"It's the sun, stupid": Independence Institute's Oliver claimed that the sun, not human activity, is causing global warming

Summary: During a "Global Warming Update" on her March 17 program, 1310 KFKA's Amy Oliver asserted that, according to a "controversial theory," the sun is to blame "for heating on Mars and yes, on Earth." Oliver, who is also director of operations for the free-market Independence Institute, omitted that some scientists note the theory -- which states that warming on Mars is evidence that warming on Earth is the result of natural causes, i.e. the sun -- contradicts extensive evidence collected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

On her March 17 1310 KFKA broadcast, Independence Institute Director of Operations Amy Oliver referenced what she called a "controversial theory" to claim that "the sun is to blame for heating on Mars and, yes, on Earth." During a segment she called "The Global Warming Update," Oliver added, "[H]ow did that happen? There are no SUVs to try and control. There's no oil and gas exploration. There are no nasty coal-producing power plants on Mars. And it's still warming. How did that happen? I'm serious; it is the sun, stupid."

However, as Media Matters for America noted, the "controversial theory" to which Oliver referred --about Martian warming being analogous to warming on Earth -- is "completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion." Furthermore, according to the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, "Most of the observed increase in globally-averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations." (emphasis in original) The authors of the IPCC report noted that the phrase "very likely" translates to greater than 90 percent probability. The IPCC further reported that "it is very unlikely [less than a 10 percent chance] that the contribution from solar forcing to the warming of the last 50 years was larger than that from greenhouse gas forcing."

From the March 17 broadcast of 1310 KFKA's The Amy Oliver Show:

OLIVER: All right, it is time for one of my other favorite segments in radio.

VOICEOVER: And now The Amy Oliver Show presents "The Global Warming Update."

[Audio clip of Glenn Frey's The Heat is On]

OLIVER: Put down the Kool-Aid and back away from the counter. Hey, question: How many SUVs do they have on Mars? This is not a trick question. It's a pretty simple answer. Yes, Micah Kilpatrick [in studio] has it right on, as always: zero. They don't have SUVs on Mars. So where is all the human-caused greenhouse gas effect? How in the world is Mars getting warmer? Well, I have an answer for you: It's the sun, stupid.

Yes, according to -- I love this -- a controversial theory from a Russian scientist, the sun is to blame for heating on Mars and, yes, on Earth. Egads, how did that happen? There are no SUVs to try and control. There's no oil and gas exploration. There are no nasty coal-producing power plants on Mars. And it's still warming. How did that happen? I'm serious; it is the sun, stupid. Gotta tell you, this according to, again, a Russian scientist, who claims that the sun holds something a little bit different in store for us in the coming decades.

The solar irradiance which began to drop in the 1990s that caused the warming will be at a minimum at 2040, and it will cause a steep cooling of the climate on Earth in the next 15 to 20 years. So, purchase your snowblowers now, get the warm clothing out; you're gonna need it in the next couple of decades. That hurts, doesn't it? Ouch. No SUVs and no coal-fired power plants on Mars, yet Mars still had an increase in temperature. How does that happen without nasty human beings? Well, I'll leave you to ponder that for the day. Have a great day.

While Oliver acknowledged that the Martian warming theory is "controversial," she failed to note that it is also "completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion," according to Colin Wilson, a planetary physicist at England's Oxford University, as quoted in a February 28, 2007, National Geographic article.

The article reported that Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, noted that "2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions" show that "the carbon dioxide 'ice caps' near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row," and theorized that because warming is occurring naturally on Mars, warming on Earth might also be attributable to natural causes. However, the article quoted Wilson as saying that Abdussamatov's views "are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion." According to Wilson, "[T]hey contradict the extensive evidence presented in the most recent IPCC report." The article added that "[t]he conventional theory is that climate changes on Mars can be explained primarily by small alterations in the planet's orbit and tilt, not by changes in the sun," and that "most scientists think it is pure coincidence that both planets are between ice ages right now."

Further contradicting the theory that the sun is responsible for increased warming on the Earth, the 2007 IPCC report found that "[t]he rapid warming observed since the 1970s has occurred in a period when the increase in greenhouse gases has dominated over all other factors," as Colorado Media Matters has noted. The report further stated, "The human influence on climate very likely dominates over all other causes of change in global average surface temperature during the past half century." Specifically addressing the possible contributions of solar activity to warming, the report concluded:

It is extremely unlikely (<5%) that the global pattern of warming during the past half century can be explained without external forcing, and very unlikely that it is due to known natural external causes alone. The warming occurred in both the ocean and the atmosphere and took place at a time when natural external forcing factors would likely have produced cooling.

Greenhouse gas forcing has very likely caused most of the observed global warming over the last 50 years. This conclusion takes into account observational and forcing uncertainty, and the possibility that the response to solar forcing could be underestimated by climate models. It is also robust to the use of different climate models, different methods for estimating the responses to external forcing and variations in the analysis technique. [emphases in original]

—C.H.