Ed,
Here they go again.
"a reference to a 1999 study showing that global temperatures had risen sharply in the previous decade compared with the last 1,000 years."
No doubt by an impartial group like Greenpeace - but they forgot to say who. Not so with the contradictory study.
"In its place, administration officials added a reference to a new study, partly financed by the American Petroleum Institute . . . "
By golly!
The un-attributed "study" was in any event completely propaganda. After 35 years of cooling in mid-century, in the upper 70's there was a sudden change upward. Could have been an earth wobble, or something equally dramatic - or it could have been that everyone took up smoking in 1977 and this impacted the atmosphere's CO2 content.
Or maybe the termites in the rain forests took Viagra, produced a lot of queens, and let off methane in enormous quantities.
Anyway, the temperature increase from the upper 70's was particularly abrupt. Might that cause the Global Warmers to wonder a little? Not a chance. They pin their hypothesis on to a change in the human production of 5.5 Gigatonnes of CO2 as it attaches itself to the 750 Gigatonnes already present in the atmosphere. These are the figures I accept - others are similar but make the same point.
Harry
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Ed Weick wrote:
The New York Times reports that the US Environmental Protection Agencys report on the state of the environment has been severely edited by the White House to make things seem better than they may actually be:
"The editing eliminated references to many studies concluding that warming is at least partly caused by rising concentrations of smokestack and tail-pipe emissions and could threaten health and ecosystems.
Among the deletions were conclusions about the likely human contribution to warming from a 2001 report on climate by the National Research Council that the White House had commissioned and that President Bush had endorsed in speeches that year. White House officials also deleted a reference to a 1999 study showing that global temperatures had risen sharply in the previous decade compared with the last 1,000 years. In its place, administration officials added a reference to a new study, partly financed by the American Petroleum Institute, questioning that conclusion."
The whole NYT article is at: <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/politics/19CLIM.html?th>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/politics/19CLIM.html?th
Ed Weick
**************************************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 -- Fax: (818) 353-2242 http://home.attbi.com/~haledward ****************************************************
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