From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com)
Date: Thu May 08 2003 - 21:12:01 MDT
Stored in Notebook ,Sorry! Puca
Monday, 25 February, 2002, 00:09 GMT
Sceptics denounce climate science 'lie'
By Alex KirbyBBC News Online environment correspondent . A group of
scientists in the US and the UK says the accepted wisdom on
climate change remains unproved.
They say rising greenhouse gas emissions may not be the main factor in
global warming.
They argue that temperature rise projections this century are "unknown and
unknowable".They claim it is "a media myth" to suppose that only a few
scientists share
their scepticism.
The scientists, a group convened by the American George C. Marshall
Institute, first published their report in the US.
'Political conclusions' It has been republished in the UK by the European
Science and Environment
Forum (Esef), entitled Climate Science and Policy: Making the Connection.
Esef says it is "the result of an extensive review by a distinguished group
of scientists and public policy experts of the science behind recent
findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC)".<BR>
The US group included a former CIA director and defence secretary,
JamesSchlesinger, and Richard Lindzen, professor of meteorology at
Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
The report says the IPCC's conclusions "have become politicised and fail to
convey the underlying uncertainties that are important in policy
considerations."
Its detailed criticisms of the IPCC include:
* projections of climate change based on models and assumptions which "are
not only unknown, but unknowable within ranges relevant for policy-making"
* models which "do not adequately characterise clouds, water vapour,
aerosols, ocean currents and solar effects"
* a failure "to reproduce the difference in trends between the lower
troposphere and surface temperatures over the past 20 years".
The authors conclude: "The IPCC simulation of surface temperature appears to
be little more than a fortuitous bit of curve-fitting rather than any
genuine demonstration of human influence on global climate."
Accused of lying
Philip Stott, emeritus professor of biogeography in the University of
London, is a prominent British climate sceptic.<BR>
He said: "The authors challenge the key contradiction at the heart of the
Kyoto Protocol, the global climate agreement - that climate is one of the
most complex systems known, yet that we can manage it by trying to control a
small set of factors, namely greenhouse gas emissions. Scientifically, this
is not mere uncertainty: it is a lie."
Professor Stott told BBC News Online: "The problem with a chaotic coupled
non-linear system as complex as climate is that you can no more predict
successfully the outcome of doing something as of not doing something. Kyoto
will not halt climate change.
Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, used
to work at the State Department and helped to shape US climate policy.
Heavyweight backing
She told BBC News Online: "This report dismisses the findings of the IPCC as
alarmist, yet they are widely accepted as representative of the current
state of scientific knowledge.
"A panel of the US's own National Academy of Sciences (which included
Richard Lindzen) expressed general agreement with the IPCC's finding that
warming is occurring, and that it is at least partly caused by humans.
"Uncertainty cuts both ways. Some of the IPCC's scenarios have been
criticized as unduly pessimistic, others as unduly optimistic.
"What is important is that they reflect a balance of reasonable futures, and
that the scientific findings should be based on the peer-reviewed
literature. The IPCC has been able to accomplish exactly that.
"And Kyoto was only intended to be a first step in a long journey."
-- Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@mindspring.com > Alternate: < fortean1@msn.com > Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html > Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org >[Vietnam veterans, Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]
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