By Bradley J. Fikes
Global warming activists have had enough of being pummeled on blogs and in the press for errors in the 2007 IPCC report and bad scientific practices revealed in the Climategate emails. They’re frightened of the declining public belief that man-caused global warming is a serious threat.
So the climate change cheerleaders are doing what any self-respecting political group would do: circulate a letter and petition.
The letter, released Thursday, comes from the Union of Concerned Scientists, a left-wing pressure group. It calls for deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, and bears the signatures of about 2,000 scientists and economists. It’s available on the Web site of the Union of Concerned Scientists.. (Indicative of this group’s role with the letter, two of its eight references are to UCS advocacy reports).
The letter is notable for what it doesn’t mention, namely, any other potential human causes to climate change, such as the increasingly well-known role of soot and dust deposits in melting glaciers, especially in the Himalayas and the Arctic.
For example, the letter, published in a slick PDF, contains this highlighted quote from Lonnie G . Thompson of The Ohio State University:
Over the last 30 years I’ve watched many glaciers shrink in South America. It’s also happening in Europe, North America, China, and the Himalayas. More than 90 percent of the world’s glaciers are receding—they have no
political agenda. Science is about what is, not about what any of us believe.
But scientific research reveals that blaming glacial melting solely on carbon dioxide — even assuming that human- released CO2 is causing global warming — is flatly inaccurate.
A study by a team led by Surabi Menon of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated that the vast majority of unusual melting in the Himalayas is caused by soot and dust
According to the study’s press release:
“Our simulations showed greenhouse gases alone are not nearly enough to be responsible for the snow melt,” says Menon, a physicist and staff scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division. “Most of the change in snow and ice cover—about 90 percent—is from aerosols. Black carbon alone contributes at least 30 percent of this sum.”
The findings are significant because they point to a simple way to make a swift impact on the snow melt. “Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for 100 years, but black carbon doesn’t stay in the atmosphere for more than a few weeks, so the effects of controlling black carbon are much faster,” Menon says. “If you control black carbon now, you’re going to see an immediate effect.”
The point bears repeating: Aerosols, fine particles suspended in air, are not greenhouse gases. And if 90 percent of unusual melting is caused by aerosols, and the effects of controlling them are much faster than reducing greenhouse gases, it makes no sense to obsess over the latter and ignore the former — unless the motive is political,not scientific.
A 2005 NASA study also found that soot could be hastening melting of Arctic ice. The study, by Dorothy Koch of Columbia University, New York; and James Hansen of NASA GISS appeared in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
No reference to this and other scientific research on aerosols appears in the letter. It contradicts the political crusade of global warming activists against greenhouse gases. And they’re counting on politicians just skimming the letter and looking at the names, and not analyzing the logic of its content.
In fact, the letter and petition is just another one in a series from the busy PR types at the Union of Concerned Scientists. For example, UCS released another such letter/petition in May of 2008, dutifilly reported by the media stenographers.
One of the quoted scientists in the letter, Benjamin Santer, also figures in the Climategate emails. Enraged at researcher Pat Michaels, Santer wrote to Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia:
“Next time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted.”
You can read a context-less blog post on the petition at USA Today.
As soon as scientists step into the political pond they are scientists no more. If their activity remained in their labs I would have faith in their efforts; but once they have goals beyond their science they are advocates, not scientists.
LOL, typical leftie move when they’re out of ideas. Next, they’ll be passing out leaflets on street corners.
Hi Webster and cassandra!
I’ve had a bit of back and forth with a UCS PR guy on the crosspost. He lectured me on science, a lecture that fell rather flat coming from a paid mouthpiece for a political advocacy group.
These people really seem to think the same old bamboozle can still work, even though their game has been exposed. It’s hilarious, but a little bit sad, to watch them try every political truck, when the only thing needed is absolute honesty.
My fundamental test of sincerity on the issue of global warming and CO2 is nuclear power. If we would build 100 nuclear power plants, we would be a lot farther along in energy independence. Second, we need major upgrades in the power grid. That will not happen because of the endless litigation over rights of way. There are people who think that they will plug their electric cars into the house current and that is as far as they go.
I am also convinced that the fundamental motivation of the global warming set is a return to the pre-industrial civilization but they have not thought any of this through. I wonder if they know what the daily weight of horse manure produced in London was in 1890?