NY Times reporter Andy Revkin's environmental blog Dot Earth has generated comments from a wide variety of respected scientists such as the realclimate bloggers and other prominent folk, particularly on climate issues. In response to today's post on the the latest American Geophysical Union statement on climate change, who should put up a comment but none other than Marc Morano, communications director for James Inhofe's notorious (now minority) US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Yes, that same Morano who created that report on 400 scientists supposedly against the global warming consensus.
And yes, that same Morano who used to work for Rush Limbaugh. What a guy!
Anyway, Morano's complaint about the AGU statement is:
The AGU Board issued a statement on climate change without putting it to a vote of the group’s more than 50,000 members. Its sweeping claims were drafted by what appears to be only nine AGU committee members. The statement relies heavily on long term computer model projections, cherry-picking of data and a very one-sided view of recent research. As with the recent statements by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the AGU statement is the product of a small circle of scientists (again apparently a 9 member panel according to AGU) who all share the same point of view, and who failed to put their statement to a vote of the AGU members on whose behalf they now claim to speak.
Well, hmmm, maybe he has a point. Though the fact that all 9 elected representatives of the broad AGU membership agreed to this unaminously should tell you something.
But maybe Morano's right, maybe your average member of AGU, AMS, NAS, or other scientific society doesn't agree with this strong new statement. Revkin's promised to highlight postings from all AGU and other such society members on today's comment thread. DailyKos scientists, your voice is needed!
Update: I forgot to clarify that AGU stands for the American Geophysical Union in the original version of this diary. AGU is the US scientific society covering the physics of our planet (and other planets), including earth, oceans, and atmosphere. Climate science is a part of that - but so is petroleum geophysics, a strong contingent within the society. So it's very likely there are many AGU members whose livelihoods depend on global warming not being a problem - making this statement all the more definitive.
In addition to Morano, Ray Pierrehumbert and Gavin Schmidt of RealClimate have commented on the Dot Earth thread now.