Skeptical of the skeptics
How many scientists doubt global warming? It's looking like it could be about 20 -- compared to the more than 2,500 globally who have reached the conclusion that climate change is really happening. That's pretty strong evidence of a scientific consensus.
Climate change continues to be a hot subject here in Maryland, where Gov. Martin O'Malley and environmental groups are planning to attend a rally tomorrow (Wednesday, March 5, at 10:30 a.m. outside the State House in Annapolis), to urge action on a bill that would require a 25 percent cut in greenhouse gases from all state sources by 2020.
I tackled the question of how many scientists still doubt global warming two weeks ago on this blog when I deconstructed the decade old myth (propagated by an obscure Oregon institute with no climate scientists that is worried about socialism in public schools) that "19,000 scientists" think the current trend of global warming is natural and not caused by human industry.
In fact, just the opposite is the true scientific consensus. More than 2,500 researchers from 130 countries in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported last year that scientists are more than 90 percent certain that human industry is causing global warming. The U.S. Supreme Court reached a similar conclusion in April, with a majority ruling that: "The harms associated with climate change are serious and well recognized....A strong consensus among qualified experts indicates that global warming threatens ... a precipitate rise in sea levels, severe and irreversible changes to natural ecosystems ... and increases in the spread of disease and the ferocity of weather events."
If you don't believe the U.S. Supreme Court, or Intergovernmental Panel -- try the National Academy of Sciences, NASA or NOAA. Or President Bush. By now, they've all reached the same conclusions.
But recently, the media and public have been treated to ads and emails from a group of climate skeptics that hosted an "International Conference on Climate Change" Sunday through today in New York City at the New York Marquis Times Square Hotel. Organized by a group called the Heartland Institute, the conference posed the question: "Global Warming: Truth or Swindle?"
The group's full-page ad in The New York Times claimed that "more than 400 scientists, economists and experts" would challenge the consensus on global warming, but then listed only 20 actual scientists.
In a news story in today's Times, the paper reports that 19 scientists lined up for the conference's group photo of scientists. "The meeting was largely framed around science, but after the luncheon, when an organizer made an announcement asking all of the scientists in the large hall to move to the front for a group picture, 19 men did so," the Times reported.
Also interesting is that one of the main skeptics featured in the ads and at the conference, Patrick Michaels of the University of Virginia, actually turns out to be not that skeptical about the existence of man-made climate change. He thinks it's real -- but that environmental regulation to try to stop it is a bad idea (which is an entirely different question). "On Sunday night, the dinner speaker was Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist with a paid position at the antiregulatory Cato Institute who says humans are warming the climate -- he projects a three-degree Fahrenheit warming by 2100 -- but disputes the value of cutting emissions of heat-trapping gases," the newspaper reports.
Comments
What consensus of experts?
Do the administrative assistants, computer network administrator, website designer, numerous grad students, politcal activists, and non scientists, all of whom are listed in the 2,500 qualify as experts?
What about the fact that only four reviewers out of 62, specifically endorsed the Working Group I chapter
that attributes global warming to human activity?
You can play the numbers game all you want, but it goes both ways.
Posted by: Mark Newgent | March 4, 2008 11:00 PM
20 scientists doubt global warming?! I'm surprised that that number is so high... but then again that's not the real question is it? The real question is what is causing global warming? If you ask this question then you get a much more accurate impression of the real debate. The report issued by the 400 climate related scientists makes very impressive reading. http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org/article.cfm?artId=22835
I challenge all global warming alarmists to read this report and then dismiss its authors as "deniers"
Posted by: John Plummer | March 5, 2008 10:09 AM
Check out this video from the "Climate Change Conference" -- it's funny, informative, and um, afterwards, you can deny the believers or believe the deniers.
But don't ignore the planet just because you have a big oil company in your back pocket.
http://video.titantv.com/content/000B00PS/video.aspx
Enjoy!
Posted by: TitanGreens | March 5, 2008 3:17 PM
Typically lazy reporting from the NYTimes' Andrew Revkin and parroted by Pelton: the request for the scientists to come up for a photograph was at the end of a long day and many of them had already gone back to their rooms or off to dinner. This is really disingenuous on Revkin's part as he clearly knew there were far more than 19 scientists in attendance -- hundreds in fact. I saw many of their dry, chart-laden presentations -- but they were there nonetheless.
Why was that again that the Times' journalistic reputation is in the toilet? And why do so many major newspapers still subscribe to their news service?
Posted by: Paul Chesser | March 5, 2008 3:53 PM
We must realize that we can convene groups of professional scientists to support or oppose almost any theory, established or not. Simply because a group of people state that G-Warming is a fraud doesn't make it so.
If your arguments are as strong as you say, then they should easily stand up to scrutiny by the other side.
http://www.realclimate.org
and
http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics
Posted by: John | March 5, 2008 8:06 PM
"Record snows and cold are being reported from all over the northern hemisphere this winter,’ Rush Limbaugh claimed." "Colder than usual January temperatures"... does not make a cooling trend nor does it mean returning to ice age conditions as the following two links suggest. Extreme weather --hot/cold, dry/wet - is the signature of global warming/climate change...
Record Warm Winter for Northern Europe
By SARA SUNDELIUS –
3/4/08
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — Icebreakers sit idle in ports. Insects crawl out of forest hideouts. Daffodils sprout up from green lawns.
Winter ended before it started in Europe's north, where record-high temperatures have people wondering whether it's a fluke or an ominous sign of a warming world.
"It's the warmest winter ever" recorded, said John Ekwall of the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jMWm8tRfZ5kIIwHx4Sg1JntW-sLQD8V6P5JO1
***********
2007 a Year of Weather Records in US
by Seth Borenstein
December 29, 2007 by the Associated Press
WASHINGTON - When the calendar turned to 2007, the heat went on and the weather just got weirder. January was the warmest first month on record worldwide - 1.53 degrees above normal. It was the first time since record-keeping began in 1880 that the globes average temperature has been so far above the norm for any month of the year.
And as 2007 drew to a close, it was also shaping up to be the hottest year on record in the Northern Hemisphere.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8TR6ASG0&show_article=1
******************
Also, this is what climate scientists over at RealClimate write about the Heartland Institute’s 2008 International Conference on Climate Change:
What if you held a conference, and no (real) scientists came?
Real Climate
30 January 2008
Over the past days, many of us have received invitations to a conference called “The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change” in New York. At first sight this may look like a scientific conference - especially to those who are not familiar with the activities of the Heartland Institute, a front group for the fossil fuel industry that is sponsoring the conference. You may remember them. They were the promoters of the Avery and Singer “Unstoppable” tour and purveyors of disinformation about numerous topics such as the demise of Kilimanjaro’s ice cap.
A number of things reveal that this is no ordinary scientific meeting:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/01/what-if-you-held-a-conference-and-no-real-scientists-came/
best of luck to all
Posted by: John Seebeth | March 5, 2008 9:19 PM
A vast majority of the media are in the pocket of big business and the government foisting this wad of baloney on the public.
NBC ran green week last year. Parent company GE benefits tremendously. Tom, are you in the pocket of big green?
Truth to power Tom! As Dan Rather intoned, courage, courage.
Frankly, the public is fed up with agenda driven reporters like you and the NY Times' Andrew Revkin. Zell should clean out the whole newsroom and start over. What an Augean task that is.
Oh I forgot, you're all members of the AFL CIO, the union that gives gobs of money to the Democrats.
Posted by: Christopher J. | March 5, 2008 9:53 PM
Oh puleeze -- "compared to the more than 2,500 globally who have reached the conclusion that climate change is really happening." How exactly did you come by the figure of 2500? Did you count them or read publications confirming consensus -- I'll bet not. I'll bet you just lifted this nonsense figure from all those IPCC reports. Maybe it is time to do some actual research rather than parroting the "party" line: http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/16002787.html
Posted by: MaryL | March 6, 2008 12:11 AM
In one hand the reporter is saying that there is a scientific consensus on Climate change and at the same time he is also saying that 20 scientists are against it. Isn't that self contradictory? I think the reporter is biased in this report and instead of presenting why those 20 scientists have different views regarding the Climate change, he is just criticizing them.
Posted by: Surya Kumar Maharjan | March 6, 2008 2:59 AM
"the request for the scientists to come up for a photograph was at the end of a long day"
Ah, poor dears. After an all expense paid trip to the big apple and after years of bitching and moaning that the “media ignores them”, they finally have their moment to shine with journalists everywhere, but they couldn’t muster a half hour to pose with others and prominently, once and for all, show the world the size the tin-foil-hat flat Earth nutters movement? LMAO Oh ya, I forgot. All of the scientists were retired, the photo shoot was probably well after their bedtime. Poor things.
Posted by: Todd | March 6, 2008 8:13 AM