The Latest Attack on Gore and Global Warming by Richard Lindzen in the WSJ
Sun Jan 21, 2007 at 04:41:00 AM PDT
The Wall Street Journal published an editorial attack on Al Gore and the issue of global warming by RICHARD S. LINDZEN. Dr. Lindzen is the climate scientist that has served as ExxonMobil’s manservant and poster skeptic for the past decade.
What You Should Know About Richard Lindzen
Richard Lindzen is not an industry hack. He hasscientific bona fides.
More below the fold.
For example:
Lindzen served on an 11-member panel organized by the National Academy of Sciences.[7] The panel's report, titled Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions,[8] has been widely cited.
The first paragraph of the summary states:
Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability.[9]
Lindzen was responsible for adding the null hypothesis advocacy position to the summary: but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability. He is a powerful skeptic. He is THE powerful skeptic because he is a legitimate scientific contributor the debate. Whether he is an ethical scientist is another story. His position is that there is too much noise (unexplained random variability) in temperature data over the past century to argue for a warming trend. For Lindzen, if you cannot derive a pattern of systematically increasing temperatures over the past 100 years, then warming is probably not occurring. However, he fell on hard times in funding his research when he could not defend the assumptions of the models he wanted to test in peer-reviewed journals. He has become the poster child skeptic on the oil industry sponsored disinformation circuit. Remember his swipe at the ethics of scientists who are finding evidence that warming is occurring at an alarming rate (the hockey stick model.)
More about Richard Lindzen.
Last week, I had the distinct pleasure of spending almost three hours with world renowned climate skeptic Dr. Richard Lindzen. Dr. Lindzen is charming, intelligent, and incredibly interesting. He could just as easily teach history as meteorology at MIT – the man is a fountain of knowledge. He is, in fact, so intelligent and knowlegable that he can be very intimidating. He gave an hour long talk to a group of primarily non-scientists (myself included) and in the end most people were afraid to ask questions. Well, I guess I don’t have the same fear of public humiliation – so I decided to ask some questions. Before I divulge with the fireworks, let me back up a little.
Richard was invited to my campus (Washington and Lee University) last week to give a public talk about “Global Climate Change.” His talk was titled Climate Alarmism and Scientific Illiteracy. He spent a good hour reading directly from his 50+ Powerpoint slides. I spent the hour taking notes so I could revisit some points with him. His talk started with the theme of scientific illiteracy and how this enables the media to exploit the public and create what he calls climate alarmism. In the end he concluded by saying the only way to restrict CO2 emissions was to restrict wealth creation – which is NOT correct - and he finished with an unequivocal conclusion – nothing should be done to reduce CO2 emissions and any policy with this objective is too costly because there are no benefits to doing so.
The perfect balm for the free market conservative - dealing with global warming will hurt the "economy."
Later that evening in a semi-private conversation (there were two other persons present) I asked him what journals I could read to learn more about climate change. Based on my interpretation of Richard’s comments - I can not trust Science, or Nature and The Journal of Climate is “o.k.” Richard did not suggest another journal. Apparently there is only one journal in the entire world that objectively disseminates scientific evidence on climate change.
I also asked him if every scientist writing that climate change is real and potentially dangerous and thinks we should have limits on CO2 emissions had abandoned their code of ethics – had every single scientist in the world who thinks this is a real problem sold out for the money – his answer – they never had any ethics.
So, I am left to ponder - who do I trust? What should I read? How do I weigh the evidence? My conclusion - I can only trust Richard Lindzen and others who agree with him, I can only read the Journal of Climate and I am supposed to give zero weight to the side of the argument with most of the evidence and all the weight to the side with little evidence. Does that sound like science? In closing, yesterday’s Christian Science Monitor had an article where I learned “a 2004 Science magazine survey of all peer-reviewed scientific studies of climate change showed 928 papers supporting man-made global warming. None denied it.” - must be a conspiracy.
Here is Lindzen’s latest attack on Gore:
And why not? Mr. Gore assures us that "the debate in the scientific community is over."
That statement, which Mr. Gore made in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, ought to have been followed by an asterisk. What exactly is this debate that Mr. Gore is referring to? Is there really a scientific community that is debating all these issues and then somehow agreeing in unison? Far from such a thing being over, it has never been clear to me what this "debate" actually is in the first place.
Never mind the review of 928 published papers on climate models in the journal Science in 2004. It indicated a consensus on warming and no evidence that human activities are not an important contributing factor in the warming trend.
So, presumably, those scientists do not belong to the "consensus." Yet their research is forced, whether the evidence supports it or not, into Mr. Gore's preferred global-warming template--namely, shrill alarmism. To believe it requires that one ignore the truly inconvenient facts. To take the issue of rising sea levels, these include: that the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940; that icebergs have been known since time immemorial; that the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average. A likely result of all this is increased pressure pushing ice off the coastal perimeter of that country, which is depicted so ominously in Mr. Gore's movie. In the absence of factual context, these images are perhaps dire or alarming.
They are less so otherwise. Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why. Given that we do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change, this task is currently impossible.
He loves to promote recent variability in temperatures. (Bonus points if you find evidence to support Lindzen's claim the Alpine glaciers are advancing.)
In a similar vein, the National Academy of Sciences issued a brief (15-page) report responding to questions from the White House. It again enumerated the difficulties with attribution, but again the report was preceded by a front end that ambiguously claimed that "The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability."
Again with the variability. It bounces, therefore it is a ball. How dare you see a pattern in my pure chaos model.
First, nonscientists generally do not want to bother with understanding the science. Claims of consensus relieve policy types, environmental advocates and politicians of any need to do so. Such claims also serve to intimidate the public and even scientists--especially those outside the area of climate dynamics. Secondly, given that the question of human attribution largely cannot be resolved, its use in promoting visions of disaster constitutes nothing so much as a bait-and-switch scam. That is an inauspicious beginning to what Mr. Gore claims is not a political issue but a "moral" crusade. Lastly, there is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition.
Your final exam question.
Richard Lindzen is a favored speaker for the Cooler Heads Coalition. Review the list of CHC members and see how many took large sums of money from ExxonMobil, Valero Oil, and Koch Oil. It is a very lucrative speaking tour that Lindzen has been enjoying.
Cooler Heads Coalition
From SourceWatch
Cooler Heads Coalition and its website globalwarming.org were revived by Consumer Alert's National Consumer Coalition in April 2004. The website and group were formed in May 6, 1997, "to dispel the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific and risk analysis." Consumer Alert and National Consumer Coalition are industry friendly groups that oppose regulations on industry and advocate "free market" consumer solutions.
According to its relaunch press release, "The new web site contains a searchable archive of the Cooler Heads Newsletter, dating back to 1996, and offers users the chance to subscribe to the newsletter. This bi-weekly publication analyzes climate change news and events through scientific, economic and political perspectives." [1]
Its website states: "The risks of global warming are speculative; the risks of global warming policies are all too real." [2]
Orginally the group was closely tied to the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Former CEI director Marlo Lewis chaired the Cooler Heads Coaltion. Myron Ebell, CEI's Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy, directed it. In March 2001, the nonprofit Clean Air Trust named Ebell its "clean air villain of the month," citing his "ferocious lobbying charge to persuade President Bush to reverse his campaign pledge to control electric utility emissions of carbon dioxide."
Quite an impressive list for the flat-earth society.
Members
. 60 Plus Association
. Alexis de Tocqueville Institution
. American Conservative Union
. American Highway Users Alliance
. American Legislative Exchange Council
. American Policy Center
. Americans for Sovereignty
. Americans for the Preservation of Liberty
. Americans for Tax Reform
. Association of Concerned Taxpayers
. Center for Science and Public Policy of Frontiers of Freedom
. Center for Security Policy
. Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise
. Christian Coalition of America
. Citizen’s Alliance for Responsible Energy (New Mexico)
. Citizens for a Sound Economy
. Coalitions for America
. Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow
. Competitive Enterprise Institute
. Consumer Alert
. Council for America
. Defenders of Property Rights
. English First
. FreedomWorks
. Frontiers of Freedom
. George C. Marshall Institute
. Heritage Foundation
. Maine Heritage Policy Center
. Maryland Taxpayers Association, Inc.
. National Center for Policy Analysis
. National Center for Public Policy Research
. National Taxpayers Union
. Pacific Research Institute
. Population Research Institute
. Rhode Island Wiseuse
. Rio Grande Foundation (New Mexico)
. Seniors Coalition
. Small Business Survival Committee
. The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition
. The Independent Institute
. Tradition, Family, Property, Inc.
Scientific publications now require extensive disclosure about funding sources, including speaking engagement honorariums. The requirement gives the reader the opportunity to see potential conflicts of interest. Dr. Lindzen needs to publicly disclose his potential conflicts of interest. Too bad the WSJ does not adhere to the same ethical standards as scientific publications.
