In The News
In Case You Missed It…Climate debate full of hot air
Tuesday November 22, 2005
Climate debate full of hot air By Tim Ball November 22, 2005 If Canadians think they’ve already heard too much about Kyoto and climate change, they’d better batten down the hatches -- the real deluge is about to begin. Delegations from 189 countries, and thousands of political leaders, government officials, scientists, businesspeople and environmentalists will gather soon for the Nov. 28 to Dec. 9 Montreal Conference on Climate. Canadian environmentalists are giddy with anticipation. Leading the activist charge to pressure the federal government into acquiescing to yet another impossible climate-change treaty is the ubiquitous David Suzuki, now wrapping up a cross-Canada speaking tour with two talks in Calgary on Wednesday and Thursday. He has been pushing hard in recent weeks for scientists to speak out about climate change, admonishing us for not “correcting misleading information in the media,” more often. However, only those who agree with official doctrine are welcome to participate. Suzuki labels those of us who explain what the latest research really tells us about climate change as merely “rogue scientists” who advocate “the opposite of the prevailing scientific opinion.” He expands the criticism to include newspaper editors who dare publish what we are saying: “Even though there is no debate about climate change in scientific circles, you still see one being played out in the editorial pages of newspapers.” We “rogues” are simply trying to practise real science -- creating hypotheses, testing them, then telling society what we find. Suzuki apparently prefers to cherry-pick science that supports the social engineering he feels Canada needs. He wrongly assumes that, because he is pushing a political agenda, any other scientist who is quoted in the press also has a political agenda. Ian Clark, a professor at the University of Ottawa, admonishes the activist: “Suzuki must accept that if scientists should be advocates, they will not all advocate what he believes. He cannot chastise us for keeping quiet, and then dismiss us when we speak out in a manner contrary to his beliefs. That is irrational.” Suzuki will undoubtedly give Calgarians more of the same this week. Audiences must not be afraid to publicly contest such a fundamentally anti-science stance. After all, the concept that human emissions of carbon dioxide are a major driver of global climate is merely a hypothesis. … Albert Einstein once said of science, “In the realm of the seekers of the truth, there is no human authority. Whoever attempts to play the magistrate there founders on the laughter of the gods.” Canadians must hold extremists to account, and ask why they seek to play magistrate, and exclude legitimate climate scientists from the debate. Do they consider themselves gods? Or is it just that their stance is so weak they fear a truly open discussion? Tim Ball is a Victoria-based environmental consultant. He was the first climatology PhD in Canada and worked as a professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg for 28 years. Click here for the full text of the op-ed. (subscription required)
Climate debate full of hot air
In Case You Missed It…Activism gone awry?
Thursday November 17, 2005
Activism gone awry?
In Case You Missed It…Thin green line is bad science by Debra J. Saunders
Thursday November 17, 2005
In Case You Missed It…
The San Francisco Chronicle
Thin Green Line Is Bad ScienceDebra J. Saunders
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Web link: Thin Green Line is Bad Science
There is a myth in the American media. It goes like this: The good scientists agree that global warming is human induced and would be addressed if America ratified the Kyoto global warming pact, while bad heretical scientists question climate models that predict Armageddon because they are venal and corrupted by oil money.
A Tuesday Open Forum piece in The Chronicle, written by a UC Berkeley journalism professor and a UC Berkeley energy professor, provided a perfect example of this odd view that all scientists ascribe to a common gospel: “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a U.N.-sponsored group of more than 2,000 scientists from more than 100 countries, has concluded that human activity is a key factor in elevated carbon-dioxide levels and rising temperatures and sea levels that could prove catastrophic for tens of millions of people living along Earth’s coastlines.” The piece also cited research by “Naomi Oreskes, a science historian at UC San Diego, who reviewed 928 abstracts of peer-reviewed articles on climate change published in scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 and could not find a single one that challenged the scientific consensus that human-caused global warming is real.”
The authors then attacked best-selling author Michael Crichton because Crichton accepted an invitation to testify from Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., “who is heavily supported by oil and gas interests” and who -- horrors -- dared to ask whether the global-warming scare is a hoax. That is the sort of McCarthyist guilt-by-association that one would not expect to encounter in the name of science.
Crichton spoke at an Independent Institute event Tuesday night with three apostate scientists.
It’s odd that Oreskes couldn’t find a single article that didn’t follow the thin green line on global warming. Panelist and Colorado State University professor of atmospheric science William M. Gray, a hurricane authority, announced that he thinks that the biggest contributor to global warming is the fact that “we’re coming out of a little ice age,” and that the warming trend will end in six to eight years...
On Tuesday, Inhofe issued a statement from Capitol Hill that noted how scientists with independent views don’t get on too well with the IPCC. Witness Chris Landsea of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who resigned from the IPCC this year because he believed an IPCC top hurricane scientist wrongly linked severe hurricanes to global warming; as a result, he wrote, “the IPCC process has been subverted and compromised, its neutrality lost.” … .
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Energy “Poll-oney”
Monday November 14, 2005
In Case You Missed It… Los Angeles Times Animal Rights Leader Justifies Violence
Monday November 14, 2005
Animal Rights Leader Justifies Violence
In Case You Missed It......Murdering researchers
Monday November 7, 2005
Slowing down Alito
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In Case you Missed It....The Weekly Standard New Republic, Miers, the craven NYSE by The Scrapbook
Tuesday November 1, 2005
Animal Update
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In Case You Missed It… New York Post Terror Road Show By Christopher Byron October 31, 2005
Monday October 31, 2005
(registration required) TERROR ROAD SHOW
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