year spans. But, then again, manipulating time lines is necessary for Beck to come up with his tidy little graph.

But note also that Beck shows temperature peaks at 400 BC and 12oo AD, a 1,600 year cycle. Fair enough. Add a 1,600 year cycle onto a 1200 AD baseline and when will Beck's next peak be? He claims it's now, year 2000. By his own math it'll be the year 2800 AD.

Just another trick of the trade for the global warming denialists.