Global Warming “Man Made”?
The U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works just threw cold water on the fire-storm of assertions by everyone from former Vice President Al Gore to CNN to the Associated Press that the entire scientific community agrees that we humans are the cause of global warming.
Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called “consensus” on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.
And when this block buster Senate report says “prominent”, they do mean prominent!
We’re talking scientists that hail from: Harvard University; NASA; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR); Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the UN IPCC; the Danish National Space Center; U.S. Department of Energy; Princeton University; the Environmental Protection Agency; University of Pennsylvania; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the International Arctic Research Centre; the Pasteur Institute in Paris; the Belgian Weather Institute; Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute; the University of Helsinki; the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S., France, and Russia; the University of Pretoria; University of Notre Dame; Stockholm University; University of Melbourne; University of Columbia; the World Federation of Scientists; and the University of London.
“Some of those profiled have won Nobel Prizes for their outstanding contribution to their field of expertise and many shared a portion of the UN IPCC Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Gore,” the report claims.
Even more fascinating, scientists are finally beginning to open up about the fear they’ve felt about speaking out against the popular position that we’re the cause of the warming trend:
Many of the scientists featured in this report consistently stated that numerous colleagues shared their views, but they will not speak out publicly for fear of retribution. Atmospheric scientist Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, author of almost 70 peer-reviewed studies, explains how many of his fellow scientists have been intimidated.
“Many of my colleagues with whom I spoke share these views and report on their inability to publish their skepticism in the scientific or public media,” Paldor wrote.
[Note: See also July 2007 Senate report detailing how skeptical scientists have faced threats and intimidation --- LINK]
But now that they are speaking up, these scientists are saying they’re not happy about the universal drum beat claiming all scientists agree with the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) position on the subject. In fact, one scientist, a former IPCC “expert reviewer” was frustrated with the peer review process used to publish the UN IPCC’s latest report:
To my dismay, IPCC authors ignored all my comments and suggestions for major changes in the FOD (First Order Draft) and sent me the SOD (Second Order Draft) with essentially the same text as the FOD. None of the authors of the chapter bothered to directly communicate with me (or with other expert reviewers with whom I communicate on a regular basis) on many issues that were raised in my review. This is not an acceptable scientific review process.
—IPCC 2007 Expert Reviewer Madhav Khandekar, Ph.D, Canada
It’s important to note what these scientists are disputing, and what they’re not. They’re not disputing that the planet is warming. They are are also not disputing that we humans are having an increasingly negative impact on our environment through our activities. They’re simply and solely disputing why the world is warming, and the unceasing proclamations of cataclysm and gloom and doom.
Day after day, the same mantra — that ‘the Earth is warming up’ — is churned out in all its forms. As ‘the ice melts’ and ‘sea level rises,’ the Apocalypse looms ever nearer! Without realizing it, or perhaps without wishing to, the average citizen in [sic.] bamboozled, lobotomized, lulled into mindless acceptance. . . . Non-believers in the greenhouse scenario are in the position of those long ago who doubted the existence of God . . . fortunately for them, the Inquisition is no longer with us!
—Climatologist Dr. Marcel Leroux, former professor at Université Jean Moulin and director of the Laboratory of Climatology, Risks, and Environment in Lyon
I urge you to go read at least the introduction to the report, if not the entire report. (Warning, the whole report is a very big web page.) I know doing so has certainly opened my eyes to the minds and thoughts (and frustrations) and the science of the larger scientific community on the global warming issue.
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