Perfect example of right-wing media distorting science of Global Warming

Two articles from the local paper, which leans very right despite its name (after all, it has has to compete with the famously ultra-conservative Union Leader).


The war over global warming continues
http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060827/NEWS0202/108270138

An article citing two studies that seem to pretty much demonstrate that global warming is a fact.

AND ....

Critics: Too much advocacy mixed with warming science
http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060827/NEWS0202/108270150

But, wait for it ....

About 1/2 of each article focuses on the ONE guy at MIT who doesn't think global warming is caused by human activity.

:smacks head:

No wonder most Americans are so misinformed on this issue!

BTW, if you are less despondent than I am, feel free to click on the links at the top of the articles to send Nate Pardue your thoughts.

I am quite familiar with the issues surrounding the science of global warming and have been singing in this choir for almost forty years, now.

Faith-based science, the brass ring of the religious taliban, is no science at all. But, if you are enthralled with the notion that the carnal world is soon to disappear and no longer be needed, it makes sense in a kind of 'use it up, burn it out, take all you can and more gluttony.


I had thought this whole nightmare to be a non issue in 1983 when the then interior sec-Watt, I think it was-was so sunk into his crazy wet dream and was giving all the western forests and all resources away to the more pragmatic business interests that we were all shocked.

They quickly jerked him out of the line-up and I only later discovered it was not because of his insanity but because of a typical republiclown sex scandal. The same crazy shitheads were trying the same crap as they are doing now.

We are in this fight together, you and I, so please don't slack off now. I need you and all the resources and effort you can bring to bear; we can not do it without you.
Thanks for all you do!

"The study could not 'prove conclusively that this regional warming is due to human actions,' but finds 'human-induced climate change is a phenomenon that humans will have to deal with in the coming decades,' Researchers Adam Markham and Cameron Wake wrote."

That's reality: we cannot demonstrate that human activities are causing the current slight changes in temperature, but the most prominent global warming scientists warn that we need to change our ways today to avoid problems in the future.

Your right of course. Whats worse is there is even less evidence we could slow it down even if we tried. (The cure is worse than the disease problem) I'm afraid that the scientific camp(The earth is getting warmer)is being shouted out by the the chicken little rapture crowd (We are all going to die).

If we stick to the hard science and historical fact then we can deal with the climate change. (Humans have adapted to much much worse climate change without any technology to help)

After the embarrassment of the Paul Ehlrich crowd in the Seventies most progressives still won't talk about overpopulation.

I wonder if Global Warming will be a similar embarrassment in 2025 (I hope so I live on the Florida coast :evilgrin: )

Obviously you're not aware that fertility rates halved between 1965 and 1985. Do you think that warnings of ovrepopulation had anything to do with this?

Way to buy into those RW, anti-environmentlist talking points though.....
:eyes:

Little bit of a stretch. Plenty of both environmental as well as cultural trends. Some quite alarming such as sperm count which have zero to do with Overpopulation talk. This is not to say overpopulation isn't a problem in some places. But claiming everyone in America would starve by 1985 didn't help the cause. Saying everyone in Florida will be under water by 2020 isn't helping the Global Warming cause now. Stick with science not Chicken littleism is all I say.

..that Erlich ever claimed, "everyone in America would starve by 1985" or of any environmental advocacy groups that claim "everyone in America would starve by 1985".

Or is it easier to make accusations of "alarmism" and argue against positions that you've fabtricated?

The population Bomb: first edition

The Population Bomb was written at the suggestion of David Brower, at the time the executive director of the Sierra Club, following an article Ehrlich wrote for the New Scientist magazine in December, 1967. In that article, Ehrlich predicted that the world would experience famines sometime between 1970 and 1985 due to population growth outstripping resources. Ehrlich wrote that "the battle to feed all of humanity is over... In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now." Ehrlich also stated, "India couldn't possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980," and "I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks that India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971."

Then there is Ehrich's embarrassing prediction on resources.

Ehrlich predicted that the price would increase as metals became more scarce in the Earth's crust, while Simon insisted the price of metals had fallen throughout human history and would continue to do so. Ehrlich lost the bet. Indeed such was the decline in the price of the five metals Ehrlich selected, Simon would have won even without taking inflation into account.

Don't forget the life expediency drop

in "The End of Affluence", Ehrlich stated, "One general prediction can be made with confidence: the cost of feeding yourself and your family will continue to increase. There may be minor fluctuations in food prices, but the overall trend will be up". According to Ehrlich, the United States would see its life expectancy drop to 42 years by 1980 because of pesticide usage, and the nation's population would drop to 22.6 million by 1999 <1>.

Yeah 22 million american what are we at now 300 million could he possibly be more wrong?

links well start with his own books including


Process of Evolution (1963)
The Population Bomb (1968)
Population, Resources, Environments: Issues in Human Ecology (1970)
How to Be a Survivor (1971)
Man and the Ecosphere: Readings from Scientific American (1971)
Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions (1973)
Introductory Biology (1973)
The End of Affluence (1975)
Biology and Society (1976)
Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment (1978)
The Race Bomb (1978)

And this sympathetic interview from Plowboy (this month's centerfold bessie the cow?)http://www.mnforsustain.org/ehrlich_paul_interview_1974.htm


EHRLICH: First, you must realize that most of the world's leaders are politicians who look forward only to the coming election. They know they'll be dead when the next generation-the one that's going to be grateful-comes to the polls and has something to say. So when it boils down to a choice of doing the right thing for the planet and future generations or doing something that will buy enough votes to get past the next election, you know what most politicians are going to do. But over and above that, I think an even bigger problem with leaders in all areas is what I like to call the "I am the I would say that the best practical case we can make out is a pretty grim one. Entire nations will disappear from the face of the earth. India will break down and become a series of sort of feudal states again with only half or a third of its present population. Bangladesh will disappear. Pakistan will disappear. Egypt will probably go under. So will Indonesia and many other underdeveloped countries.

and don't forget Global Warming (or is it cooling nah couldn't be) P

PLOWBOY: Yes, I know. Bryson thinks that the current drought in the sub-Sahara and other "isolated" weather changes here and abroad are all part of a massive shift in the earth's climate . . . a shift for the worse.

EHRLICH: See, what has happened-and this really disturbs me-is that, by international convention, we've defined "normal" weather as that which occurred during the period 1930 to 1960. While, according to historical records, that was the most extreme period in the last I,000 years.

His predictions are mostly quotes from his published works plenty of synopisis on the web and no Paul Global cooling has yet to cause massive crop failures.

He also rants about the dangers of bio-engineered food (green Revolution) third world nations (bunch of breeders) and that crazy weather.

Global Warming alarmists seem to parrot a lot of his claims including the doomsday scenarios.

Count me as once burned twice shy.

I'm still waiting for evidence that Erlich ever said, "everyone in America would starve by 1985" or that any enviro group ever siad, "everyone in Florida will be under water by 2020". What is see is a poorly constructed collage of out-of-context quotes used to attempt to piece together a defense for dishonesty.

In the first edition of The Population Bomb, Ehrlich wrote: "The possibilities are infinite; the single course of events that will be realized is unguessable. We can, however, look at a few possibilities as an aid to our thinking, using a device known as a 'scenario'. Scenarios are hypothetical sequences of events used as an aid in thinking about the future, especially in identifying possible decision points...Remember, these are just possibilities, not predictions." (p. 72)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich


BTW, both the wiki article that you don't link and the link to the mnsforsustain.org you do provide point directly to the link between the ZPG movement and lower fetility rates that you claim don't exist.

PS You should cite your sources when you cut-and-paste, lest people accuse you of plagairism.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

and you believe taking quotes out of context to try and discredit a person or idea is OK?

After a recent cooling trend. I also believe that human activity causes some of this warming. Much however that is written on the subject beyond those two quotes is pure speculation or worse.

I cannot emphasize enough that only by reading Paul's entire book can you see the level of incompetence in his "work". Taking individual quotes if anything downplays his incompetence and the incompetence of his entire worldview. This is not new. Like I said ZPG is still after all these years an embarrassment to to many in the environmental movement.

For the same person that says "Stick with science" to say "the earth is in a warming trend. After a recent cooling trend. I also believe that human activity causes some of this warming. Much however that is written on the subject beyond those two quotes is pure speculation or worse."

It's becoming quite obvious that your lack of knowledge of Erlich is matched only by your lack of knowledge of climate science.

The point being made is pretty clear, and you are missing it entirely.

A strong consensus does not exist within the scientific community about when the impacts of global warming will emerge and what those impacts will be. We all recognize that potentially harmful effects, but quantifying them is nearly impossible.

Therefore, pounding the drum to raise fears about impending doom every time the weather gets warm or when a strong storm hits somewhere is not helping. (Likewise, those who claim that global warming is a myth because it wasn't as hot last night as it was the night before are total idiots.)

Raise awareness and do your part to push the knowledge, but be rational about it. If we enter a multi-year cooling trend after the global warming advocates have been pointing to recent warm weather, then the already confused public will start ignoring you entirely.

Running in circles and screaming in fear of the impending doom from global warming accomplishes nothing. Get informed.

What people seem to miss is that before the sea level rise, before the full desertification, before the water shortages, before the new ice age -- before all of that crap, we'll have a mass shift in species population. So all of those geological things are merely putting an upper limit on when the effects will severely impact all civilization.

It will, indeed be sooner than you seem to think.

The conversation here is not whether anthropogenic contributions to global warming are real or significant, but a) whether we are seeing any effect right now and b) whether it is prudent to point to every warm day as evidence of global warming.

A consistent, fact laden approach is crucial. Screaming about total desertification, catastrophic rise in sea level, and other tales of doom and gloom merely paints everyone who supports the need to act on global warming as total idiots. In all likelihood, the largest increase in temperature from human activities will be less than one degree over the next two decades. To continuously scream "Global warming,global warming! We're all gonna die!" on every warm afternoon adds credence to the argument from the opponents that we don't know a goddam thing.

Read up on the scientific aspects of this issue and back away from the hysteria. It's not helping.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Lindzen

In November 2004, climate change skeptic Richard Lindzen was quoted saying he'd be willing to bet that the earth's climate will be cooler in 20 years than it is today. When British climate researcher James Annan contacted him, however, Lindzen would only agree to take the bet if Annan offered a 50-to-1 payout.

A LOT COOLER

I remember the Pentagon study that said climate change could occur in MONTHS rather than years and they were very concerned about this.

Focus on the real experts.

(You deserve a better explanation than wise-ass one-liners.)

That estimate is from both Robert Gagosian's group at Woods Hole and Wallace Broecker's at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Science Center. Both have websites, though I don't have the URLs handy. There are many other groups that agree with them, but I haven't kept up with my reading over the last year or so.

The last rapid climate change era -- the Younger-Drays mini-ice-age -- required "a couple of years" to come on. The actual figure is in dispute because of the imprecision of our analytic instruments. We do know that there was an Arctic temperature increase in the vicinity of 40-60F, then a correspondingly deeper plunge, all in the space of about a decade. We're seeing a spike in Arctic temperatures right now; it's approaching 10F this summer, and the warming trend is only five or six years old.

And, too, it takes more than just the disruption of thermohaline ocean currents; many of the Northern Atlantic thermohaline currents have already been gone for a year or two.

"Months" is too short, but you weren't too far off with the general idea. The fact is that most of the time, climate change IS sudden, and is best described by mathematical chaos and catastrophe theories. We're living in a real white-knuckle era.

For example (and only an example):

This coming January, or any given January, we could have heat waves, 90F+ temperatures in NYC and Toronto and Detroit; and then, mega-blizzards by the following July -- in the Northern Hemisphere. And it may repeat several times within the space of a decade. Yes, that's only six or seven months, but it's not necessarily persistent; and it's part of a fairly well-known climate pattern called a Heinrich Event. The entire event lasts a couple hundred years, and the start of it seems to come on in a series of "flickers" (Broecker's term for it).

That whole scenario may seem a little extreme, but it's considered to be a likely one.

If, in fact, we are entering a Heinrich Event era, we may see several of these "flickers" over the next century, becoming more extreme over time, leading us into either a mini-ice-age, or perhaps into a major glaciation period. We still don't really know how ice ages work, although we have a lot of clues, and we're learning more every day.

I'm sorry if I've hedged my language too much, but I'm not a seer, and I'm only going on my best interpretation as a lay reader. But it's quite evident that we've kick-started a dynamic natural process that we are now helpless to stop.

It's kind of like whacking a hornet's nest then realizing you can't run as fast as they can fly.

(As usual, if anyone has better information that supercedes mine, I would welcome it.)

--p!

Yours is a very informative post :)

Have you read the various reports? Read the summaries from James Hansen? IPCC? It takes at least ten to twelve hours of baseline reading before you even get a clue about the complexity of the issue.

The continuing projection is that the human contribution to global warming will be less than 1 degree Celsius over the next twenty years.

Gore's movie was cool and compelling, but a bit on the hysterical side.

From RealClimate:

Nature...has an excellent summary of the state of the science with regards to possible changes in the ocean thermohaline (or meridional) circulation in the Atlantic and its impact on climate.

Everyone quoted is however agreed on one thing: "the notion that may trigger a mini ice age is a myth”. The evidence of previous changes for instance at the Younger Dryas or during the 8.2 kyr event is quite strong, and significant coolings were observed particular around the North Atlantic, but even such localised coolings are not predicted to occur if the circulation slows as an effect of global warming.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/01/atlantic-circulation-changes/

You are aware that you've quoted from a translated blog page, right? The author of the page isn't even listed. Moreover, this page seems to invite commentary, rather than to present scientific findings. All in all, it's not a bad page, but it's for educated lay discussion of the issue, much as we're doing here. It's not authoritative by any means.

And the Nature citation, central to the discussion, is hidden behind a profitwall. It costs $30 for us groundlings to read the research our tax money supports. But that's a different controversy.

As to the climate-change quote ...

The quote you cite seems so cut-and-dried, so final, so authoritative:

Everyone quoted is however agreed on one thing: "the notion that (a future change in the themohaline circulation) may trigger a mini ice age is a myth". (Brackets in original --p)

First question: Who is "everyone quoted"?

I have a difficult time imagining that any scientist would make or endorse such a blanket statement about a subject that is known to be extremely complex. Our own remarks as lay people may venture far from scientific tentativeness, but scientists seldom do. Under most circumstances, I would question any scientist who made such statements.

I followed RealClimate's links to the scientists' biography pages, and found that many of them actually have studied thermohaline climate interaction and appear to have supported observations and conclusions first made by Broecker and his team in the late 1960s.

Controversy sells, and it drives blog conversation. It's hard to blame anyone trying to market science, but it's still the sizzle, not the steak.

The real "rebuttal" would seem to come from Carl Wunsch of MIT, and his paper Abrupt Climate Change. An Alternative View. But Wunsch's position is neither part of the current scientific consensus on climate change, nor is it as implacable as the discussion page implies. It is primarily a criticism of a part of the literature, not original research per se. In addition, Wunsch constrains his arguments to Dansgaard-Oeschger events, one of two well-known types of climate-change events. (The other is known as the Heinrich Event, which I've already mentioned. They are also discussed in the blog commentary. Wikipedia has good articles on each, too.) D-O events are by far the weaker events.

Such papers are valuable even though they're critical rather than investigative, and these criticisms will undoubtedly help climatologists in later work. Wunsch will probably also be cited by "global warming skeptics", but misuse of scientific work is common these days. Overall, the paper has limited applicability to "proof" or "disproof" of climate change.

There are many dynamics to climate change, and we are now seeing a series of changes that strongly resemble abrupt climate changes known to have taken place in the past. The evidence is likewise strong that human activity has forced many of the processes we've observed. And we also know that some of the climatic state changes can happen with astounding speed and completeness -- as in any chaotic system. Just because The Day After Tomorrow got some of its science wrong doesn't invalidate how the climate works. We should be wary that our collective stupidity will come back to haunt us in destructive climate changes, most of which will look a lot less threatening than CGI special effects. The onset of a full ice age won't entomb NYC in a glacier in the space of a week, but that constant fifteen-degree temperature drop will do more damage than we can imagine -- whether or not the thermohaline circulation of the North Atlantic gets the blame.

--p!

If it says so on wikipedia it must be so. QED.

You can march yourself down to your local university library and read Nature for free, but actually working to to enlighten yourself might shatter delusions of intellectualism that google seems to offer so many posters in the E&E forum. You can even take a disc and 'steal' the articles if you like. It doesn't cost you anything other than time to read such research. I find it amazing that someone who won't take the time or effort to actually read the research has the gall to criticize working scientists because they host a blog; "sizzle, not the steak" indeed.

Gavin Schmidt wrote the piece I linked. It says so right in the header of the RealClimate post. Feel free to look him up, he works for NASA GISS. So let me see, I can a) actually read the article in Nature and the attendent research (yes, as a college professor I'm one of those extraordinarily privileged people with free access) and/or b) I can rely on Gavin Schmidt's intepretation, or c) I can believe anonymous poster on a BB that admits he hasn't read the relevant articles but knows all about them anyway. Yeah I'll choose "c" everytime :sarcasm:

On edit:

BTW... Broecker’s ideas were first published in the early 80s, not the 60s see: Broecker W. S. , Peteet, D. M. & Rind, D. Nature 315, 21–26 (1985).

...and since you asked: Who is "everyone quoted" in the referencedNature article?

Among others...
* Gavin Schmidt (see above)
* Stefan Rahmstorf, an oceanographer at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany.
* Ruth Curry, an oceanographer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
* Peter Wadhams, an oceanographer at the University of Cambridge
* Oh and silly me, Broecker himself. From Nature, (Jan 19 2006) “Broecker (now) thinks, then the effects of a thermohaline circulation shutdown in a warmed world may be very different from those seen during the ice ages and their immediate aftermath…..(he) still believes that global warming may have surprises in store, possibly including a collapse of the thermohaline circulation, but he agrees that "the notion that it may trigger a mini ice age is a myth".

And you say you're a college professor? God help us. (Or if you prefer Dawkins, "FSM help us".) Classism has no place in the United States of America, which explicitly rejects social class. So if I want to have the gall to question working scientists who like to stir up a little controversy (Schmidt) or give their "inferiors" the back of their hand (you), I'll fucking well do so.

I actually gave some thought about how to answer your self-important screed -- one of the many you have graced us peasants with -- but realized that this is either the way you normally are and will always be, OR, you suffered an epochal brain fart, with which I can at least sympathize. I certainly hope that it is the latter.

I'll address the access-to-information issue later, probably in its own thread.

--p!

Yes, do question working scientists. Just have a clue before you do or you'll look like an idiot. But maybe if you scream elitism loud enough nobody will notice you don't know what you're talking about. It's funny you post this on a thread about RW disinformation. I see the same type of language used to correct false claims that the "hockey stick is broken", "climate change is a natural cycle", it's an "urban heat island effect", or whatever the denialists claim du jour is. Are those elitist too? Do we just need to be more kind to LW hyperbolists or do we need to be warm and fuzzy with RW denialists too?

Sorry, this issue is too important to let falsehoods prevail. If you're so thin skinned, there are two ways to prevent yourself from being cut: 1) known what you're talking about before you post, 2) shut up.

If you really wanted to discuss the science, then why did you launch into an ill-tempered and personal screed? To defend the honor of scientists, or to defend the ego of Viking12? Surely, you must have known that some of us democrats do not take well to the elitism you claim is beside the point. To some of us democrats, elitism -- and especially fighting it -- IS The Point.

And when I replied in kind to you, you pretended it was a grave insult to the scientific community. That sounds uncomfortably like the rhetoric we've heard this week from the White House. When I fail to submit to your self-righteous will, you accuse me of impugning the honor of Gavin Schmidt, Ruth Curry, and Wallace Broecker, et al.

If you were looking for a substantive issue, how is it that you completely overlooked the fact that I was questioning why the scientists who actively promoted the idea of thermohaline current climate coupling, pronounced one of their key points to be a "myth"? They have been pushing this idea in the lay press since the late 1990s. (And as far as I'm concerned, they can-and-should keep pushing it, even if they now say that some large chunk of it is a myth.)

The current substantive issue is why you think you're entitled to the same kind of exaggerated respect from us that you can demand from your students. I'm not the only one you've given a taste of your wrath; you have consistently treated us with the kind of contempt we wouldn't take even once from a Republican, Freeper, or any one of the legions of barstool patriots who wave the flag like a bloody shirt.

If "this issue is too important to let falsehoods (sic) prevail", then why do you sabotage your arguments with your snappish demeanor? And what "falsehoods" -- deliberate lies, as most of us understand the term -- in particular, were you trying to correct with your ham-fisted rejoinders? Do you think you can browbeat people into Good Science with the same methods the right wing has used to promote their lies?

And you appear to be completely unaware of the issue of the "Digital Divide" -- and information-access segregation in general. It's not just something that affects the very poor who can't afford a computer. Thirty bucks for a reprint, no library access to most university libraries -- yet you deride those of us who make use of Google and Wikipedia the same way GOP candidates deride "Macacas".

Contrary to another myth, a myth prevalent among academics and scientists, most of us info-commoners are not irrational rubes hooked on newspaper astrology, ghost stories, and snake-handling. Many of us strive to continue our education through reading and on-line participation. And if our use of Google and Wikipedia offends you, why aren't you actively participating in the movement to open access to the digital libraries that have been built with tax money but produce profit for publishers like McGraw-Hill and Elsevier online? If your university library allows the public entry, excellent. The ones within my marching distance don't.

I've answered a series of "backhands" -- dismissive, superior responses -- to at least two honest posts, plus my attempt to summarize what I've read and understood over the past twenty years. If you cannot understand why I stand up to such bullying, you should at least understand that an increasing number of people will not tolerate it, either. With a dismissive attitude toward others, your authority to speak convincingly about scientific issues will be limited to your own tenured niche.

Others, who profess rather than cut, will, happily, take your place.

--p!

Your post #22 is nothing close to an honest post that questions why the scientists who actively promoted the idea of thermohaline current climate coupling, pronounced one of their key points to be a "myth". If it were I would have responded much differently. Honest posts don't lead with attacks such as:

* You are aware that you've quoted from a translated blog page, right? It's not. It's published in english.
* The author of the page isn't even listed. He is. As I posted above the clearly identified author is Gavin Schmidt.
* It's not authoritative by any means. Far more authoritative than 'anonymous guy' that gets simple details wrong.
* Controversy sells, and it drives blog conversation. It's hard to blame anyone trying to market science, but it's still the sizzle, not the steak. Whatever.

An honest poster would have lead off by acknowledging they hadn't read the relevant material and would like to know more. An honest poster maybe even could've facilitated the acquisition of materials s/he was having difficulty procuring.

Your use of Google and Wikipedia does not offend me. Your arrogant suggestions that the Wikipedia summaries are more valuable than the considered opinion of working scientists do offend me. Your knee-jerk dismissal of the Nature article you had never read offends me. The continued spread of disinformation offends me.

As to your spurious suggestion that your local library doesn't allow access? Well, baloney. I've checked several universities in the Philly area and a small yearly administrative fee ($10-$20) or a nominal contribution to a 'Friends of the Library' program will facilitate access to any of the local public universities.

You've completely ignored the Big Point, which I've repeated several times: It's your shabby treatment of other people -- in this case, your attempted shabby treatment of me. All the spin about Working Scientists, Google and Wikipedia, my alleged status as an idiot, and trying to associate me with the global warming denialists, is transparent.

When you make a habit of bullying other people, you've got to expect that every once in a while, one of your prospective patsies will fight back.

Period.

If you are passionately committed to correcting factual errors, by all means, do so. If you want to start a new thread, like "Thermohaline Current Coupling a Myth, Say Leading THC Theorists" (or different words if that is poorly stated), that would be fine and dandy; in fact, it would be more than fine and dandy, because it would encourage more discussion, the same way Schmidt did. And I would post in it, leaving this little barbecue behind. So if it really IS an issue of "The Science", then I invite you to make a break and start the thread, rancor-free. I will express my surprise anew (likewise rancor-free), and the issue can be brought to a bright, high-res state of clarification with several of the DU E/E-ers discussing it. But no more of the enraged hand-wringing when the real issue is ego.

Now, slightly off-topic, I'd like to thank you for checking out the local libraries, even if it was for use as ammunition. This is new information, and I had been long frustrated by the constant replies of "no access". I will certainly be making some calls on Tuesday morning. But for on-line firefights, I'm afraid the profitwall-enforced embargo of the major journals is still a pretty high obstacle for most of us. You may want to keep that in mind in general for non-academic readers.

--p!

If Bush claimed the earth was flat- these kinds of people would round up some "expert" or another to claim he was right.

What's worse- they repeat lies over and over- even when a source like Lindzen has been discredited time and again.

Check it out:

Global Warming-- Signed, Sealed, and Delivered
Scientists agree: The Earth is warming, and human activities are the principal cause.
by Naomi Oreskes


In Op-Ed article in the Wall Street Journal a month ago claimed that a published study affirming the existence of a scientific consensus on the reality of global warming had been refuted. This charge was repeated again last week, in a hearing of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

I am the author of that study, which appeared two years ago in the journal Science, and I'm here to tell you that the consensus stands. The argument put forward in the Wall Street Journal was based on an Internet posting; it has not appeared in a peer-reviewed journal — the normal way to challenge an academic finding. (The Wall Street Journal didn't even get my name right!)

My study demonstrated that there is no significant disagreement within the scientific community that the Earth is warming and that human activities are the principal cause.

Papers that continue to rehash arguments that have already been addressed and questions that have already been answered will, of course, be rejected by scientific journals, and this explains my findings. Not a single paper in a large sample of peer-reviewed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 refuted the consensus position, summarized by the National Academy of Sciences, that "most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."

<snip>

To be sure, there are a handful of scientists, including MIT professor Richard Lindzen, the author of the Wall Street Journal editorial, who disagree with the rest of the scientific community. To a historian of science like me, this is not surprising. In any scientific community, there are always some individuals who simply refuse to accept new ideas and evidence. This is especially true when the new evidence strikes at their core beliefs and values.

More: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0724-28.htm

I'd encourage you to write a letter to these folks- and bring their attention to this article.