The senate minority report on climate change has been released and it contains a rather hefty amount of scientific skepticism regarding the AGW theory and it's proponents dishonest claims of "consensus." When 650 scientists from around the planet pipe up as skeptics I find the term "consensus" to be laughable. The PDF can be found here. Here's a lengthy snippet:
“I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion.” - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.The list is long and I'm going to inch out onto a limb here and profess my doubts regarding the possibility that these people are all in the pocket of Big Oil.
“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical.” - Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.”
Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” - UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.
“The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds… I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists,” - Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.
“The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC "are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity.” - Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico
“It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.” - U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.
“Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will.” – . Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, NZ.
“After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet.” - Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.
“For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" - Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.
“Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.” - Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.
“Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined.” - Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.
“Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense…The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning.” - Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.
I've been told that even if the AGW proponents are wrong, the movement they've heralded is never the less a global benefit. In some respects I agree. It's given rise to an impressive push to find alternatives to hydrocarbon based energy policy. It's launched a "green" revolution that will benefit the global environment.
However it's also brought hysterical, knee jerk policy thinking that produces ill thought out nonsense like this:
Belching and gaseous cows and hogs could start costing them money if a federal proposal to charge fees for air-polluting animals becomes law.Additionally by focusing entirely on the "challenged" anthropogenic aspect of climate change we ignore the importance of contingencies that focus on resilience in the face of the very real possibility that climate change is something that we cannot stop but must adapt to.
It would require farms or ranches with more than 25 dairy cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 hogs to pay an annual fee of about $175 for each dairy cow, $87.50 per head of beef cattle and $20 for each hog.
The executive vice president of the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation, Ken Hamilton, estimated the fee would cost owners of a modest-sized cattle ranch $30,000 to $40,000 a year. He said he has talked to a number of livestock owners about the proposals, and "all have said if the fees were carried out, it would bankrupt them." (H/T:Texas Scribbler)
Lastly, as I've written here before, it's literally "stolen the thunder" of very provable and obvious ecological crises such as deforestation, destruction of wetlands, fresh water shortages, etc. None of these are reliant on computer models, indeed can be seen with your own two eyes. And yet most people seem to believe that if they simply drive a Prius and use energy efficient light bulbs then all will be well with the world.
10 comments:
My view of a lot of the AGW crowd is similar to my view of a lot of Fundamentalists-- much of what they say is ugly, but the natural consequences of their actions is good.
In the case of Gaia-worshipers, they are working to cut off funds to Venezuela, Russia, etc.
In the case of televangelist-watchers, they are pushing back against exotic legal instruments.
I'm skeptical about anything scientific that Senator Inhofe hosts on his website. So I just googled Joanne Simpson to see who called her a preeminent scientist. But what I found was much more interesting, the full text of that letter. It shows the wonders of selective quoting. Most of her letter talks about how the debate between the two sides has devolved into name-calling. But she also says this:
"Decisions have to be made on incomplete information. In this case, we must act on the recommendations of Gore and the IPCC"
http://climatesci.org/2008/02/27/trmm-tropical-rainfall-measuring-mission-data-set-potential-in-climate-controversy-by-joanne-simpson-private-citizen/
It'd be interesting to see how many of the 650 scientists had quotations taken out of context so that they could be fit in a list of skeptics.
Adrian, you should have dug deeper on that site. It's a windfall of logical, scientific skepticism. You should give it a more in depth look.
Agree that the quote was conveniently clipped. However I'd say that if 650 scientists had been quoted out of context they'd be squawking rather loudly by now.
Dan,
agreed that some good has come out of Al's new religion. The bad bit is it's placed blinders on policy makers and the general public.
Gents,
A lengthy quote from the above cited:
# Climate policy in the past has been, with the limited exception of deliberate weather modification (see), focused on adaptation. Dams, zoning so as to limit habitation in flood plains, etc are examples of this adaptation.
# For the coming decades, adaptation still needs to be the primary approach. As reported in the 2005 National Research Council report (Radiative forcing of climate change: Expanding the concept and addressing uncertainties) the human influence on the climate system involves a diverse range of forcings. Thus, a focus on controlling the emissions of carbon dioxide by itself (i.e. mitigation) is an inadequate approach for an effective climate policy.
# Energy policy, however, clearly must emphasize an active management policy since a vibrant economy and society requires energy. However, all energy sources are not the same in terms of how they affect the environment and their availability. For example, the dependence of the United States, Europe and other countries on oil from politically unstable regions of the world needs to be eliminated.
# The current focus of the IPCC and others on climate change with their emphasis on global warming, as a guise to promote energy policy, therefore, is an erroneous and dishonest approach to communicate energy policy to policymakers and the public. The optimal energy policy requires expertise and assessments that involves a much broader community than the climate science profession.
I don't disagree with any of that. But I still consider myself a Gore-following AGW spear-chucker. And I'd also note that it's a lot easier to talk about adapting to climate change when you're the richest society in the history of humanity.
"Additionally by focusing entirely on the "challenged" anthropogenic aspect of climate change we ignore the importance of contingencies that focus on resilience in the face of the very real possibility that climate change is something that we cannot stop but must adapt to."
That'd be my take on the whole situation. There seem to be very few (in the "mainstream," anyway) who are asking for a cost-benefit analysis of all of this.
"Lastly, as I've written here before, it's literally "stolen the thunder" of very provable and obvious ecological crises such as deforestation, destruction of wetlands, fresh water shortages, etc. None of these are reliant on computer models, indeed can be seen with your own two eyes. And yet most people seem to believe that if they simply drive a Prius and use energy efficient light bulbs then all will be well with the world."
Seems similar to the global movement against AIDS. Was reading an article a week or so ago that decried the massive amounts of attention and resources given to AIDS, when outside of sub-Saharan Africa it isn't anything close to an epidemic and when even there diarrhea kills more children per day. One of the public health officials quoted said something to the effect that you can't talk about diarrhea at charity fund raising dinners, it just isn't as sexy and hip as AIDS, but that these blinders were having real negative effects on the people these movements are ostensibly trying to help.
I find it ridiculous that for DECADES we have known that we need to seriously address our degradation of the environment and change our foolish ways, but gas was still a dollar a gallon and beside saving the earth is for volvo-driving, granola-eating, weed smoking longhairs. But then the increasingly corpulent Al Gore makes a movie/powerpoint and all of a sudden everybody is going green. Only they aren't really, they are just reusing their shopping bags once in a while and recycling their Perrier bottles.
OK enough ranting (more here. Point being, regardless of whether or not climate change/global warming is real, WE GOTTA STOP FUCKING UP THE PLANET!
Beyond that which I think you attribute too much power to human kind, I agree whole heartedly.
Do you mean that I attribute too much power to mankind in that I think that we destroyed the planet or that we have the ability to fix it?
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