| QUOTE |
| BBC: Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming? Phil Jones: Yes, [excuses removed] |
| QUOTE (The Washington Times) |
| Mr. Gore's high school performance on the college board achievement tests in physics (488 out of 800 "terrible," St. Albans retired teacher and assistant headmaster John Davis told The Post) and chemistry (519 out of 800 "He didn't do too well in chemistry," Mr. Davis observed) suggests that Mr. Gore would have trouble with science for the rest of his life. At Harvard and Vanderbilt, Mr. Gore continued bumbling along. As a Harvard sophomore, scholar Al "earned" a D in Natural Sciences 6 in a course presciently named "Man's Place in Nature." That was the year he evidently spent more time smoking cannabis than studying its place among other plants within the ecosystem. His senior year, Mr. Gore received a C+ in Natural Sciences 118. At Vanderbilt divinity school, Mr. Gore took a course in theology and natural science. The assigned readings included the apocalyptic, and widely discredited "Limits to Growth," which formed much of the foundation for "Earth in the Balance." It is said that Mr. Gore failed to hand in his book report on time. Thus, his incomplete grade turned into an F, one of five Fs Mr. Gore received at divinity school, which may well be a worldwide record. |
| QUOTE |
| Judge, "some of the errors by Mr Gore in AIT do arise in the context of alarmism and exaggeration in support of his political thesis." 1. ERROR: Sea level rise of up to 20 feet (7 metres) will be caused by melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland in the near future. Judge, "This is distinctly alarmist, It is common ground that if indeed Greenland melted, it would release this amount of water, but only after, and over, millennia" 2. ERROR: Low lying inhabited Pacific atolls are being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming. Judge, "In scene 20, Mr Gore states 'that's why the citizens of these Pacific nations have all had to evacuate to New Zealand'. There is no evidence of any such evacuation having yet happened." 3. ERROR: Shutting down of the "Ocean Conveyor". Judge, "According to the IPCC, it is very unlikely that the Ocean Conveyor will shut down in the future" 4. ERROR: Direct coincidence between rise in CO2 in the atmosphere and in temperature, by reference to two graphs. Judge, "the two graphs do not establish what Mr Gore asserts." 5. ERROR: The snows of Kilimanjaro. Judge, "it is common ground that, the scientific consensus is that it cannot be established that the recession of snows on Mt Kilimanjaro is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change." 6. ERROR: Lake Chad. Judge, "The drying up of Lake Chad is used as a prime example of a catastrophic result of global warming. However, it is generally accepted that the evidence remains insufficient to establish such an attribution. It is apparently considered to be far more likely to result from other factors, such as population increase and over-grazing, and regional climate variability." 7. ERROR: Hurricane Katrina. Judge, "In scene 12 Hurricane Katrina and the consequent devastation in New Orleans is ascribed to global warming. It is common ground that there is insufficient evidence to show that." 8. ERROR: Death of polar bears. Judge, "The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm. ...it plainly does not support Mr Gore's description." 9. ERROR: Coral reefs. Judge, "separating the impacts of climate change-related stresses from other stresses, such as over-fishing and polluting, is difficult." |
| QUOTE (Copenhagen Consensus) |
| A panel of economic experts, comprising eight of the world’s most distinguished economists [...] looked at three proposals, including the Kyoto Protocol, for dealing with climate change by reducing emissions of carbon. The expert panel regarded all three proposals as having costs that were likely to exceed the benefits. |
| QUOTE (Benny Peiser) |
| Oreskes claims to have analysed 928 abstracts she found listed on the ISI database using the keywords "climate change". However, a search on the ISI database using the keywords "climate change" for the years 1993-2003 reveals that almost 12,000 papers were published during the decade in question. [...] ...she admitted that there was indeed a serious mistake in her Science essay. According to Oreskes, her study was not based on the keywords "climate change," but on "global climate change" [yet her paper is clearly titled: The scientific consensus on "climate change" not "global climate change"] Her use of three keywords instead of two reduced the list of peer reviewed publications by one order of magnitude (on the UK's ISI databank the keyword search "global climate change" comes up with 1247 documents) [...] The results of my analysis contradict Oreskes' findings and essentially falsify her study: Of all 1117 abstracts, only 13 (1%) explicitly endorse the 'consensus view'. [...] 34 abstracts reject or doubt the view that human activities are the main drivers of the "the observed warming over the last 50 years". 44 abstracts focus on natural factors of global climate change." |
| QUOTE |
| Arctic Ocean pack ice = 0.01% Fraction of world ice - The melting of floating ice will not change sea level: the mass of this ice is equal to that of the water it displaces (watch the water level in a cup of floating ice cubes as they melt). |
| QUOTE |
| Based on what we know now, in the next 100 years a rise in sea level of 0.1 meters (4 inches) would not be surprising; those predicting changes of 0.5-2 meters (1.5-7 feet) are using flawed models. |
| QUOTE |
| Greenland lost an average of 195 cubic kilometres of ice per year between 2003 and 2008, which is enough to cause an annual increase in the global sea level of half a millimetre, or 5 cm (1.96 in) over the course of the next century |
| QUOTE (Nunatsaiq News) |
| Fears that two-thirds of the world's polar bears will die off in the next 50 years are overblown, says Mitchell Taylor, the Government of Nunavut's director of wildlife research. [...] While he agrees that seals are essential food for bears as they fatten up during the spring and summer months - seal blubber makes up half of the bears' energy intake - he also suspects bears will be able to supplement their diet with other foods, such as walrus. During the summer months polar bears may also forage on berries, sedges and other plants, as well as bird eggs, to supplement their diet. And Taylor also points out female polar bears go nine months without eating at all during pregnancy. Besides, Taylor says he and numerous Inuit hunters have seen bears catch seal without the presence of sea ice. Bears sometimes find a place on shore to pounce on seals swimming by. Or they may catch seals caught in tidal pools, or sneak up on their prey at night. Taylor even suggests polar bears may float still on the water to fool seals into thinking they are hunks of sea ice. |
| QUOTE |
| According to the World Wildlife Fund, about 20 distinct polar bear populations currently exist, accounting for approximately 22,000 polar bears worldwide. Of those distinct populations only two, representing about 16.4 percent of the total population, are decreasing. At the same time, 10 populations representing approximately 45.4 percent of the total population are stable, and 2 populations representing about 13.6 percent of the total number of polar bears are increasing. The status of the remaining populations is unknown. |
| QUOTE (The Heartland Institute) |
| Since the 1970s, while much of the world was warming, polar bear numbers increased dramatically, from roughly 5,000 to 25,000 bears, a higher polar bear population than has existed at any time in the twentieth century. |
| QUOTE (World Wildlife Fund) |
| There are believed to be at least 22,000 polar bears worldwide ... The general status of polar bears is currently stable, |
| QUOTE (Dr. Mitchell Taylor) |
| Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present. |
| QUOTE |
| For most subpopulations, population counts over time suggest a slight increase in the last 10-25 years. |
| QUOTE |
| Averaging the mean values from the tide-gauges provides an approximate 20th Century relative sea level rise trend of 3.53 mm/year, which is double the global-mean. This implies a local component of approximately 2 mm/year for the New Jersey coast which can be partially attributed to land subsidence and sediment compaction. |
| QUOTE (Geological Society of America) |
| A tide gage embedded above compacting sediment loses elevation, producing a water level record that indicates apparent sea-level rise equal to the loss in gage elevation. The USGS monitors subsidence in the marsh behind Atlantic City using an extensometer that penetrates 320m of section. Between 1980 and 2000, this extensometer measured 29mm of vertical compaction (1.5mm/yr) at this site. The Atlantic City tide gage rests above the same sedimentary section, plus surface sands deposited in historic time. The compaction of buried and surficial clastic sediment is an explanation for high apparent rates of sea-level rise (about 4.0mm/yr) at Atlantic City, Sandy Hook, and Hampton. On the Atlantic side of Florida, apparent rates of sea-level rise are generally lower than those from the mid-Atlantic coast, probably because historically recent calcium carbonate deposition in clastic pore space strengthens the Florida sediment, reducing compaction. |
| QUOTE (National Center for Atmospheric Research) |
| Our projections of greenhouse-gas induced sea-level rise due to thermal expansion between 1985 and 2025 are also relatively small, 4-8 cm |
| QUOTE (Luboš Motl) |
| The temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations have been correlated but we know for sure that the temperature was the cause and the concentration was its consequence, not the other way around. If you look carefully at the graphs, you will see that the carbon dioxide concentrations lag behind the temperature by 800 years. |
| QUOTE (Christopher W. Landsee) |
| Researchers cannot assume that the Atlantic tropical cyclone database presents a complete depiction of frequency of events before the advent of satellite imagery in the mid-1960s. Moreover, newly available advanced tools and techniques are also contributing toward monitoring about one additional Atlantic tropical cyclone per year since 2002. Thus large, long-term ‘trends’ in tropical cyclone frequency are primarily manifestations of increased monitoring capabilities and likely not related to any real change in the climate in which they develop. |
| QUOTE |
| Global hurricane frequency and/or intensity has not been observed to undergo any significant trends as a result of the global warming of the last 30 years for frequency and for the last 20 years for intensity |
| QUOTE (NOAA) |
| ...until organized reconnaissance began in 1944, the two major sources of information on tropical cyclones were land stations and ships at sea. Undoubtedly, during this early period some storms went undetected. |
| QUOTE (James Spann) |
| Well, well. Some “climate expert” on “The Weather Channel” wants to take away AMS certification from those of us who believe the recent “global warming” is a natural process. So much for “tolerance”, huh? I have been in operational meteorology since 1978, and I know dozens and dozens of broadcast meteorologists all over the country. Our big job: look at a large volume of raw data and come up with a public weather forecast for the next seven days. I do not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype. I know there must be a few out there, but I can’t find them. |
| QUOTE (IAML) |
| What is the contribution of anthropogenic carbon dioxide to global warming? This question has been the subject of many heated arguments, and a great deal of hysteria. ...we will consider a simple calculation, based on well-accepted facts, that shows that the expected global temperature increase caused by doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide levels is bounded by an upper limit of 1.4-2.7 degrees centigrade. This result contrasts with the results of the IPCC's climate models, whose projections are shown to be unrealistically high. [...] At the current rate of increase, CO2 will not double its current level until 2255. |
| QUOTE (IPCC WG1 AR4 Page 140) |
| The formula used for the CO2 RF calculation in this chapter is the IPCC (1990) expression as revised in the TAR. Note that for CO2, RF increases logarithmically with mixing ratio. |
| QUOTE |
| Over the past 20 years the solar cycle remains fully apparent in variations both of tropospheric air temperature and of ocean subsurface water temperature. [...] When the response of the climate system to the solar cycle is apparent in the troposphere and ocean, but not in the global surface temperature, one can only wonder about the quality of the surface temperature record. For whatever reason, it is a poor guide to Sun-driven physical processes that are still plainly persistent in the climate system. [...] ...one cannot distinguish between the effects of anthropogenic gases such as carbon dioxide and of natural greenhouse gases. For example, increased evaporation means that infrared radiation from water vapor, by far the most important greenhouse gas, will tend to provide positive feedback for any global warming, ... In any case, the most recent global temperature trend is close to zero. [...] The continuing rapid increase in carbon dioxide concentrations during the past 10-15 years has apparently been unable to overrule the °attening of the temperature trend as a result of the Sun settling at a high, but no longer increasing, level of magnetic activity. Contrary to the argument of Lockwood and FrÄohlich, the Sun still appears to be the main forcing agent in global climate change. |
| QUOTE (National Academy of Sciences) |
| Less confidence can be placed in large-scale surface temperature reconstructions for the period A.D. 900 to 1600. ...The uncertainties increase substantially backward in time through this period and are not yet fully quantified. [...] Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that "the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium" [...] Prior to about 1600, ...periods of medieval warmth are seen in a number of diverse records, including historical information from Europe and Asia; cave deposits; marine and lake sediments; and ice cores from Greenland, Ellesmere Island, Tibet, and the equatorial Andes. [...] Using proxies sensitive to hydrologic variables (including moisture-sensitive trees...) to take advantage of observed correlations with surface temperature could lead to problems [...] For tree ring chronologies, the process of removing biological trends from ringwidth data potentially obscures information on long-term changes in climate. [...] Large-scale surface temperature reconstructions yield a generally consistent picture of temperature trends during the preceding millennium, including relatively warm conditions centered around A.D. 1000 (identified by some as the “Medieval Warm Period”) and a relatively cold period (or “Little Ice Age”) centered around 1700. The existence and extent of a Little Ice Age from roughly 1500 to 1850 is supported by a wide variety of evidence including ice cores, tree rings, borehole temperatures, glacier length records, and historical documents. |
| QUOTE |
| We share the assessment of the NRC committee that the evidence for unprecedented warming of a single decade or even a single year in times prior to 1500, or so, is stretching the scientific evidence too far. However, this was the key claim made in the contested 1998-nature and 1999-GRL-papers by Mann et al. With respect to methods, the committee is showing reservations concerning the methodology of Mann et al.. The committee notes explicitly on pages 91 and 111 that the method has no validation (CE) skill significantly different from zero. In the past, however, it has always been claimed that the method has a significant nonzero validation skill. Methods without a validation skill are usually considered useless. [...] Thus, the public perception that the hockeystick as truthfully describing the temperature history was definitely false. We find it disappointing that the method of Mann et al. was not sufficiently described in the original publication, and thus not peer-reviewed prior to publication, and that no serious efforts were made to allow independent researchers to check the performance of the methods and of the data used. |
| QUOTE (Daily Mail UK) |
| One method could be personal carbon-allowances, where everyone is given a fixed amount of carbon to use each year. Each time they travel in a plane, buy petrol, go shopping or eat out would be recorded on a plastic card. The more frugal could sell spare carbon to those who want to indulge themselves. But if you were to run out of your carbon allowance, you could be barred from flying or driving. |
| QUOTE |
| When discomfirmatory (contrary) evidence is presented, Festinger found one condition that often determined whether the belief is discarded or maintained with new fervor by belief with a strongloy held belief. That was whether or not the individual believer has social support. It is unlikely that one isolated believer could withstand strong discomfirming evidence. If, however, the believer is a member of a group of convinced persons who can support one another, you might expect the belief to be maintained and the believers to attempt to proselytice or persuade non-members that the belief is correct even in the face of data suggesting otherwise. |
| QUOTE |
| Festinger first developed this theory in the 1950s to explain how members of a cult who were persuaded by their leader, a certain (Al Gore), that the earth was going to be destroyed. The dissonance of the thought of being so stupid was so great that instead they revised their beliefs to meet with obvious facts: that (Al Gore) had, through their concern for the cult, saved the world instead. |
| QUOTE (1975 Newsweek Global Cooling) |
| The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality |
| QUOTE (Sallie Baliunas) |
| a worldwide 5% cut in carbon dioxide emissions from 1990 levels, would reduce temperatures an insignificant 0.06°C |
| QUOTE (FrontPage Magazine) |
| Might it be mere coincidence that Earth Day [April 22] falls on Lenin’s Birthday? No, this link was apparently intended from the beginning. Sincere environmentalists who objected that Lenin’s Soviet Union was a despoiler of the natural ecology of Russia, a dammer of rivers and polluter of ecosystems, have been ignored or silenced. |
| QUOTE (Freeman Dyson - Professor Emeritus of Physics - Princeton University) |
| My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. [...] But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models. |
| QUOTE (Freeman Dyson - Professor Emeritus of Physics - Princeton University) |
| Prof. Dyson explains that the many components of climate models are divorced from first principles and are "parameterized" -- incorporated by reference to their measured effects. "They are full of fudge factors that are fitted to the existing climate, so the models more or less agree with the observed data. But there is no reason to believe that the same fudge factors would give the right behaviour in a world with different chemistry, for example in a world with increased CO2 in the atmosphere," he states. Prof. Dyson learned about the pitfalls of modelling early in his career, in 1953, and from good authority: physicist Enrico Fermi, who had built the first nuclear reactor in 1942. The young Prof. Dyson and his team of graduate students and post-docs had proudly developed what seemed like a remarkably reliable model of subatomic behaviour that corresponded with Fermi's actual measurements. To Prof. Dyson's dismay, Fermi quickly dismissed his model. "In desperation, I asked Fermi whether he was not impressed by the agreement between our calculated numbers and his measured numbers. He replied, 'How many arbitrary parameters did you use for your calculations?' I thought for a moment about our cut-off procedures and said, 'Four.' He said, 'I remember my friend Johnny von Neumann [the co-creator of game theory] used to say, with four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.' With that, the conversation was over." Prof. Dyson soon abandoned this line of inquiry. Only years later, after Fermi's death, did new developments in science confirm that the impressive agreement between Prof. Dyson's model and Fermi's measurements was bogus, and that Prof. Dyson and his students had been spared years of grief by Fermi's wise dismissal of his speculative model. Although it seemed elegant, it was no foundation upon which to base sound science. |
| QUOTE (Fraser Institute) |
| Arguments for the hypothesis rely on computer simulations, which can never be decisive as supporting evidence. The computer models in use are not, by necessity, direct calculations of all basic physics but rely upon empirical approximations for many of the smaller scale processes of the oceans and atmosphere. They are tuned to produce a credible simulation of current global climate statistics, but this does not guarantee reliability in future climate regimes. And there are enough degrees of freedom in tunable models that simulations cannot serve as supporting evidence for any one tuning scheme, such as that associated with a strong effect from greenhouse gases. |
| QUOTE |
| Instead of simply complying with standard IPCC procedures, Rahmstorf used a filter procedure described only in the AGU newspaper - the triangular filter properties of which were not described in the original article and indeed the authors say that they unaware of this defect at the time. Rahmstorf changed smoothing policy not just once, but twice. First, in Rahmstorf 2007, he abandoned IPCC policy in favor of an article in the AGU newspaper; then he changed accounting parameters in the Copenhagen Report - all without explicitly stating that he had changed policy from the IPCC report and accompanying the change notice with an explicit accounting of the impact of the change. Rahmstorf can no longer assert that observations are in the "upper" part of models, with the implication that things are "worse than we thought". |
| QUOTE |
| In this Letter, we use statistical climate-field-reconstruction techniques to obtain a 50-year-long, spatially complete estimate of monthly Antarctic temperature anomalies. In essence, we use the spatial covariance structure of the surface temperature field to guide interpolation of the sparse but reliable 50-year-long records of 2-m temperature from occupied weather stations. Although it has been suggested that such interpolation is unreliable owing to the distances involved, large spatial scales are not inherently problematic if there is high spatial coherence, as is the case in continental Antarctica. |
| QUOTE (American Association of Petroleum Geologists - 2007) |
| ...the AAPG membership is divided on the degree of influence that anthropogenic CO2 has on recent and potential global temperature increases [...] Geologists study the history of the earth and realize climate has changed often in the past due to natural causes. The Earth’s climate naturally varies constantly, in both directions, at varying rates, and on many scales. In recent decades global temperatures have risen. Yet, our planet has been far warmer and cooler than today many times in the geologic past, including the past 10,000 years. ...the current climate warming projections could fall within well-documented natural variations in past climate and observed temperature data. ... To be predictive, any model of future climate should also accurately model known climate and greenhouse gas variations recorded in the geologic history of the past 200,000 years. [...] ...emission reduction has an economic cost, which must be compared to the potential environmental gain |
| QUOTE (American Association of State Climatologists - 2001) |
| ...Climate prediction is complex with many uncertainties – The AASC recognizes climate prediction is an extremely difficult undertaking. For time scales of a decade or more, understanding the empirical accuracy of such predictions – called “verification” – is simply impossible, since we have to wait a decade or longer to assess the accuracy of the forecasts. Climate prediction is difficult because it involves complex, nonlinear interactions among all components of the earth’s environmental system. These components include the oceans, land, lakes, and continental ice sheets, and involve physical, biological, and chemical processes. The complicated feedbacks and forcings within the climate system are the reasons for the difficulty in accurately predicting the future climate. The AASC recognizes that human activities have an influence on the climate system. Such activities, however, are not limited to greenhouse gas forcing and include changing land use and sulfate emissions, which further complicates the issue of climate prediction. Furthermore, climate predictions have not demonstrated skill in projecting future variability and changes in such important climate conditions as growing season, drought, flood-producing rainfall, heat waves, tropical cyclones and winter storms. These are the type of events that have a more significant impact on society than annual average global temperature trends. Policy responses to climate variability and change should be flexible and sensible – The difficulty of prediction and the impossibility of verification of predictions decades into the future are important factors that allow for competing views of the long-term climate future. Therefore, the AASC recommends that policies related to long-term climate not be based on particular predictions, but instead should focus on policy alternatives that make sense for a wide range of plausible climatic conditions regardless of future climate. Climate is always changing on a variety of time scales and being prepared for the consequences of this variability is a wise policy. |
| QUOTE (American Geophysical Union - 2007) |
| With such projections, there are many sources of scientific uncertainty... |
| QUOTE |
| The AGU Board issued a statement on climate change without putting it to a vote of the group's more than 50,000 members. Its sweeping claims, drafted by nine committee members, rely heavily on long term computer model projections, cherry-picking of data and a one-sided view of recent research. As with the recent statements by the AMS and the NAS, this is the product of a small circle of scientists who all share the same point of view, and who failed to put their statement to a vote of the AGU members on whose behalf they now claim to speak. As such it amounts to nothing more than a restatement of the opinion of a small group, rather than a consensus document. |
| QUOTE |
| As has been recognized, this Statement was prepared and approved by only a very limited number of AGU members, and was not put to a vote for approval by the AGU membership |
| QUOTE (American Meteorological Society - 2007) |
| ...All these reports recognize the uncertainties in climate projections, [...] ...members offered alternative views on climate change or put quite different emphases on the uncertainties of climate projections. ...The scientific process of debate and investigation is the lifeblood of science; this essential process must continue. [...] ...the East Antarctic ice sheet and the Greenland interior appear to be gaining mass. ...little or no annual temperature change in the southeast U.S. in recent decades. [...] Climate has changed throughout geological history, for many natural reasons such as changes in the sun’s energy received by Earth arising from slow orbital changes, or changes in the sun’s energy reaching Earth’s surface due to volcanic eruptions. [...] Changes in the land surface also change the surface water and energy budgets act to redirect the incoming solar energy. Humans alter land surface characteristics through irrigation practices, removal and reintroduction of forests, agricultural changes to vegetative cover, reduction of soil water recharge by soil compaction, and modification of heat storage by cities and reservoirs. Many of these lead to changes in the reflectivity of the surface. ...such changes can have significant effects on regional and local climate patterns. The interaction of all these effects on climate is complex. ...the east–west difference in U.S. temperature trends may be tied to the spatial patterns of global ocean warming, ...or to natural climate variations. [...] Changes in the means and extremes of temperature and precipitation in response to increasing greenhouse gases can be projected over decades to centuries even though the timing of individual weather events cannot be projected. Unlike daily weather forecasts, there is limited historical basis of experience on which to judge the accuracy of climate projections. [...] Weather predictions beyond a few days are nowadays based on ensembles of simulations that estimate the range of probable outcomes. The same ensemble concept is used for projections of climate change, where uncertainty arises from the limitations of models and from the emission scenarios used to represent the effects of human activity. Model limitations include uncertainties in the way in which processes that operate at scales smaller than the resolved scale of the model are represented, as well as those that arise from components of the Earth system not currently included in models. Among the most important uncertainties are changes in clouds, which can either cool or warm the climate. ...The emission scenarios used to drive the climate model projections are uncertain since they depend on socioeconomic responses to climate change; [...] ...considerable uncertainty still exists in the degree to which the land will warm more than the oceans, and this contributes significantly to uncertainties in future projections of global sea level rise. [...] ...There is evidence ...against the existence of a detectable anthropogenic signal in the tropical cyclone climate record to date. Though hurricanes are projected to intensify with further warming of sea surface temperatures, significant uncertainty remains as to how other influences on hurricane strength will change in the future. [...] ...On the other hand, longer growing seasons and CO2 fertilization enhancing plant growth may potentially lead to some benefits. [...] The Earth system is highly interconnected and complex, with many processes and feedbacks that are just beginning to be detected and understood. [...] ...Policy decisions are seldom made in a context of absolute certainty. Some continued climate change is inevitable, and the policy debate should also consider the best ways to adapt to climate change. |
| QUOTE (American Meteorological Society - 2003) |
| ...but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability. [...] ...it is proving difficult to achieve national and international consensus as to what should and could be done to address the issues. [...] ...natural processes such as solar variability and volcanic outgassing were the dominant forcing factors producing long-term climate changes over periods of decades, centuries, and millennia. [...] The nature of science is such that there is rarely total agreement among scientists. [...] While significant progress has been made toward a better understanding and improved projection of climate change and its impacts, uncertainty remains regarding the magnitude, timing, and regional distribution of anticipated changes. [...] ...most of the data that have been used for climate purposes were and still are obtained from observation systems designed for other purposes (e.g., weather prediction). These data are often inadequate for the analysis and description of climate change because of the higher accuracy requirements for observations used to detect very low amplitude climate changes over long time periods. [...] The Earth's climate system is tightly coupled and awe inspiring in its complexity. Understanding and modeling the myriad physical, chemical, and biological forcing, interactions, and feedbacks of the system is a daunting task that will continue to occupy researchers for the foreseeable future. [...] Land-use change is another important human-induced regional forcing factor, but accurate histories of land-use change are spotty and estimates of future land-use changes are very difficult. [...] Cloud feedback may also be very important, but its magnitude and even its sign remain uncertain. Climate-induced changes of the land surface may in turn feed back on the climate itself. Many processes are involved, including changes in soil characteristics (e.g., soil moisture, holding capacity), vegetation, radiative characteristics (e.g., albedo), and surface-atmosphere exchanges of water vapor, other gases (e.g., CO2), particulates (e.g., dust) and momentum. Some of these processes remain poorly understood and difficult to measure and model, and thus require continued research. The full suite of potentially important feedback processes is yet to be adequately understood and quantified. For example, although observations of global mean temperatures indicate that the surface has warmed by about 0.6°C over the past 100 years, the mean tropospheric temperature trends, for which we have observations only over the past 40 years or so, are more complex and not well understood. Although there remains significant observational uncertainties, global mean tropospheric temperatures warmed faster in the 1960s and 1970s, and slower in the 1980s and 1990s, than the global mean surface temperature. These differences indicate the need for research into feedback processes that might explain this reversal in tropospheric temperature trends. Additional poorly understood feedbacks of potential importance are carbon cycle feedback, due to warming-induced changes in the land and ocean carbon reservoirs; atmospheric chemistry feedback, due to chemical interactions affecting ozone concentrations, aerosol formation, and atmospheric heating profiles; and ocean circulation feedback, arising from ocean circulation changes that affect ocean-atmosphere heat and freshwater exchange. [...] The relatively short instrumental time series, generally less than a century in length, is often too short to adequately characterize longer-term variability. [...] ...many crucial details of magnitude, timing, and specific regional responses-especially for hydrological variables, such as precipitation-are still very much in doubt. The uncertainties arise due to incomplete identification and understanding of processes significant in future climate, and their necessary approximations in models. [...] The assessment of regional environmental and social impacts is a multidisciplinary task that involves natural and social scientists working in tandem with policy makers. [...] ...climate models will never be perfect. Only a portion of natural climate variability is predictable, and the inherent degree of predictability is not yet well understood. [...] Risk cannot be assessed with absolute certainty. [...] Extensive multidisciplinary research is needed to narrow the many formidable knowledge gaps. |
| QUOTE (Joint Science Academies - 2005) |
| There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world’s climate. [...] The existence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is vital to life on Earth – in their absence average temperatures would be about 30 centigrade degrees lower than they are today. [...] the Earth’s surface warmed by approximately 0.6 centigrade degrees over the twentieth century. [...] The projected changes in climate will have both beneficial and adverse effects at the regional level, [...] The task of devising and implementing strategies to adapt to the consequences of climate change will require worldwide collaborative inputs from a wide range of experts, including physical and natural scientists, engineers, social scientists, medical scientists, those in the humanities, business leaders and economists. |
| QUOTE |
| Russian academicians are still negative about the Kyoto protocol to the UN convention on climate change, a leading scientist told a Friday news conference. Academician Yury Izrael, who chairs the Russian Academy of Sciences' council-seminar on the Kyoto protocol, said the council had confirmed its position on climate change remained the same. [...] Izrael said Russian Academy of Sciences President Yury Osipov's signature on the document was "a misunderstanding." Izrael said the document had been discussed collectively only at today's seminar. Russian academicians asked Osipov to recall his signature. [...] Russian scientists said they still considered the Kyoto protocol was scientifically ungrounded, and would be an ineffective way to try to achieve the aim of the UN convention on climate change. They also said it was harmful for the Russian economy |
| QUOTE (The Washington Post) |
| The boy has drawn, in his third-grade class, a global warming timeline that is his equivalent of the mushroom cloud. Alex Hendel of Arlington County is talking about the end of life on our beleaguered planet. Looking up to make sure his mother is following along, he taps the final stripe, which is so sparsely dotted it is almost invisible. "In 20 years," he pronounces, "there's no oxygen." Then, to dramatize the point, he collapses, "dead," to the floor. |
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| Founded in 1970 as a loose assortment of Canadian anti-nuclear agitators, American expatriates, and underground journalists calling themselves the "Don't Make a Wave Committee," Greenpeace is today the most influential group of the environmental Left. [...] In the early 1990s, the organization turned its attention to the purported threat that chlorine posed to the world's water supplies. At the time, Greenpeace asserted that it would accept nothing less than the blanket prohibition of the element. "There are no uses of chlorine which we regard as safe," declared Greenpeace activist Joe Thornton, [...] Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore left the organization and now laments that the group has become "dominated by leftwingers and extremists who disregard science in the pursuit of environmental purity." According to a December 20, 2005 New York Times report, "the F.B.I. investigated possible financial ties between [Greenpeace] members and militant groups like the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front." [...] An expose of Greenpeace's fundraising practices carried out in 2003 by Public Interest Watch (PIW), a nonprofit watchdog group, led to a report disclosing that Greenpeace uses its Greenpeace Fund, a tax-exempt entity debarred from engaging in political advocacy and lobbying by the IRS tax code, to illegally direct funds to Greenpeace Inc., a tax-exempt organization permitted to engage in lobbying and advocacy but not to accept tax-deductible funds. PIW calculated that in 2000, $4.25 million was provided by the Greenpeace Fund in this way. Greenpeace is heavily funded by many foundations, among which are the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Bauman Family Foundation, the Blue Moon Fund, the Columbia Foundation, the Compton Foundation, the Minneapolis Foundation, the Nathan orgasmings Foundation, the Scherman Foundation, Ted Turner's Turner Foundation. The organization has also drawn support from numerous celebrities, including singers Sting, Tom Jones, and Elton John, who have sponsored its "save the rainforest" campaigns. In 2004, Greenpeace received $15,844,752 in grants, and held net assets of $1,893,548. That same year, the Greenpeace Fund received grants totaling $6,866,534 and held net assets of $7,532,018. |
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| Greenpeace was originally the brainchild of the radical “Don’t Make a Wave Committee,” a group of American draft-dodgers who fled to Vancouver in 1969 and, supported by money from anti-war Quaker organizations, got into the business of forcibly blocking American nuclear tests. Over the years the group has loudly made its feelings known on a variety of issues (nuclear testing, whaling, and global warming, for instance), and its Amsterdam-based activist moguls pull the strings on what is estimated to be a $360 million global empire. Here in the United States, however, Greenpeace is a relatively modest activist group, spending about $10 million per year. And the lion’s share of that budget in recent years has gone to outrageous attempts to smear agricultural biotech products and place doubts about the safety of genetically improved foods in the minds of American consumers. [...] Patrick Moore was one of a dozen or so activists who founded Greenpeace in the basement of a Unitarian Church in Vancouver. Within 7 years, the organization had footholds in over two dozen countries and a $100 million budget. As eco-activists in general found themselves suddenly invited into the meeting-places of business and government, Greenpeace made the decision to take even more extreme positions, rather than being drawn in to collaboration with their former enemies. Moore broke with his comrades during this period, and has emerged as an articulate critic of his former brainchild. Referring to Greenpeace’s “eco-extremism” in March 2000, he described the group in Oregon Wheat magazine as “Anti-human”; “antitechnology and anti-science”; “Anti-organization” and “pro-anarchy”; “anti-trade”; “anti-free-enterprise”; “anti-democratic”; and “basically anti-civilization.” Writing in Canada’s National Post in October 2001, Patrick Moore offered the following critique: “I had no idea that after I left in 1986 they would evolve into a band of scientific illiterates…. Clearly, my former Greenpeace colleagues are either not reading the morning paper or simply don't care about the truth.” |
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| "John Cook: A cartoonist working from home in Brisbane, Australia" (SEV) |
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| "I'm not a climatologist or a scientist but a self employed cartoonist" - John Cook, Skeptical Science |
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| The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization with more than 100,000 members. Seeing its mission as building a "cleaner, healthier environment and a safer world," ... It opposes genetically engineered foods, condemns SUV vehicles, and proposes measures aimed at combating what it deems the imminent dangers of global warming. It also opposes the vast majority of American foreign policy decisions, and calls for a unilateral reduction in U.S. nuclear weapons stockpiles. UCS disseminates to lawmakers and news outlets its opinions about each of these matters, with the intent of ultimately influencing public policy. Students and faculty members at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology founded UCS in 1969. "Through its actions in Vietnam, our government has shaken our confidence in its ability to make wise and humane decisions," reads the UCS founding document. That sentiment continues to this day, with UCS condemning American efforts in the War on Terror and the 2003 War in Iraq. UCS typically minimizes threats posed by foreign rogue regimes, and challenges U.S. assertions about the intentions and military capacities of those governments. In 1998, for instance, UCS assured the public that American analysts had exaggerated North Korea's ability to produce nuclear weapons, and that the Pyongyang regime was still many years away from being able to develop such an arsenal. UCS vigorously opposes America's development of a missile defense system. It also calls for the "adoption of a U.S. nuclear no-first-use policy"; "a U.S. rejection of rapid-launch options, and a change in deployment practices to provide for the launch of U.S. nuclear forces in hours or days rather than minutes"; "the elimination of all U.S. 'tactical' nuclear weapons, intended for use on the battlefield"; "verified unilateral reductions to a total of 1,000 strategic warheads (including deployed and stored), accompanied by warhead dismantlement"; and "a commitment to further reductions in the number of nuclear weapons, on a negotiated and verified multilateral basis." UCS admonishes American corporations such as McDonald's and Burger King, asserting that the presence of antibiotics in meat used by fast-food companies contributes to large-scale antibiotic resistance. In 2003, bills based on UCS research aimed at prohibiting the use of eight classes of antibiotics in livestock used by fast-food producers were introduced in both the U.S. House and Senate. Soon after, UCS admitted that the majority of its claims were speculative. UCS has also warned of the alleged dangers of genetically modified food. Another issue of concern to UCS is that of global warming. The organization circulated a petition that drew the signatures of some 1,600 scientific experts demanding that the United States ratify the Kyoto Protocol. A Union of Concerned Scientists declaration, entitled "Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policy Making," charges that the Bush administration "has continued to distort and suppress science in pursuit of its political goals — despite a plea from top U.S. scientists to restore scientific integrity to the policy-making process." According to UCS President Kevin Knobloch, "We found a serious pattern of undermining science by the Bush administration, and it crosses disciplines, whether it's global climate change or reproductive health or mercury in the food chain or forestry -- the list goes on and on." The signers of this document portrayed themselves as objective scientists with no political agenda. But in truth, over half of them were financial contributors to the Democratic Party, Democratic candidates, or a variety of leftist causes. [...] UCS is a member of the Save Our Environment Action Center, a leftist coalition that describes itself as "a collaborative effort of the nation's most influential environmental advocacy organizations harnessing the power of the internet to increase public awareness and activism on today's most important environmental issues." UCS has received funding from the Beldon Fund, the Compton Foundation, the Educational Foundation of America, the J.M. Kaplan Fund, the Scherman Foundation, the Blue Moon Fund, the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Energy Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Turner Foundation, and Pew Charitable Trusts. |
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| George Monbiot, the environmental campaigner, scourge of the automobile industry and champion of not owning cars, has finally bought himself . . . a car. Notwithstanding pledges to live a green lifestyle and be a model to others, he has given in to temptation and acquired a secondhand Renault. [...] In what can only be described as a comprehensive U-turn, Monbiot has chosen a Renault Clio, an economical hatchback but not the most frugal in fuel consumption or carbon emissions. He bought it from a friend for an undisclosed amount. As zealots will be quick to remind him, it emits 115g/km , 10% higher than a Toyota Prius, the petrol-electric hybrid belovedof CO2 of the green movement. |
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| Peter Sinclair is a long time advocate of environmental awareness and energy alternatives. ...Mr. Sinclair runs Greenman Studio from his home in Midland, MI. ...30 years of writing and activism in the areas of energy and environment, including extended study in Nashville with Al Gore |
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| Sinclair studied with Al Gore in dealing with the issue of global warming |
