| |
Main
Date: 28 Oct 2006 14:29:00
From: Rich
Subject: If you're a scientist, you better be a PRO global warming theorist
|
Or you can kiss your career goodbye. Otherwise titled, "Don't f---
with the livelihood of pro-global warmers."
Climate of Fear
Publi=E9 par Richard Lindzen le 28/10/2006 (90 lus)
Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.
There have been repeated claims that this past year's hurricane
activity was
another sign of human-induced climate change. Everything from the heat
wave
in Paris to heavy snows in Buffalo has been blamed on people burning
gasoline to fuel their cars, and coal and natural gas to heat, cool and
electrify their homes. Yet how can a barely discernible, one-degree
increase
in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century
possibly
gain public acceptance as the source of recent weather catastrophes?
And how
can it translate into unlikely claims about future catastrophes?
The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate,
plus
a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism.
Ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a
vested interest in alarm, thus raising the political stakes for policy
makers who provide funds for more science research to feed more alarm
to
increase the political stakes. After all, who puts money into
science--whether for AIDS, or space, or climate--where there is nothing
really alarming? Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted
in
the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred
million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today. It can also be seen in
heightened spending on solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol and clean coal
technologies, as well as on other energy-investment decisions.
But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists
who
dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their
work
derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks
or
worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when
they
fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.
To understand the misconceptions perpetuated about climate science and
the
climate of intimidation, one needs to grasp some of the complex
underlying
scientific issues. First, let's start where there is agreement. The
public,
press and policy makers have been repeatedly told that three claims
have
widespread scientific support: Global temperature has risen about a
degree
since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have
increased
by about 30% over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future
warming.
These claims are true. However, what the public fails to grasp is that
the
claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's
responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred. In
fact,
those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually
demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It
isn't just that the alarmists are trumpeting model results that we know
must
be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't
happen
even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to
prevent global warming.
If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature
differences between the poles and the equator. When you have less
difference
in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not
more.
And, in fact, model runs support this conclusion. Alarmists have drawn
some
support for increased claims of tropical storminess from a casual claim
by
Sir John Houghton of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change
(IPCC) that a warmer world would have more evaporation, with latent
heat
providing more energy for disturbances.
The problem with this is that the ability of evaporation to drive
tropical
storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and calls
for
drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based
upon
there being more humidity, not less--hardly a case for more storminess
with
global warming.
So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this
junk
science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely
by
money but by fear.
An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to
paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the
details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were
likely
the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium.
Mr.
Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out
Mr.
Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And
they
did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made
difficult
because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details
for
analysis.
The scientific community's defense of Mr. Mann was, nonetheless,
immediate
and harsh. The president of the National Academy of Sciences--as well
as the
American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical
Union--formally
protested, saying that Rep. Barton's singling out of a scientist's work
smacked of intimidation.
All of which starkly contrasts to the silence of the scientific
community
when anti-alarmists were in the crosshairs of then-Sen. Al Gore. In
1992, he
ran two congressional hearings during which he tried to bully
dissenting
scientists, including myself, into changing our views and supporting
his
climate alarmism. Nor did the scientific community complain when Mr.
Gore,
as vice president, tried to enlist Ted Koppel in a witch hunt to
discredit
anti-alarmist scientists--a request that Mr. Koppel deemed publicly
inappropriate. And they were mum when subsequent articles and books by
Ross
Gelbspan libelously labeled scientists who differed with Mr. Gore as
stooges
of the fossil-fuel industry.
Sadly, this is only the tip of a non-melting iceberg. In Europe, Henk
Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch
Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings
of
global warming. Aksel Winn-Nielsen, former director of the U.N.'s World
Meteorological Organization, was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of
the
IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism.
Respected Italian professors Alfonso Sutera and Antonio Speranza
disappeared
from the debate in 1991, apparently losing climate-research funding for
raising questions.
And then there are the peculiar standards in place in scientific
journals
for articles submitted by those who raise questions about accepted
climate
wisdom. At Science and Nature, such papers are commonly refused without
review as being without interest. However, even when such papers are
published, standards shift. When I, with some colleagues at NASA,
attempted
to determine how clouds behave under varying temperatures, we
discovered
what we called an "Iris Effect," wherein upper-level cirrus clouds
contracted with increased temperature, providing a very strong negative
climate feedback sufficient to greatly reduce the response to
increasing
CO2.
Normally, criticism of papers appears in the form of letters to the
journal
to which the original authors can respond immediately. However, in this
case
(and others) a flurry of hastily prepared papers appeared, claiming
errors
in our study, with our responses delayed months and longer. The delay
permitted our paper to be commonly referred to as "discredited."
Indeed,
there is a strange reluctance to actually find out how climate really
behaves. In 2003, when the draft of the U.S. National Climate Plan
urged a
high priority for improving our knowledge of climate sensitivity, the
National Research Council instead urged support to look at the impacts
of
the warming--not whether it would actually happen.
Alarm rather than genuine scientific curiosity, it appears, is
essential to
maintaining funding. And only the most senior scientists today can
stand up
against this alarmist gale, and defy the iron triangle of climate
scientists, advocates and policymakers.
|
|
| |
Date: 28 Oct 2006 18:40:09
From:
Subject: Re: If you're a scientist, you better be a PRO global warming theorist
|
Rich wrote:
> Or you can kiss your career goodbye.
But the article you quoted seems to say the exact opposite.
Instead of industry and the Bush administration intimidating scientists
who try to prevent global warming from happening, the article you are
quoting claims this is the other way around - that the academic
hierarchy is instead silencing those who dissent against the warnings
of danger from global warming!
So it seems that the scientists who are against having the globe warm
up are right now in the driver's seat.
Is this because academics are imposing politically-correct left-wing
thinking?
Or is the danger from global warming real and immediate - and
scientifically sound - and is the "intimidation" the article decries
really a perfectly normal reaction of the scientific community to
incompetent, unsound, or dishonest work?
It isn't possible to reach a conclusion about that simply because one
dissenting voice claims that work showing we don't have to worry too
much about global warming is being treated unfairly. I can't judge
whether the cirrus cloud effect is real and important - or just
grasping at straws.
No, but what I can tell you is this. The possible future prospect of
global warming isn't going to get people to agree to the certain and
immediate prospect of massive unemployment if we exchanged our oil for
geothermal and wind power and stuff like that. As long as those who
decry global warming also remain ambivalent, diffident, or even hostile
towards nuclear power, the only real substitute for oil if we wish to
maintain our industrialized standard of living, the public will ignore
them as they ignored Cassandra, valid though her warnings turned out to
be.
Since the Russian peat bogs are starting to thaw, releasing massive
amounts of methane into the air, it may be already too late. Perhaps we
should hope for cirrus clouds.
Ah, well. Here's a more likely feedback loop. Global warming will lead
Third World countries into trying something funny. If we judge the
right amount of nukes to use on them, we can kick up enough dust so
that the nuclear winter just balances out the global warming. (Although
I remember hearing a claim recently that nuclear winter has now been
discredited...)
John Savard
|
| | |
Date: 29 Oct 2006 01:50:49
From: Internet Banality
Subject: Re: If you're a scientist, you better be a PRO global warming theorist
|
jsavard@ecn.ab.ca wrote:
> Rich wrote:
> > Or you can kiss your career goodbye.
>
> But the article you quoted seems to say the exact opposite.
Small matter.. screw any details!
|
| |
Date: 29 Oct 2006 05:37:32
From: RMOLLISE
Subject: Re: If you're a scientist, you better be a PRO global warming theorist
|
jsavard@ecn.ab.ca wrote:
> Rich wrote:
> > Or you can kiss your career goodbye.
>
> But the article you quoted seems to say the exact opposite.
>
HI:
Doesn't matter. As you know: "Reply to a troll and the troll wins."
Yeah, yeah, I know I've been guility of that a time or three myself.
;-)
Peace,
Rod Mollise
Author of:
Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope
and
The Urban Astronomer's Guide
<http://skywatch.brainiac.com/astroland >
|
| |
Date: 29 Oct 2006 12:39:01
From:
Subject: Re: If you're a scientist, you better be a PRO global warming theorist
|
Rich wrote:
> Or you can kiss your career goodbye. Otherwise titled, "Don't f---
> with the livelihood of pro-global warmers."
You think they've got it rough? Try questioning the mainstream "Theory
of Gravity" - which everyone in the liberal media regards as
indisputable - and watch what happens to your career!
|
| | |
Date: 29 Oct 2006 21:41:32
From: Sam Wormley
Subject: Re: If you're a scientist, you better be a PRO global warming theorist
|
allisonki@IGNmail.com wrote:
> Rich wrote:
>> Or you can kiss your career goodbye. Otherwise titled, "Don't f---
>> with the livelihood of pro-global warmers."
>
> You think they've got it rough? Try questioning the mainstream "Theory
> of Gravity" - which everyone in the liberal media regards as
> indisputable - and watch what happens to your career!
>
The nice thing about credible theories of gravity, is that they,
like any other scientific theory, can be refuted. Fruitful models
help us to understand how nature behaves--and they can always be
refuted by contradictory data of observation and experiment.
I can think of several current models who's predictions have not
been contradicted by [repeatable] observations, including
o GTR
o SR
o QED
o QFT
o Darwinian Evolution
|
| |
Date: 29 Oct 2006 10:46:34
From: oriel36
Subject: Re: If you're a scientist, you better be a PRO global warming theorist
|
RMOLLISE wrote:
> jsavard@ecn.ab.ca wrote:
> > Rich wrote:
> > > Or you can kiss your career goodbye.
> >
> > But the article you quoted seems to say the exact opposite.
> >
>
>
> HI:
>
> Doesn't matter., I know I've been guility of that a time or three myself.
> ;-)
>
> Peace,
> Rod Mollise
> Author of:
> Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope
> and
> The Urban Astronomer's Guide
> <http://skywatch.brainiac.com/astroland>
Good to see a refreshing and honest reply like that one Rod.
|
| |
Date: 29 Oct 2006 21:42:39
From:
Subject: Re: If you're a scientist, you better be a PRO global warming theorist
|
Rich wrote:
> An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to
> paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the
> details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were
> likely
> the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium.
> Mr.
> Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out
> Mr.
> Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And
> they
> did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made
> difficult
> because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details
> for
> analysis.
Interesting comments about Joe Barton. Indeed Joe Barton did send a
letter to the authors of the IPCC report including Micheal Mann. What
no one in the scientific community could understand is why was Barton
was asking for the details behind the analysis. Barton already had
every last shred of data and detail any one could want, except for
possibly the terabytes of climate model runs, in the IPCC analysis he
already had on his desk. Could it be that the oil industry which
"contributes" to Barton's re-election campaign and PAC stand to loose
the huge profits they have made in the last few years if conservation
measures were put in place to reduce emissions? Naw, they only have
the consumer at heart! Besides those nasty old scientists making
$80,000 a year are the ones who are really making all the money! Just
as a passing note: Since 1997, oil, gas, electricity, nuclear, coal and
chemical companies have contributed $1.84 million to Barton, more than
to any other House member.
|
| | |
Date: 31 Oct 2006 04:27:24
From: richard schumacher
Subject: Re: If you're a scientist, you better be a PRO global warming theorist
|
In article <1162186959.807303.112880@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com >,
rpasken@eas.slu.edu wrote:
> Interesting comments about Joe Barton. Indeed Joe Barton did send a
> letter to the authors of the IPCC report including Micheal Mann. What
> no one in the scientific community could understand is why was Barton
> was asking for the details behind the analysis. Barton already had
> every last shred of data and detail any one could want, except for
> possibly the terabytes of climate model runs, in the IPCC analysis he
> already had on his desk. Could it be that the oil industry which
> "contributes" to Barton's re-election campaign and PAC stand to lose
> the huge profits they have made in the last few years if conservation
> measures were put in place to reduce emissions? Naw, they only have
> the consumer at heart! Besides those nasty old scientists making
> $80,000 a year are the ones who are really making all the money! Just
> as a passing note: Since 1997, oil, gas, electricity, nuclear, coal and
> chemical companies have contributed $1.84 million to Barton, more than
> to any other House member.
Good ol' "Smokey" Joe Barton. Never met a fossil fuel he didn't like.
Texans learn to stay upwind of him and his clients.
For discussion by scientists of the facts of global warming see
http://realclimate.org
|
| |
Date: 30 Oct 2006 10:18:51
From: oriel36
Subject: Re: If you're a scientist, you better be a PRO global warming theorist
|
Sam Wormley wrote:
> allisonki@IGNmail.com wrote:
> > Rich wrote:
> >> Or you can kiss your career goodbye. Otherwise titled, "Don't f---
> >> with the livelihood of pro-global warmers."
> >
> > You think they've got it rough? Try questioning the mainstream "Theory
> > of Gravity" - which everyone in the liberal media regards as
> > indisputable - and watch what happens to your career!
> >
>
> The nice thing about credible theories of gravity, is that they,
> like any other scientific theory, can be refuted. Fruitful models
> help us to understand how nature behaves--and they can always be
> refuted by contradictory data of observation and experiment.
>
The 'theory of gravity' was an unsuccessful attempt by Newton to fit
Keplerian orbital geometry into the Ra/Dec system and insofar as the
refutation is easy enough there are few capable souls around to know
the difference between the correct working methods of Kepler and
Copernicus based on an orbitally moving Earth and the Newtonian
mutation which used celestial sphere geometry.Something like this -
PH=C6NOMENON IV.
"That the fixed stars being at rest, the periodic times of the five
primary planets, and (whether of the sun about the earth, or) of the
earth about the sun, are in the sesquiplicate proportion of their mean
distances from the sun." Newton
In simple terms,the reason people will not appreciate the orbital
motion of Mercury in an inner orbital circuit passing the slowing
moving orbital motion of the Earth is because of the creative and often
hilarious tampering by Newton of the working principles of the
heliocentric astronomers.Probably very good kids who would naturally
take to heliocentric reasoning are being denied by people interested
only in magnification and a few lost theorists who still think the
'theory of gravity' is an achievement.
The outcome of these things are predictable.
> I can think of several current models who's predictions have not
> been contradicted by [repeatable] observations, including
>
> o GTR
> o SR
> o QED
> o QFT
> o Darwinian Evolution
|
|
