Support for Global Warming Alarmism Continues to Wane
Around the world, controversy over climate change continues to grow. Contrary to what the politicians tell us, there is no consensus of scientific thought on whether there is a man-made component to global warming. The science is certainly not settled.Alarmist Hansen ‘Not Interested’ in Debate
As alarmists continue to push government policies to restrict energy use and the burning of fossil fuels in order to prevent “catastrophic” warming, the world continues to cool. That is leading to increasing suspicion that the call to sacrifice living standards in order to “save the planet” is just political spin designed to persuade the public to accept green taxes and regulations.
Global warming alarmists have been reluctant to debate and defend their assertions in public since Hansen’s colleague, Gavin Schmidt, participated in a high-profile March 2007 debate at New York City’s prestigious Intelligence Squared debating society.New Zealand Scientists Protest Royal Society’s Alarmist Statement
A pre-debate poll of audience members indicated by a 2 to 1 margin (57 percent to 29 percent, with 14 percent undecided) they believed global warming is a crisis. After three experts from each side of the issue debated the matter, however, the audience indicated by 46 percent to 42 percent they do not believe global warming is a crisis, with 12 percent undecided.
Hansen and Schmidt also declined to participate in the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change last March in New York City. Although Michaels and other leading climate scientists from around the world eagerly accepted the opportunity to discuss the latest scientific evidence regarding global warming, Hansen and Schmidt refused to participate in the event.
Avoiding Critical Questions
“The alarmists claim all the evidence supports their theory, but the only way they can prove that is to actually show up for a debate and win,” said Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “If they are afraid to publicly debate and scientifically defend their assertions, it is a good indication who they fear will win the debate.
“It is troubling that a supposedly eminent scientist, who draws his salary from federal taxpayers, is unwilling to publicly explain his beliefs and his policy recommendations unless he is assured in advance that nobody will ask any critical questions,” Lewis said.
“Doesn’t he at least have the intellectual curiosity to hear and consider another point of view?” added Lewis.
“My own suspicion is that if someone is unwilling to tolerate debate and opposing opinions in public, then that person in private is similarly likely to be suppressing other scientific viewpoints,” Lewis said. “One has to wonder if the staff of the publicly funded Goddard Institute really is free to engage in open-minded science, and whether Hansen is stacking the deck with the staff that he supervises.”
...The society’s climate change statement also drew strong criticism from the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.
The coalition was founded in 2006 by a group of climate experts (including the late atmospheric science professor at the University of Wyoming, Augie Auer) who had become increasingly alarmed about the misleading information being disseminated about climate change and so-called anthropogenic (man-made) global warming.
In a detailed response to the Royal Society, the coalition stated, “It beggars the imagination that an expert committee can launch a public statement about climate change that is so partial in its arguments and so out of date in its science.”
Conflict of Interest
The coalition document says the society has a major conflict of interest in benefiting from global warming alarmism.
“Six of the eight members of the expert committee carry the conflict of interest that they work for institutions that garner research funds to investigate the human influence on global warming. ... Five members are employed by NIWA [the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research], one member works within a global change research institute and one is associated with ‘carboNZero’—which is a ‘greenhouse gas emissions management and reduction scheme offering carbon credits.’”
The coalition statement continues, “Incredibly, the committee contains not a single person drawn from research agencies other than NIWA, nor any independent climate scientist rationalists. The chairman of the committee—through senior positions that he holds at NIWA and within the IPCC—also advises government on climate change. ... In view of such manifest conflicts, it is not surprising to discover that the RSNZ statement on climate change is both biased and inadequate.”
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