Reuters: Global warming dissenters few at U.S. weather meeting

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyid=2007-01-18T193002Z_01_N18480944_RTRUKOC_0_US-CLIMATE-DEBATE.xml

Global warming dissenters few at U.S. weather meeting

Thu Jan 18, 2007 2:30 PM ET

By Ed Stoddard

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Joe D'Aleo was a rare voice of dissent this week at the American Meteorological Society's annual meeting in San Antonio.

D'Aleo, executive director of the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project, a group of scientists, doesn't think greenhouse gas emissions are the major cause of global warming and climate change.

...

"The vast majority of credible scientists from thousands of peer-reviewed papers agree that the strong balance of evidence is that the Earth is warming and the major cause of that is anthropogenic (human-caused) emissions."

...

"I think there is largely agreement on the fact that over the last 30 years, that much of that warming has been attributed to human activities, in other words, greenhouse gas emissions," said Tony Socci, a American Meteorological Society senior science fellow.

He said those who denied the connection were either "badly informed as to the scientific center or consensus, or in some cases perhaps (they are) just not wanting to be informed."

...

[Tempest]

1. Would you go?

If you knew you were going to have your ass handed to you by your peers?

I know I'd stay home.

[leftchick]

2. ExxonMobil funds International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1875762,00.html

The website Exxonsecrets.org, using data found in the company's official documents, lists 124 organisations that have taken money from the company or work closely with those that have. These organisations take a consistent line on climate change: that the science is contradictory, the scientists are split, environmentalists are charlatans, liars or lunatics, and if governments took action to prevent global warming, they would be endangering the global economy for no good reason. The findings these organisations dislike are labelled "junk science". The findings they welcome are labelled "sound science".
Among the organisations that have been funded by Exxon are such well-known websites and lobby groups as TechCentralStation, the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation. Some of those on the list have names that make them look like grassroots citizens' organisations or academic bodies: the Centre for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, for example. One or two of them, such as the Congress of Racial Equality, are citizens' organisations or academic bodies, but the line they take on climate change is very much like that of the other sponsored groups. While all these groups are based in America, their publications are read and cited, and their staff are interviewed and quoted, all over the world.

By funding a large number of organisations, Exxon helps to create the impression that doubt about climate change is widespread. For those who do not understand that scientific findings cannot be trusted if they have not appeared in peer-reviewed journals, the names of these institutes help to suggest that serious researchers are challenging the consensus.

This is not to claim that all the science these groups champion is bogus. On the whole, they use selection, not invention. They will find one contradictory study - such as the discovery of tropospheric cooling, which, in a garbled form, has been used by Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday - and promote it relentlessly. They will continue to do so long after it has been disproved by further work. So, for example, John Christy, the author of the troposphere paper, admitted in August 2005 that his figures were incorrect, yet his initial findings are still being circulated and championed by many of these groups, as a quick internet search will show you.

But they do not stop there. The chairman of a group called the Science and Environmental Policy Project is Frederick Seitz. Seitz is a physicist who in the 1960s was president of the US National Academy of Sciences. In 1998, he wrote a document, known as the Oregon Petition, which has been cited by almost every journalist who claims that climate change is a myth.