Bravo, Charles Platt: Climate realism strikes Boing Boing

Charles Platt: Climatic Heresy: 1 - Boing Boing

At the risk of stimulating outrage, I’m going to ask some questions about climate. No one disputes that planetary warming occurred during the second half of the twentieth century; the question is whether it was primarily anthropogenic (i.e. caused by human beings). The Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims that the debate on this issue is over. I’m not so sure anymore.

I'll begin with The Deniers by Lawrence Solomon, which I regard as the most important book that I read in 2008.

Climatic Heresy: 2 - Boing Boing

Here’s a quote from Robert Carter, an Australian palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist, and environmental scientist:

“Is there an established Theory of Climate? Answer: no. Do we understand fully how climate works? No. Is carbon dioxide demonstrated to be a dangerous atmospheric pollutant? No. Can deterministic computer models predict future climate? Another no. Is there a consensus amongst qualified scientists that dangerous, human-caused climate change is upon us? Absolutely not. Did late 20th century temperature rise at a dangerous rate, or to a dangerous level? No, in either case. Is global temperature currently rising? Surprisingly, no.”

Climatic Heresy: 3 - Boing Boing

In the 1990s an attorney named Christopher Horner was appropriately disconcerted when Enron, his employer at the time, told him to lobby in favor of restrictions on carbon emissions during negotiations relating to the Kyoto treaty. Enron liked the idea of regulations that would raise the operating costs of coal-fired power stations, because it wanted to make more money from its pipelines supplying gas. (Natural gas creates about half as much CO2 as coal per unit of energy released, according to DoE figures.)

Thus one of the most despised corporations in history shared the interests of environmental activists...

Climatic Heresy: 4. - Boing Boing

As for that picture of bears “stranded” on a piece of ice, here’s the back story according to Denis Simard, the Environment Canada representative who distributed it:

“. . . have to keep in mind that the bears aren’t in danger at all. It was, if you will, their playground for 15 minutes. . . . This is a perfect picture for climate change, in a way, because you have the impression they are in the middle of the ocean and they are going to die. . . . But they were not that far from the coast, and it was possible for them to swim.”

The picture was taken in 2004 by marine biologist Amanda Byrd, who refused to draw any conclusions, positive or negative, regarding the welfare of the bears. She was pissed, though, that her photograph was used without her permission.