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November 8, 2010 in Nation/World
Climate scientists fighting back
Campaign targets skeptical lawmakers
WASHINGTON – Faced with increasing political attacks, hundreds of climate scientists are joining a broad campaign to push back against congressional conservatives who have threatened prominent researchers with investigations and have vowed to kill regulations to rein in human-created greenhouse gas emissions.
The efforts reveal a shift among climate scientists, many of whom have traditionally stayed out of politics and avoided the news media. Many now say they are willing to go toe-to-toe with their critics, some of whom gained new power after the Republicans won control of the House in last Tuesday’s election.
Today, the American Geophysical Union, the country’s largest association of climate scientists, plans to announce that 700 climate scientists have agreed to speak out as experts on questions about global warming and the role of man-made air pollution. Some are prepared to go before what they consider potentially hostile audiences on conservative talk-radio and television shows.
John Abraham of St. Thomas University in Minnesota, who last May wrote a widely disseminated response to climate-change skeptics, is organizing a “Climate Rapid Response Team,” which so far has more than three dozen leading scientists to defend the consensus on global warming in the scientific community. Some are also preparing a handbook on the human causes of climate change, which they plan to start sending to U.S. high schools as soon as this fall.
“This group feels strongly that science and politics can’t be divorced and that we need to take bold measures to not only communicate science but also to aggressively engage the denialists and politicians who attack climate science and its scientists,” said Scott Mandia, professor of physical sciences at Suffolk County Community College in New York.
“We are taking the fight to them because we are … tired of taking the hits. The notion that truth will prevail is not working. The truth has been out there for the past two decades, and nothing has changed.”
Prominent Republican congressmen such as Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Joe L. Barton, R-Texas, and F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., have pledged to investigate the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. They say they also intend to probe the so-called Climategate scandal, in which thousands of e-mails of leading climate scientists were hacked and released to the public late last year.
Climate-change skeptics argued that the sniping in some e-mails showed that scientists suppressed research by skeptics and manipulated data. Five independent panels subsequently cleared the researchers involved and validated the science.
“People who ask and accept taxpayer dollars shouldn’t get bent out of shape when asked to account for the money,” said James M. Taylor, a senior fellow and a specialist in global warming at the conservative Heartland Institute in Chicago. “The budget is spiraling out of control while government is handing out billions of dollars in grants to climate scientists, many of whom are unabashed activists.”
Ongoing public interest in Climategate has prompted climate scientists to act.
The American Geological Union plan has attracted a large number of scientists in a short time because they were eager to address what they see as climate misinformation, said Jeffrey Taylor, research fellow at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado and manager of the project.
Still, the scope of the group’s work is limited, reflecting the ongoing reluctance by many scientists to venture into politics.
“People who’ve already dug their heels in, we’re not going to change their opinions,” Mandia said. “We’re trying to reach people who may not have an opinion or opinion based on limited information.”
Stocks plummet as outlook in Europe dims 
Coffee on November 08 at 9:39 a.m.
It is a trust issue, if these people would have come out and condemned the ones that were cooking the books, I would be more inclined to believe them. Only now when there funding is in danger do they squeak up.
misjustice on November 08 at 9:57 a.m.
The Koch brothers are some of the largest funders of global climate change denial; they are also oil barons that want to protect their billions. As long as billionaires can inject doubt into the debate there will continue to be minions willing to repeat the mantra and obstruct the nation from moving forward to address our energy needs.
horse_feathers on November 08 at 10:17 a.m.
I love it when the global warming nuts predict that we are all gonna fry like a piece of bacon sizzling in a frying pan, yet they can oly predict the weather a week out and they mess that up about 50% of the time.
MrNatural on November 08 at 10:23 a.m.
Saturday 11/6/10 I was working in the flower beds and saw a few honey bees…don’t think I’ve ever seen honey bees in November.
What I can’t fathom is that there are people who dispute the possibility of global impact from the burning of fossil fuels. Moreover, I can’t fathom that there are people who would risk putting this planet in peril for profit.
One only needs to look at the rise in CO2…
misjustice on November 08 at 11:05 a.m.
Money (corporate profits) trumps truth.
horse_feathers on November 08 at 1:05 p.m.
Co2 is food for plants, they need it as they use it to produce oxygen for our environment.
MrNatural on November 08 at 3:14 p.m.
can you explain why the ambient levels of CO2 have risen so sharply?
Concentrations in the atmosphere increased from approximately 280 parts per million (ppm) in pre-industrial times to 382 ppm in 2006 according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Earth Systems Research Laboratory, a 36 percent increase. Almost all of the increase is due to human activities. The current rate of increase in CO2 concentrations is about 1.9 ppmv/year. Present CO2 concentrations are higher than any time in at least the last 650,000 years. Also CO2 makes oceans acidic
Coffee on November 08 at 3:58 p.m.
All private ownership non electric cars will have to be restricted
All private ownership of air conditioners will have to be restricted.
All private heating systems will have to be set to no more than 55 degrees.
All private ownership of hot water tanks will be restricted.
No heroic measures to save newborns and persons over retirement age.
These are just a few things we will have to do reach parity with global co 2 emissions.
MrNatural on November 08 at 4:26 p.m.
!!! Wow…Coffee
I wonder if those conditions you affirm are better or worse than the potential alternative.
Thayne on November 08 at 5:05 p.m.
coffee, I don’t know what your putting in your java. Why is it people who refuse to see the facts that global climate change is happening use fear rhetoric instead of facts to try and make their point? If it was just a few mad scientists promulgating this theory it might be hard to agree with, but it’s thousands of scientists from different fields saying the earth’s climate is changing and it will be very ugly for all living things if we don’t correct it. The only people who seem to want to keep things status quo are the corporations using fossil fuel, making things that use them or drilling/mining them. If we don’t wake up soon our grandchildren will have a horrible planet to try and survive on.
Coffee on November 08 at 5:22 p.m.
Mr. Natural, it all depends on how old you are and how high up on the political food chain you are. My great grand father and most likely yours live under the above conditions. And even if we get a handle on climate change the Yellowstone super volcano will go up and take most of the USA out :):). Of course that will stop us from producing co 2.
Coffee on November 08 at 5:32 p.m.
Thayne, I did not say I did not believe in climate change I was just pointing out some of the things we will have to do to combat it. Just take the average persons carbon footprint (USA) and start removing stuff till you get it down to parity and you will have a list a heck of allot more draconian then mine.
misjustice on November 08 at 6:51 p.m.
coffee; I’m interested in where you got your list? Is there a source or website that we could check out?
cpd805 on November 08 at 8:50 p.m.
I sure hope they chose their 700 climatologists wisely with their litmus test to refute the over 700 climatologists that downplayed the effect of human behavior on actual climate change.
Before everyone starts citing money and profits (Mis) as the reason for promoting skepticism, keep in mind that “going green” lately has become very big business. Just look at the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange (CCFE). Now speculators can bet on the greenie movement.
misjustice on November 08 at 9:40 p.m.
Do today’s global climate change deniers = yesterdays flat earther’s?
james_l on November 08 at 9:56 p.m.
I don’t personally have any proof that the sun is made mostly of hydrogen and helium or that germs cause disease, but I am willing to listen to scientists on these matters as well.
The climatologists who deny global warming comprise much less than 1% and invariably are on the payroll of oil or coal companies or their lobbyists.
cpd805 on November 08 at 10:19 p.m.
OK James, please cite your source on less than 1% of climatologists who deny global warming. And also, it is not that any climatologists are denying global warming, but “man made” global warming.
james_l on November 08 at 10:39 p.m.
More than 3000 American Geological Institute climatologists who conduct research responded to a survey conducted in 2008 and published by the American Geophysical Union in 2009. At that time, 97% indicated global warming is real and that human activity contributes to it.
In the latest survey, to be published this winter, the number is around 99% (99.2%).
In an interesting side note, in the 2008 survey, less than 50% of the geologists employed by the petroleum and coal industries believe the same way.
cpd805 on November 08 at 10:44 p.m.
James….OK, but again, could you please cite the source? I would like to read it.
Coffee on November 09 at 9:15 a.m.
misjustice, Just take the average persons carbon footprint (USA) and start removing stuff till you get it down to parity and you will have a list a heck of allot more draconian then mine.