Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study


Ian Sample, science correspondent
Friday February 2, 2007
The Guardian


Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.
Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.
The UN report was written by international experts and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science. It will underpin international negotiations on new emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft last year and invited to comment.

The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.

The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".

Climate scientists described the move yesterday as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on global warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims," said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

"The IPCC process is probably the most thorough and open review undertaken in any discipline. This undermines the confidence of the public in the scientific community and the ability of governments to take on sound scientific advice," he said.

The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting scholar at AEI, who confirmed that the organisation had approached scientists, economists and policy analysts to write articles for an independent review that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC report.

"Right now, the whole debate is polarised," he said. "One group says that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the other group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We don't think that approach has a lot of utility for intelligent policy."

One American scientist turned down the offer, citing fears that the report could easily be misused for political gain. "You wouldn't know if some of the other authors might say nothing's going to happen, that we should ignore it, or that it's not our fault," said Steve Schroeder, a professor at Texas A&M university.

The contents of the IPCC report have been an open secret since the Bush administration posted its draft copy on the internet in April. It says there is a 90% chance that human activity is warming the planet, and that global average temperatures will rise by another 1.5 to 5.8C this century, depending on emissions.

Lord Rees of Ludlow, the president of the Royal Society, Britain's most prestigious scientific institute, said: "The IPCC is the world's leading authority on climate change and its latest report will provide a comprehensive picture of the latest scientific understanding on the issue. It is expected to stress, more convincingly than ever before, that our planet is already warming due to human actions, and that 'business as usual' would lead to unacceptable risks, underscoring the urgent need for concerted international action to reduce the worst impacts of climate change. However, yet again, there will be a vocal minority with their own agendas who will try to suggest otherwise."

Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said: "The AEI is more than just a thinktank, it functions as the Bush administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the last throes of their campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the science; they lost on the moral case for action. All they've got left is a suitcase full of cash."

On Monday, another Exxon-funded organisation based in Canada will launch a review in London which casts doubt on the IPCC report. Among its authors are Tad Murty, a former scientist who believes human activity makes no contribution to global warming. Confirmed VIPs attending include Nigel Lawson and David Bellamy, who believes there is no link between burning fossil fuels and global warming.

.. Oil supplies are, of course, quite irrelevant to the US endeavor there which is motivated by deep and abiding christian humanism.

Well I believe Madame Guillotine was French. But leaving that aside, and my general opposition to capital punishment, I'm all for a bit of random head chopping among the ermine-clad.

Blair was interviewed (grilled) on the Today program this morning. He sounded (on the bit I heard) tired...like I've never heard him before.

I'm think history will deal with him quite sympathetically. Basically a decent enough bloke, a reforming politician, a significant player on the world stage, who was undone because he lost the trust of those he needed to actually run this country - by lying about the reasons for war in Iraq.

Paris, 2 February 2007 - Late last night, Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) adopted the Summary for Policymakers of the first volume of "Climate Change 2007", also known as the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).

"Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis", assesses the current scientific knowledge of the natural and human drivers of climate change, observed changes in climate, the ability of science to attribute changes to different causes, and projections for future climate change.

The report was produced by some 600 authors from 40 countries. Over 620 expert reviewers and a large number of government reviewers also participated. Representatives from 113 governments reviewed and revised the Summary line-by-line during the course of this week before adopting it and accepting the underlying report.

Do I have to spell it out? Put your thinking cap on.

What would happen if you shut down power plants?

What would happen if you placed a moratorium on the operation of cars, trucks, ships, and airplanes?

What would happen if you shut off the electricity and gas to factories, office buildings, and homes?

What would happen if food was no longer in stores because the trucks that delivered the food there were grounded?

What would happen if farmers could not plant and harvest crops because of a moratorium on the operation of the equipment?

Do you get the picture or do I need to ask more questions?

We get China and India on board by producing technologies which produce power cleanly, and then make a fortune selling it to them. Use the free market in our favor.

Who said we would do such a thing?

I get the picture. Now, without appealing to extremes, how will policies designed to slow climate change or global warming kill people or destroy our economy?

You see, none of what you posted has anything to do with policies about what we are going to do in the future. Want power plants that pollute less? Build 'em! Want cars which pollute less? Build new ones, phase the old ones out! Want more efficient farming equipment? Build it! Want an energy economy which doesn't require pollution? Start working on it! Encourage it!

You don't have to shut everything down immediately to begin to work on the problem. You are appealing to extremes, taking positions which would never possibly be taken in real life b/c we just aren't going to shut off the power and water and ground every airplane out there. What more, I don't think that anyone is calling for that stuff; just that we work to make the future better than the past has been.

We get China and India on board by producing technologies which produce power cleanly, and then make a fortune selling it to them. Use the free market in our favor.

Cycloptichorn

The whole point of my argument is that there are currently no good technologies on sufficient scale to reverse CO2 production to the extent needed to fit the alarmists warnings of doom in a decade or so.

the alarmists warnings of doom in a decade

to cut short; cut off a part of; abridge; reduce; diminish.

World's sea levels rising at accelerating rate

Sea levels are rising even faster than scientists predicted, according to a global analysis of data from tide gauges and satellites.
The researchers say the study puts to bed claims that climate scientists have exaggerated the consequences of global warming. And because the study shows that sea level is responding even faster than expected, the work suggests governments have even less time to act in order to combat climate change.

The report was published in the journal Science ahead of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) report, published today, which brings together the last three years of research on global warming. The heavily trailed tome will say that it is "highly unlikely (less than 5%)" that observed warming and ice loss are due to natural factors.