Party Politics And Common Climate/Carbon Misunderstandings

5 Comments

1. Tony Treffers says:

   April 5, 2011 at 1:53 pm

   Please, how about an objective article on climate change, where both sides of the argument are proposed. This article is obviously written by a pro climate change theorist, and is dismissive of thousands of scientists world wide who do not agree with this hypothesis. I am sure that if a scientist so wished, he could “prove” that the earth is flat. So please, give both sides of the story, we are not morons.

2. roma guerin says:

   April 5, 2011 at 4:58 pm

   Thanks PWF for a rational explanation in plain English, for us non-scientists. I am puzzled by Tony Treffers’ reference to the “thousands of..” who disagree, as I am only aware of two.

3. Gail says:

   April 5, 2011 at 8:07 pm

   Tony, it seems we share the same wish. I have been searching for weeks for just what you suggest ‘an objective article where both sides of the argument are proposed’. I haven’t been able to find one and was hoping/expecting that the Climate Commission would do this. I have emailed them, as their efforts at clarifying the situation are almost non-existent, and I’m still waiting for something other than an electronic reply. If you can unearth such an article please send it in and PWF will publish it!

4. Graeme Stuart says:

   April 22, 2011 at 9:00 am

   Hi Gail. Thanks for a great article. The other thing that surprises me is that supporters of the tax, particularly the politicians, don’t seem to give easy to understand explanations of how a carbon tax would make a difference. As I understand it, by making carbon more expensive, businesses are encouraged to reduce costs by reducing carbon. The aim isn’t to make everything more expensive and that is why the government is happy to reimburse consumers. It seems to me it is a fairly simple concept, but it isn’t being sold well.

5. Tony Treffers says:

   April 30, 2011 at 4:07 pm

   Hi Gail,
   The following is from Wikipaedia, and it answers to an extent Roma Guerin’s puzzlement. Maybe to large for you to print.
   Are all these eminent people listed as follows wrong?
   Happy to supply more scientist names if required.
   Rgds

   List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming
   From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

   This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.
   This article lists living and deceased scientists who have made statements that conflict with the mainstream assessment of global warming as summarized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and endorsed by other scientific bodies.
   Climate scientists agree that the global average surface temperature has risen over the last century. The scientific consensus was summarized in the 2001 Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The main conclusions relating directly to past and ongoing global warming about the scientific opinion on climate change were as follows:
   The global average surface temperature has risen 0.6 ± 0.2 °C since the late 19th century, and 0.17 °C per decade in the last 30 years.[1]
   “There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities”, in particular emissions of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane.[2]
   If greenhouse gas emissions continue the warming will also continue, with temperatures projected to increase by 1.4 °C to 5.8 °C between 1990 and 2100. Accompanying this temperature increase will be increases in some types of extreme weather and a projected sea level rise of 9 cm to 88 cm, excluding “uncertainty relating to ice dynamical changes in the West Antarctic ice sheet”.[3] “Overall it is expected that benefits will be outweighed by the negative health effects of rising temperatures, especially in developing countries.” [4]
   This article is an attempt to list notable scientists who have made statements in disagreement with one or more of the principal conclusions of the Third (or Fourth) Assessment Report of the IPCC. Inclusion is based on the following specific criteria:
   For the purposes of this list, qualification as a scientist is reached by publication of at least one peer-reviewed article in their lifetime in a broadly construed area of “natural sciences”. The article need not have been written in recent years nor be in a field relevant to climate.
   Attributable statements of disagreement in any venue in the individual’s own words (not merely inclusion on petitions, surveys, or lists).
   Contents [hide]
   1 Position: Accuracy of IPCC climate projections is questionable
   2 Position: Global warming is primarily caused by natural processes
   3 Position: Cause of global warming is unknown
   4 Position: Global warming will have few negative consequences
   5 Now deceased
   6 See also
   7 References
   Position: Accuracy of IPCC climate projections is questionable

   Individuals in this section conclude that it is not possible to project global climate accurately enough to justify the ranges projected for temperature and sea-level rise over the next century. They do not conclude specifically that the current IPCC projections are either too high or too low, but that the projections are likely to be inaccurate due to inadequacies of current global climate modeling.
   Richard Lindzen,Pubs Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and member of the National Academy of Sciences: “We are quite confident (1) that global mean temperature is about 0.5 °C higher than it was a century ago; (2) that atmospheric levels of CO2 have risen over the past two centuries; and (3) that CO2 is a greenhouse gas whose increase is likely to warm the earth (one of many, the most important being water vapor and clouds). But – and I cannot stress this enough – we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to CO2 or to forecast what the climate will be in the future.”[5] “[T]here has been no question whatsoever that CO2 is an infrared absorber (i.e., a greenhouse gas – albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming. Indeed, if all else were kept equal, the increase in CO2 should have led to somewhat more warming than has been observed.”[6][7]
   Garth Paltridge,Pubs Visiting Fellow ANU and retired Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research and retired Director of the Institute of the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre.”There are good and straightforward scientific reasons to believe that the burning of fossil fuel and consequent increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide will lead to an increase in the average temperature of the world above that which would otherwise be the case. Whether the increase will be large enough to be noticeable is still an unanswered question.”[8]
   Hendrik Tennekes, retired Director of Research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute: “The blind adherence to the harebrained idea that climate models can generate ‘realistic’ simulations of climate is the principal reason why I remain a climate skeptic. From my background in turbulence I look forward with grim anticipation to the day that climate models will run with a horizontal resolution of less than a kilometer. The horrible predictability problems of turbulent flows then will descend on climate science with a vengeance.”[9]
   Antonino Zichichi,Pubs emeritus professor of nuclear physics at the University of Bologna and president of the World Federation of Scientists : “models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are incoherent and invalid from a scientific point of view”.[10] He has also said, “It is not possible to exclude that the observed phenomena may have natural causes. It may be that man has little or nothing to do with it”[11]
   Position: Global warming is primarily caused by natural processes

   Attribution of climate change, based on Meehl et al. (2004), which represents the consensus view
   Individuals in this section conclude that the observed warming is more likely attributable to natural causes than to human activities.
   Khabibullo Abdusamatov, mathematician and astronomer at Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences: “Global warming results not from the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but from an unusually high level of solar radiation and a lengthy – almost throughout the last century – growth in its intensity…Ascribing ‘greenhouse’ effect properties to the Earth’s atmosphere is not scientifically substantiated…Heated greenhouse gases, which become lighter as a result of expansion, ascend to the atmosphere only to give the absorbed heat away.”[12][13][14]
   Sallie Baliunas, astronomer, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: “[T]he recent warming trend in the surface temperature record cannot be caused by the increase of human-made greenhouse gases in the air.”[15]
   George V. Chilingar, Professor of Civil and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Southern California: “The authors identify and describe the following global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate: (1) solar radiation …, (2) outgassing as a major supplier of gases to the World Ocean and the atmosphere, and, possibly, (3) microbial activities … . The writers provide quantitative estimates of the scope and extent of their corresponding effects on the Earth’s climate [and] show that the human-induced climatic changes are negligible.”[16]
   Ian Clark,Pubs hydrogeologist, professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa: “That portion of the scientific community that attributes climate warming to CO2 relies on the hypothesis that increasing CO2, which is in fact a minor greenhouse gas, triggers a much larger water vapour response to warm the atmosphere. This mechanism has never been tested scientifically beyond the mathematical models that predict extensive warming, and are confounded by the complexity of cloud formation – which has a cooling effect. … We know that [the sun] was responsible for climate change in the past, and so is clearly going to play the lead role in present and future climate change. And interestingly… solar activity has recently begun a downward cycle.”[17]
   Chris de Freitas,Pubs Associate Professor, School of Geography, Geology and Environmental Science, University of Auckland: “There is evidence of global warming. … But warming does not confirm that carbon dioxide is causing it. Climate is always warming or cooling. There are natural variability theories of warming. To support the argument that carbon dioxide is causing it, the evidence would have to distinguish between human-caused and natural warming. This has not been done.”[18]
   David Douglass, Pubssolid-state physicist, professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester: “The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming.”[19]
   Don Easterbrook,Pubs emeritus professor of geology, Western Washington University: “global warming since 1900 could well have happened without any effect of CO2. If the cycles continue as in the past, the current warm cycle should end soon and global temperatures should cool slightly until about 2035″[20]
   William M. Gray, Professor Emeritus and head of The Tropical Meteorology Project, Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University: “This small warming is likely a result of the natural alterations in global ocean currents which are driven by ocean salinity variations. Ocean circulation variations are as yet little understood. Human kind has little or nothing to do with the recent temperature changes. We are not that influential.”[21] “I am of the opinion that [global warming] is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people.”[22] “So many people have a vested interest in this global-warming thing—all these big labs and research and stuff. The idea is to frighten the public, to get money to study it more.”[23]
   William Happer, physicist specializing in optics and spectroscopy, Princeton University: “all the evidence I see is that the current warming of the climate is just like past warmings. In fact, it’s not as much as past warmings yet, and it probably has little to do with carbon dioxide, just like past warmings had little to do with carbon dioxide”[24]
   William Kininmonth, meteorologist, former Australian delegate to World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology: “There has been a real climate change over the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries that can be attributed to natural phenomena. Natural variability of the climate system has been underestimated by IPCC and has, to now, dominated human influences.”[25]
   David Legates, associate professor of geography and director of the Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware: “About half of the warming during the 20th century occurred prior to the 1940s, and natural variability accounts for all or nearly all of the warming.”[26]
   Tad Murty, oceanographer; adjunct professor, Departments of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa: global warming “is the biggest scientific hoax being perpetrated on humanity. There is no global warming due to human anthropogenic activities. The atmosphere hasn’t changed much in 280 million years, and there have always been cycles of warming and cooling. The Cretaceous period was the warmest on earth. You could have grown tomatoes at the North Pole”[27]
   Tim Patterson, Pubs paleoclimatologist and Professor of Geology at Carleton University in Canada: “There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth’s temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years. On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century’s modest warming?”[28][29]
   Ian Plimer,Pubs Professor emeritus of Mining Geology, The University of Adelaide: “We only have to have one volcano burping and we have changed the whole planetary climate… It looks as if carbon dioxide actually follows climate change rather than drives it”.[30]
   Tom Segalstad, head of the Geology Museum at the University of Oslo: “The IPCC’s temperature curve (the so-called ‘hockey stick’ curve) must be in error…human influence on the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ is minimal (maximum 4%). Anthropogenic CO2 amounts to 4% of the ~2% of the “Greenhouse Effect”, hence an influence of less than 1 permil of the Earth’s total natural ‘Greenhouse Effect’ (some 0.03 °C of the total ~33 °C).”[31]
   Nicola Scafetta, Pubs research scientist in the physics department at Duke University, wrote a booklet proposing a phenomenological theory of climate change based on the physical properties of the data. Scafetta describes his conclusions writing “At least 60% of the warming of the Earth observed since 1970 appears to be induced by natural cycles which are present in the solar system. A climatic stabilization or cooling until 2030–2040 is forecast by the phenomenological model.”[32][33]
   Nir Shaviv, Pubs astrophysicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: “[T]he truth is probably somewhere in between [the common view and that of skeptics], with natural causes probably being more important over the past century, whereas anthropogenic causes will probably be more dominant over the next century. … [A]bout 2/3’s (give or take a third or so) of the warming [over the past century] should be attributed to increased solar activity and the remaining to anthropogenic causes.” His opinion is based on some proxies of solar activity over the past few centuries.[34]
   Fred Singer, Pubs Professor emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia: “The greenhouse effect is real. However, the effect is minute, insignificant, and very difficult to detect.”[35][36] “It’s not automatically true that warming is bad, I happen to believe that warming is good, and so do many economists.”[37]
   Willie Soon, astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: “[T]here’s increasingly strong evidence that previous research conclusions, including those of the United Nations and the United States government concerning 20th century warming, may have been biased by underestimation of natural climate variations. The bottom line is that if these variations are indeed proven true, then, yes, natural climate fluctuations could be a dominant factor in the recent warming. In other words, natural factors could be more important than previously assumed.”[38]
   Roy Spencer, principal research scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville: “I predict that in the coming years, there will be a growing realization among the global warming research community that most of the climate change we have observed is natural, and that mankind’s role is relatively minor”.[39]
   Philip Stott, professor emeritus of biogeography at the University of London: “…the myth is starting to implode. … Serious new research at The Max Planck Society has indicated that the sun is a far more significant factor…”[40]
   Henrik Svensmark, Pubs Danish National Space Center: “Our team … has discovered that the relatively few cosmic rays that reach sea-level play a big part in the everyday weather. They help to make low-level clouds, which largely regulate the Earth’s surface temperature. During the 20th Century the influx of cosmic rays decreased and the resulting reduction of cloudiness allowed the world to warm up. … most of the warming during the 20th Century can be explained by a reduction in low cloud cover.”[41]
   Jan Veizer, Pubs environmental geochemist, Professor Emeritus from University of Ottawa: “At this stage, two scenarios of potential human impact on climate appear feasible: (1) the standard IPCC model …, and (2) the alternative model that argues for celestial phenomena as the principal climate driver. … Models and empirical observations are both indispensable tools of science, yet when discrepancies arise, observations should carry greater weight than theory. If so, the multitude of empirical observations favours celestial phenomena as the most important driver of terrestrial climate on most time scales, but time will be the final judge.”[42]
   Position: Cause of global warming is unknown

   Scientists in this section conclude that no principal cause can be ascribed to the observed rising temperatures, whether man-made or natural.
   Syun-Ichi Akasofu, Pubs retired professor of geophysics and Founding Director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks: “[T]he method of study adopted by the International Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) is fundamentally flawed, resulting in a baseless conclusion: 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. Contrary to this statement …, there is so far no definitive evidence that ‘most’ of the present warming is due to the greenhouse effect. … [The IPCC] should have recognized that the range of observed natural changes should not be ignored, and thus their conclusion should be very tentative. The term ‘most’ in their conclusion is baseless.”[43]
   Claude Allègre, geochemist, Institute of Geophysics (Paris): “The increase in the CO2 content of the atmosphere is an observed fact and mankind is most certainly responsible. In the long term, this increase will without doubt become harmful, but its exact role in the climate is less clear. Various parameters appear more important than CO2. Consider the water cycle and formation of various types of clouds, and the complex effects of industrial or agricultural dust. Or fluctuations of the intensity of the solar radiation on annual and century scale, which seem better correlated with heating effects than the variations of CO2 content.”[44]
   Robert C. Balling, Jr., a professor of geography at Arizona State University: “[I]t is very likely that the recent upward trend [in global surface temperature] is very real and that the upward signal is greater than any noise introduced from uncertainties in the record. However, the general error is most likely to be in the warming direction, with a maximum possible (though unlikely) value of 0.3 °C. … At this moment in time we know only that: (1) Global surface temperatures have risen in recent decades. (2) Mid-tropospheric temperatures have warmed little over the same period. (3) This difference is not consistent with predictions from numerical climate models.”[45]
   John Christy, Pubs professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, contributor to several IPCC reports: “I’m sure the majority (but not all) of my IPCC colleagues cringe when I say this, but I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see. Rather, I see a reliance on climate models (useful but never “proof”) and the coincidence that changes in carbon dioxide and global temperatures have loose similarity over time.”[46]
   Petr Chylek, Space and Remote Sensing Sciences researcher, Los Alamos National Laboratory: “carbon dioxide should not be considered as a dominant force behind the current warming…how much of the [temperature] increase can be ascribed to CO2, to changes in solar activity, or to the natural variability of climate is uncertain”[47]
   David Deming, geology professor at the University of Oklahoma: “The amount of climatic warming that has taken place in the past 150 years is poorly constrained, and its cause – human or natural – is unknown. There is no sound scientific basis for predicting future climate change with any degree of certainty. If the climate does warm, it is likely to be beneficial to humanity rather than harmful. In my opinion, it would be foolish to establish national energy policy on the basis of misinformation and irrational hysteria.”[48]
   Position: Global warming will have few negative consequences

   Scientists in this section conclude that projected rising temperatures will be of little impact or a net positive for human society and/or the Earth’s environment.
   Craig D. Idso, faculty researcher, Office of Climatology, Arizona State University and founder of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change: “the rising CO2 content of the air should boost global plant productivity dramatically, enabling humanity to increase food, fiber and timber production and thereby continue to feed, clothe, and provide shelter for their still-increasing numbers … this atmospheric CO2-derived blessing is as sure as death and taxes.” (May 2007)[49]
   Sherwood Idso, former research physicist, USDA Water Conservation Laboratory, and adjunct professor, Arizona State University: “[W]arming has been shown to positively impact human health, while atmospheric CO2 enrichment has been shown to enhance the health-promoting properties of the food we eat, as well as stimulate the production of more of it. … [W]e have nothing to fear from increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 and global warming.” (2003)[50]
   Patrick Michaels, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and retired research professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia: “scientists know quite precisely how much the planet will warm in the foreseeable future, a modest three-quarters of a degree (Celsius), plus or minus a mere quarter-degree … a modest warming is a likely benefit… human warming will be strongest and most obvious in very cold and dry air, such as in Siberia and northwestern North America in the dead of winter.” (October 16, 2003)[51]
   Now deceased

   The lists above only include living scientists. The following are deceased.
   August H. “Augie” Auer Jr. (1940–2007) believed that the cause of global warming was unknown. Retired New Zealand MetService Meteorologist, past professor of atmospheric science at the University of Wyoming, in 2006 he said: “So if you multiply the total contribution 3.6 by the man-made portion of it, 3.2, you find out that the anthropogenic contribution of CO2 to the global greenhouse effect is 0.117 percent, roughly 0.12 percent, that’s like 12c in $100.” “‘It’s miniscule … it’s nothing,'”.[52]
   Reid Bryson (1920–2008) believed global warming was primarily caused by natural processes. Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, in 2007 he said: “It’s absurd. Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air.”[53]
   Marcel Leroux (1938–2008) believed global warming was primarily caused by natural processes. former Professor of Climatology, Université Jean Moulin, in 2005 he said: “The possible causes, then, of climate change are: well-established orbital parameters on the palaeoclimatic scale, … solar activity, …; volcanism …; and far at the rear, the greenhouse effect, and in particular that caused by water vapor, the extent of its influence being unknown. These factors are working together all the time, and it seems difficult to unravel the relative importance of their respective influences upon climatic evolution. Equally, it is tendentious to highlight the anthropic factor, which is, clearly, the least credible among all those previously mentioned.”[54]
   Frederick Seitz (1911–2008) believed global warming was primarily caused by natural processes. Former solid-state physicist, former president of the National Academy of Sciences, in 2001 he said: “So we see that the scientific facts indicate that all the temperature changes observed in the last 100 years were largely natural changes and were not caused by carbon dioxide produced in human activities.”[55]
   See also

   Global warming controversy
   Global warming conspiracy theory
   Hockey stick controversy
   List of authors from the IPCC AR4 WGI report
   List of climate scientists
   Merchants of Doubt
   Oregon petition