MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING
IS POLITICS NOT SCIENCE

By: John Bender

On Friday, February 2, 2007 the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a document titled: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policymakers.   This is a political document.  It is not the supposedly scientific document which is titled: IPCC Working Group I Contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. 

The “scientific” document is still being edited and will not be issued for several months.  Yet the buggy whip media is using the political document to gin up hysteria among the gullible masses. 

None of the fear mongers in the buggy whip press are bothering to mention the fact that the political document says right in the beginning that the “scientific” document is being edited to conform to the already released summary.   That’s right.  The U.N. politicians and bureaucrats wrote and released a summary of a report that isn’t written yet and is being edited to conform to their political summary. 

The political summary itself says: “Changes (other than grammatical or minor editorial changes) made after acceptance by the Working Group or the Panel shall be those necessary to ensure consistency with the Summary for Policymakers or the Overview Chapter.”  There is no outcry about this among the fear mongers.  Contrast the total lack of reportage on this with the huge outcry in the buggy whip press when some language (no data) was allegedly altered in some US government climate reports. 

Nor are the purveyors of panic giving much notice to the scientists like Dr. Chris Landsea who in his own words, resigned from the IPCC because: 

“I personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound.” 

That’s right.  One of their own scientists who worked on the project for years wrote for it previously and was asked to write part of this report quit because the product is driven by pre-conceived agendas and is scientifically unsound. 

It’s not part of the politically correct agenda so the buggy whip media relays only the apocalyptic view touted by media darlings like Al Gore rather than give a balanced report including all sides of the debate.

Dr. Timothy Ball’s excellent debunking of the IOOP political statement, Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts? was almost totally ignored by the environmentally correct old media.  Dr. Ball’s excellent piece starts with his credentials: “Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn't exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth. But few listen, despite the fact that I was one of the first Canadian PhDs. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition. Few listen, even though I have a PhD, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and was a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. For some reason (actually for many), the World is not listening. Here is why.” 

Other prominent scientists ignored by the hysteria merchants include Edward Wegman. Dr. Wegman is a professor at the Center for Computational Statistics at George Mason University, chair of the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics, and board member of the American Statistical Association.  Dr. Wegman’s basic conclusion on the scientific basis for the hypothesis of man-made global warming boils down to; “junk in, junk out”. 

Another prominent scientist ignored by the old media is Dr. Richard S.J. Tol who was an IPCC author, is Editor of “Energy Economics”, and board member of the Centre for Marine and Climate Research at Hamburg University. Dr. Tol believes global warming is real but believes it benefits mankind, especially in the short term. 

Duncan Wingham, professor of climate physics at University College London and principal scientist of the European Space Agency's CryoSat Mission, which is designed to measure changes in the Earth's ice masses.  Dr. Wigman’s findings show that the scientific evidence to date “is not favorable to the notion we are seeing the results of global warming.” 

Dr. Henrik Svensmark of the Danish National Space Center, believes that changes in the sun's magnetic field, is the reason for global warming, not anything man has done. Dr. Nigel Weiss, past president of the Royal Astronomical Society and a mathematical aerophysicist at the University of Cambridge, also believes the Sun, not man is responsible for changes in the Earth's climate. Adding weight to this view of global warming is the findings of Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the space research laboratory at Pulkovo Astronomical Observatoryin Russia, and others, that Mars is also undergoing global warming.  Even Al Gore should know that Mars has no greenhouse conditions and there is no activity by Martians to blame the warming on. Dr. Abdussamatov believes this shows it is solar irradiance, not carbon dioxide, which accounts for the recent rise in temperature.

Nor has the rapidly disintegrating buggy whip media bothered to mention that the U.N. and Ted Turner’s $1 Billion gift to that organization fund the IPCC scientists.  Yet, they went ballistic when it was reported that Exxon was offering small stipends to scientists who are not caught up in proving the preconceived agenda of the U.N. and the far left.   

Of course, yellow journalism like that is the reason the buggy whip press and the old broadcast media are losing readership, and viewers.  They’ve lost credibility with all but the most radical leftists and the Oprah watchers.  Still, much of the new media has been slow in getting out the real facts. Giving the fear mongers a bigger edge in the debate than they deserve.  One exception in broadcast media has been Rush Limbaugh.  Mr. Limbaugh has done yeoman’s work exposing the junk science and the political nature of the hysteria.   

None of this will matter to the radical left, the environmental wackos, or to the perpetually scared.  The gullible masses who believed the junk science from the same sources now spewing tainted conclusions about global warming when they said the Earth was cooling. 

Here are just a few quotes the press used to excite the gullible in the 1970’s: 

The continued rapid cooling of the earth since WWII is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialization, mechanization, urbanization and exploding population. -- Reid Bryson, "Global Ecology; Readings towards a rational strategy for Man", (1971) 

The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer -- Paul Ehrlich - The Population Bomb (1968)  

I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000 -- Paul Ehrlich in (1969)  

In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish. -- Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970)  

Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity . . . in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion -- Paul Ehrlich in (1976)  

This [cooling] trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century -- Peter Gwynne, Newsweek 1976  

There are ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth. The drop in food production could begin quite soon... The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologist are hard-pressed to keep up with it. -- Newsweek, April 28, (1975)  

This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000. -- Lowell Ponte "The Cooling", 1976  

If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000...This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age. -- Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day (1970) 

Nor will it matter to the perpetually scared that many of the scientists contributing to the tainted reports are radical leftists. Many of them belong to the radical Union of Concerned Scientists, a far left-wing activist group.  David Martosko, executive director of ActivistCash.com - a division of the Center for Consumer Freedom last month told Cybercast News Service the UCS would be "more aptly named the Union of Pro-Regulation, Anti-Business Scientists."

University of Virginia environmental scientist, Dr. Fred Singer, told Cybercast News Service that the union had "zero credibility as a scientific organization" and was more akin to "pressure groups like Greenpeace." 

One example of the political agenda of the “scientists at the UCS is this quote from Helen Caldicott; “Free Enterprise really means rich people get richer. They have the freedom to exploit and psychologically rape their fellow human beings in the process . . . Capitalism is destroying the earth.” -- Helen Caldicott, Union of Concerned Scientists. 

This is the same Helen Caldicott who in 1982 made the ridicules claim that the Hershey Foods Corporation was producing chocolate carrying strontium 90 because of the proximity of the Three Mile Island incident to Hershey's factory.  Her assertion was easily debunked and discredited but the fear mongers in the old media never gave the debunking the same coverage they gave the unfounded assertion.  One can still find the claim on some environmentalists’ web sites along with the silliness about man-made global warming. 

There is plenty of evidence that man-made global warming is no more real than man-made global cooling was.  The people who believe professional wrestling is real will dismiss that evidence preferring to believe the tainted junk science put out by the U.N. and the radical left. 

The more thoughtful among us will consider the source of the hysterical claims along with their record and their radical agenda and not join the gullible in believing the sky is falling.




"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."

John Bender is a freelance writer living in Dallas, Texas.  He is a past Ether Zone contributor.

John Bender can be reached at: jbender@columnist.com

Published in the February 13, 2007 issue of  Ether Zone.
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