Climate of Fear

Wall Street Opinion Journal Richard Lindzen April 12, 2006

Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.

There have been repeated claims that this past year’s hurricane activity was another sign of human-induced climate change. Everything from the heat wave in Paris to heavy snows in Buffalo has been blamed on people burning gasoline to fuel their cars, and coal and natural gas to heat, cool and electrify their homes. Yet how can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of recent weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into unlikely claims about future catastrophes?

The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism. Ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a vested interest in alarm, thus raising the political stakes for policy makers who provide funds for more science research to feed more alarm to increase the political stakes. After all, who puts money into science–whether for AIDS, or space, or climate–where there is nothing really alarming? Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today. It can also be seen in heightened spending on solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol and clean coal technologies, as well as on other energy-investment decisions.

But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.

. . . more

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

8 thoughts on “Climate of Fear”

  1. I find it applalling that ridiculous articles like this continue to be published when global warming is, in fact, settled science. What’s next – articles challenging Newton’s theory of gravity, or Copernicus”s theory of a Heliocentric solar system?

    Evidence of global warming is all around us, from melting polar icecaps, and disappearing glaciers to the shifting habitats of many species of fish and animals. The US government’s top scientists, like James Hansen of NASA, have confirmed that global warming is underway, and that it is the direct result of man-made emissions concentating in the atmosphere.

    The only scientists who continue to challenge global warming are those working for energy companies or foundations funded by energy companies. These academic prostitutes, whose “research” has never withstood scientific scrutiny, deserve to be shunned. The oil, gas and coal companies, who are currently reaping windfall profits, have a vested interest in sowing confusion and doubt abbout global warming and delaying the transition to more cleaner forms of energy as long as possible.

    We can certainly debate alternative solutions to reduce emissions and mitigate global warming. As Missourian has pointed out, new technologies to reduce emissions from coal fired plants suggest that we need not do away with coal as an energy source. Natural gas has a role to play in fuel cell technology for automobiles.

    But continuing to deny the obvious while refusing to implement prudent changes to the way we use energy only hastens the inevitable outbreak of environmental disasters which will wreak terrible damage on our planet and seriously harm human beings every where.

  2. There IS a problem with global warming… it stopped in 1998
    By Bob Carter

    For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).

    Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society’s continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

    In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say “how silly to judge climate change over such a short period”. Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate.

    …more

  3. The Carter article in #2 is junk. Look at a graph of global temperatures such as the one at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globtemp.html

    There is a broad upward trend with occasional spikes in individual years. A particularly large upward spike occurred in 1998. When you are trying to extract a trend from data you don’t choose an obvious outlier point to start from. That is just what Carter does by choosing 1998 as his starting point for claiming warming has “stopped”.

  4. Matthias you missed the point of his article. There is no universal consensus on global warming. And because of environmental alarmists crying “the sky is falling” bad policies have been pursued. As Carter states for the British Government:

    The British Government urgently needs to recast the sources from which it draws its climate advice. The shrill alarmism of its public advisers, and the often eco-fundamentalist policy initiatives that bubble up from the depths of the Civil Service, have all long since been detached from science reality. Intern-ationally, the IPCC is a deeply flawed organisation, as acknowledged in a recent House of Lords report, and the Kyoto Protocol has proved a costly flop. Clearly, the wrong horses have been backed.

    I would much rather see sound science presented than neo-pagan environmental concerns dominate environmental sciences (for example Dean’s regurgitation of their propaganda).

  5. Is there “universal consensus” on anything in science? If the existence of one dissenter on a subject proves the lack of universal consensus then there’s precious little of it.

    I too “would much rather see sound science presented than neo-pagan environmental concerns dominate environmental sciences.” I would also rather see sound science instead of hysterical anti-environmental propaganda motivated by fear of neo-paganism dominate environmental sciences.

  6. Note 5, Matthias, there exist universal scientific consensus (plural?)

    I am an applied physicist by training, an electrical engineer. There exists universal scientific consensus on many, many scientific premises. How many would you like me to list in physics for starters?

  7. Note 5, Matthias, comments on global warming from an applied scientist

    Most of the global warming literature that I have seen ignores the following issues:

    a) time span over which data is collected is very short. Only a few countries have collected climate data and those countries have collected that data for a relatively short period of time.

    b) lack of uniforma data. Climate data has been collected for a variety of purposes other than testing of any global climate change hypothesis. For instance, some climate data has been collected to study the localized occurrence of hurricanes. Climate data used in many studies has not been collected in a uniform manner : same time of day, same longitude, latitude and altitude, same season, same collecting device, etc., etc., etc.,

    c) lack of uniform data about suspected independent variables. The thesis of the global warming crowd is that human activity, not the natural variation in the life cycle of planet Earth, has caused the alleged global warming. Various by-products of human activity have been suggested, mainly industrial and automotice emissions. We don’t have good data about the volume and nature of these emissions

    d)inability to separate potential man-made independent variables from potential naturally occurring independent variables. Nature does produce carbon based compounds fairly frequently from natural processes and these compounds can be exposed to airborne transport; example forest fires, volcanoes, slow lava flows, wind storms in desert areas, techtonic plate shifts. None of these are controlled by humans.

    e) lack of complete understanding of the sun’s activity. Any geologists will tell you that the heat provided to the Earth by the sun dwarfes anything heat generated by human activity. Yet, we are just beginning to understand the very marked ebbs and flows of the heat that the Sun delivers to us. Sun spot activity can and does cause very large percentage changes in the heat delivered to the Earth by the Sun . This science is critical to the attempt to analyze potential trends in global climate change, and it is still in its infancy.

    This is a topic worth studying but it has been severely “polluted” by politics. Few people can think clearly. It is clear that there exists a drive by environmentalists to do two things: first, demonize modern industrial society per se and second, impose Marxist controls over economic activity under the guise of “saving the Earth” as opposed to coming out and openly stating their Marxist goals.

    Marxists haven’t disappeared, they have just changed clothes.

Comments are closed.