Jim Whitehead (ejw@cse.ucsc.edu) wrote:
>For what the mainstream scientific community is saying, here is the latest
>from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change):
The IPCC and their stance are definitely not equateable with the
mainstream. They are the same crowd who announced a few months ago
that the North Pole is missing. You yourself wrote at the time that
it was "dramatic new evidence" that "could be exploited to create a
sense of urgency about global warming". This is an agenda, not science.
The crack at the North Pole will probably close again soon if it
hasn't already (and other ones will open elsewhere as they always
have). But I guess that this dramatic new evidence of global cooling
won't get such prominent reporting in the New York Times.
Here is an extract from the Wall Street Journal on one of the IPCC's
reports:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Major Deception on Global Warming
Op-Ed by Frederick Seitz
June 12, 1996
[...]
This IPCC report, like all others, is held in such high regard largely
because it has been peer-reviewed. That is, it has been read,
discussed, modified and approved by an international body of experts.
These scientists have laid their reputations on the line. But this
report is not what it appears to be--it is not the version that was
approved by the contributing scientists listed on the title page. In
my more than 60 years as a member of the American scientific
community, including service as president of both the National Academy
of Sciences and the American Physical Society, I have never witnessed
a more disturbing corruption of the peer-review process than the
events that led to this IPCC report.
[...]
Few of these changes were merely cosmetic; nearly all worked to remove
hints of the skepticism with which many scientists regard claims that
human activities are having a major impact on climate in general and
on global warming in particular.
The following passages are examples of those included in the approved
report but deleted from the supposedly peer-reviewed published
version:
* "None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can
attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of
increases in greenhouse gases."
* "No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of the
climate change observed to date] to anthropogenic [man-made] causes."
* "Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are
likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total
natural variability of the climate system are reduced."
[...]
IPCC reports are often called the "consensus" view. If they lead to
carbon taxes and restraints on economic growth, they will have a major
and almost certainly destructive impact on the economies of the world.
Whatever the intent was of those who made these significant changes,
their effect is to deceive policy makers and the public into believing
that the scientific evidence shows human activities are causing global
warming.
If the IPCC is incapable of following its most basic procedures, it
would be best to abandon the entire IPCC process, or at least that
part that is concerned with the scientific evidence on climate change,
and look for more reliable sources of advice to governments on this
important question.
[...]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
==== Cordon sanitaire ========================================================
I will not be in the least surprised if the further reaches of the
ecologist movement turn into the extremists of the 21st century. Once
upon a time it was "save the whales" and such-like, and I was an
adherent. Gradually it turned into attempts to legislate and to tax
huge industries such as energy and transportation and pressure them
into radical change. Hydro = ungood. Oil = plusungood. Coal =
plusungood. Nuclear = doubleplusungood. I guess we're supposed to
pave the earth with wind-farms and solar panels. Oh, I almost forgot
that according to some ecologists we use more energy than available
from the Sun (what has a mere factor of 10000 got to do with
politics?). We've got the Karl Marxes already. I'm just watching out
for the Lenins and Mussolinis. Hey, why not orient all policy along a
single, totally distorted, issue? Labour relations and ethnicity
magnified into communism / fascism are so passe', but "enviroment
this" and "enviroment that" sells. It's bad enough with far-out
greener-than-thou ministers cancelling major infrastructure and
research projects to preserve some square mile of habitat for the
lesser spotted slug or whatever. What happens when a hardcore
eco-loony party gains majority power (by democratic means, natch') in
a significant western country?
I'm standing up to be counted.
And to all those opposed...
Hmm...well
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