Mike, what do you plan to explain and teach? What is known for sure? Certainly CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it is causing some global warming based on reasonable hypothesis, BUT HOW MUCH? And if you produce a big number or high percentage then you are as bad as the deniers. The honest position is that everything we think we know about climate science, none of which has been subject to rigorous test, suggests that CO2 plays a role and is causing some of the warming but not all because the strong influence of sunspots has been clearly shown over the last 4 warming/cooling cycles, and there are thousands of similar cycles shown in the proxy record but no sunspot data to go with it. So the best data and perfect correlation for 4 events we have is sunspots. The best qualitative science we have is greenhouse effects, There are other cloud, ocean current effects, etc. etc. If you simply take the opposing position you are as bad as the deniers. Take the position that the science is not well established, it is qualitative, and we simply do not know enough to be quantitative. However the proxy record of 540 million years says it will get warmer and in the not too distant future we will need to control the temperature EVEN IF WE STOP INPUTTING ANTHROPOGENIC CO2 TOMORROW. Knee jerk reactions are not useful. -gene
_____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike MacCracken Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 9:17 AM To: Ken Caldeira; Dan Whaley Cc: Geoengineering Subject: [geo] Re: WSJ - Op-Ed on Global Warming Skepticism Ken, et al.---It takes a bit of patience, but we simply have to address these types of claims. I have offered comments on a couple of these. See: http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/index.php/csw/details/maccracken_critique _of_robinson_etal/ http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/index.php/csw/details/maccracken_on_lindz en/ MacCracken, M. C., E. Barron, D. Easterling, B. Felzer, and T. Karl, 2003: Climate change scenarios for the U. S. National Assessment, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 84, 1711-1723. MacCracken, M. C., 2003: Uncertainties: How little do we really understand, pp. 63-70 in Bridging the Gap Between Science and Society: The Relationship Between Policy and Research in National Laboratories, Universities, Government, and Industry, November 1-2, 2003, Rice University, Houston TX, 287 pp. And realclimate.org does a lot of clearing up of things. Plus then there is the Santer et al. article on Douglass et al. and lost of others as well. It takes time (and time away from real research) and is frustrating at times, but simply has to be done. I am very surprised that there was now a response trying to address the concerns (especially with Tom Wigley and Barrie Pittock being in Australia and being real slayers of myths, etc.). But old criticisms keep popping up (and I mean really old ones, like that there can be no CO2 effect because the bands are saturated-a myth explained by Arrenihius and clearly demonstrated in Manabe's modeling of over 40 years ago-but up comes the myth again, and again, and again. We just have to keep explaining in clearer and clearer ways, not reverting to the authority or numbers doing the IPCC reports types of arguments. Explain, teach, explain. Mike On 6/28/09 4:35 AM, "Ken Caldeira" <[email protected]> wrote: That something like this would be published in The Wall Street Journal indicates the deterioration of a world that believes that it is what you believe that counts, not empirical confrontation with experience. Empiricism may have risen its little head for a few centuries, but is now drowning in a sea of medievalism. Reality has become just another special interest group. On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Dan Whaley <[email protected]> wrote: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html#printMode The Climate Change Climate Change The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere. By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation. If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming. [POTOMAC WATCH] Associated Press Steve Fielding Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S. In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap- and-trade program. The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.) The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon. Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr. Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence" underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day. The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so easily swayed. Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S., attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't. This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for the bill. He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green science." The bill is set to founder as the Australian parliament breaks for the winter. Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the cost arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in light of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on the science. One thing for sure: They won't be alone. Write to [email protected] ----- Much of the detail quoted in the article comes from a 250 page report posted by the senate minority... http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View <http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=8 3947f5d-d84a-4a84-ad5d-6e2d71db52d9> &FileStore_id=83947f5d-d84a-4a84-ad5d-6e2d71db52d9 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
