[Vision2020] Attendees At UN Climate Conference Pay ForConference Associated CO2 Emissions

[Ted Moffett]

Dave et. al.

Thanks for the info relating to Senator James Inhofe, and
anthropogenic climate change skeptics.  Inhofe clearly has no respect
for the scientific consensus on climate change, for whatever biased
reasons.  Even a die hard skeptic on this subject, if fair and
objective in surveying the whole body of scientific work in this
field, would conclude there is a significant probability that human
sourced emissions are warming the planet enough to take action to
reduce CO2 emissions, as an insurance policy against potential
damages, while still remaining skeptical.

No one on Vision2020 has yet to convincingly refute the conclusions of
Naomi Oreskes in her Science Journal article surveying the body of
peer reviewed published work on anthropogenic climate change:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER:
The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

Naomi Oreskes*

Policy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States,
frequently assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have
used this as an argument against adopting strong measures to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions. For example, while discussing a major U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency report on the risks of climate change,
then-EPA administrator Christine Whitman argued, "As [the report] went
through review, there was less consensus on the science and
conclusions on climate change" (1). Some corporations whose revenues
might be adversely affected by controls on carbon dioxide emissions
have also alleged major uncertainties in the science (2). Such
statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the
scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate
change. This is not the case.

The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by
the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations
Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of
climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on
the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In
its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the
consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being
affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the
concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter
radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50
years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas
concentrations" [p. 21 in (4)].

IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major
scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears
directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example,
the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An
Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are
accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities,
causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to
rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC
assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and
answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming
of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in
greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking
of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].

Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American
Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent
years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate
is compelling (8).

The drafting of such reports and statements involves many
opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not
likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the
societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate
dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928
abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and
2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate
change" (9).

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement
of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation
proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the
consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three
categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus
view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on
current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers
disagreed with the consensus position.

Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or
studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate
change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point.

This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed
literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the
public statements of their professional societies. Politicians,
economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of
confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that
impression is incorrect.

The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of
science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted
for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will
surely blame us if they find that we understood the reality of
anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it.

Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and
there are ample grounds for continued research to provide a better
basis for understanding climate dynamics. The question of what to do
about climate change is also still open. But there is a scientific
consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate
scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for
the rest of us to listen.

References and Notes

1. A. C. Revkin, K. Q. Seelye, New York Times, 19 June 2003, A1.

2. S. van den Hove, M. Le Menestrel, H.-C. de Bettignies, Climate
Policy 2 (1), 3 (2003).

3. See www.ipcc.ch/about/about.htm.

4. J. J. McCarthy et al., Eds., Climate Change 2001: Impacts,
Adaptation, and Vulnerability (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge,
2001).

5. National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Science of Climate
Change, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions
(National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 2001).

6. American Meteorological Society, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 84, 508 (2003).

7. American Geophysical Union, Eos 84 (51), 574 (2003).

8. See www.ourplanet.com/aaas/pages/atmos02.html.

9. The first year for which the database consistently published
abstracts was 1993. Some abstracts were deleted from our analysis
because, although the authors had put "climate change" in their key
words, the paper was not about climate change.

10. This essay is excerpted from the 2004 George Sarton Memorial
Lecture, "Consensus in science: How do we know we're not wrong,"
presented at the AAAS meeting on 13 February 2004. I am grateful to
AAAS and the History of Science Society for their support of this
lectureship; to my research assistants S. Luis and G. Law; and to D.
C. Agnew, K. Belitz, J. R. Fleming, M. T. Greene, H. Leifert, and R.
C. J. Somerville for helpful discussions.

10.1126/science.1103618
--------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett


On Dec 11, 2007 5:52 PM, KRFP <krfp at radiofreemoscow.org> wrote:
> This is not a "news item", Gary.  This is a propaganda item!
>
> First off it's a .gov address, that should give you the first clue.  If
> you want to know more, here are the first few paragraphs from your
> "reporter's" SourceWatch entry:
>
> > Marc Morano is communications director for the U.S. Senate Committee
> > on Environment and Public Works. Morano commenced work with the
> > committee under Senator James Inhofe, who was majority chairman of the
> > committee until January 2007. In December 2006 Morano launched a blog
> > on the committee's website that largely promotes the views of climate
> > change sceptics.
> >
> > Morano is a former journalist with Cybercast News Service (owned by
> > the conservative Media Research Center). CNS and Morano were the first
> > source in May 2004 of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth claims against
> > John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election [1] and in January 2006
> > of similar smears against Vietnam war veteran John Murtha.
> >
> > Morano was "previously known as Rush Limbaugh's 'Man in Washington,'
> > as reporter and producer for the Rush Limbaugh Television Show, as
> > well as a former correspondent and producer for American Investigator,
> > the nationally syndicated TV newsmagazine."
>
> http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Marc_Morano#Profiles
>
> The Wiki article on Lord Christopher Monckton, who is quoted, makes for
> some good reading as well.  Here's a snippet:
>
> > Gavin Schmidt has criticised Monckton's analysis of climate
> > sensitivity as "sleight-of-hand to fool the unwary" [1]. Dr. Stephan
> > Harrison criticises Moncktons' articles as "full of errors, misuse of
> > data and cherry-picked examples" [2]. The British writer and
> > environmentalist George Monbiot has criticized Monckton's arguments as
> > "cherry-picking, downright misrepresentation and pseudo-scientific
> > gibberish."[19] In a response published in The Guardian, Monckton has
> > argued that he "got the science right" and that Monbiot got "too many
> > facts wrong" and had shown "ignorance of the elementary physics".
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Monckton,_3rd_Viscount_Monckton_of_Brenchley
>
> Nice peer review!
>
> It also seems he's  been lobbying the Senate on behalf of ExxonMobil.
> He also thinks all people with AIDS should be locked up and we should
> have mandatory monthly tests.  Nice guy.
>
>
> I like this sentence from the Australian: " We have the missing [human]
> signature [in the atmosphere], we have the IPCC models being wrong and
> we have the lack of a temperature going up the last 5 years,".  Except
> that 2006 was the hottest year on record, just above 2005 and 1998, how
> is this a "lack of temperature going up"?  Have you seen the graphs?
>
> Of course none of this will change your mind, and in a way I'm jealous,
> with your head in the sand like that you can still enjoy driving your car.
>
> BTW I do agree with what's been said about the carbon credit thing being
> a sham.  But you may not remember that it was the US (Clinton) which
> insisted on including it in the Kyoto protocol in the first place (over
> the objections of the majority of the delegates).  As I recall, we threw
> a tantrum and said we wouldn't sign if carbon trading wasn't included,
> then we didn't sign anyway, total irony.
>
> Dave
> (I suppose I should put the personal post disclaimer here)
>