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Local scientist calls global warming theory 'hooey'
Samara Kalk Derby — 6/18/2007 8:01 am

Reid Bryson, known as the father of scientific climatology, considers global warming a bunch of hooey.

The UW-Madison professor emeritus, who stands against the scientific consensus on this issue, is referred to as a global warming skeptic. But he is not skeptical that global warming exists, he is just doubtful that humans are the cause of it.

There is no question the earth has been warming. It is coming out of the "Little Ice Age," he said in an interview this week.

"However, there is no credible evidence that it is due to mankind and carbon dioxide. We've been coming out of a Little Ice Age for 300 years. We have not been making very much carbon dioxide for 300 years. It's been warming up for a long time," Bryson said.

The Little Ice Age was driven by volcanic activity. That settled down so it is getting warmer, he said.

Humans are polluting the air and adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, but the effect is tiny, Bryson said.

"It's like there is an elephant charging in and you worry about the fact that there is a fly sitting on its head. It's just a total misplacement of emphasis," he said. "It really isn't science because there's no really good scientific evidence."

Just because almost all of the scientific community believes in man-made global warming proves absolutely nothing, Bryson said. "Consensus doesn't prove anything, in science or anywhere else, except in democracy, maybe."

Bryson, 87, was the founding chairman of the department of meteorology at UW-Madison and of the Institute for Environmental Studies, now known as the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. He retired in 1985, but has gone into the office almost every day since. He does it without pay.

"I have now worked for zero dollars since I retired, long enough that I have paid back the people of Wisconsin every cent they paid me to give me a wonderful, wonderful career. So we are even now. And I feel good about that," said Bryson.

So, if global warming isn't such a burning issue, why are thousands of scientists so concerned about it?

"Why are so many thousands not concerned about it?" Bryson shot back.

"There is a lot of money to be made in this," he added. "If you want to be an eminent scientist you have to have a lot of grad students and a lot of grants. You can't get grants unless you say, 'Oh global warming, yes, yes, carbon dioxide.'"

Speaking out against global warming is like being a heretic, Bryson noted.

And it's not something that he does regularly.

"I can't waste my time on that, I have too many other things to do," he said.

But if somebody asks him for his opinion on global warming, he'll give it. "And I think I know about as much about it as anybody does."

Up against his students' students: Reporters will often call the meteorology building seeking the opinion of a scientist and some beginning graduate student will pick up the phone and say he or she is a meteorologist, Bryson said. "And that goes in the paper as 'scientists say.'"

The word of this young graduate student then trumps the views of someone like Bryson, who has been working in the field for more than 50 years, he said. "It is sort of a smear."

Bryson said he recently wrote something on the subject and two graduate students told him he was wrong, citing research done by one of their professors. That professor, Bryson noted, is probably the student of one of his students.

"Well, that professor happened to be wrong," he said.

"There is very little truth to what is being said and an awful lot of religion. It's almost a religion. Where you have to believe in anthropogenic (or man-made) global warming or else you are nuts."

While Bryson doesn't think that global warming is man-made, he said there is some evidence of an effect from mankind, but not an effect of carbon dioxide.

For example, in Wisconsin in the last 100 years the biggest heating has been around Madison, Milwaukee and in the Southeast, where the cities are. There was a slight change in the Green Bay area, he said. The rest of the state shows no warming at all.

"The growth of cities makes it hotter, but that was true back in the 1930s, too," Bryson said. "Big cities were hotter than the surrounding countryside because you concentrate the traffic and you concentrate the home heating. And you modify the surface, you pave a lot of it."

Bryson didn't see Al Gore's movie about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth."

"Don't make me throw up," he said. "It is not science. It is not true."

Not so fast, say scientists: Galen McKinley, an assistant professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at UW-Madison disagrees with Bryson, whom she notes is a respected researcher and professor with a long history at the university.

"There are innumerable studies that show that the shoe fits for global warming, I guess you could say, and the human causation for it," McKinley said.

"We understand very well the basic process of the greenhouse effect, which is that we know that the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases the heat trapped by the atmosphere. You put one dollar more in the bank and you have one dollar more there tomorrow. It's a very clear feedback," she said.

Carbon dioxide emissions have been increasing over the industrial period, about 200 years, and can be observed very clearly through about 100 monitoring stations worldwide, McKinley said.

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing consistently with the amount that humans are putting into the atmosphere, she said.

"We know humans are putting it there, we understand the basic mechanism and we know that the temperatures are warming. Many, many, many studies illustrate that both at the global scale and at the regional scale."

She cited the work of John Magnuson, a UW-Madison professor emeritus of limnology who is internationally known for his lake studies. Magnuson records the number of days of ice on the lakes in southern Wisconsin, including Mendota and Monona.

His research shows that over the course of the last 150 years, the average has gone from about four months of ice cover to more like 2.5 months, McKinley said.

Bryson would say that it is due to coming out of an Ice Age, McKinley notes, "but the rate of change that we are seeing on the planet is inconsistent with changes in the past that have been due to an Ice Age."

The huge changes in temperature that scientists are seeing are happening much faster than have ever been observed in the past due to the change from an Ice Age phase to a non-Ice Age phase, she said.

"We know that humans are putting CO2 into the atmosphere at an incredibly fast rate, much, much faster than any natural process has done it in the last at least 400,000 years and probably more like millions of years."

The rate of change is consistent with human activity, she said. That is why so many major scientific societies are concerned about global warming, she added.

The release in February of the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) put the likelihood that human beings are the cause of global warming at 90 percent. It noted that temperatures will continue to climb for decades, that heat waves and floods will become more frequent and that the last time the Arctic and the Antarctic were warmer than they are today for an extended period -- before the start of the last Ice Age -- global sea levels were at least thirteen feet higher.

IPCC, founded in 1988, is the joint venture of the United Nations Environment Program and the World Meteorological Organization. Every four or five years, it conducts an exhaustive survey of the available data and issues a multivolume assessment of the state of the climate. IPCC's reports are vetted by thousands of scientists and the organization's 190-plus participating governments.

"My views are very similar to those expressed by IPCC," said Steve Vavrus, an associate scientist at the UW-Madison Center for Climatic Research.

"Reid Bryson maintains his long-standing opinions on anthropogenic climate change, and he's certainly entitled to them," Vavrus said.

"The scientific process is never 100 percent sure and it could be proven wrong," McKinley added.

"But I would say that the chances of that based on all of the best information at this current time are incredibly slim. And even though that possibility is out there, it would be irresponsible of us as a society not to act based on the best scientific information we have at the moment, which is that humans are causing the warming of the planet," she said.

"If you saw smoke in your house, it would be irresponsible not to get your family out, right?"

http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/topstories/197613


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First of all, I was struck by the diametrical 'local - global' in your thread name. It sorta reeks of the sentiment "rural local hero tells city-boy to go fly a kite"
Secondly, change is hard, especially if your 87. If you live your whole life one way then people tell you to not drive your car or to turn off the tv once in a while or that flying may kill the environment for your grandchildren, yeah sure he's gonna protest, and he's gonna respond in a way familiar to him: he's gonna diss the science. But until he puts forth one sound argument, he has to shut up. Put up or shut up. Saying the science is bad and leave it at that, is not gonna get you there, I don't care how old you are. Scientist usually are productive and creative around their forties or before. There were only 5 men who extended that: Einstein, Bohr, Planck, Newton and i think oppenheimer. Or maybe he was 40ish too?
To change your science coz you respect what a dude has done 40 years ago, that is deadly to science.
And scp, there's a lot more money to be made to support the no-warming side, from oil companies and such.
So sing another song than "boohoo they got all the grants", 'cause it's out of tune,

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Originally Posted By: BrianPatrix
Scientist usually are productive and creative around their forties or before.


Just a bit agist of you.

My friend Karl Klager was productive well into his 80s. He was a Chemist brought over from Germany after WWII. His last creation was an environmentally safe rocket fuel the government refuses to use. When he died at the age of 93 he held over 100 patents on rocket fuels. Like him, many scientists are productive well past their 40s.


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Also, it's kinda suspicious that he's going into his office for 22 years after his retirement: It's more like the university is a replacement old folks home for him. This is all well and good and what probably keeps him sane, but if he means to repay the hospitality with being maverick and going against good science ... then shove him out, I say. Let him prove that humans are not the cause of this. Everybody can put up some reasoning, of which the assumptions are totally false.

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Originally Posted By: BrianPatrix
Also, it's kinda suspicious that he's going into his office for 22 years after his retirement:


Again, my friend Karl was contracted with AeroJet until he was 91.


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Interesting, scpg02...
"Dr. Klager was himself a rocket, burning bright and energetic with ideas and innovations well into his 80s...held more than 150 patents in the United States and abroad for his inventions in rocketry...retired from Aerojet in 1973, he continued working for the rocket manufacturer as a consultant for the next 25 years...As recently as 1998 [age 89], his work on propulsion was presented to a joint military-NASA conference".
http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Klager_Karl_155471069.aspx


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When the movie Apollo 13 came out I asked him about his work with that program. He said he had the patents on the 4,5 and 6 stages. I didn't know there was any past the 3rd.

I had a guy on a forum once tell me that Karl was a liar and wasn't who he said he was. Tried to tell me that no chemist worked in both solid and liquid fuels though Karl did. Right and all those plaques on his wall were fake too.


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Right. Well, that's the forum 'conspiracy' brigade for you. Forum fungus.

I'd never heard of Dr. Klager., but there's quite a bit of info on the net.

BrianPatrix has a good point that in most cases, the most productive years for scientists are in line with the most productive years for most non-scientists (isn't it true that the Nobel prizes and similar honours are almost always awarded for work done by the under 50's?). I don't agree, though, that there are no exceptions, and your example is a good one


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I linked stuff but the guy refused to read it. He knew everything since he worked in rockets himself. You know the type. I enjoyed talking politics with Karl.

Surprised you were able to find stuff about him. The only thing on the web I could ever find was a NASA site about rocket fuels. You didn't happen to see a picture did you?


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My mistake. It turns out that the Google links I'm checking are to sites that reference his work, not to the actual work. I'll keep trying. No photo yet.


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Here is the NASA paper I linked to with the other guy. Mentions Karl on page 5 and 7.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/pdf/88635main_H-2330.pdf


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Yes, I had found the same one - which, unfortunately, suggests there probably aren't any others.

Seems that you must have known him quite well. I can imagine that chatting with someone with his abilities and long experience was pretty engrossing.


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He liked to keep a low profile. He had one son who was a dentist in the Army. After Karl passed, his wife Elizabeth moved to Tacoma where he was living. He was Austrian, she was Hungarian. Their house has beautiful oak parquet tiles. Sadly it was torn down after it was sold.

He used to tell a story about his immigration to the US. He was brought over here by the government in Operation Paper Clip. When he was hired by...can't remember the name of the company now...rocket industry down in Southern California. Anyway, he was here illegally basically and he had to go down to the Mexican border, crossover and then re-enter legally so he could work. You would think since the government brought him here they could have fixed that with some paperwork. Go figure.

He was very much against our current immigration policy. He felt that today’s immigrants didn't try to assimilate.


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Originally Posted By: redewenur
Yes, I had found the same one - which, unfortunately, suggests there probably aren't any others.

Seems that you must have known him quite well. I can imagine that chatting with someone with his abilities and long experience was pretty engrossing.


I had a cleaning business and was their housekeeper for many years. My father-in-law, also a Vice President out at Aerojet, was surprised when he found out I knew Karl. Yes, I enjoyed talking to him. He used to listen to Rush and we would talk about current political events etc.


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I'm sure he was right to be opposed to the immigration policy. It may be true that immigrants don't try hard enough to assimilate, but there may be physiological and psycho-social reasons for it that are beyond their control, such as the 'crystallisation' that makes us less malleable with age. Even with the best of intentions assimilation can be difficult.


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scpg, your evidence is anecdotal. You knew ONE man that was productive at a late age, this doesn't prove that more can, especially not some one from a small college who remained there all his life. This suggest there was not anything remarkable about his scientific performance. There's a reason there are only a few people who can run the 100 metres under 10 seconds, the same reason that Klager exists: they are exceptional. Again, put your money where his mouth is: provide numbers that the production of CO2 by man is far less than whatever produced by natural means. If ya can't measure it, it's not science. What you are doing is fallacious reasoning: you claim to have been close to the guy 'cause you used to clean his house and that's supposed to give your arguments more weight? Get real. Welcome to the world of peer-reviewed message boards.
On any other subject, I wouldn't have cared but I'll be damned to do it on this one. Just because you're to unwilling to change or because you wanna drive your SUV around, I'm not gonna let my grandchildren suffer.

On immigration: In a colour sensitive society like the USA it's of course far easier to integrate as a white AUSTRIAN AND HUNGARIAN than it is as a Mexican.

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Originally Posted By: BrianPatrix
Welcome to the world of peer-reviewed message boards.
On any other subject, I wouldn't have cared but I'll be damned to do it on this one. Just because you're to unwilling to change or because you wanna drive your SUV around, I'm not gonna let my grandchildren suffer.


LOL! After chastising me about "fallacious reasoning" you make a statement like that? Aren't you making assumptions based on NO evidence? You don't know me from Adam but you are quick to make the argument personal rather than refute what I have said with published facts. That's what is required on a political board. Sorry your peer reviewed board doesn't use the same standards.

You made a claim you couldn't back up and somehow that makes me wrong. Go figure.


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Oops. Yet another climate change thread hits the emotional barrier...we've been there, done that, umpteen times...time to recede into the blue yonder...


"Time is what prevents everything from happening at once" - John Wheeler
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Originally Posted By: redewenur
Oops. Yet another climate change thread hits the emotional barrier...we've been there, done that, umpteen times...time to recede into the blue yonder...


Well it wasn't as bad as the last time I was here.


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Originally Posted By: scpg02
You don't know me from Adam but you are quick to make the argument personal

Is it a sign of global overheating?


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It’s a sign of religious fanaticism.


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"That doesn't surprise me one bit." (To echo a reply I had to recent post re: evolution)


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What are you implying in that?

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I'm sorry, you post a thread about how global warming is nonsense and then you give me a hoo-haw about you DON'T wanna drive your SUV around? Dude, get real. All right then my literal friend, so maybe you don't HAVE an SUV, that's not the point.
Don't blame me if you don't have the capacity of abstract thought to see that "driving your SUV around" is a metaphor for irresponsibly handling the environment. Or maybe not even a metaphor in your case ... ? So tell us then, DO you have an SUV?
How old are you anyways

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With all due respect to the old curmudgeon, we all know how impossible it is to get an old guy to admit he could be wrong. He's 87 and still goes to the office without compensation. If he wasn't an eccentric Academic, people would be asking when did he lose his marbles?

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Originally Posted By: BrianPatrix
So tell us then, DO you have an SUV?
How old are you anyways




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Originally Posted By: BrianPatrix
scpg, your evidence is anecdotal. You knew ONE man that was productive at a late age, this doesn't prove that more can, especially not some one from a small college who remained there all his life. This suggest there was not anything remarkable about his scientific performance. There's a reason there are only a few people who can run the 100 metres under 10 seconds, the same reason that Klager exists: they are exceptional. Again, put your money where his mouth is: provide numbers that the production of CO2 by man is far less than whatever produced by natural means. If ya can't measure it, it's not science. What you are doing is fallacious reasoning: you claim to have been close to the guy 'cause you used to clean his house and that's supposed to give your arguments more weight? Get real. Welcome to the world of peer-reviewed message boards.
On any other subject, I wouldn't have cared but I'll be damned to do it on this one. Just because you're to unwilling to change or because you wanna drive your SUV around, I'm not gonna let my grandchildren suffer.

On immigration: In a colour sensitive society like the USA it's of course far easier to integrate as a white AUSTRIAN AND HUNGARIAN than it is as a Mexican.


I'll thank you to refrain from ad hominem attacks and racial slurs in future. Consider yourself warned. Next time I edit your post.

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Originally Posted By: BrianPatrix
First of all, I was struck by the diametrical 'local - global' in your thread name. It sorta reeks of the sentiment "rural local hero tells city-boy to go fly a kite"
Secondly, change is hard, especially if your 87. If you live your whole life one way then people tell you to not drive your car or to turn off the tv once in a while or that flying may kill the environment for your grandchildren, yeah sure he's gonna protest, and he's gonna respond in a way familiar to him: he's gonna diss the science. But until he puts forth one sound argument, he has to shut up. Put up or shut up. Saying the science is bad and leave it at that, is not gonna get you there, I don't care how old you are. Scientist usually are productive and creative around their forties or before. There were only 5 men who extended that: Einstein, Bohr, Planck, Newton and i think oppenheimer. Or maybe he was 40ish too?
To change your science coz you respect what a dude has done 40 years ago, that is deadly to science.
And scp, there's a lot more money to be made to support the no-warming side, from oil companies and such.
So sing another song than "boohoo they got all the grants", 'cause it's out of tune,


I am really dismayed by your holier than thou reply saying that without any scientific evidence the guys opinion doesnt count, but then you go on to say due to his age, and his living habits we shouldnt count his opinion. The man has probably forgotten more than youll ever know whether he is right or wrong on this topic.

What amazes me is the clear black or white stance taken by most. The whole concept of rational debate and objectively questioning your own opinions goes out the window. Our knowledge of what truely effects the climate is very much in question; it is ridicoulously complex but yet so many people think that anyone that disagrees is either senile, or somehow paid by corporation.

The obsessions with CO2 really is annoying. Apart from CO2, a natural gas, burning fuel emits far more toxic and harmful gases that somehow escape mass media exposure. Worse still, CO2 is potrayed as the nasty toxic pollutant which it most definitely is not! Another more pressing issue is that fact that CFCs are still very much in mass production. Ripping a hole in our ozone.

People need to accept that there is a lot of contradicting "science" out there, with opinions from all angles. And some good science on both sides. But one side says its def this, the other says its not so sure. Its the side that claims absolute certainty that worries me. Since when was science an area based on an emotional connection to an idea, and NOT rational debate based on new information as it appears. We do have a climate issue that needs looked at, but this whole CO2 guilt trip is driving people away (excuse the pun).

I AM NEITHER A SCEPTIC OR A SUPPORTER, I THINK THERE ARE BIGGER ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES TO SOLVE THAN PUTTING A NATURAL GAS BACK INTO THE ATMOSPHERE!!

RANT OVER.

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Sixfingers wrote:

"burning fuel emits far more toxic and harmful gases that somehow escape mass media exposure".

I totally agree. The issue of CO2 takes the focus off where it should be. Perhaps that's the objective?

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Last year I did a report for a class about greenhouse gasses. I actually learned a lot, from sites and books from different angles about the global warming debate.
What I found was that global warming actually helps us, and we need it. Now of course, too much would harm us, but the general public does not know that without global warming, the average surfaces temperatures would be considerably cooler, enough to inhibit life. (I forgot the exact numbers now). I feel that the media is biased in its approach, censoring the entirety of the debate and our situation. Overall, I agree with what sixfingers was saying of this matter, though.

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Quote:
he general public does not know that without global warming, the average surfaces temperatures would be considerably cooler, enough to inhibit life.


Hence my tag line. It's not global warming, it's ice age abatement.


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Originally Posted By: Amaranth Rose II
Originally Posted By: BrianPatrix

On immigration: In a colour sensitive society like the USA it's of course far easier to integrate as a white AUSTRIAN AND HUNGARIAN than it is as a Mexican.


I'll thank you to refrain from ad hominem attacks and racial slurs in future. Consider yourself warned. Next time I edit your post.

Amaranth
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I'm sorry, just to be clear: statements which come down to 'white people have, in general, an easier life than black or latin people in the usa, you consider to be racial slurs?

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Originally Posted By: sixfingers
1. I am really dismayed by your holier than thou reply saying that without any scientific evidence the guys opinion doesnt count, but then you go on to say due to his age, and his living habits we shouldnt count his opinion.
2. What amazes me is the clear black or white stance taken by most. The whole concept of rational debate and objectively questioning your own opinions goes out the window.
3. Our knowledge of what truely effects the climate is very much in question; it is ridicoulously complex but yet so many people think that anyone that disagrees is somehow paid by corporation.
4. Another more pressing issue is that fact that CFCs are still very much in mass production. Ripping a hole in our ozone.
5. People need to accept that there is a lot of contradicting "science" out there, with opinions from all angles.
6. this whole CO2 guilt trip
7. I THINK THERE ARE BIGGER ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES TO SOLVE THAN PUTTING A NATURAL GAS BACK INTO THE ATMOSPHERE!!



1. Of course his opinion doesn't count (neither does mine), his measurements should count. His age and habits make it (not a fact) but highly likely that he doesn't wanna change, whats wrong with that assertion?
2. It might get emotional on a political level, but don't confuse that with the scientific level. The scientific case for man-made climate change is rigourous, whereas the opposite side is based on exceptions, who in general make the rule.
3. Ecology is very complex, but disrupting the ecology is not. Too much of anything is bad. 5 gallons of water a day will kill you, and what's more natural than water? Just because something is natural, doesn't mean that too much of it won't kill us. Too much of CO2 WILL kill us.
And yes, some neo-con pro-pollutionists think-tanks ARE funded by Big Oil.
4. CFG's are not such a big problem ANYMORE. The West has massively switched to cleaner fridges and such.
5. There's not a whole lot of contradicting science out there. There's 90 percent of the scientific community who agrees and there's 10 percent that contradicts, because of various reasons.
And sure, there are bound to be mistakes made on minor levels, but not in the big picture, not to the extent that they will say: Oh my god, we got it wrong, all this pollution is really good for the environment!' wink
6. With words like "guilt trip" YOU emotionalize the debate, something that you say you are against. .
7. ONCE AGAIN, THE MANMADE CLIMATE CHANGE SIDE HAS RIGOROUS SCIENCE TO PROVE THEIR POINT! Sorry to shout, but this whole "on the one hand..., but on the other hand" approach is superficial indecision at best, and dangerous stalling tactics at worst.

There's a reason CO2 is so much talked about ... because it's the biggest problem now.

Hey, you know what? Forget all I said. Just show me the peer-reviewed scientific articles, that state that Global warming is crap. And please watch out for the more "Sunday-Supplement"-like pop-science mags. There are lot of cleverly disguised articles out there , which when you take a closer look, don't actually prove or say anything but opinion.

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The reason that Big Oil (or Big Business) is funding and or supporting scientists who deny man-made global warming, is very logical, very understandable from their viewpoint.
They think that they have to protect their profits, any switching to an alternative energy source, or diminishing in oil-use is gonna hurt that. So, they wanna hold out until they have and control that alternative energy source. In the mean time, that countries are flooded, or that old people die more quickly of respiratory problems is of no concern to them, they and theirs can very well protect themselves from that, so why should they care?
So, it's logical if one is in their shoes, but it's also extremely egotistical.

Of course, not all these scientists are 'paid off' or are senile or stupid. Some are ideologically opposed to 'treehuggers', some think they are ordained by god to oppose 'liberals', some associate the environmental movement with Clinton and they think that sleeping with an intern or lying about SEX, is the most diabolical of crimes a president could've ever done, so they oppose that ...

And then again, perhaps some ARE 'paid off' or senile or stupid .... who knows? Prolly not a lot, I'll give you that.

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Originally Posted By: BrianPatrix
Hey, you know what? Forget all I said. Just show me the peer-reviewed scientific articles, that state that Global warming is crap.


Dont ask me ask these guys...

Geophysicist Dr. Claude Allegre, a top geophysicist and French Socialist who has authored more than 100 scientific articles and written 11 books and received numerous scientific awards including the Goldschmidt Medal from the Geochemical Society of the United States, converted from climate alarmist to skeptic in 2006. Allegre, who was one of the first scientists to sound global warming fears 20 years ago, now says the cause of climate change is "unknown" and accused the “prophets of doom of global warming” of being motivated by money, noting that "the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!" “Glaciers’ chronicles or historical archives point to the fact that climate is a capricious phenomena. This fact is confirmed by mathematical meteorological theories. So, let us be cautious,” Allegre explained in a September 21, 2006 article in the French newspaper L'EXPRESS. The National Post in Canada also profiled Allegre on March 2, 2007, noting “Allegre has the highest environmental credentials. The author of early environmental books, he fought successful battles to protect the ozone layer from CFCs and public health from lead pollution.” Allegre now calls fears of a climate disaster "simplistic and obscuring the true dangers” mocks "the greenhouse-gas fanatics whose proclamations consist in denouncing man's role on the climate without doing anything about it except organizing conferences and preparing protocols that become dead letters." Allegre, a member of both the French and U.S. Academy of Sciences, had previously expressed concern about manmade global warming. "By burning fossil fuels, man enhanced the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which has raised the global mean temperature by half a degree in the last century," Allegre wrote 20 years ago. In addition, Allegre was one of 1500 scientists who signed a November 18, 1992 letter titled “World Scientists' Warning to Humanity” in which the scientists warned that global warming’s “potential risks are very great.”

Geologist Bruno Wiskel of the University of Alberta recently reversed his view of man-made climate change and instead became a global warming skeptic. Wiskel was once such a big believer in man-made global warming that he set out to build a “Kyoto house” in honor of the UN sanctioned Kyoto Protocol which was signed in 1997. Wiskel wanted to prove that the Kyoto Protocol’s goals were achievable by people making small changes in their lives. But after further examining the science behind Kyoto, Wiskel reversed his scientific views completely and became such a strong skeptic, that he recently wrote a book titled “The Emperor's New Climate: Debunking the Myth of Global Warming.” A November 15, 2006 Edmonton Sun article explains Wiskel’s conversion while building his “Kyoto house”: “Instead, he said he realized global warming theory was full of holes and ‘red flags,’ and became convinced that humans are not responsible for rising temperatures.” Wiskel now says “the truth has to start somewhere.” Noting that the Earth has been warming for 18,000 years, Wiskel told the Canadian newspaper, “If this happened once and we were the cause of it, that would be cause for concern. But glaciers have been coming and going for billions of years." Wiskel also said that global warming has gone "from a science to a religion” and noted that research money is being funneled into promoting climate alarmism instead of funding areas he considers more worthy. "If you funnel money into things that can't be changed, the money is not going into the places that it is needed,” he said.

Astrophysicist Dr. Nir Shaviv, one of Israel's top young award winning scientists, recanted his belief that manmade emissions were driving climate change. ""Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming. But after carefully digging into the evidence, I realized that things are far more complicated than the story sold to us by many climate scientists or the stories regurgitated by the media. In fact, there is much more than meets the eye,” Shaviv said in February 2, 2007 Canadian National Post article. According to Shaviv, the C02 temperature link is only “incriminating circumstantial evidence.” "Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming" and "it is unlikely that [the solar climate link] does not exist,” Shaviv noted pointing to the impact cosmic- rays have on the atmosphere. According to the National Post, Shaviv believes that even a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere by 2100 "will not dramatically increase the global temperature." “Even if we halved the CO2 output, and the CO2 increase by 2100 would be, say, a 50% increase relative to today instead of a doubled amount, the expected reduction in the rise of global temperature would be less than 0.5C. This is not significant,” Shaviv explained. Shaviv also wrote on August 18, 2006 that a colleague of his believed that “CO2 should have a large effect on climate” so “he set out to reconstruct the phanerozoic temperature. He wanted to find the CO2 signature in the data, but since there was none, he slowly had to change his views.” Shaviv believes there will be more scientists converting to man-made global warming skepticism as they discover the dearth of evidence. “I think this is common to many of the scientists who think like us (that is, that CO2 is a secondary climate driver). Each one of us was working in his or her own niche. While working there, each one of us realized that things just don't add up to support the AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) picture. So many had to change their views,” he wrote.

Mathematician & engineer Dr. David Evans, who did carbon accounting for the Australian Government, recently detailed his conversion to a skeptic. “I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause. I am now skeptical,” Evans wrote in an April 30, 2007 blog. “But after 2000 the evidence for carbon emissions gradually got weaker -- better temperature data for the last century, more detailed ice core data, then laboratory evidence that cosmic rays precipitate low clouds,” Evans wrote. “As Lord Keynes famously said, ‘When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?’” he added. Evans noted how he benefited from climate fears as a scientist. “And the political realm in turn fed money back into the scientific community. By the late 1990's, lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too. I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn't believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; and there were international conferences full of such people. And we had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet! But starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of evidence outlined above fell away or reversed,” Evans wrote. “The pre-2000 ice core data was the central evidence for believing that atmospheric carbon caused temperature increases. The new ice core data shows that past warmings were *not* initially caused by rises in atmospheric carbon, and says nothing about the strength of any amplification. This piece of evidence casts reasonable doubt that atmospheric carbon had any role in past warmings, while still allowing the possibility that it had a supporting role,” he added. “Unfortunately politics and science have become even more entangled. The science of global warming has become a partisan political issue, so positions become more entrenched. Politicians and the public prefer simple and less-nuanced messages. At the moment the political climate strongly supports carbon emissions as the cause of global warming, to the point of sometimes rubbishing or silencing critics,” he concluded. (Evans bio link )

Climate researcher Dr. Tad Murty, former Senior Research Scientist for Fisheries and Oceans in Canada, also reversed himself from believer in man-made climate change to a skeptic. “I stated with a firm belief about global warming, until I started working on it myself,” Murty explained on August 17, 2006. “I switched to the other side in the early 1990's when Fisheries and Oceans Canada asked me to prepare a position paper and I started to look into the problem seriously,” Murty explained. Murty was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part, "If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.”

Botanist Dr. David Bellamy, a famed UK environmental campaigner, former lecturer at Durham University and host of a popular UK TV series on wildlife, recently converted into a skeptic after reviewing the science and now calls global warming fears "poppycock." According to a May 15, 2005 article in the UK Sunday Times, Bellamy said “global warming is largely a natural phenomenon. The world is wasting stupendous amounts of money on trying to fix something that can’t be fixed.” “The climate-change people have no proof for their claims. They have computer models which do not prove anything,” Bellamy added. Bellamy’s conversion on global warming did not come without a sacrifice as several environmental groups have ended their association with him because of his views on climate change. The severing of relations came despite Bellamy’s long activism for green campaigns. The UK Times reported Bellamy “won respect from hardline environmentalists with his campaigns to save Britain’s peat bogs and other endangered habitats. In Tasmania he was arrested when he tried to prevent loggers cutting down a rainforest.”

Climate scientist Dr. Chris de Freitas of The University of Auckland, N.Z., also converted from a believer in man-made global warming to a skeptic. “At first I accepted that increases in human caused additions of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere would trigger changes in water vapor etc. and lead to dangerous ‘global warming,’ But with time and with the results of research, I formed the view that, although it makes for a good story, it is unlikely that the man-made changes are drivers of significant climate variation.” de Freitas wrote on August 17, 2006. “I accept there may be small changes. But I see the risk of anything serious to be minute,” he added. “One could reasonably argue that lack of evidence is not a good reason for complacency. But I believe the billions of dollars committed to GW research and lobbying for GW and for Kyoto treaties etc could be better spent on uncontroversial and very real environmental problems (such as air pollution, poor sanitation, provision of clean water and improved health services) that we know affect tens of millions of people,” de Freitas concluded. de Freitas was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part, “Significant [scientific] advances have been made since the [Kyoto] protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases.”

Meteorologist Dr. Reid Bryson, the founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at University of Wisconsin (now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, was pivotal in promoting the coming ice age scare of the 1970’s ( See Time Magazine’s 1974 article “Another Ice Age” citing Bryson: & see Newsweek’s 1975 article “The Cooling World” citing Bryson) has now converted into a leading global warming skeptic. In February 8, 2007 Bryson dismissed what he terms "sky is falling" man-made global warming fears. Bryson, was on the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world. “Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?” Bryson told the May 2007 issue of Energy Cooperative News. “All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd. Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air,” Bryson said. “You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide,” he added. “We cannot say what part of that warming was due to mankind's addition of ‘greenhouse gases’ until we consider the other possible factors, such as aerosols. The aerosol content of the atmosphere was measured during the past century, but to my knowledge this data was never used. We can say that the question of anthropogenic modification of the climate is an important question -- too important to ignore. However, it has now become a media free-for-all and a political issue more than a scientific problem,” Bryson explained in 2005.

Global warming author and economist Hans H.J. Labohm started out as a man-made global warming believer but he later switched his view after conducting climate research. Labohm wrote on August 19, 2006, “I started as a anthropogenic global warming believer, then I read the [UN’s IPCC] Summary for Policymakers and the research of prominent skeptics.” “After that, I changed my mind,” Labohn explained. Labohn co-authored the 2004 book “Man-Made Global Warming: Unraveling a Dogma,” with chemical engineer Dick Thoenes who was the former chairman of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society. Labohm was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part, “’Climate change is real’ is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural ‘noise.’”


Paleoclimatologist Tim Patterson, of Carlton University in Ottawa converted from believer in C02 driving the climate change to a skeptic. “I taught my students that CO2 was the prime driver of climate change,” Patterson wrote on April 30, 2007. Patterson said his “conversion” happened following his research on “the nature of paleo-commercial fish populations in the NE Pacific.” “[My conversion from believer to climate skeptic] came about approximately 5-6 years ago when results began to come in from a major NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) Strategic Project Grant where I was PI (principle investigator),” Patterson explained. “Over the course of about a year, I switched allegiances,” he wrote. “As the proxy results began to come in, we were astounded to find that paleoclimatic and paleoproductivity records were full of cycles that corresponded to various sun-spot cycles. About that time, [geochemist] Jan Veizer and others began to publish reasonable hypotheses as to how solar signals could be amplified and control climate,” Patterson noted. Patterson says his conversion “probably cost me a lot of grant money. However, as a scientist I go where the science takes me and not were activists want me to go.” Patterson now asserts that more and more scientists are converting to climate skeptics. "When I go to a scientific meeting, there's lots of opinion out there, there's lots of discussion (about climate change). I was at the Geological Society of America meeting in Philadelphia in the fall and I would say that people with my opinion were probably in the majority,” Patterson told the Winnipeg Sun on February 13, 2007. Patterson, who believes the sun is responsible for the recent warm up of the Earth, ridiculed the environmentalists and the media for not reporting the truth. "But if you listen to [Canadian environmental activist David] Suzuki and the media, it's like a tiger chasing its tail. They try to outdo each other and all the while proclaiming that the debate is over but it isn't -- come out to a scientific meeting sometime,” Patterson said. In a separate interview on April 26, 2007 with a Canadian newspaper, Patterson explained that the scientific proof favors skeptics. “I think the proof in the pudding, based on what (media and governments) are saying, (is) we're about three quarters of the way (to disaster) with the doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere," he said. “The world should be heating up like crazy by now, and it's not. The temperatures match very closely with the solar cycles."

Physicist Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, chairman of the Central Laboratory for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiological Protection in Warsaw, took a scientific journey from a believer of man-made climate change in the form of global cooling in the 1970’s all the way to converting to a skeptic of current predictions of catastrophic man-made global warming. “At the beginning of the 1970s I believed in man-made climate cooling, and therefore I started a study on the effects of industrial pollution on the global atmosphere, using glaciers as a history book on this pollution,” Dr. Jaworowski, wrote on August 17, 2006. “With the advent of man-made warming political correctness in the beginning of 1980s, I already had a lot of experience with polar and high altitude ice, and I have serious problems in accepting the reliability of ice core CO2 studies,” Jaworowski added. Jaworowski, who has published many papers on climate with a focus on CO2 measurements in ice cores, also dismissed the UN IPCC summary and questioned what the actual level of C02 was in the atmosphere in a March 16, 2007 report in EIR science entitled “CO2: The Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Time.” “We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made global warming—with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for politics and the global economy—is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of the atmospheric CO2 levels,” Jaworowski wrote. “For the past three decades, these well-known direct CO2 measurements, recently compiled and analyzed by Ernst-Georg Beck (Beck 2006a, Beck 2006b, Beck 2007), were completely ignored by climatologists—and not because they were wrong. Indeed, these measurements were made by several Nobel Prize winners, using the techniques that are standard textbook procedures in chemistry, biochemistry, botany, hygiene, medicine, nutrition, and ecology. The only reason for rejection was that these measurements did not fit the hypothesis of anthropogenic climatic warming. I regard this as perhaps the greatest scientific scandal of our time,” Jaworowski wrote. “The hypothesis, in vogue in the 1970s, stating that emissions of industrial dust will soon induce the new Ice Age, seem now to be a conceited anthropocentric exaggeration, bringing into discredit the science of that time. The same fate awaits the present,” he added. Jaworowski believes that cosmic rays and solar activity are major drivers of the Earth’s climate. Jaworowski was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part: "It may be many years yet before we properly understand the Earth's climate system. Nevertheless, significant advances have been made since the protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases."

Paleoclimatologist Dr. Ian D. Clark, professor of the Department of Earth Sciences at University of Ottawa, reversed his views on man-made climate change after further examining the evidence. “I used to agree with these dramatic warnings of climate disaster. I taught my students that most of the increase in temperature of the past century was due to human contribution of C02. The association seemed so clear and simple. Increases of greenhouse gases were driving us towards a climate catastrophe,” Clark said in a 2005 documentary "Climate Catastrophe Cancelled: What You're Not Being Told About the Science of Climate Change.” “However, a few years ago, I decided to look more closely at the science and it astonished me. In fact there is no evidence of humans being the cause. There is, however, overwhelming evidence of natural causes such as changes in the output of the sun. This has completely reversed my views on the Kyoto protocol,” Clark explained. “Actually, many other leading climate researchers also have serious concerns about the science underlying the [Kyoto] Protocol,” he added.

Environmental geochemist Dr. Jan Veizer, professor emeritus of University of Ottawa, converted from believer to skeptic after conducting scientific studies of climate history. “I simply accepted the (global warming) theory as given,” Veizer wrote on April 30, 2007 about predictions that increasing C02 in the atmosphere was leading to a climate catastrophe. “The final conversion came when I realized that the solar/cosmic ray connection gave far more consistent picture with climate, over many time scales, than did the CO2 scenario,” Veizer wrote. “It was the results of my work on past records, on geological time scales, that led me to realize the discrepancies with empirical observations. Trying to understand the background issues of modeling led to realization of the assumptions and uncertainties involved,” Veizer explained. “The past record strongly favors the solar/cosmic alternative as the principal climate driver,” he added. Veizer acknowledgez the Earth has been warming and he believes in the scientific value of climate modeling. “The major point where I diverge from the IPCC scenario is my belief that it underestimates the role of natural variability by proclaiming CO2 to be the only reasonable source of additional energy in the planetary balance. Such additional energy is needed to drive the climate. The point is that most of the temperature, in both nature and models, arises from the greenhouse of water vapor (model language ‘positive water vapor feedback’,) Veizer wrote. “Thus to get more temperature, more water vapor is needed. This is achieved by speeding up the water cycle by inputting more energy into the system,” he continued. “Note that it is not CO2 that is in the models but its presumed energy equivalent (model language ‘prescribed CO2’). Yet, the models (and climate) would generate a more or less similar outcome regardless where this additional energy is coming from. This is why the solar/cosmic connection is so strongly opposed, because it can influence the global energy budget which, in turn, diminishes the need for an energy input from the CO2 greenhouse,” he wrote.

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Originally Posted By: sixfingers
Originally Posted By: BrianPatrix
Hey, you know what? Forget all I said. Just show me the peer-reviewed scientific articles, that state that Global warming is crap.


Dont ask me ask these guys...

Geophysicist Dr. Claude Allegre, a top geophysicist and French Socialist who has authored more than 100 scientific articles and written 11 books and received numerous scientific awards including the Goldschmidt Medal from the Geochemical Society of the United States, converted from climate alarmist to skeptic in 2006. Allegre, who was one of the first scientists to sound global warming fears 20 years ago, now says the cause of climate change is "unknown" and accused the “prophets of doom of global warming” of being motivated by money, noting that "the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!" “Glaciers’ chronicles or historical archives point to the fact that climate is a capricious phenomena. This fact is confirmed by mathematical meteorological theories. So, let us be cautious,” Allegre explained in a September 21, 2006 article in the French newspaper L'EXPRESS. The National Post in Canada also profiled Allegre on March 2, 2007, noting “Allegre has the highest environmental credentials. The author of early environmental books, he fought successful battles to protect the ozone layer from CFCs and public health from lead pollution.” Allegre now calls fears of a climate disaster "simplistic and obscuring the true dangers” mocks "the greenhouse-gas fanatics whose proclamations consist in denouncing man's role on the climate without doing anything about it except organizing conferences and preparing protocols that become dead letters." Allegre, a member of both the French and U.S. Academy of Sciences, had previously expressed concern about manmade global warming. "By burning fossil fuels, man enhanced the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which has raised the global mean temperature by half a degree in the last century," Allegre wrote 20 years ago. In addition, Allegre was one of 1500 scientists who signed a November 18, 1992 letter titled “World Scientists' Warning to Humanity” in which the scientists warned that global warming’s “potential risks are very great.”

Geologist Bruno Wiskel of the University of Alberta recently reversed his view of man-made climate change and instead became a global warming skeptic. Wiskel was once such a big believer in man-made global warming that he set out to build a “Kyoto house” in honor of the UN sanctioned Kyoto Protocol which was signed in 1997. Wiskel wanted to prove that the Kyoto Protocol’s goals were achievable by people making small changes in their lives. But after further examining the science behind Kyoto, Wiskel reversed his scientific views completely and became such a strong skeptic, that he recently wrote a book titled “The Emperor's New Climate: Debunking the Myth of Global Warming.” A November 15, 2006 Edmonton Sun article explains Wiskel’s conversion while building his “Kyoto house”: “Instead, he said he realized global warming theory was full of holes and ‘red flags,’ and became convinced that humans are not responsible for rising temperatures.” Wiskel now says “the truth has to start somewhere.” Noting that the Earth has been warming for 18,000 years, Wiskel told the Canadian newspaper, “If this happened once and we were the cause of it, that would be cause for concern. But glaciers have been coming and going for billions of years." Wiskel also said that global warming has gone "from a science to a religion” and noted that research money is being funneled into promoting climate alarmism instead of funding areas he considers more worthy. "If you funnel money into things that can't be changed, the money is not going into the places that it is needed,” he said.

Astrophysicist Dr. Nir Shaviv, one of Israel's top young award winning scientists, recanted his belief that manmade emissions were driving climate change. ""Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming. But after carefully digging into the evidence, I realized that things are far more complicated than the story sold to us by many climate scientists or the stories regurgitated by the media. In fact, there is much more than meets the eye,” Shaviv said in February 2, 2007 Canadian National Post article. According to Shaviv, the C02 temperature link is only “incriminating circumstantial evidence.” "Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming" and "it is unlikely that [the solar climate link] does not exist,” Shaviv noted pointing to the impact cosmic- rays have on the atmosphere. According to the National Post, Shaviv believes that even a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere by 2100 "will not dramatically increase the global temperature." “Even if we halved the CO2 output, and the CO2 increase by 2100 would be, say, a 50% increase relative to today instead of a doubled amount, the expected reduction in the rise of global temperature would be less than 0.5C. This is not significant,” Shaviv explained. Shaviv also wrote on August 18, 2006 that a colleague of his believed that “CO2 should have a large effect on climate” so “he set out to reconstruct the phanerozoic temperature. He wanted to find the CO2 signature in the data, but since there was none, he slowly had to change his views.” Shaviv believes there will be more scientists converting to man-made global warming skepticism as they discover the dearth of evidence. “I think this is common to many of the scientists who think like us (that is, that CO2 is a secondary climate driver). Each one of us was working in his or her own niche. While working there, each one of us realized that things just don't add up to support the AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) picture. So many had to change their views,” he wrote.

Mathematician & engineer Dr. David Evans, who did carbon accounting for the Australian Government, recently detailed his conversion to a skeptic. “I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause. I am now skeptical,” Evans wrote in an April 30, 2007 blog. “But after 2000 the evidence for carbon emissions gradually got weaker -- better temperature data for the last century, more detailed ice core data, then laboratory evidence that cosmic rays precipitate low clouds,” Evans wrote. “As Lord Keynes famously said, ‘When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?’” he added. Evans noted how he benefited from climate fears as a scientist. “And the political realm in turn fed money back into the scientific community. By the late 1990's, lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too. I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn't believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; and there were international conferences full of such people. And we had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet! But starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of evidence outlined above fell away or reversed,” Evans wrote. “The pre-2000 ice core data was the central evidence for believing that atmospheric carbon caused temperature increases. The new ice core data shows that past warmings were *not* initially caused by rises in atmospheric carbon, and says nothing about the strength of any amplification. This piece of evidence casts reasonable doubt that atmospheric carbon had any role in past warmings, while still allowing the possibility that it had a supporting role,” he added. “Unfortunately politics and science have become even more entangled. The science of global warming has become a partisan political issue, so positions become more entrenched. Politicians and the public prefer simple and less-nuanced messages. At the moment the political climate strongly supports carbon emissions as the cause of global warming, to the point of sometimes rubbishing or silencing critics,” he concluded. (Evans bio link )

Climate researcher Dr. Tad Murty, former Senior Research Scientist for Fisheries and Oceans in Canada, also reversed himself from believer in man-made climate change to a skeptic. “I stated with a firm belief about global warming, until I started working on it myself,” Murty explained on August 17, 2006. “I switched to the other side in the early 1990's when Fisheries and Oceans Canada asked me to prepare a position paper and I started to look into the problem seriously,” Murty explained. Murty was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part, "If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.”

Botanist Dr. David Bellamy, a famed UK environmental campaigner, former lecturer at Durham University and host of a popular UK TV series on wildlife, recently converted into a skeptic after reviewing the science and now calls global warming fears "poppycock." According to a May 15, 2005 article in the UK Sunday Times, Bellamy said “global warming is largely a natural phenomenon. The world is wasting stupendous amounts of money on trying to fix something that can’t be fixed.” “The climate-change people have no proof for their claims. They have computer models which do not prove anything,” Bellamy added. Bellamy’s conversion on global warming did not come without a sacrifice as several environmental groups have ended their association with him because of his views on climate change. The severing of relations came despite Bellamy’s long activism for green campaigns. The UK Times reported Bellamy “won respect from hardline environmentalists with his campaigns to save Britain’s peat bogs and other endangered habitats. In Tasmania he was arrested when he tried to prevent loggers cutting down a rainforest.”

Climate scientist Dr. Chris de Freitas of The University of Auckland, N.Z., also converted from a believer in man-made global warming to a skeptic. “At first I accepted that increases in human caused additions of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere would trigger changes in water vapor etc. and lead to dangerous ‘global warming,’ But with time and with the results of research, I formed the view that, although it makes for a good story, it is unlikely that the man-made changes are drivers of significant climate variation.” de Freitas wrote on August 17, 2006. “I accept there may be small changes. But I see the risk of anything serious to be minute,” he added. “One could reasonably argue that lack of evidence is not a good reason for complacency. But I believe the billions of dollars committed to GW research and lobbying for GW and for Kyoto treaties etc could be better spent on uncontroversial and very real environmental problems (such as air pollution, poor sanitation, provision of clean water and improved health services) that we know affect tens of millions of people,” de Freitas concluded. de Freitas was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part, “Significant [scientific] advances have been made since the [Kyoto] protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases.”

Meteorologist Dr. Reid Bryson, the founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at University of Wisconsin (now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, was pivotal in promoting the coming ice age scare of the 1970’s ( See Time Magazine’s 1974 article “Another Ice Age” citing Bryson: & see Newsweek’s 1975 article “The Cooling World” citing Bryson) has now converted into a leading global warming skeptic. In February 8, 2007 Bryson dismissed what he terms "sky is falling" man-made global warming fears. Bryson, was on the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world. “Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?” Bryson told the May 2007 issue of Energy Cooperative News. “All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd. Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air,” Bryson said. “You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide,” he added. “We cannot say what part of that warming was due to mankind's addition of ‘greenhouse gases’ until we consider the other possible factors, such as aerosols. The aerosol content of the atmosphere was measured during the past century, but to my knowledge this data was never used. We can say that the question of anthropogenic modification of the climate is an important question -- too important to ignore. However, it has now become a media free-for-all and a political issue more than a scientific problem,” Bryson explained in 2005.

Global warming author and economist Hans H.J. Labohm started out as a man-made global warming believer but he later switched his view after conducting climate research. Labohm wrote on August 19, 2006, “I started as a anthropogenic global warming believer, then I read the [UN’s IPCC] Summary for Policymakers and the research of prominent skeptics.” “After that, I changed my mind,” Labohn explained. Labohn co-authored the 2004 book “Man-Made Global Warming: Unraveling a Dogma,” with chemical engineer Dick Thoenes who was the former chairman of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society. Labohm was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part, “’Climate change is real’ is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural ‘noise.’”


Paleoclimatologist Tim Patterson, of Carlton University in Ottawa converted from believer in C02 driving the climate change to a skeptic. “I taught my students that CO2 was the prime driver of climate change,” Patterson wrote on April 30, 2007. Patterson said his “conversion” happened following his research on “the nature of paleo-commercial fish populations in the NE Pacific.” “[My conversion from believer to climate skeptic] came about approximately 5-6 years ago when results began to come in from a major NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) Strategic Project Grant where I was PI (principle investigator),” Patterson explained. “Over the course of about a year, I switched allegiances,” he wrote. “As the proxy results began to come in, we were astounded to find that paleoclimatic and paleoproductivity records were full of cycles that corresponded to various sun-spot cycles. About that time, [geochemist] Jan Veizer and others began to publish reasonable hypotheses as to how solar signals could be amplified and control climate,” Patterson noted. Patterson says his conversion “probably cost me a lot of grant money. However, as a scientist I go where the science takes me and not were activists want me to go.” Patterson now asserts that more and more scientists are converting to climate skeptics. "When I go to a scientific meeting, there's lots of opinion out there, there's lots of discussion (about climate change). I was at the Geological Society of America meeting in Philadelphia in the fall and I would say that people with my opinion were probably in the majority,” Patterson told the Winnipeg Sun on February 13, 2007. Patterson, who believes the sun is responsible for the recent warm up of the Earth, ridiculed the environmentalists and the media for not reporting the truth. "But if you listen to [Canadian environmental activist David] Suzuki and the media, it's like a tiger chasing its tail. They try to outdo each other and all the while proclaiming that the debate is over but it isn't -- come out to a scientific meeting sometime,” Patterson said. In a separate interview on April 26, 2007 with a Canadian newspaper, Patterson explained that the scientific proof favors skeptics. “I think the proof in the pudding, based on what (media and governments) are saying, (is) we're about three quarters of the way (to disaster) with the doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere," he said. “The world should be heating up like crazy by now, and it's not. The temperatures match very closely with the solar cycles."

Physicist Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, chairman of the Central Laboratory for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiological Protection in Warsaw, took a scientific journey from a believer of man-made climate change in the form of global cooling in the 1970’s all the way to converting to a skeptic of current predictions of catastrophic man-made global warming. “At the beginning of the 1970s I believed in man-made climate cooling, and therefore I started a study on the effects of industrial pollution on the global atmosphere, using glaciers as a history book on this pollution,” Dr. Jaworowski, wrote on August 17, 2006. “With the advent of man-made warming political correctness in the beginning of 1980s, I already had a lot of experience with polar and high altitude ice, and I have serious problems in accepting the reliability of ice core CO2 studies,” Jaworowski added. Jaworowski, who has published many papers on climate with a focus on CO2 measurements in ice cores, also dismissed the UN IPCC summary and questioned what the actual level of C02 was in the atmosphere in a March 16, 2007 report in EIR science entitled “CO2: The Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Time.” “We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made global warming—with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for politics and the global economy—is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of the atmospheric CO2 levels,” Jaworowski wrote. “For the past three decades, these well-known direct CO2 measurements, recently compiled and analyzed by Ernst-Georg Beck (Beck 2006a, Beck 2006b, Beck 2007), were completely ignored by climatologists—and not because they were wrong. Indeed, these measurements were made by several Nobel Prize winners, using the techniques that are standard textbook procedures in chemistry, biochemistry, botany, hygiene, medicine, nutrition, and ecology. The only reason for rejection was that these measurements did not fit the hypothesis of anthropogenic climatic warming. I regard this as perhaps the greatest scientific scandal of our time,” Jaworowski wrote. “The hypothesis, in vogue in the 1970s, stating that emissions of industrial dust will soon induce the new Ice Age, seem now to be a conceited anthropocentric exaggeration, bringing into discredit the science of that time. The same fate awaits the present,” he added. Jaworowski believes that cosmic rays and solar activity are major drivers of the Earth’s climate. Jaworowski was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part: "It may be many years yet before we properly understand the Earth's climate system. Nevertheless, significant advances have been made since the protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases."

Paleoclimatologist Dr. Ian D. Clark, professor of the Department of Earth Sciences at University of Ottawa, reversed his views on man-made climate change after further examining the evidence. “I used to agree with these dramatic warnings of climate disaster. I taught my students that most of the increase in temperature of the past century was due to human contribution of C02. The association seemed so clear and simple. Increases of greenhouse gases were driving us towards a climate catastrophe,” Clark said in a 2005 documentary "Climate Catastrophe Cancelled: What You're Not Being Told About the Science of Climate Change.” “However, a few years ago, I decided to look more closely at the science and it astonished me. In fact there is no evidence of humans being the cause. There is, however, overwhelming evidence of natural causes such as changes in the output of the sun. This has completely reversed my views on the Kyoto protocol,” Clark explained. “Actually, many other leading climate researchers also have serious concerns about the science underlying the [Kyoto] Protocol,” he added.

Environmental geochemist Dr. Jan Veizer, professor emeritus of University of Ottawa, converted from believer to skeptic after conducting scientific studies of climate history. “I simply accepted the (global warming) theory as given,” Veizer wrote on April 30, 2007 about predictions that increasing C02 in the atmosphere was leading to a climate catastrophe. “The final conversion came when I realized that the solar/cosmic ray connection gave far more consistent picture with climate, over many time scales, than did the CO2 scenario,” Veizer wrote. “It was the results of my work on past records, on geological time scales, that led me to realize the discrepancies with empirical observations. Trying to understand the background issues of modeling led to realization of the assumptions and uncertainties involved,” Veizer explained. “The past record strongly favors the solar/cosmic alternative as the principal climate driver,” he added. Veizer acknowledgez the Earth has been warming and he believes in the scientific value of climate modeling. “The major point where I diverge from the IPCC scenario is my belief that it underestimates the role of natural variability by proclaiming CO2 to be the only reasonable source of additional energy in the planetary balance. Such additional energy is needed to drive the climate. The point is that most of the temperature, in both nature and models, arises from the greenhouse of water vapor (model language ‘positive water vapor feedback’,) Veizer wrote. “Thus to get more temperature, more water vapor is needed. This is achieved by speeding up the water cycle by inputting more energy into the system,” he continued. “Note that it is not CO2 that is in the models but its presumed energy equivalent (model language ‘prescribed CO2’). Yet, the models (and climate) would generate a more or less similar outcome regardless where this additional energy is coming from. This is why the solar/cosmic connection is so strongly opposed, because it can influence the global energy budget which, in turn, diminishes the need for an energy input from the CO2 greenhouse,” he wrote.


These skeptical scientists did not publish their skeptical point of views in the leading peer reviewed climate science journals. They may have done research on alternative ideas (e.g. Veizer on solar variability), but in these scientific articles they don't write about their skeptical attitude toward CO_2 induced global warming.

There are far more biologists who reject evolution. They write about their ideas in newspapers, not in scientific journals....

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I've read reports that said they have a hard time getting published. Even in the post here they said they lost grants because they weren't toeing the party line anymore.


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Interesting. So, if solar rays are heating up the earth, and we take global dimming into account, which blocks these rays, then environmental measures will heat up the earth even more instead of cooling it off? Even if it's the sun instead of man, the facts are still that sealevels will rise, that the temparature has risen, and that lowlying countries like the Maledives and New Orleans, Venice will be swallowed by the sea, if this goes on. I'm not entirely convinced that is all naturally caused. One should always be suspicious of the easy solutions.

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Originally Posted By: scpg02
I've read reports that said they have a hard time getting published. Even in the post here they said they lost grants because they weren't toeing the party line anymore.

Well, boohoo! See what scgp does? By using statements like toeing the party line she's making it sound like a political thing, something one can have an opinion about, like abortion, the death penalty or guncontrol.

Global warming is something which can be scientifically proven or disproven. Given the impressive amount of scientific organiza...nge is manmade, I say that the science is still on the MMGW side.

The fact that they don't get published in peer-reviewed magazines has no doubt something to do with that their assertions can not be proven ...


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Quote:
she's making it sound like a political thing,


It is.


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Originally Posted By: BrianPatrix
The fact that they don't get published in peer-reviewed magazines has no doubt something to do with that their assertions can not be proven ...




http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/11/ngreen211.xml

Scientists threatened for 'climate denial'
By Tom Harper, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:24am GMT 11/03/2007

Scientists who questioned mankind's impact on climate change have received death threats and claim to have been shunned by the scientific community.

They say the debate on global warming has been "hijacked" by a powerful alliance of politicians, scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions.
~snip~

_____________________________________________________________

Petition Project

Explanation

Listed below are 17,200 of the initial signers

During the past several years, more than 17,100 basic and applied American scientists, two-thirds with advanced degrees, have signed the Global Warming Petition.
S
igners of this petition so far include 2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists (select this link for a listing of these individuals) who are especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide on the Earth's atmosphere and climate.

Signers of this petition also include 5,017 scientists whose fields of specialization in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, and other life sciences (select this link for a listing of these individuals) make them especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide upon the Earth's plant and animal life.

Nearly all of the initial 17,100 scientist signers have technical training suitable for the evaluation of the relevant research data, and many are trained in related fields. In addition to these 17,100, approximately 2,400 individuals have signed the petition who are trained in fields other than science or whose field of specialization was not specified on their returned petition.

Of the 19,700 signatures that the project has received in total so far, 17,800 have been independently verified and the other 1,900 have not yet been independently verified. Of those signers holding the degree of PhD, 95% have now been independently verified. One name that was sent in by enviro pranksters, Geri Halliwell, PhD, has been eliminated. Several names, such as Perry Mason and Robert Byrd are still on the list even though enviro press reports have ridiculed their identity with the names of famous personalities. They are actual signers. Perry Mason, for example, is a PhD Chemist.

The costs of this petition project have been paid entirely by private donations. No industrial funding or money from sources within the coal, oil, natural gas or related industries has been utilized. The petition's organizers, who include some faculty members and staff of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, do not otherwise receive funds from such sources. The Institute itself has no such funding. Also, no funds of tax-exempt organizations have been used for this project.

The signatures and the text of the petition stand alone and speak for themselves. These scientists have signed this specific document. They are not associated with any particular organization. Their signatures represent a strong statement about this important issue by many of the best scientific minds in the United States.

This project is titled "Petition Project" and uses a mailing address of its own because the organizers desired an independent, individual opinion from each scientist based on the scientific issues involved - without any implied endorsements of individuals, groups, or institutions.


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It is politics (i.e. opinions) only if one is not capable of .... Didn't Clarke say something about this like: "To the untrained mind, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."?


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Originally Posted By: BrianPatrix
Originally Posted By: scpg02
I've read reports that said they have a hard time getting published. Even in the post here they said they lost grants because they weren't toeing the party line anymore.

Well, boohoo! See what scgp does? By using statements like toeing the party line she's making it sound like a political thing, something one can have an opinion about, like abortion, the death penalty or guncontrol.

Global warming is something which can be scientifically proven or disproven. Given the impressive amount of scientific organiza...nge is manmade, I say that the science is still on the MMGW side.

The fact that they don't get published in peer-reviewed magazines has no doubt something to do with that their assertions can not be proven ...



http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/1/23/93038.shtml?s=ic

Scientists Group's Funding 'Openly Political'

At a time when the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is censuring free market organizations for accepting donations from ExxonMobil, critics have turned the spotlight back onto the UCS, its left-wing positions, and its own funding practices.

In a recent report, the UCS charged that organizations are using oil industry money to create public uncertainty about what it calls "consensus" about climate change and the role of human activity in affecting temperatures see related story. Organizations named in the report have denied the claims.

The UCS describes itself as an "alliance" of over 200,000 citizens and scientists that initially came together in 1969. It integrates "independent scientific research" with "citizen action" for the purpose of developing and implementing "changes to government policy, corporate practices and consumer choices."

But critics say it is an openly political group.
~snip~

____________________________________________________________

http://www.sepp.org/Archive/controv/ipcccont/Item05.htm

A Major Deception on Global Warming
Op-Ed by Frederick Seitz
Wall Street Journal, June 12, 1996

Last week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations organization regarded by many as the best source of scientific information about the human impact on the earth's climate, released "The Science of Climate Change 1995," its first new report in five years. The report will surely be hailed as the latest and most authoritative statement on global warming. Policy makers and the press around the world will likely view the report as the basis for critical decisions on energy policy that would have an enormous impact on U.S. oil and gas prices and on the international economy.

This IPCC report, like all others, is held in such high regard largely because it has been peer-reviewed. That is, it has been read, discussed, modified and approved by an international body of experts. These scientists have laid their reputations on the line. But this report is not what it appears to be--it is not the version that was approved by the contributing scientists listed on the title page. In my more than 60 years as a member of the American scientific community, including service as president of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Physical Society, I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer-review process than the events that led to this IPCC report.

A comparison between the report approved by the contributing scientists and the published version reveals that key changes were made after the scientists had met and accepted what they thought was the final peer-reviewed version. The scientists were assuming that the IPCC would obey the IPCC Rules--a body of regulations that is supposed to govern the panel's actions. Nothing in the IPCC Rules permits anyone to change a scientific report after it has been accepted by the panel of scientific contributors and the full IPCC.

The participating scientists accepted "The Science of Climate Change" in Madrid last November; the full IPCC accepted it the following month in Rome. But more than 15 sections in Chapter 8 of the report--the key chapter setting out the scientific evidence for and against a human influence over climate--were changed or deleted after the scientists charged with examining this question had accepted the supposedly final text.
~snip~


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And your point with this 10 year old newspaper article is ...?
Please come up with something more recent about the IPCC?

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Originally Posted By: BrianPatrix
And your point with this 10 year old newspaper article is ...?






It's not Global Warming, it's Ice Age Abatement.
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Originally Posted By: scpg02
Originally Posted By: BrianPatrix
And your point with this 10 year old newspaper article is ...?





Ah, we should be so lucky ...

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Oh, and that GW petition proves exactly nothing. It doesn't say that each of the 17000 has done research on the subject which was subsequently published in peer-reviewed magazines.
It just proves that 17.000 scientist wanted to play Mary-Mary-Quite-Contrary.

So far, I haven't seen ANY science reference from you, just:
1. Politics from the denier side
2. Opinions
3. A bit of Mamby-Pambying about the big boys are bullying you, (other scientist who actually did the work are getting the grants and your side doesn't)
Listen, I'm not saying that scientist aren't capable of politics, YOUR side certainly is, you HAVE proven that fact, I'm just saying: Where is their science?? (Preferably not articles that have been blasted since publication).

Bye bye now. Y'all be good now, you hear?

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Originally Posted By: BrianPatrix
Originally Posted By: scpg02
Originally Posted By: BrianPatrix
And your point with this 10 year old newspaper article is ...?





Ah, we should be so lucky ...


Of course I meant: If only that WERE your real head and that WAS a real brick wall .... wink wink j/k !



cool

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It's not Global Warming, it's Ice Age Abatement.
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Originally Posted By: scpg02
I've read reports that said they have a hard time getting published. Even in the post here they said they lost grants because they weren't toeing the party line anymore.


Hard time getting published usually means that their articles are bogus. Assume for a moment that they don't get published for political reasons. Then you would expect there to be a lot of good quality research being done written up in high quality articles that don't get published. Scientists would not accept that, they would put their work on their home pages together with the flawed referee reports.

Of course, in reality there is no research that proves the consensus view wrong. There are no articles that report on that. There are just unfounded criticism that are published in newspapers like the Wall Street Journal. The readers of these newspapers don't have a clue about how science works in practice.

Not getting grants would put the scientists with alternative views at a disadvantage, but it doesn't explain why no publishable material has been produced by these nay sayers. I guess that'S then the very reason why such people cannot get grants, because scientists are expected to be productive and not waste their time writing nonsensical comments on their personal blogs or in the Wall Street Journal.

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Count, you've said it much more eloquent than I could. I'm gonna steal your phrases, count on that.
Glad to see there's some sanity out there.
It boggles the mind to consider the tenacity of the Pollutionists side, to come up with all sorts of smear campaigns and such.

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The madison link does not work. Is it just too old?

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maybe the madison people came to their senses and found that global warming, after all, IS man-made

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