Zach LarkinsKYOTO II
Lorne Gunter is a respected writer and outspoken critic on Kyoto and global warming. An article of his came to me today and I thought it merited some discussion.
Apparently, on Friday, the United Nations' global warming spin factory will switch into high gear with the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) latest report. This report, some several hundred pages long is filled with dry scientific papers that are usually far less definitive about the causes and effects of climate change. The spin the UN wants to put on global warming is contained in the Summary for Policy Makers. But this summary was not written by scientists, rather by politicians and activists. And this can be very dangerous.
It will almost certainly insist that since the last report was issued in 2001, there is a growing consensus showing that there is proof of a man-made disaster coming and the scientific community agrees with this. It will infer the only solution is a massive remaking of industrialized society presided over by international bureaucrats and environmentalists. Scientists who disagree or refuse to swallow this have been dropped by the committees that write and review the IPCC's individual reports. Their doubts, no matter how substantial and well-documented, have been expunged from the final drafts.
You've heard how there is an international scientific consensus that the planet is warming, that the warming will likely be catastrophic and it is being caused by human-produced emissions. This consensus is not reached by getting all scientists to agree, but rather by defaming or ignoring those with opinions and research that cast doubt on the tale the UN wants you to believe. If you saw Al Gore's propaganda film, An Inconvenient Truth, you may be familiar with Naomi Oreskes, the University of California social scientist who claimed to have found 100% agreement among climate scientists.
In Science Magazine, Ms Oreskes claims that she reviewed 928 papers on global warming and not one disagreed or raised objections to the man-made warming theory. Mr. Gunter writes, "Not reported though, because it doesn't reinforce the climate catechism, was a review of Ms. Oreskes' report by British scientist Benny Peiser. He found that Ms. Oreskes had failed to examine nearly 11,000 other climate reports that may or may not have supported her conclusion. And even among the 928 she carefully selected, only 2% "wholly endorsed the view that human activity is driving global warming," while several "actually opposed that conclusion," even though Ms. Oreskes claimed their support, too." If only we could all be that selective in what we want the world to believe and have a world stage to spew those beliefs. It makes your head spin.
Headlines late last year proclaimed that "Greenhouse gases help make 2006 warmest year ever". What wasn't reported was that those records were based on the first 11 months of the year. When December was factored in, 2006 actually turned out to be the coolest year in the past five.
Mr. Gunter goes on to say, "The journal Geophysical Research Letters contains an article by scientists at the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, in Liverpool concluding "the rates of sea level change observed over the past 20 years were not particularly unusual." In fact "the rate of sea level change was found to be larger in the early part of the [20th] century in comparison with the latter part." This hardly fits in with Al Gores view of the problem. But he is a celebrity in his own right and his movie has won an Academy Award Nomination. I guess it doesn't hurt to be famous and have a big mouth, even if you don't know the truth. In the past decade, the Southern Hemisphere has warmed only half as fast as the Northern Hemisphere. Ice cover at the South Pole is expanding, rather than melting. Since 2003, the upper layer of the Atlantic has lost 25% of the extra heat it had built up in the past three decades. People like David Suzuki either don't know this, or don't want you to know it. Worries that the Atlantic currents were slowing due to warming have been shown recently to be unfounded: For thousands of years, Atlantic currents have sped up and slowed down as they are doing now. Al Gore, David Suzuki and Naomi Oreskes conveniently ignore this. It would be too much of ‘an inconvenient truth' for them to handle.
Apparently, on Friday, the United Nations' global warming spin factory will switch into high gear with the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) latest report. This report, some several hundred pages long is filled with dry scientific papers that are usually far less definitive about the causes and effects of climate change. The spin the UN wants to put on global warming is contained in the Summary for Policy Makers. But this summary was not written by scientists, rather by politicians and activists. And this can be very dangerous.
You've heard how there is an international scientific consensus that the planet is warming, that the warming will likely be catastrophic and it is being caused by human-produced emissions. This consensus is not reached by getting all scientists to agree, but rather by defaming or ignoring those with opinions and research that cast doubt on the tale the UN wants you to believe. If you saw Al Gore's propaganda film, An Inconvenient Truth, you may be familiar with Naomi Oreskes, the University of California social scientist who claimed to have found 100% agreement among climate scientists.
Headlines late last year proclaimed that "Greenhouse gases help make 2006 warmest year ever". What wasn't reported was that those records were based on the first 11 months of the year. When December was factored in, 2006 actually turned out to be the coolest year in the past five.
Mr. Gunter goes on to say, "The journal Geophysical Research Letters contains an article by scientists at the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, in Liverpool concluding "the rates of sea level change observed over the past 20 years were not particularly unusual." In fact "the rate of sea level change was found to be larger in the early part of the [20th] century in comparison with the latter part." This hardly fits in with Al Gores view of the problem. But he is a celebrity in his own right and his movie has won an Academy Award Nomination. I guess it doesn't hurt to be famous and have a big mouth, even if you don't know the truth. In the past decade, the Southern Hemisphere has warmed only half as fast as the Northern Hemisphere. Ice cover at the South Pole is expanding, rather than melting. Since 2003, the upper layer of the Atlantic has lost 25% of the extra heat it had built up in the past three decades. People like David Suzuki either don't know this, or don't want you to know it. Worries that the Atlantic currents were slowing due to warming have been shown recently to be unfounded: For thousands of years, Atlantic currents have sped up and slowed down as they are doing now. Al Gore, David Suzuki and Naomi Oreskes conveniently ignore this. It would be too much of ‘an inconvenient truth' for them to handle.
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Lorne Gunter is printed in the Toronto Sun, but I think he's actually out of Calgary. He does have quite a following and is, unsurprisingly, unpopular with the PC set.