Scientists Respond to Gore on Global Warming

ArthurDent writes "For quite a while global warming has been presented in the public forum as a universally accepted scientific reality. However, in the light of Al Gore's new film An Inconvenient Truth many climate experts are stepping forward and pointing out that there is no conclusive evidence to support global warming as a phenomenon, much less any particular cause of it."

Comments

Some bold statements from this article

[IntelliAdmin]

Wow. This is a bold line from the article:

Carter does not pull his punches about Gore's activism, "The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science"

Strangely enough this is from a website that is sporting anti-bush t-shirts, buttons, and bumper stickers

Windows Admin Tools

Re:Some bold statements from this article

[God of Lemmings]

Stop believing what you hear on TV....
The man never claimed invention of the internet.
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

Re:Some bold statements from this article

[epiphani]

I found this video on google a few weeks ago. Real scientists, real university professors, talking about how the media is having such a hard time understanding this global warming thing.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1851792711 442224485

Probably the best hour I've spent recently. The last speaker actually published an article in Nature specifically talking about the media's miscoverage of this issue. To sum up; there is no debate on global warming. The debate is on the details.

From the description in on google:

Renowned science scholar Naomi Oreskes and science producer Gene Rosow discuss how Hollywood and the news media portray global warming and ... all what responsibility scientists have to educate the public about global warming.

Re:Some bold statements from this article

[HardCase]

I just thought that I'd point out that if the ice melts at the north pole, the sea level won't rise. It's already displacing its equivalent mass in seawater. Obviously there are other implications, though.

Also, the average temperature of the planet has increased by 1 degree C since the late 1800s. The grounded Antarctic ice cap grew between 1992 and 2003, lessening any sea level increase by about 0.12mm per year . Thermal expansion represents roughly 120mm of MSL for a 1 degree temperature increase. The evidence for this is readily available - I just Googled it.

See the problem? The Wise Statesman was right.

-h-

Re:Some bold statements from this article

[Mr. Flibble]

A scientific theory, even one that has been granted the vaunted title of a "law"

I am not going to disagree with anything you say here because I would say it is all entirely correct. However, from what I remember of my history of science, nothing gets the label of "law" anymore, only "Theory". Law was the original name used to signify scientific "laws" in the 1700s-1800s IIRC.

It was changed to "Theory" in the 1900's as some "laws" had been disproven. So, in fact, the term "Law" is depricated, and has been replaced by theory.

This of course, causes consternation for scientists when creationists decry evolution as a "theory" and not a "law".

(Sorry for the lack of exact date ranges, I don't remember the specifics from history of science, and of course, I have none of the material at hand at the moment.)

Re:Some bold statements from this article

[Obfuscant]

Some models do a much better job than others, but there are very few facts.

There are a lot of facts. It is how one interprets those facts that is the problem.

For example.

• It is a fact that a gas bubble trapped in arctic ice at a certain depth contained 3.4% carbon dioxide. (That's an example of a fact, not necessarily true.)
• It is a fact that ice in that region acreted at a rate of 0.3 m/year over the last year. (It was measured.)
• It is not a fact that the age of the bubble is depth/0.3 years. That requires an assumption that the acretion rate was constant, and is not itself a fact.
• It is likewise not a fact that the atmosphere at the time the bubble was captured (whenever that was) was 3.4% carbon dioxide. It requires an assumption that there is no mechanism that would result in a change of concentration of various gases trapped in ice.

Similarly:

• It is a fact that the average temperature of a certain region of land is X degrees today. That was measured.
• It is a fact that the average temperature of the same piece of land last year was Y degrees. It, too, was measured.
• It is not a fact that the temperature of that same piece of land was Z degrees four hundred years ago. A) there was no measurement taken then, and B) the estimates are based on measurements of other things and then assumptions about how they relate to temperature. It is those assumtions that changes Z from a fact into a theory.
• It is not a fact that the piece of land is X-Y degrees warmer that it used to be, even though both X and Y are facts. There is no knowledge that the means of measuring X and Y were the same, so one or the other or both may have a deterministic error. For example, satellite temperature measurements are regularly refined to take into account various factors that had not been previously. The change in how the data were processed may result in a bogus "increase" in temperature (or a similar bogus "decrease".)

Yes, there are lots of facts. It is important to differentiate between what is a fact and what is a theory. "Global warming" and "anthropogenically caused global warming" are both theories.

Re:Some bold statements from this article

[electroniceric]

If we ignore all other hypothesis and we turn out to be wrong with the whole CO2 thing, then we're going to spend some incomprehensible number of dollars reducing our CO2 output over the next 100 years for no gain [emphasis mine].

I have two responses to this:
1) The notion that there's no gain from reducing carbon emissions - even in the unlikely event that there turns out to be no effect on long-term global temperatures - is patently absurd. Offhand I can name benefits: improved air quality with attendant lower of non-carbon aerosols like mercury and uranium (which would lead to lower incidence of many diseases), less acidification of lakes and other bodies of water, reduction of ecosystem damage in bodies of water like the Gulf of Mexico (large stretches of which are now hypoxic to anoxic), an extraordinary leap in energy efficiency as a generation of industrial machines are upgraded to modern versions, and finally a reduction in global economic instability as energy sources are made more distributed. And that's just off the top of my head. So it's hard to argue that this money is a vast waste.

2) There is a very simple and very reliable way to approach situations where the outcomes are not well known: risk analysis. Every day, all over the world, people assess the severity of risks and the likelihood of that contingency occurring. By basically multiplying (convolving, whatever you like) the risk by the severity of the outcome, you get a good metric for whether to try to mitigate a particular risk. In this case, the risks (as Gore's movie well illustrates) are extraordinary, so even those with less likelihood merit active mitigation strategies. And given that the conversion from emitting to non-emitting energy sources does not require science particularly beyond our grasp to accomplish, it's impossible to argue that we can't take active steps to mitigate the risk. So why do the same people who employ risk mitigation all over the place (e.g. insurance, tort "reform") argue so furiously against anything like this on a large scale?

Finally, it bears mentioning that the scientists in this article (only two of who are named) are an extraordinary minority - the vast bulk of climate scientists (and I know many personally, thanks to a degree in ocean physics) are in agreement that human activities are contributing to global warming. So while these folks are entitled to their opinions, scientific or otherwise, it's pretty misleading of this here Canada Free Press to present them as a mainstream view.

Re:Some bold statements from this article

[ipfwadm]

From the late '30s to the mid-70's the temperature went down. The CO2 believers have no explanation.

Pay better attention then. In summary, human-caused particulate emissions reflect sunlight, offsetting some of the effects of CO2-caused warming. In the past couple decades, this type of pollution has lessened, allowing the CO2-caused warming to reveal itself in all its glory.

Until then, I have to listen to all this noise. sigh.

Tell me about it.

And Who Happens to Fund the Article's Author?

[goMac2500]

Why Exxon Mobile of course!

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.p hp?id=1134

The website he writes for also did a great piece on how McDonalds was good for you, after they took a bunch of cash from McDonalds.

Re:And Who Happens to Fund the Article's Author?

[RugRat]

The "article" is not an article, but a press release written by an employee of a public affairs company.

"Tom Harris is mechanical engineer and Ottawa Director of High Park Group, a public affairs and public policy company."

How this made the front page of ./, I have no idea. Oh, wait.

Re:And Who Happens to Fund the Article's Author?

[harvardian]

Would you rather trust a professor who is on Exxon's payroll, or Science magazine (one of the most respected academic journals in the world)? Because here's what Science magazine has to say about the debate:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/570 2/1686

Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties in the science (2). Such statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case.

Some people would consider Prof. Carter to be an organ of said corporations.

Of course it's entirely possible that Prof. Carter is correct, as the Science article points out. But in light of the evidence, I'm inclined to think that this is a FUD campaign rather than a sound argument from a trusted authority.

Paid Off

[Anonymous Coward]

As was pointed out in the Digg discussion, Bob Carter gets his funding from Exxon...

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.p hp?id=1134

What RealClimate.org thought about it

[ChrisRijk]

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /05/al-gores-movie/

How well does the film handle the science? Admirably, I thought. It is remarkably up to date, with reference to some of the very latest research. Discussion of recent changes in Antarctica and Greenland are expertly laid out. He also does a very good job in talking about the relationship between sea surface temperature and hurricane intensity. As one might expect, he uses the Katrina disaster to underscore the point that climate change may have serious impacts on society, but he doesn't highlight the connection any more than is appropriate.

There's lots more in the actual article.

And this is the guy who wrote the above entry:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004 /12/eric-steig/

Eric Steig is an isotope geochemist at the University of Washington in Seattle. His primary research interest is use of ice core records to document climate variability in the past. He also works on the geological history of ice sheets, on ice sheet dynamics, on statistical climate analysis, and on atmospheric chemistry.

This guy is an oil company shill.

[Ryan C.]

Exxon pays his salary. Here's another of his gems: Global warming is good for plants!

It's funny how I get a hopeful feeling when I see that there may still be some credible debate on this topic. Sadly the truth really is inconvenient, and depressing.

CFP Bias

[jjohnson]

Be aware that the website hosting the article is a far-right broadsheet, the Canadian equivalent of Free Republic. Their agenda is strongly anti-global-warming, which doesn't necessarily discredit the article, but does suggest that one should view it with the same scepticism as one views the recent 'ads' by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Questionable Source?

[ndansmith]

Bruce Perens pulled the same story over at Technocrat because the author is "from a paid political PR agency." link

Read, but read with caution. The author is paid to have his opinion.

right. credibility

[conJunk]

a quick google for the researcher the article focuses on shows that he doesn't publish. his main credits are online opinion pieces, and the closes thing to a publication i found (the second page of the google) is a .doc file on his labratory's webspace

if anyone can find anything peer-reviewed by this guy, i'd be keen to see it

Truly independant assestment of Global Warming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out the Union of Concerned Scientist website. The Union's members are from varied fields of science, but many of its members are atmospheric scientists. The Union concludes that global warming is strongly support by available evidence. http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/

Re:What do you expect?

[DragonWriter]

According to Gore, global warming will end it all in 10 years. Yet he felt no need or responsibility to do anything about it when he was a Senator or Vice President.

You mean when he was writing Earth in the Balance, or when he was part of the Administration that negotiated and signed on to the Kyoto Protocol?

He felt no need to campaign on the issue in 2000

You mean the campaign in which during which he said this:

I do. I think that in this 21st century we will soon see the consequences of what's called global warming. There was a study just a few weeks ago suggesting that in summertime the north polar ice cap will be completely gone in 50 years. Already people see the strange weather conditions that the old timers say they've never seen before in their lifetimes. And what's happening is the level of pollution is increasing significantly. Now, here is the good news, Jim. If we take the leadership role and build the new technologies, like the new kinds of cars and trucks that Detroit is itching to build, then we can create millions of good new jobs by being first into the market with these new kinds of cars and trucks and other kinds of technologies. You know the Japanese are breathing down our necks on this. They're moving very rapidly because they know that it is a fast-growing world market. Some of these other countries, particularly in the developing world, their pollution is much worse than anywhere else and their people want higher standards of living. And so they're looking for ways to satisfy their desire for a better life and still reduce pollution at the same time. I think that holding onto the old ways and the old argument that the environment and the economy are in conflict is really outdated. We have to be bold. We have to provide leadership. Now it's true that we disagree on this. The governor said that he doesn't think this problem is necessarily caused by people. He's for letting the oil companies into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Houston has just become the smoggiest city in the country. And Texas is number one in industrial pollution. We have a very different outlook. And I'll tell you this, I will fight for a clean environment in ways that strengthen our economy.

and he feels no responsibility to run for president in 2008 in order to get the power necessary for him to save the world.

I don't see your point. Is it not possible to believe that trying to run for President may not be the best way to advance the cause of fighting global warming? Seems to me you've got three outright lies, and one complete irrelevancy, here.

We pulled this story off of Technocrat.net

[Bruce Perens]

I decided to pull this story from Technocrat.net, because of the author attribution. He works for a paid political PR firm. Then, Slashdot ran it :-)

I've my own doubts about global warming, but it does seem that the "con" side are often folks who are paid to have those opinions.

Bruce

Re:What do you expect?

[dedazo]

part of the Administration that negotiated and signed on to the Kyoto Protocol?

The Clinton administration did not ratify the Kyoto protocol. It never intended to. Gore signed it "symbolically", whatever the heck that means, but they never actually submitted the protocol to the Senate. More here. Gore might have been a big fan of Kyoto, but his administration never was.

Seems to me you've got three outright lies, and one complete irrelevancy

Seems to me you've got one piece of non-truth there.

Re:Gore already covered this on SNL

[reverendG]

Here's a link to the clip http://www.pistolwimp.com/media/45688/

Drudge Report Propaganda

[cryptochrome]

This article was pulled straight from the headlines of the Drudge Report, which should have tipped you off. He's notorious for linking to only right-wing-skewed news services, and here he's tapping an obscure Canadian newspaper. Gee, I wonder which way its politics lean? You should have done your homework...

There is only one other article by Tom Harris at CFP, but I found another at National Post, both attacking climate change. Canada Free Press and National Post are both conservative newspapers, particularly the latter. According to the byline, Tom Harris is mechanical engineer and Ottawa Director of High Park Group. And what is the High Park Group, seeing as how their web page say absolutely nothing of substance? Why it's an industry shill.

Mr. Egan is president of the High Park Group, a public policy consulting firm that focuses largely on energy issues out of its offices in Toronto and Ottawa. He is retained by the Canadian Electricity Association on a range of issues, including U.S. advocacy (monitoring the U.S. Congress and Administration on issues of interest to the Canadian electricity industry).

Dig a little deeper and you'll find this from way back in 2002. It has quite a bit more to say.

If you know more say so.

Of course, articles about "scientists" refuting global warming are a dime a dozen, and go against the plain fact that the vast majority of climate scientists are firmly convinced of its existence.

And for the record when I looked at the article before it was running an ad pushing Condaleeza Rice for president... in a Canadian newspaper no less.

Article appears to be rubbish

[showka]

The chief scientist mentioned is a guy named Bob Carter, so I thought I'd do a quick Google search to see if, just maybe, the majority of things he said were in dispute.

Of course they were:

http://rondam.blogspot.com/2006/04/global-warming- is-myth-not.html
http://timlambert.org/category/science/bobcarter/
http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2005/04/ 18/duffy-and-carter-on-counterpoint/

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.p hp?id=1134
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php? id=112

Furthermore, even though the FCP article tries to paint Carter as an independent, ExxonSecrets.org links him to "Tech Central Science Foundation or Tech Central Station". Here's what the site lists as their details:

1133 21st St NW Suite M100 c/o Ralph R Brown Washington, DC 20036 Phone: 202-546-4242 Tech Central Science Foundation was formed in late November 2002 (Form 990). The Foundation appears to be a funding arm of the free-market news site, TechCentralStation.com.

ExxonMobil gave the Foundation $95,000 in 2003 for "Climate Change Support." According to Guidestar.org, a nonprofit research tool, the Foundation had 2003 income of $150,000 and $110,903 in assets. The Foundation commissioned a study by Charles River Associates alleging that the costs of the McCain-Lieberman bill of 2003 would be a minimum of $350 annually per household through 2010, rising to $530 per household by 2020, and could rise to as high as $1,300 per year per household. Related information: Tech Central Station was launched in 1999 as "a cross between a journal of Internet opinion and a cyber think tank open to the public" (TCS news release). According to Washington Monthly, TCS is published by the DCI Group, 'a prominent Washington public affairs firm specializing in P.R., lobbying, and so-called 'Astroturf' organizing, generally on behalf of corporations, GOP politicians, and the occasional Third-World despot." TCS shares office space, staff and ownership with DCI Group. ('Meet the Press' Washington Monthly, December 2003. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/031 2.confessore.html) Corporate funders of Tech Central Station include AT&T, Avue Technologies, The Coca-Cola Company, General Motors Corporation, Intel, McDonalds, Merck, Microsoft, Nasdaq, PhRMA, and Qualcomm (Tech Central Station website).

The entire Canadian Free Press article loses credibility because of this line:

No; Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change.

A non-industry expert who works for a place that's paid for by Exxon.

I can't believe this article got posted on the main page. I guess since Al Gore's in a movie, posting some already-been-written article quoting a few paid shills who say he's lying had to be done to keep things politically balanced. I personally think news links should only be posted if they actually represent reality.

Watch your sources Slashdot !!

[Qwavel]

We all know that you can find any opinion on any topic on the internet and that you have to be more careful then ever about your sources. So, if slashdot is going to refer to articles on controversial issues, shouldn't it stick to sources that have some authority or respect?

I wouldn't be surprised if Gore did go to far - few things are as certain as they are presented to us by either side. However, the article goes way too far and ignores the fact that the general concensus of the scientific community is in line with what Gore is saying.

So, it makes me wonder what this strange website is? It is run out of my city (Toronto) and yet I've never heard of it. I don't see a bio of the author on the website, but I note that the two main authors involved in this website are from the Toronto Sun and Fox News. I don't need to say anthing about FOX, but you might not have heard of the Toronto Sun. It is a right wing tabloid, featuring girly pictures on page 2. You probably have one in your city, so you know what I mean.

Re:Getting published isn't that difficult

[el_cepi]

Have you take a look of the researchers interviewed academic career? Here is the list of them. In my opinion none of them are very impressive, and nore in global warming.

Tim Patterson http://http-server.carleton.ca/~tpatters/publicati ons/2002_04.html

Bob Carter http://www.es.jcu.edu.au/research/msgbs.html

Timothy Ball http://www.envirotruth.org/drball.cfm

Boris Winterhalter http://www.kolumbus.fi/boris.winterhalter/papers.h tm

Wibjörn Karlén http://www.misu.su.se/research/reconstruction_nh.h tml Look the graphic of the papaer

Dick Morgan http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Dick+Morg an+site%3Aexeter.ac.uk&btnG=SearchHe don't even have a page on Exeter

I think they are a sample of the unqualified scientist the article talks about.

Re:But what do these guys know about the Internet?

[Saanvik]

You seem to be implying that all Al Gore did was go to Congress sometime in the 90's and say, "Hey guys, this Internet thing is really cool!". As other posters have pointed out, some of the core innovators in what we now call the Internet credit Gore for his work at making the Internet what it is. I trust them more than I trust you.

Let's get specific, though. According to Did Al Gore Invent the Internet?

The inventor of the Mosaic Browser, Marc Andreesen, credits Gore with making his work possible. He received a federal grant through Gore's High Performance Computing Act.

That bill passed in 1988, several years before you started using the net (not that your personal experience matters at all on this issue).

Some nice things that that bill did, besides sponsor Andreesen? It set up a national computing plan, it linked research centers and universities across the country, and it funded a lot of other important research.

Did Al Gore invent the internet? No. He did sponsor the bills that provided funding and vision for some key components of it, though.

BTW, to say you were there to see the Internet created, and then say you've been on the Internet since 1990 is idiotic. The net's been around a lot longer than that. The ARPANET, which is what evolved into the Internet, has been around since 1969. Email came along in 1972. TCP/IP a year later, and things just grew from there. Let me quote from A Brief History of the Internet

Thus, by 1985, Internet was already well established as a technology supporting a broad community of researchers and developers, and was beginning to be used by other communities for daily computer communications.

What is probably true is that your first exposure to the Internet came because of a project that was made possible by the bills that Al Gore sponsored. So, think of it from your own point of view - you got to use the Internet in 1990 because of Al Gore.

Melting ice and water level

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

That's only true if all the ice was in the water (to displace it). What about if it's above the water? That ice will contribute to sea levels.

Actually, no. Assuming that the ice is made of water that (when melted) has the same density as the original water, then the water level will remain unchanged when the ice melts. Awhile back I wrote a brief handout for my AP Physics course that goes through a proof of this. (There are others, probably clearer.) Of course, there are simplifications. For example, I assume the water densities are the same (but glacial ice is freshwater and so melts to a lower density) and that the melting of the ice doesn't impact the temperature of the water enough to influence its density.

More important that all of that, of course, is the fact that while the arctic ice pack sits on water, the antarctic one sits largely on land ... and that Greenland also supports a significant ice pack. Since these are supported by the land (not buoyant force), when they melt, they would significantly raise the waterlevel globally.

Outing Greenhouse Deniers is Easy

[Doc Ruby]

Of the hundreds of comments attached to this story, yours is by far the most insightful and informative. I disagree with your polite "none very impressive", and think you're wrong about "none in global warming" and "unqualified scientist". That panel is composed of professional Greenhouse deniers. They are "impressive" and "qualified" to testify before a Canadian fake "Conservative" government that's hired by polluters to protect Canada's giant fossil fuel exports to the US (our #1 supplier). And probably dreams of a "warm Canada" their vast real estate holdings can finally cash in on as people "migrate" from uninhabitable regions to the south, while finally getting a year-round passage between East and West hemispheres across the Arctic.

Just look at their actual resumes, of course not quoted by "Canada's Fastest Growing Independent News Source", probably also funded by the Canadian Greenhouse industry and their global Murdoch partners.

Tim Patterson is a geologist, not a climate scientist - exactly the kind of scientist the BS article excludes to fake its conclusion that most Greenhouse scientists aren't qualified.
Boris Winterhalter is also a geologist, not a climatologist.
Geologists mostly work for the oil business, which is where most of the money for the entire science comes from, their peers who review, their "next gig pool".

Bob Carter doesn't even rate a page at his tiny Australian department where he's just an "Adjunct" professor.
Timothy Ball's "EnviroTruth" org is a division of the National Center for Public Policy Research, an front for Exxon Greenhouse denial propaganda and other Vast RightWing Conspiracy players.
Wibjörn Karlén's research supports Gore, but he signs the BS letter anyway.
Dick Morgan doesn't have an Exeter page, nor does he have ">any recorded association with the World Meteorological Association, so he has no credentials whatsoever, apart from lying.

These people are professional Greenhouse deniers. That Canadian panel and its Canadian tabloid (an obvious rightwing rag, just looking at its front page) are cheap fronts for the polluters responsible for the Greenhouse. They're not even trying to hide it more than a couple of googles and clicks deep, they hate us so much. And judging from the hundreds of posts in this story falling for it, we are that stupid.