| Subject: Re: They call this a consensus? |
Author:
Duncan7
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Date Posted: 12:44:07 06/08/07 Fri
In reply to:
bubba
's message, "They call this a consensus?" on 07:57:21 06/04/07 Mon
Al Gore .... You really have to ask yourself. Would you buy a used car from that man?
>...I haven't had time to read any of this series of,
>well contrarian, articles about the supposed
>anthropogenetic climate change "consensus" that
>bought-and-paid-for scientists and special interest
>groups are always harping about.
>
> But, despite the mention of the Oregon Institute
>petition, it looks as if there is a bevy of them that
>might prove interesting.
>
> Enjoy
>
>They call this a consensus?
>Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post
>Published: Saturday, June 02, 2007
>
>"Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the
>global warming crisis. The time for debate is over.
>The science is settled."
>
>So said Al Gore ... in 1992. Amazingly, he made his
>claims despite much evidence of their falsity. A
>Gallup poll at the time reported that 53% of
>scientists actively involved in global climate
>research did not believe global warming had occurred;
>30% weren't sure; and only 17% believed global warming
>had begun. Even a Greenpeace poll showed 47% of
>climatologists didn't think a runaway greenhouse
>effect was imminent; only 36% thought it possible and
>a mere 13% thought it probable.
>
>Today, Al Gore is making the same claims of a
>scientific consensus, as do the United Nation's
>Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and hundreds
>of government agencies and environmental groups around
>the world. But the claims of a scientific consensus
>remain unsubstantiated. They have only become louder
>and more frequent.
>
>More than six months ago, I began writing this series,
>The Deniers. When I began, I accepted the prevailing
>view that scientists overwhelmingly believe that
>climate change threatens the planet. I doubted only
>claims that the dissenters were either kooks on the
>margins of science or sell-outs in the pockets of the
>oil companies.
>
>
>My series set out to profile the dissenters -- those
>who deny that the science is settled on climate change
>-- and to have their views heard. To demonstrate that
>dissent is credible, I chose high-ranking scientists
>at the world's premier scientific establishments. I
>considered stopping after writing six profiles,
>thinking I had made my point, but continued the series
>due to feedback from readers. I next planned to stop
>writing after 10 profiles, then 12, but the feedback
>increased. Now, after profiling more than 20 deniers,
>I do not know when I will stop -- the list of
>distinguished scientists who question the IPCC grows
>daily, as does the number of emails I receive, many
>from scientists who express gratitude for my series.
>
>Somewhere along the way, I stopped believing that a
>scientific consensus exists on climate change.
>Certainly there is no consensus at the very top
>echelons of scientists -- the ranks from which I have
>been drawing my subjects -- and certainly there is no
>consensus among astrophysicists and other solar
>scientists, several of whom I have profiled. If
>anything, the majority view among these subsets of the
>scientific community may run in the opposite
>direction. Not only do most of my interviewees either
>discount or disparage the conventional wisdom as
>represented by the IPCC, many say their peers
>generally consider it to have little or no
>credibility. In one case, a top scientist told me
>that, to his knowledge, no respected scientist in his
>field accepts the IPCC position.
>
>What of the one claim that we hear over and over
>again, that 2,000 or 2,500 of the world's top
>scientists endorse the IPCC position? I asked the IPCC
>for their names, to gauge their views. "The 2,500 or
>so scientists you are referring to are reviewers from
>countries all over the world," the IPCC Secretariat
>responded. "The list with their names and contacts
>will be attached to future IPCC publications, which
>will hopefully be on-line in the second half of 2007."
>
>An IPCC reviewer does not assess the IPCC's
>comprehensive findings. He might only review one small
>part of one study that later becomes one small input
>to the published IPCC report. Far from endorsing the
>IPCC reports, some reviewers, offended at what they
>considered a sham review process, have demanded that
>the IPCC remove their names from the list of
>reviewers. One even threatened legal action when the
>IPCC refused.
>
>A great many scientists, without doubt, are
>four-square in their support of the IPCC. A great many
>others are not. A petition organized by the Oregon
>Institute of Science and Medicine between 1999 and
>2001 claimed some 17,800 scientists in opposition to
>the Kyoto Protocol. A more recent indicator comes from
>the U.S.-based National Registry of Environmental
>Professionals, an accrediting organization whose
>12,000 environmental practitioners have standing with
>U.S. government agencies such as the Environmental
>Protection Agency and the Department of Energy. In a
>November, 2006, survey of its members, it found that
>only 59% think human activities are largely
>responsible for the warming that has occurred, and
>only 39% make their priority the curbing of carbon
>emissions. And 71% believe the increase in hurricanes
>is likely natural, not easily attributed to human
>activities.
>
>Such diversity of views is also present in the wider
>scientific community, as seen in the World Federation
>of Scientists, an organization formed during the Cold
>War to encourage dialogue among scientists to prevent
>nuclear catastrophe. The federation, which encompasses
>many of the world's most eminent scientists and today
>represents more than 10,000 scientists, now focuses on
>15 "planetary emergencies," among them water, soil,
>food, medicine and biotechnology, and climatic
>changes. Within climatic changes, there are eight
>priorities, one being "Possible human influences on
>climate and on atmospheric composition and chemistry
>(e.g. increased greenhouse gases and tropospheric
>ozone)."
>
>Man-made global warming deserves study, the World
>Federation of Scientists believes, but so do other
>serious climatic concerns. So do 14 other planetary
>emergencies. That seems about right. - Lawrence
>Solomon is executive director of Urban Renaissance
>Institute and Consumer Policy Institute, divisions of
>Energy Probe Research Foundation. Email:
>LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com.
>
>
>href="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/
>story.html?id=c47c1209-233b-412c-b6d1-5c755457a8af">htt
>p://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.htm
>l?id=c47c1209-233b-412c-b6d1-5c755457a8af
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