No Need to Panic About Global Warming
[This is one of the few scientifically respectable denier articles I've seen in the last few years. However, note that there is no mention of oceanic acidification, a disaster shaping up in the near term. See my recent post on the subject: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showt...947#post146947
Also, CO2 IS a pollutant - in high enough concentrations it can kill you. Pollution is simply a matter of degree. Another unmentioned line of evidence is the perturbation of geothermal gradients by warming of the ground surface. To measure a geothermal gradient, a very sensitive thermometer is lowered down a deep, water filled borehole and readings taken every few meters. There are geothermal gradient data from many thousands of 1000+ feet deep boreholes worldwide that show a definate warming in the upper 100+ feet that deviates from the theoretical steady-state gradient; this depth represents the last 150 years or so. Geothermal gradients are a function of climate, heat from from the mantle, radioactive heat from shallow crustal rock, and the thermal conductivity of the rock surrounding the borehole. When climate warms, the gradient changes and a wave of warming propagates downward. Shallow warming is a global phenomenon that averages out all the messy complications of local weather. Incidentally, the cooling from the last ice age is apparent in a broad perturbation of the theoretical steady-state geothermal gradient at a depth of about 3000 feet below the Hudson's bay region]
https://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...p_mostpop_read
No Need to Panic About Global Warming
There's no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to 'decarbonize' the world's economy.
JANUARY 27, 2012
Editor's Note: The following has been signed by the 16 scientists listed at the end of the article:
A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about "global warming." Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed.
In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of President Obama in the last election, publicly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) with a letter that begins: "I did not renew [my membership] because I cannot live with the [APS policy] statement: 'The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.' In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?"
In spite of a multidecade international campaign to enforce the message that increasing amounts of the "pollutant" carbon dioxide will destroy civilization, large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever. And the number of scientific "heretics" is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts.
Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 "Climategate" email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2.
The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.
The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Better plant varieties, chemical fertilizers and agricultural management contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century, but part of the increase almost certainly came from additional CO2 in the atmosphere.
Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job.
This is not the way science is supposed to work, but we have seen it before—for example, in the frightening period when Trofim Lysenko hijacked biology in the Soviet Union. Soviet biologists who revealed that they believed in genes, which Lysenko maintained were a bourgeois fiction, were fired from their jobs. Many were sent to the gulag and some were condemned to death.
Why is there so much passion about global warming, and why has the issue become so vexing that the American Physical Society, from which Dr. Giaever resigned a few months ago, refused the seemingly reasonable request by many of its members to remove the word "incontrovertible" from its description of a scientific issue? There are several reasons, but a good place to start is the old question "cui bono?" Or the modern update, "Follow the money."
Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.
Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.
Related Video
[go to the website for the video - I can't get the link to copy]
Princeton physics professor William Happer on why a large number of scientists don't believe that carbon dioxide is causing global warming.
A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world that would like to share some of the same advantages of material well-being, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the world enjoy now. Many other policy responses would have a negative return on investment. And it is likely that more CO2 and the modest warming that may come with it will be an overall benefit to the planet.
If elected officials feel compelled to "do something" about climate, we recommend supporting the excellent scientists who are increasing our understanding of climate with well-designed instruments on satellites, in the oceans and on land, and in the analysis of observational data. The better we understand climate, the better we can cope with its ever-changing nature, which has complicated human life throughout history. However, much of the huge private and government investment in climate is badly in need of critical review.
Every candidate should support rational measures to protect and improve our environment, but it makes no sense at all to back expensive programs that divert resources from real needs and are based on alarming but untenable claims of "incontrovertible" evidence.
Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.
Copyright 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights ReservedThis copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visitwww.djreprints.com
Re: No Need to Panic About Global Warming
Quote:
Also, CO2 IS a pollutant - in high enough concentrations it can kill you. Pollution is simply a matter of degree.
Did you know that oxygen in high enough levels can kill you? Is oxygen then a pollutant by your definition?
Re: No Need to Panic About Global Warming
>>>Did you know that oxygen in high enough levels can kill you? Is oxygen then a pollutant by your definition?
Well, if massive amounts of oxygen were being dumped into the atmosphere, radically changing the mix we're acclimated to or causing other oddities, you'd certainly classify it as a "pollutant" or some other term that meant the same thing. We're not talking about the inherent Good or Evil of a particular element -- I don't think elements have souls or go to Heaven. We're talking about effect within a context. Some toxins are lethal in minute amounts, but I wouldn't worry about plutonium if it were all on Mars. Water in the hot tub is a blessing, but water in the wrong place is a flood, and water in my lungs is a very serious issue even though I myself am 90% water. The question is disingenuous.
Cheers--
Conrad
Re: No Need to Panic About Global Warming
Hello Someguy and Eveyone,
Every substance on Earth and in the Universe can be a potential toxin given a high enough dose. Only a very small amount of free oxygen was present in the atmosphere before cells began producing it. As the first cells began excreting oxygen as a metabolic waste product, a toxic level of the gas accumulated. Through adaptation and natural selection of populations of organisms, cells became able to use this oxygen as a metabolic fuel. In today's modern biosphere most of life is dependent on the use of oxygen for metabolism. Additionally much of life continues to be dependent on carbon dioxide as an essential nutrient .
The modern atmosphere of today contains about 80% nitrogen, 20% oxygen and less than 1 % carbon dioxide.
For each organism there is a range of optimum nutrient concentration within which that organism will grow and flourish. For many organisms this range is narrow, whereas other organisms can survive in a wider range of conditions. Raise the level of carbon dioxide a little (florist greenhouse) and the plants thrive . Lower the percentage of oxygen (as in a terrarium) below a certain concentration and many organisms die .
It is about the concentration range present in the biosphere that determines whether the substance is a nutrient or a toxin. Each organism present today has been "finely tuned" over thousands to millions of years to live and thrive in an environment of limited fluctuations in the concentration range of elements.
In a closed system when the concentration of one element is increased the concentrations of the other elements will decrease. A simple example would be if you had a container with a mixture of 10 RED and 10 BLUE, a concentration of half red and half blue . If you add an additional 10 RED you would now have 20 RED and 10 Blue, now you only have twice as much RED or half as much Blue. As the various amounts of particulate matter and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, the concentration of oxygen decreases.
The question is not so much as whether large doses of oxygen (commonly used therapeutically) is toxic to people, but whether the diminishing concentrations of oxygen in the atmosphere due to increases in pollution and carbon dioxide concentrations is detrimental to the thriving of the biosphere.
At present time we do not know what the toxic load of our planet is. We only know that there is one. We do not know which organisms will be most sensitive and die off if toxic levels increase. We do not know which of these organisms are essential to producing nutrients essential for our survival. Not only can too much of a substance be detrimental to a living organism, but so can too little.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by someguy:
Did you know that oxygen in high enough levels can kill you? Is oxygen then a pollutant by your definition?
Re: No Need to Panic About Global Warming
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by theindependenteye:
>>>Did you know that oxygen in high enough levels can kill you? Is oxygen then a pollutant by your definition?
Well, if massive amounts of oxygen were being dumped into the atmosphere, radically changing the mix we're acclimated to or causing other oddities, you'd certainly classify it as a "pollutant" or some other term that meant the same thing. We're not talking about the inherent Good or Evil of a particular element -- I don't think elements have souls or go to Heaven. We're talking about effect within a context. Some toxins are lethal in minute amounts, but I wouldn't worry about plutonium if it were all on Mars. Water in the hot tub is a blessing, but water in the wrong place is a flood, and water in my lungs is a very serious issue even though I myself am 90% water. The question is disingenuous.
Cheers--
Conrad
If anything can be a pollutant in the right context, then the original statement that "Co2 is a pollutant" is disingenuous. As the article showed, Co2 at ten times our current level aided life to flourish!!! In this context could it really be that Co2 is a pollutant? No, Co2 in the current context is a beneficial part of our atmosphere that is aiding plants to grow, and life to flourish. I would label Co2 more like a building block of life, not a pollutant.
Re: No Need to Panic About Global Warming
Very well said
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by theindependenteye:
>>>did you know that oxygen in high enough levels can kill you? Is oxygen then a pollutant by your definition?
Well, if massive amounts of oxygen were being dumped into the atmosphere, radically changing the mix we're acclimated to or causing other oddities, you'd certainly classify it as a "pollutant" or some other term that meant the same thing. We're not talking about the inherent good or evil of a particular element -- i don't think elements have souls or go to heaven. We're talking about effect within a context. Some toxins are lethal in minute amounts, but i wouldn't worry about plutonium if it were all on mars. Water in the hot tub is a blessing, but water in the wrong place is a flood, and water in my lungs is a very serious issue even though i myself am 90% water. The question is disingenuous.
Cheers--
conrad
Re: No Need to Panic About Global Warming
Hello Someguy and Everyone,
Yes, carbon dioxide is fixed by plants through the process of photosynthesis into carbohydrates which are then used as fuel for metabolism and as building blocks for proteins (enzymes) and other necessary parts of the cell.
Back to the article first posted.
Plants are capable of fixing a limited concentration of carbon dioxide, above which there would be in excess.
It's this excess carbon dioxide that can accumulate in the atmosphere creating the "greenhouse effect". Light from the sun can travel through this carbon dioxide layer, but the heat that the light is transformed into as it hits the earth cannot travel back out into space. This heat dissipates slowly, and for the most part remains trapped in the atmosphere. The net effect is that the atmosphere and surface of the earth is warmed.
Whether it is a nutrient concentration, a temperature or a pH level, organisms are adapted to a limited range of parameters. Some are more sensitive than others. If the balance of the parameters is changed some organisms will survive and some will not. At present time we do not know all the interrelationships between organisms, which ones are dispensable and which ones have an essential role in the survival of life on Earth.
It is my opinion that all are essential.
Marty
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by someguy:
If anything can be a pollutant in the right context, then the original statement that "Co2 is a pollutant" is disingenuous. As the article showed, Co2 at ten times our current level aided life to flourish!!! In this context could it really be that Co2 is a pollutant? No, Co2 in the current context is a beneficial part of our atmosphere that is aiding plants to grow, and life to flourish. I would label Co2 more like a building block of life, not a pollutant.
Re: No Need to Panic About Global Warming
I am not a climatologist, and neither are most of these people
politics Add comments
In the past couple of days I have twice received an opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal which suggests that the models used for estimating climate change are grossly pessimistic and that we really need not be concerned with anthropogenic climate change. It was signed by sixteen scientists and engineers. The problem is that almost none of these people are climatologists – which is the field they are claiming is producing invalid science. Almost anyone can call themselves a scientist – having a Ph.D. helps – but, just because you are a scientist does not mean that you can speak authoratitively on all issues related to science. Stephen Hawking is a brilliant scientist, but he studies astrophysics, not climatology. I trust him on a lot of things, but I wouldn’t trust him on climate change. Nor would I trust Albert Einstein, Louis Pastuer, Madame Curie, or Isaac Newton.So, who are these climate change deniers that have the right frothing at the mouth again? Let’s take a quick look.
- Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris – Is a geochemist, which might make him qualified. It’s hard to tell as he has spent most of his time doing political work recently. He appears to have a strong contrarian streak, such as in 1996 when he insisted that asbestos was harmless and that anger over it was caused by mass hysteria. That last time I checked the link between asbestos and mesothelioma was pretty firm.
- J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting – This one gave me a decent chuckle. At first I thought he was a climate forecasting scientist, nope. Armstrong’s expertise is in marketing style forecasting, as in trends. His journal is also published by Elsevier. I think I threw up a little in my mouth.
- Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University – A medical doctor and not a climatologist. Breslow is perhaps most well known for his work on heart disease. This is great work he has done, but it’s not atmospheric science.
- Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society – It’s difficult to find information on Cohen. Prior to retirement he worked for ExxonMobil research, but that’s about all I can find. I can’t seem to find any publications on any issue. However, he does have a very common name, making him hard to google. He frequently consort with William Happer, who appears later in the list.
- Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences – As a member of the National Academy of Engineering I have great respect for Dr. David. However, he is an electrical engineer and has been largely retired from research for more than 20 years. Did I mention he was director of research at Exxon from 1977-1985?
- William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton – Seems to have moved away from research as he’s advanced in his career. During his prime he was a leader in the field of spectroscopy. Which, in case you didn’t know, has nothing to do with climate change. During his 2009 testimony to congress he indicated that an increase in CO2 is good for the planet because it’s good for plants. Yes, very much like the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s “CO2, We Call it Life” vieo.
- Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K. – Kelly primarily works on semi-conductors, specifically SRAM. He is not a climatologist or even a chemical engineer or chemist.
- William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology – Kininmonth is, perhaps, a meteorologist, although there is little information easily available about his activities. It is known that he is not a prominent researcher in any field and his “Australasian Climate Research Institute” is run out of his home and appears to be only his own writings.
- Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT – Lindzen is perhaps the most qualified individual on this list. He is well known for his skepticism of anthropogenic climate change. He stands out from the other signatories because he can speak with true scientific authority on the issue.
- James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University – McGrath studies polymers and fuel cells. He is a scientist, but not a climate scientist.
- Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences – This one took me a while longer to find out information about. I believe that Dr. Nichols is a physicist from Harvard, which means he could be a climatologist. However, looking at his publication record for the last 40 years you’ll find that most of his work is dealing with science and technology policy — issues that are close to my heart. However, this doesn’t qualify him as a climatologist. I’m sure he is well learned in a variety of topics, but I don’t believe he has a deep knowledge of the current research on climatology.
- Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne – I have great respect for Burt Rutan and his creations. He has done a huge amount to make space accessible for all. However, he’s an aerospace engineer, a field which studies the design of aircraft, not the atmosphere or climate science.
- Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator – As an astronaut Harrison Schmitt was on the mission that took the famous “Blue Marble” picture of the earth. In fact, evidence indicates that Schmitt most likely took the photo that has been credited with being a critical catalyst for the environment movement in the 1970′s. Outside of his astronaut career he was a university professor, geologist, and senator from New Mexico. None of these are related to the atmosphere or climate science.
- Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem – Shaviv is primarily an astrophysicst known for his work on cosmic rays and luminosity. He has his own theory of global warming which says that the cosmic rays of the sun are responsible for global warming. His theory has not been widely accepted and has faced great challenges because of the fact that the solar output has been decreasing since the mid 1980′s.
- Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service – Also a professor of Aeronautical Engineering at Penn State, Tennekes is most well known for his work on turbulence in airflows. In fact, he literally wrote the book on it. Unfortunately, that’s not a book on climate change. He was reportedly ousted from the Royal Dutch Meteorologic Service for his denial of climate change and his sometimes reliance on biblical texts for justification. Look, I’m a Christian and a scientist, but I realize that I can’t use biblical texts to justify my work, that’s not how science works.
- Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva – Primarily a sub-nuclear physicist who has worked at labs like CERN and FermiLab. His title of President of the World Federation of Scientists is self bestowed as he is the founder. It should not be considered to be an analog to the Federation of American Scientists. He is a highly cited researcher, and has done significant work in popularizing science in Italy, but he is not a climatologist.
Out of the sixteen people listed I count one atmospheric scientist, Lindzen, and a half, Allegre. In any community of scientists you’ll have dissenters. The fact that they could round up only one and a half climate scientists for this letter should show you just how strong the case for global warming really is. Want more evidence? 255 scientists, all members of the National Academy of Science, including 11 Nobel laureates wrote a scathing response, rejected by the Wall Street Journal and later published in Science.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by geomancer:
[This is one of the few scientifically respectable denier articles I've seen in the last few years. However, note that there is no mention of oceanic acidification, a disaster shaping up in the near term. See my recent post on the subject:
https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showt...947#post146947
Also, CO2 IS a pollutant - in high enough concentrations it can kill you. Pollution is simply a matter of degree. Another unmentioned line of evidence is the perturbation of geothermal gradients by warming of the ground surface. To measure a geothermal gradient, a very sensitive thermometer is lowered down a deep, water filled borehole and readings taken every few meters. There are geothermal gradient data from many thousands of 1000+ feet deep boreholes worldwide that show a definate warming in the upper 100+ feet that deviates from the theoretical steady-state gradient; this depth represents the last 150 years or so. Geothermal gradients are a function of climate, heat from from the mantle, radioactive heat from shallow crustal rock, and the thermal conductivity of the rock surrounding the borehole. When climate warms, the gradient changes and a wave of warming propagates downward. Shallow warming is a global phenomenon that averages out all the messy complications of local weather. Incidentally, the cooling from the last ice age is apparent in a broad perturbation of the theoretical steady-state geothermal gradient at a depth of about 3000 feet below the Hudson's bay region]
https://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...p_mostpop_read
No Need to Panic About Global Warming
There's no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to 'decarbonize' the world's economy.
JANUARY 27, 2012
Editor's Note: The following has been signed by the 16 scientists listed at the end of the article:
A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about "global warming." Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed.
In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of President Obama in the last election, publicly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) with a letter that begins: "I did not renew [my membership] because I cannot live with the [APS policy] statement: 'The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.' In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?"
In spite of a multidecade international campaign to enforce the message that increasing amounts of the "pollutant" carbon dioxide will destroy civilization, large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever. And the number of scientific "heretics" is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts.
Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 "Climategate" email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2.
The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.
The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Better plant varieties, chemical fertilizers and agricultural management contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century, but part of the increase almost certainly came from additional CO2 in the atmosphere.
Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job.
This is not the way science is supposed to work, but we have seen it before—for example, in the frightening period when Trofim Lysenko hijacked biology in the Soviet Union. Soviet biologists who revealed that they believed in genes, which Lysenko maintained were a bourgeois fiction, were fired from their jobs. Many were sent to the gulag and some were condemned to death.
Why is there so much passion about global warming, and why has the issue become so vexing that the American Physical Society, from which Dr. Giaever resigned a few months ago, refused the seemingly reasonable request by many of its members to remove the word "incontrovertible" from its description of a scientific issue? There are several reasons, but a good place to start is the old question "cui bono?" Or the modern update, "Follow the money."
Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.
Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.
Related Video
[go to the website for the video - I can't get the link to copy]
Princeton physics professor William Happer on why a large number of scientists don't believe that carbon dioxide is causing global warming.
A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world that would like to share some of the same advantages of material well-being, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the world enjoy now. Many other policy responses would have a negative return on investment. And it is likely that more CO2 and the modest warming that may come with it will be an overall benefit to the planet.
If elected officials feel compelled to "do something" about climate, we recommend supporting the excellent scientists who are increasing our understanding of climate with well-designed instruments on satellites, in the oceans and on land, and in the analysis of observational data. The better we understand climate, the better we can cope with its ever-changing nature, which has complicated human life throughout history. However, much of the huge private and government investment in climate is badly in need of critical review.
Every candidate should support rational measures to protect and improve our environment, but it makes no sense at all to back expensive programs that divert resources from real needs and are based on alarming but untenable claims of "incontrovertible" evidence.
Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.
Copyright 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights ReservedThis copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visitwww.djreprints.com
