Note that Hamilton referred to climate change and Howlett focusses on global
warming. I think we need to avoid this, since global warming is the most
controversial and difficult to prove aspects of climate change. Let's talk
about things like ocean acidification, sealevel rise, melting glaciers, and
the ecological impacts of higher CO2 (which affects plant communities).
These are demonstrable effects and have huge impacts.
Bill Silvert
----- Original Message -----
From: "inigo howlett" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: terça-feira, 29 de Dezembro de 2009 5:43
Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Climate Change Credibility / DIY Bio Research
Dear All,
Two things:
An anecdote about Climate Change credibility: The myth that we've all signed
on to global warming out of fear of having our funding cut by Al Gore's
international syndicate or whoever isn't coming out of nowhere. It's
intentionally propagated.
About three years ago, my then-adviser at my small university in southeast
Tennessee gave a little talk on global warming- on its mechanisms, possible
effects, how to stop it, the whole shebang- to the local Kiwanis Club (well,
may have been the Rotary, it was some old school, small business, civic
engagement type group, it matters not) and met with a rather strange
response.
Global warming and climate science are not his speciality- we're
biogeochemists- and global warming ties in only tangentially, as a crucial
and complicated side effect of ongoing carbon cycles- but he talked about
the science, and some about how it tied in with his own work. This, weirdly,
lead to a question and answer session that was mostly about academic grant
funding and where his research money came from, which is a damn weird
subject for the tail end of a talk addressing the science behind global
climate change.
Evidently, the man who had been there the week before to talk about Evil
Global Warming had not talked about science at all. Out of some kind of
spirit of evenhandedness, they had booked some D.C. lobbyist group (my
advisor wasn't clear on the group, but i'm betting it was Citizens for
Consumer Choice), and he never mentioned atmospheric chemistry, radiative
forcing, ancient carbon- none of it. No science at all. It was explained as
a sort of ongoing conspiracy, that we all had to pretend Global Warming was
real, or we'd never get research funding. My advisor basically laughed at
this, and mentioned how, yes, he'd throw in a line or two about the impact
of carbon cycles on atmospheric carbon and global warming' influence on
climate change, but it was far from relevant to his line of work, and
anyhow, here was the mechanism behind it. I don't know that he changed a lot
of minds in an instant, but he certainly made them consider their sources a
little more carefully.
////
Second Question:
I heard an NPR piece the other night on something called "DIY bio" ,which is
some kind of loose confederation of molecular / micro biologists working on
a range of projects, and I was wondering if anyone on here would have more
information about these groups, how they select their research objectives,
and who would be a good person involved with these folks for me to talk to
about a project.
Thank you,
Inigo Howlett
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:56:10 -0600
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Climate Change Credibility Research grants etc
To: [email protected]
Climate change has to happen. With respect to temperature, over any
period of time temperature will go up...or go down..on average as
compared with any other period of time.
That human activities, specifically, the release of CO2 into the
atmosphere, will have serious consequences is a prediction that simply
has not borne out. Acid rain had obvious consequences that did not
require very weak tedious statistical arguments, for example.
The CO2 caused greenhouse effects predictions simply did not happen,
and that's the problem with the current climate change debate. Maybe
they could occur in the future, but as we deplete fossil fuel reserves
and normal economic forces move us away from fossil fuels, the potential
is much less than it was in any event.
My problem with this is that we have done good work in educating people
on the effects of atmospheric pollution, and as a result have had a
great effect on industrial methodology and related technologies;
reducing emissions of serious pollutants. We risk exchanging our
credibility on real issues for what looks like politically motivated
extremism on the CO2 issue.
If the CO2 argument is to be validated in any meaningful way, related
models have to make accurate elegant predictions. So far they have
failed, and mainly are used to "explain" past events; and as such
represent little more than classic pseudo science.
"So easy it seemed once found, which yet
unfound most would have thought impossible"
John Milton
________________________________________
Robert G. Hamilton
Professor of Biology
Department of Biological Sciences
Mississippi College
P.O. Box 4045
200 South Capitol Street
Clinton, MS 39058
Phone: (601) 925-3872
FAX (601) 925-3978
This communication may contain confidential information. If you are
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please notify and return the message to the sender. Unauthorized
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>>> "Raffel, Thomas" <[email protected]> 12/23/2009 8:15 AM >>>
Of course ecologists try to link their research to climate change!
Everyone wants their research to sound (and hopefully be) important, and
climate change is clearly important. Just as acid rain is important,
and species extinctions, and the hole in the ozone layer. And yes, this
is partly motivated by a desire for funding, but also by a desire to
continue doing research on important questions. I see nothing wrong
with this.
Claiming that global warming is a fraud because scientists use it as a
buzz-word to get funding is absurd. Next they'll say that cancer is a
fraud, because molecular biologists and chemists use it as a buzz-word
to help obtain funding. I wonder if even the tobacco companies ever
stooped so low.
Tom Raffel
-----Original Message-----
From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Wayne Tyson
Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 5:24 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Climate Change Credibility Research grants etc
ECOLOG:
One of the major propaganda statements of those opposed to climate
change research and actions to reduce atmospheric CO2 is that money is a
major motivation behind what they claim is a fraud. Funding requests are
often cited, and the claim has been made that, for example, "all you
have to do to get your proposal funded is to mention 'climate change,'
'global warming,' or some similar buzz-phrase."
To what extent do you think this might be true?
WT
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