Spontaneous Arising
Beware studies from Oil cartels and their paid-off scientists.
If you're suggesting that global warming is something manufactured by globalists and has no basis in reality you're definitely in need of studying the matter more deeply.
Of course the actual label "Global Warming" is quite simplistic and doesn't nearly capture the essence and scope of what is occurring but that does not make it any less real.
Add to the confusion that the hero of the Global Warming "movement" is DLC founder and venture capitalist Al Gore and yes it's quite a mess.
But please Michael if you're going to go off into the camp of the global warming denialists expect quite a few visits from yours truly to keep you honest (which is code for smack down unmercifully such ridiculous assertions).
And BTW please re-read the article you posted and research how that article arose. What garbage.
Hell yeah up next let's make the argument that nuclear weapons are natural as it all comes from the land eh?
Interesting that the argument is that this ginned-up bit of pseudo-science from S Fred Singer is alleged to be "shattering" lots of solid, supported science.
I guess if you don't know anything about science you might think S Fred Singer actually practices science.
But if you know science, you will learn quickly about S Fred Singer and his bogus "economic impact" studies that pretend at science and instead offer IDEOLOGY masquerading POORLY as science.
I suggest taking a read on this particular essay that I wrote regarding your "shattering" propaganda offered by S Fred Singer --
http://cbfz.blogspot.com/2007/12...entists-
on.html
Caution: I use foul language, so if you're a fake-Christian hyper-moralist you may have some difficulty with my writing.
Chlamor: Please note that neither I nor the author of the article is denying Global Warming. The question is, how much of so-called "Global Warming" is man-made (i.e., due to CO2 and other gasses spewed by machines)? It's a big question, because if we're going to rally the people to undergo drastic lifestyle changes (see the link to the Australian proposal to tax parents with more than one baby), we need to know that our efforts will put a dent in the problem.
I'm sorry if you're disappointed in me, but I have to acknowledge that I have a bit of a conspiratorial nature and I don't trust anything anyone tells me -- especially when they yell really loud.
The Wendigo: Obviously, you searched "Fred Singer" and are visiting any blog that has posted on this story. I do appreciate information that you may put forward, but I won't put up with condescending attitudes toward me or anyone else around here. I get about ten hits a day from readers who aren't harvesting jpg images, so trust me, I'm not worth the effort to talk down your nose at.
That said, I will link to your post as an update to mine.
I'm with Micheal on this one. When everybody and their brother think they have got the weather figured out odds are they are wrong. When was the last time you even saw a seven week forecast that was accurate, yet alone a century down the road? My point is the natural variance in weather usually is capable of exceeding expected patterns.
There is a growing group of scientists that are on the fence about the causes of global warming. Here are a few links I've come across.
http://
www.grassrootinstitute.or...icsTrumps.shtml
http://www.nationalpost.com/stor...06fef8763c6&
k=0
Anyways one way or the other I actually think it is a non issue. If we got global warming and it is caused by CO2 we have to reduce emissions to pre 1930 levels immediately to stop it. This is impossible with our current industrial society for a few reasons. Most obvious is that our whole transportation infrastructure would have to change overnight. The only thing capable of supporting the energy required to do so would be 1000's of nuclear power plants to feed a new electric transportation system. Since this isn't possible we will keep on running fossil fuels, but we seem to be on the downside of fossil fuel production i.e. "peak oil" so we can expect the whole problem to begin mitigating itself on its own. Wether AL Gore intends well or not he will not affect global warming, and many will probably try to manipulate global warming to their advantage.
Juts my 2 cents on the subject.
Nick: Thanks for saying it better than I could, and for jumping in when I'm being extremely unpopular.
Well, we know CO2 is a greenhouse gas (that's an experiment you can do yourself with a box, a pane of glass, a thermometer, and those little CO2 cartridges that motorcyclists use to inflate their tires). So we know adding CO2 to the planet is going to make the Earth warmer. And we know that when all the CO2 currently in the oil and coal and gas was up in the atmosphere before being sequestered underground, there were fig trees in Alaska because the planet was significantly warmer. All of these things are scientifically provable and have been proven. We have estimates on exactly how many tons of CO2 have been put into the atmosphere by human activity and it is a truly significant amount that will have significant greenhouse effects.
So we know that the Earth is going to be made warmer by human activity. It's simple science, verifiable by anybody with a modicum of scientific knowledge. The only question is how much of a rise in global temperature will happen as a result in human activity, and what the impacts of that will be. Will it be fig trees in Alaska kind of impact, or sea level a few inches higher kind of impact? I will rely on climate scientists using the mechanisms of science (peer-reviewed papers, experimentation, replication, measurement) to tell me this, not some lavishly-funded PR effort led by marketing people who recruit "scientists" who actually do no climate science to play climate scientist for the cameras. And right now, the climate scientists actually doing work in the area (as vs. folks who aren't) pretty much agree that while they're not sure just how hot things are going to get because they still don't have all the values they need to make perfect models, what we seem to be looking at is *not* the two inches of sea level amount of warming. Probably not the fig trees in Alaska amount of warming either, but if you read the actual papers and know how scientists work, they're really, REALLY concerned. As in, major rises in sea level and major climate changes concerned. And that's pretty much every scientist doing peer-reviewed work in the area (as vs. scientists *not* doing work in the area).
CO2 in, heat up. That's the equation. Nothing we say or do will change that equation. Reality simply *is*. It's not a popularity contest where people who are not climate scientists make pompous statements based upon their own inherent biases. Reality simply *is*. 1+1=2, no matter how much you want to say it's 3 or 4 because that confirms your view of the world. And while you may say science and the scientific process is bull****, we do have 500+ years of experience with science demonstrating that it works better than shamanism at generating models of how the universe works and advances in human well-being as a result. All I have to do is go to the old family cemetery and look at the dozens of dead babies surrounding the older grave plots to know that much (90% infant mortality was the norm back then). It wasn't shamanism that eliminated the 90% infant mortality. It was science. I have real evidence that the processes of science work, visible just by walking the old family cemetery. If you find something that works better, let me know. Until then, I'm going to trust the scientific process and scientists here.
-Badtux the Scientific Penguin
Scientists like these, BT? (Link taken from an update to this post.)
My sense is that the scientific "consensus" around climate change is less than total, and that many scientists who question the established wisdom are not bought and paid for by Big Oil.
Hi Micheal, Thanks for firing up your blog again. I enjoy reading it when I get a chance.
Badtux,
No doubt a little CO2 in a greenhouse will make temperatures rise. Its just that the earth is a vastly more complicated system than this. I also know we have put trillions of tons of CO2 in the atmosphere. We are conducting a giant atmospheric experiment, but I am saying nobody has the crystal ball on the outcome of this. Science is just getting a handle on complex chaotic systems, but the earths weather is arguably well out of the reach of our understanding.
As I mentioned though if global warming is tied directly to our CO2 emissions we aren't going to do much one way or another. We can't cut CO2 emissions enough to make a difference and maintain the level of economic affluence people demand. So I think it is a political tool. It is easy to rally people around an invisible problem that threatens the world, but what nobody is looking at is just how insanely difficult it would be to put back CO2 emissions to pre 1930 levels, before global warming was occuring.
Don't get me wrong I want us off of fossil fuels for many many reasons, but I am against political manipulation on all fronts, right or left. No political advocate that wants to adress global warming has a plan that will come even close to reducing CO2 emission levels to those pre 1930.
Two comments initially and as we go along I shall tear asunder all of the terribly dysfunctional articles that are being pointed towards as evidence that global warming isn't real. Wish it weren't folks but in fact it's far worse than simply CO2 emissions and feedback loops. Keeling has been warning us about this for decades.
The initial comment is almost embarrassing to point out that being that global warming is not weather.
The second is that "your sense" on the consensus of the scientific community as relates to global warming is 100% inaccurate. Of course we are keeping in mind that getting the entire scientific community to agree completely on anything is next to impossible. With that understanding what you find if you take the time to read the actual reports is that the consensus from the scientific community is overwhelming in it's agreement that global warming is quite real. As relates to any large issue you would be hard-pressed to find any such general consensus at present and historically from the scientific community.
Michael, I looked at that list. There are no people on that list who are currently practicing climate science. The closest are a couple of *retired* climate scientists.
Nick, we're not talking about a teensy bit of CO2. We're talking about megatons of CO2. This is not "a little CO2" by any means. We cannot predict *LOCALIZED* weather based upon this but we can most definitely say that *GLOBALLY* the temperature will rise. This is similar to sub-atomic physics, where quantum mechanics say that we cannot know where any particular electron is at any given point in time (and I suspect that we will find the same is true, eventually, at the sub-atomic equivalent of climate -- i.e., exact local weather at a particular point in time). However, when a bullet is fired from a gun from five feet away directly at the heart of another human being, I assure you that the person is going to be just as dead as if we did know the location of every electron within that bullet.
The point being that the micro level and the macro level are two different levels, and the fact that we cannot accurately predict the micro level at the current time does not mean we cannot accurately predict the macro level (i.e., the overall effect upon global temperature of having all this CO2) if we have sufficient data on things like luminosity, CO2 absorption in water vapor to make carbolic acid, and etc... we can predict that the bullet through the heart will kill that person just fine even if we cannot predict the location of each individual electron within that bullet.
As for reducing CO2 emission levels to those pre 1930, there are indeed people who have plans that will do this. It will require extensive solar and wind powered farms and large nuclear power plants (needed due to the energy density requirement --as you rightly note, nobody wants to go back to a pre-1930's level of energy usage) and transition of all liquid-fueled vehicles to either biofuels (necessary for aircraft due to energy density requirements, carbon-neutral), electric operation, or hydrogen operation, but it most assuredly is technically possible even with today's technologies. For example, every single "diesel" locomotive is actually an electric locomotive hauling diesel generators along with it, all that is necessary to convert these to electrical operation is stringing an overhead catenary. What is lacking is the political will, which is what the whole point of the global warming denial conspiracy funded by BIg Oil is about -- confusing the water enough that they can continue making obscene profits from hydrocarbons until well into the last decades of this century (at which point the question becomes moot because there will be no extractable hydrocarbons left).
- Badtux the Science Penguin
Your first bit of homework is to investigate the list of "Skeptical Organizations" in the link you provide. How many are reactionary right-wing Libertarian groups with an ideological and vested interest in the current economic order? Look into that for starters.
If you are to link to such information you should understand what it is you reference.
If indeed you do you should be prepared to defend it.
As a sidebar the term "progressive" really doesn't mean anything.
Badtux,
I'm believe I miscommunicated, when I said "No doubt a little CO2 in a greenhouse will make temperatures rise." I was referring to a small scale experimental setup to model the earths climate. I have some grasp on the magnitude of tons of CO2 we are emitting. In the US alone we burn ~21 million barells of oil a day plus similar quantities of coal per day which is trillions of tons of CO2 per year in just the US as I mentioned before.
As I said before I'm not denying the evidence for warming, just allowing for a large unexpected variance, which given the incredibly complex and variable history of the earths climate is, I believe, a reasonable thing to do. I do however agree we should take every measure possible to error on the side of caution. Given that we suspect fossil fuels are causing warming and that we are hooked on them and they are running out means we need to change bigtime. Please check out www.theoildrum.com to see what see an interesting dialogue on the subject of peak oil.
I emphasis peak oil because we will allocate and prepare differently for each of these situations. For example if we just place CO2 restrictions we may waste billions of dollars on carbon capture technologies, were instead we should have allocated those resources to electric transportation along with wind, geothermal, solar, and tidal wave energy development. We are in a precarious postion and we should make our moves wisely or we just may end up with energy densities pre 1930, in which case global warming would be the last things on our minds.
For an uninformed person like me on the subject, what would you recommend for a non-scientist to read? If you were to recommend one or two books that would bring understanding on the issues, what would it/they be?
You all have helped focus some on the complexities of the matter. Thank you.
CLIMATE SKEPTIC REFUSES TO DISCLOSE FUNDING
Patrick J. Michaels, one of the global warming skeptics most often interviewed by news media, withdrew as an expert witness in a high-profile Vermont court case rather than disclose his funding sources, court documents show.
Moreover, Michaels told the court in July 2007, some funders gave him money on the condition that their identities remain secret and he is largely dependent for his livelihood on the money they give him.
Michaels' web publication, World Climate Report, and its skeptical predecessors have been heavily funded by coal and electric utility industries with a large financial stake in preventing regulation of greenhouse emissions. In the 1990s, he published World Climate Review without clearly disclosing in the publication itself that it was funded by the Western Fuels Association until after journalist Bud Ward brought this to light in the Environment Writer newsletter.
World Climate Report gives no indication on its Web site of who funds or publishes it. Michaels is listed as its chief editor.
Reached by phone, Michaels said the court documents largely speak for themselves.
MICHAELS' FUNDING INFORMATION KEPT SECRET IN VERMONT CASE
The just-decided case in federal District Court was an attempt by the auto industry to thwart efforts by Vermont and other states to regulate the greenhouse gases emitted by automobiles. Judge William K. Sessions ruled in Burlington September 12, 2007, that Vermont could regulate auto emissions in the case, known as Green Mountain Chrysler v. Crombie. Major car-makers and auto industry associations joined the case, which is likely to have fallout in other states.
The automakers had hired Michaels, listed as a University of Virginia professor, as an expert witness. During the discovery phase of the case , Michaels had produced financial records and given an affidavit about his funding with the understanding that he could keep the information from being publicly disclosed. That information was pre-emptively sealed by an order from Judge Sessions. When lawyers for the automakers told him the funding information might have to be disclosed, Michaels in April 2007 withdrew as a witness in the case.
GREENPEACE SEEKS DISCLOSURE
The key information a list of Michaels' funders and the amounts they paid him remains under court seal. Barely a hint of its existence or Michaels' non-disclosure would have ever come to light had not the environmental group Greenpeace moved on June 8, 2007, to intervene in the case for the specific purpose of getting the information disclosed. Judge Sessions eventually threw out Greenpeace's motion, because, with Michaels out of the case, it was no longer relevant to a fair trial.
But Michaels and his lawyers made some surprising admissions in the course of opposing Greenpeace's attempts to win disclosure.
Michaels in documents said he was dependent for his livelihood on the income he got through his wholly owned firm, New Hope Environmental Services, Inc. On its Web site, New Hope describes itself as "an advocacy science consulting firm that produces cutting edge research & informed commentary on the nature of climate." The Web site also describes New Hope as the publisher of World Climate Report.
NEW HOPE
ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES, INC.
"Many of New Hope's clients provide funding to New Hope with the understanding that the funding will be confidential," Michaels and his lawyers said in one document.
"Public exposure of the funding will therefore result in the loss of some or all of New Hope's clients," Michaels' lawyers told the Vermont court, "leading either to destruction of the business or a significant curtailment of its operations. Since Dr. Michaels and other research scientists obtain a significant portion of their income from New Hope, the damage to New Hope will seriously diminish their livelihoods."
AFTERSHOCKS OF INTERMOUNTAIN RURAL ELECTRIC REVELATION
Michaels' court filings also brought to light the final chapter of a story begun in July 2006, when ABC News' Clayton Sandell and Bill Blakemore and the AP's Seth Borenstein revealed that the Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA), a coal-burning co-op utility in Colorado, had given $100,000 to Michaels' New Hope firm in February 2006.
The story was based on a July 17, 2006, letter from Stanley R. Lewandowski Jr., IREA's general manager, to members of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). In that letter, Lewandowski said IREA fundraising had won additional contributions and pledges for funding support for Michaels from other utilities.
In the Vermont case, Michaels cited this incident in arguing against disclosure.
"Public disclosure of a company's funding of New Hope and its employees has already caused considerable financial loss to New Hope," Michaels stated. "For example, in 2006, Tri-State Generation & Transmission Association, Inc., an electric utility, had requested that its support of $50,000 to New Hope be held confidential. After this support was inadvertently made public by another New Hope client, Tri-State informed me that it would no longer support New Hope because of adverse publicity."
Tri-State is another Colorado rural electric co-op. IREA disclosed in 2006 that it had won a $50,000 pledge from some co-op to support Michaels' work, although it is not clear whether IREA actually disclosed Tri-State's identity as donor.
"Also in 2006," Michaels told the Vermont court, "when a $100,000 contract between New Hope and electric utility Intermountain Rural Electric Association to synthesize and research new findings on global warming became public knowledge, a public campaign was initiated to change the composition of the Intermountain board of directors so that there would be no additional funding. That campaign was successful, as Intermountain has not provided further funding."
MICHAELS DISCUSSES WHETHER FUNDING COLORS RESEARCH
On CNN's Capital Gang in 2002, Michaels had said: "Well, you know, most of my funding, the vast majority, comes from taxpayer-supported entities. I would make the argument that if funding colors research, I should be certainly biased more towards the taxpayers, of which I am one, than towards industry. But the fact of the matter is, numbers are objective."
If Michaels was in fact mostly taxpayer-funded in 2002, that seems no longer to be true today. He told the Vermont court in July: "Beyond modest speaking fees, New Hope is my sole source of income beyond a negotiated retirement package from the University of Virginia."
Michaels became a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia in 1980, and has been tenured there since 1986. He explained to the WatchDog that his court filing was referring to retirement only in the future tense. Michaels is still on the U.Va. faculty, although he is currently on leave, paid half-time by U.Va., and working as an unpaid senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
In recent years, state general fund appropriations have amounted to barely more than 8 percent of the operating budget of U.Va. Michaels has also received research grants from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Michaels has argued in at least two books, The Satanic Gases and Meltdown, that federal funding has corrupted climate research.
http://www.sej.org/foia/index7.htm
FACTSHEET: Patrick J. Michaels
DETAILS
Research Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia
Senior Fellow, Cato Institute. Visiting Scientist, Marshall Institute. State Climatologist, Virginia. Advisor, American Legislative Exchange Council.
Dr. Patrick Michaels is possibly the most prolific and widely-quoted climate change skeptic scientist. He has admitted receiving funding from various fossil fuel industry sources. His latest book, published in September 2004 by the Cato Institute, is titled: Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media.
Michaels is the Chief Editor for the "World Climate Review," a newsletter on global warming funded by the Western Fuels Association.
Coal is where your power begins.
Western Fuels Association, Inc.
Western Fuels is a not-for profit cooperative that supplies coal and transportation services to consumer-owned electric utilities throughout the Great Plains, Rocky Mountain and Southwest regions. Serving a wide variety of public power entities ranging from rural electric generation and transmission cooperatives to municipal utilities, WFA offers its Members diverse and extensive expertise in coal mining, coal procurement and transportation management.
http://www.westernfuels.org/index.cfm
Dr. Michaels has acknowledged that 20% of his funding comes from fossil fuel sources: (http://www.mtn.org/~nescncl/complaints/
determinati... Known funding includes $49,000 from German Coal Mining Association, $15,000 from Edison Electric Institute and $40,000 from Cyprus Minerals Company, an early supporter of People for the West, a "wise use" group. He received $63,000 for research on global climate change from Western Fuels Association, above and beyond the undisclosed amount he is paid for the World Climate Report/Review. According to Harper's magazine, Michaels has received over $115,000 over the past four years from coal and oil interests. Michaels wrote "Sound and Fury" and "The Satanic Gases" which were published by Cato Institute. Dr. Michaels signed the 1995 Leipzig Declaration. In July of 2006, it was revealed that the Intermountain Rural Electric Association "contributed $100,000 to Dr. Michaels." (http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/
sto... ALEC advisor. http://www.heartland.org/Article...cfm?
artId=11310 and http://www.cato.org/pub_display....php?
pub_id=3558
A.B. and S.M. degrees in biological sciences and plant ecology, University of Chicago Ph.D. in ecological climatology , University of Wisconsin at Madison. Former President of the American Association of State Climatologists, and Program Chair for the Committee on Applied Meterology of the American Meteorological Society.
19 August, 2002
"The Kyoto Treaty would cost a fortune, between 1 and 3 percent of GDP per year. But the amount of warming that it would save would be 0.07 degree Celsius in the next 50 years. That was the argument that killed Kyoto in front of the Bush administration, that it costs a fortune, and it does nothing."
Source: Pat Michaels Is Interviewed for CNN's "Capital Gang" (transcript) 8/19/02
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html...tsheet.php?
id=4
http://www.ipcc.ch/
http://www.heatisonline.org/main.cfm
Global Warming Myths and Facts
More Myths and Facts
See our in-depth scientific report [PDF] on the myths and facts of global warming by Dr. James Wang and Dr. Michael Oppenheimer.
MYTH: The science of global warming is too uncertain to act on.
FACT: There is no debate among scientists about the basic facts of global warming.
The most respected scientific bodies have stated unequivocally that global warming is occurring, and people are causing it by burning fossil fuels (like coal, oil and natural gas) and cutting down forests. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, which in 2005 the White House called "the gold standard of objective scientific assessment," issued a joint statement with 10 other National Academies of Science saying "the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action. It is vital that all nations identify cost-effective steps that they can take now, to contribute to substantial and long-term reduction in net global greenhouse gas emissions." (Joint Statement of Science Academies: Global Response to Climate Change [PDF], 2005)
The only debate in the science community about global warming is about how much and how fast warming will continue as a result of heat-trapping emissions. Scientists have given a clear warning about global warming, and we have more than enough facts about causes and fixes to implement solutions right now.
http://www.environmentaldefense.....cfm?
tagID=1011
Thanks for the links, chlamor. Lots of cud to chew.
For the record, I, too, think that the label "progressive" says and means nothing. I mentioned it above as a friendly dig toward my normal traffic.
Also... once again, I'm not denying global warming/climate change, nor am I seeking to downplay the severity of the situation. I am simply open to the possibility that there is a solar-system-wide warming cycle afoot at the moment, and while man-made pollutants are definitely degrading the environment in which we all live -- I'm with Nick in speculating as to whether or not CO2 levels are the top target for going after the problem. I do admit that I need to do more investigation, and so I appreciate the passion that you bring to my process. As always, you're an inspiration.
Now, I'm calling it a day....
The problem is that we do know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and can compute how much it will increase global temperatures using fundamental laws of physics regarding heat loss/gain, and the results are not promising, though the confidence intervals are large enough due to variables we have only estimates for that the exact magnitude of the results is still to be determined. LIkely not fig trees in Alaska severe, but we already know it won't be inches higher sea level severe either -- it'll be somewhere in between, with unknown effects upon the weather.
Regarding warming trends, as far as I know there are no papers published in peer-reviewed journals showing a solar-system-wide warming cycle . Note that peer-reviewed journals are where science takes place. Anything outside of those journals is just propaganda.
-Badtux the Science Penguin
Thanks to all of you for this dialogue!
Political Science Masquerading As Climate Science
by James Winter
December 12, 2007
For an adjunct professor in a Danish business school, Bjorn Lomborg purports to know a lot about the environment: he's made a career out of denying climate change. That's why he's been sponsored by the Fraser Institute, a right-wing business lobby group, on another Canadian speaking tour. His opinion columns are once again popping up in Canadian daily newspapers.
Now Lomborg is arguing that the polar bears are okay, and that "many creatures and plants in the Arctic will actually do better as temperatures rise." While the latter may be true, many experts from relevant disciplines in the natural sciences say the accompanying rise in sea levels will swallow up coastal cities and whole island nations. Lots of people won't be around to enjoy the flourishing Arctic plants and creatures.
Lomborg relies on cheap semantic tricks to push his ideology. In Ontario's Windsor Star, he wrote December 7th that while the Kyoto Protocol "will cost [Canada] $180 billion dollars," it will "save just 0.06 polar bears each year." He wrote in the Toronto Globe and Mail that fossil fuels provide low cost travel, which means "We can access fruit and vegetables year-round, reducing cancer by at least 25 per cent." Reasonable-sounding facts such as these disguise his bottom line, which advocates doing little or nothing on climate change: "solutions" endorsed by the oil industry.
The scientific debate over global warming has long been settled. Only a few climate sceptics such as Lomborg remain, bankrolled by the oil industry and promoted by the right wing institutes and conservative news media. Lomborg was touted by the Fraser Institute as an "environmental economist" but his training is in political science, specifically in game theory. According to a biography posted in 2006 on his web site, and since taken down, in addition to writing two popular books denying climate change, he has published just one peer-reviewed journal article, on "the prisoner's dilemma," in the American Sociological Review, (1996), and an unpublished article on election voting behaviour. He has zero climate science credentials.
In its January 2002 issue, Scientific American gathered reviews from experts in four different fields, who concluded that Lomborg's work was "a clever polemic," that it was "superficial, muddled, often plain wrong and filled with misreadings and misunderstandings of data," that it was "simply wrong," filled with "factual errors, poor research and poor understanding of basic values."
In December 2001 Grist magazine put out a special issue with a range of experts in various environmental fields publishing their critiques of Lomborg's theories. Among the experts was biologist Edward O. Wilson, a Harvard professor for four decades who has written 20 books, won two Pulitzer prizes, and discovered hundreds of new species. He is considered by some to be one of the world's greatest living scientists. He dismissed Lomborg as "a parasite."
http://www.zmag.org/content/show...57&
ItemID=14487
i was going to add my 2 cents worth, but inflation caught up with me. 
for what it's worth
Thanks, hipparchia, for the link. Yes, I know, we can't specialize in everything, and it takes a lifetime to do an adequate job in one field alone. So we depend a lot on specialists we trust to get a handle on their field of inquiry. Thus, my request for one volume or two that would give me a reliable summary of data and interpretations. I have a sense of confidence in those who have responded to Michael's post.
Thought this was an interesting and timely article on the subject
"Over 100 Prominent Scientists Warn UN: Attempting To Control Climate Is Futile"
http://www.canadafreepress.com/i...php/article/
963
And the funny thing is, not one of those 100 prominent scientists was a climate scientist with published peer-reviewed research in the area of climate change. It's like me (a computer scientist) trying to tell medical scientists, "attempting to cure cancer is futile". I can do it, yeah. But medical science ain't my field, and I'd be spoutin' off about something I don't know.
you're welcome, hawk.
of course we can't all go out and get a phd in climatology [or a related field] just to answer this question for ourselves. we can however use some basics smarts and common sense in deciding which experts to listen to.
al gore hasn't got a phd in climatology either, but he has spent a lot of years listening to those scientists who not only got relevant degrees, but have been doing actual research on this very subject.
gore was also rich enough, smart enough, and famous enough to make a movie about it, thus guaranteeing that practically everybody in the whole world would start talking the subject in a hurry.
yeah, those 100 prominent scientists...
i could sign that letter too, and lay out my credentials in chemistry and oceanography and the environment in such a way that it would like i knew what i was talking about. i'd be lying, because none of my research had anything at all to do with climate change. i do, however, know enough to spot someone who can't solve a simple equation in chemistry.
hipparchia: what an awesome post you've provided -- thank you.
It's overwhelming, the amount of information that goes into an informed position on climate change. I truly appreciate the education I'm receiving through everyone's comments here -- and am a little daunted by the homework involved. I'm coming to understand, however, that without that homework under my belt, I'd just be picking between which sources I want to believe -- and that gets me nowhere.
Thanks for stopping by.
i adore this stuff but even i'm daunted by the homework. it's an important issue, and i'm glad to see how many people are willing to wade through it and try to make informed decisions.
nice blog you've got. i don't remember what link i followed to get here, but now that i know it exists, i'll drop in again every now and then.
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