Liza
******************* Hey Liza, don’t get me started!
Oh, all right . . .
Let’s see, where to begin? First of all, no scientists of any type signed the Kyoto "declaration." I assume this guy means the Kyoto Protocol, which was signed by delegates representing countries -- over 170 of them since 1997. Maybe he means the Assessment Reports written by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- which was formed by the World Meteorological Organization. (Gee, you think they got any climate scientists?) It’s the second of these assessments that led to the Kyoto Protocol.
The two co-chairs of the science portion of IPCC assessment are from the UK’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction & Research and the National Climate Centre of China Meteorological Administration. Does this fellow actually question their credentials? Or motives ?
The more than 2000 scientists who worked on the Assessment reports came from many disciplines -- including HUNDREDS, I daresay, in meteorology, climate, physics, etc., etc. It included others for good reason: their assessments are supposed to predict not only climate but the potential impacts of a changing climate. Think about that for a second. The whole point is to provide policymakers with the best science possible, so the IPCC includes all kinds of scientists. It's possible that fewer than 50% call themselves "climatologists", but it is disingenuous in the extreme to then say "The greater part of the nine hundred scientists who signed the Kyoto declaration were not climatologists, nor even in related fields."
And speaking of motives ...
As for his friends Patrick Michaels and Robert Billings (sic: it’s "Balling"), they are not only both of them considered scientific lightweights, they’ve also been thoroughly exposed as well-paid mouthpieces for coal and oil interests. Ross Gelbspan (Boston Globe) wrote a pretty good book on it. Off the top of my head I recall Balling being on the payroll of the Kuwaiti government and Michaels on that of Western Fuels Association, among others. They are both still very active but are getting less and less media attention because of the now-obvious axes they grind. I met Michaels and I can tell you I would rather be playing cards with the Antichrist.
P.S. here’s my review of the book Michaels and Balling wrote this year:
"More Gas from Industry Skeptics
Although it is useful for any discussion to include the voice of skepticism, particularly when that
voice questions the majority opinion, the latest input from a small, well-heeled band of global
warming skeptics offers little that's new. The Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air About Global
Warming by Patrick J. Michaels and Robert C. Balling, Jr. does little more than many of the
arguments the authors have used for years to attack the science behind the position of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, the book may indeed influence the
way climate policy is made in the US, since it will be used as a political tool by the energy industry
and its allies.
"Global warming is a darned interesting scientific problem being played out as political drama, and
this book is true to that model," the book opens, then proceeds to confound that science with
politics. The gist of the argument in Satanic Gases is that climate models used by IPCC scientists
are greatly flawed and have erroneously led to what Michaels and Balling call "the glib projections
of climate catastrophe." The authors, though each claims deep scientific credentials (Michaels even
contributed to the IPCC report he regularly lambastes) portray the scientific mind as scheming and
devious, more concerned with "shoring up any little problems or inconsistencies" and justifying ever
more funding for research than with objective truth.
Satanic Gases does not break much new ground, certainly not with respect to scientific findings.
The authors invoke familiar arguments about the discrepancies between surface and satellite
recorded temperatures, the uncertainty of the predictive capabilities of climate models, and the
"inconsistencies" of various temperature readings in general.
When the US National Research Council (NRC) assigned the National Academy of Sciences to
investigate some of the discrepancies in temperature readings, its panel of experts' primary finding
was that the warming indicated by the surface measurements was indeed real (see GECR, 11
February 2000). But Satanic Gases, in mentioning the NRC report released earlier this year,
ignores that fact entirely and focuses instead on the admission by the panel that the science of
reading and modeling subtle variations in the temperature profile of the atmosphere still needs
improvement. The authors jump on that acknowledgment as evidence that climate models are
seriously flawed. "The NRC report is a watershed and underscores the arguments made throughout
this book," they note, as if their contrarian view were validated by the panel of experts -- when in
fact the opposite is true.
Trusting Industry to Sponsor Responsible Science
One point that the skeptics cannot refute is that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is
increasing. Failing that, they take the approach that more CO2 can only be beneficial -- for green
plants. "Consider it good fortune that we are living in a world of gradually increasing levels of
atmospheric CO2. The effects of this increase on food production are far more important than any
putative change in climate." The chapter "Greening the Planet" is strewn with graphs that attempt to
show a correlation between rising CO2 levels and crop yields (but ignore countless other factors
associated with food production). Readers may wonder how the authors can exploit the thin margin
of uncertainty in climate science to refute human-induced global warming out of hand, yet assert
without question the beneficent effects of unlimited, ever increasing concentrations of CO2.
Where scientific argument fails them, the authors confuse the issue further by hinting at perfidy in
high places. Noting the United Nations Environment Program's 1985 entry into the global climate
change issue, the authors ask, "What would better suit the United Nations' consistent agenda of
wealth transfer?"
Michaels and Balling claim they are keen advocates of "independent" science, unfettered by the
inefficient or corrupt influence of government, but they are oblivious to the potential for abuse in
corporate-funded science. One of the recommendations they pose to "prevent such tragedies" as
the world's collective response to climate change (i.e., the Kyoto Protocol) is to "lower the federal
outlay for research while increasing the flow from the private sector...." Presumably the portion of
the private sector that could make the most valuable contribution to that effort is the fossil-fuel
industry, to which the authors are no strangers. Michaels and Balling are chief and contributing
editors, respectively, of World Climate Report, a publication devoted to debunking IPCC science
and funded by the Greening Earth Society (a name intended to evoke the positive effect of CO2 on
plants).
The Greening Earth Society, for which Michaels works as a consultant and Balling as science
advisor, is a relentless dispenser of anti-Kyoto Protocol literature. It is also the creation of Western
Fuels Association, Inc., a coal-supply cooperative responsible for the delivery of about a quarter of
a billion dollars' worth of coal annually. In a letter delivered to each member of the US Congress
earlier this year, Society President (and Western Fuels CEO) Fred Palmer wrote: "It is a part of our
effort to see to it that policy makers like yourself are exposed to science of climate change that
doesn't first have to pass muster with those convinced we must `do something' about climate change
and, in doing so, do something about fossil fuels." (Western Fuels is waging a battle to save coal on
several fronts. Last month it filed a lawsuit against a number of environmental groups for
"commercial defamation," alleging its coal-supply businesses were damaged by a full-page ad in the
New York Times that promoted renewable energy while casting coal in an "unwholesome and
unfavorable light.")
The Importance of Controversy, Real and Imagined
The authors take offense when they are characterized in the press as part of the dwindling band of
skeptics. Part of the reason for that characterization may be that the same handful of names --
Michaels and Balling among them -- are often quoted by journalists as counterpoint to the
widespread agreement in the scientific community on global warming. John M. Wallace (chair of the
aforementioned NRC panel) has written that many journalists "in their well-intended efforts to air
opposing points of view ... tend to accentuate the differences of opinion." Often this attempt to
achieve journalistic balance muddles scientific with political opinion and creates a sense of conflict
within the scientific community where none exists. In a recent interview with the Columbia
Journalism Review, Wallace said, "In some cases there's also a tendency for the press and
particularly the high profile news media to pander to the public's fascination with debate and
controversy for its own sake."
It is in this environment, coupled with prodigious funding from the fossil fuel industry, that perennial
skeptics like Michaels and Balling gain currency. "Journalists who allow the ongoing debate between
these alarmists and naysayers in the scientific community to dominate and frame their coverage of
global warming," Wallace said, "are likely to miss out on the really new developments in the science, which are not amenable to such simplistic characterizations."
Readers intolerant of rhetorical gimmickry will have a hard time slogging through Satanic Gases. It
is difficult to imagine that serious scientists will use in any meaningful way the "science" in this book, which is presented less as dispassionate research than a thrown gauntlet. Policymakers, however, may find utility in the sound-bite polemics, and this book will likely be distributed to politicians of
every stripe around the world. It almost does not matter that the logic is convoluted to support
contrarian claims or to refute those of much of the scientific community. Satanic Gases will almost
certainly insinuate its way into some policymakers' words -- and perhaps deeds.
>
> >X-From_: owner-lbo-talk at dont.panix.com Thu Dec 7 18:15:40 2000
> >Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 23:14:17 +0000
> >To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> >From: James Heartfield <Jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk>
> >Subject: Global Warming
> >MIME-Version: 1.0
> >Sender: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> >Precedence: bulk
> >Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> >
> >Sceptics on anthropic global warming include Patrick Michaels, professor
> >of environmental science at U of Virginia, climatologist to State of V.
> >and Robert Billings, Director of the Office of Climatology and Prof of
> >Geog. at Arizona State U. The greater part of the nine hundred
> >scientists who signed the Kyoto declaration were not climatologists, nor
> >even in related fields.
> >--
> >James Heartfield
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