November 2007
Another day, another gas-bag climate conference.
Leaders from the Midwest convened in Wisconsin to announce that they would work together to fight climate change. Like identical agreements signed in the northeast and the west, the governors and ministers didn’t commit to much—they only pledged to think up ways to fight climate change, not to implement concrete policies.
When is America going to wake up to the fact that the nation’s governors are using global warming as a public relations ploy?
You've probably seen the latest tizzy over the Bush Administration's "censoring of science" (see here and here). The case against the Bush Administration this time is that it edited testimony presented to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee by Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The testimony, originally 14 pages, was cut to six.
However, the narrative of a scientific cover-up is overwrought to say the least. The hearing was on the potential impact of global warming on human health, an exercise in speculation. It appears, if press accounts are correct, that what the Bush Administration cut from the director’s testimony was more speculation than settled science.
The Center for Science & Public Policy has published a new report looking at the claims made in the portions of the testimony that were cut (as reported in the press) and concludes that in every instance, whether it be heat-related mortality, disease, extreme weather, etc., there is no link between climate change and harm to human health. In every case human health or conditions that affect human health are improving. The report concludes that the Bush Admininstration didn't censor settled scientific findings, but rather unjustfiable speculation by CDC experts.
Several articles have been published recently allowing us to catch a glimpse of centuries of climate variations in China, and as we have seen in hundreds of other similar studies, nothing all that unusual has been happening lately. The first of these recent articles will soon appear in Climate Dynamics and was written by the team of Shen, Wang, Hao, and Gong of the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center of the State University of New York. They note that “In recent decades, eastern China has suffered increased droughts in its north and increased floods in its south. The studies of climate models suggested that this trend could probably be attributed to the climate effects of black carbon aerosols and human-induced land cover changes”. Holy smokes – black carbon and land use? Shen et al. apparently haven’t been listening to enough NPR for surely drought and floods in China are related to global warming!
The Smithsonian isn't going far enough in returning oil industry donations for its ocean exhibit ["Smithsonian Questions $5 Million in Oil Money," front page, Nov. 3].
If industry funding and museums really don't mix, then what business does the Smithsonian have even staying in existence? It was started, after all, by a bequest from James Smithson, a geologist and chemist who devoted his life to discoveries that were put to use in mines and factories and whose fortune probably had at least some roots in the Industrial Revolution that the Smithsonian directors are now trying to wash their hands of. An entity such as this is simply too pure to operate on this planet. It should call it quits and relocate to a more transcendental realm.
The International Panel on Climate Change is holding a conference to draft a report on global warming and what can be done to stop it. In an apparent dig at diplomats who might try to influence the report’s conclusions, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, said that scientists were determined to “adhere to standards of quality.”
So the head of the Nobel-winning IPCC wants to cut out the politicians’ influence, eh?
Apparently the U.N.’s top climate official, Yvo de Boer, didn’t get the message. He opened up the conference with a warning to scientists and policy makers responsible for drafting the report. Boer told them that their failure to conclude that climate change threatens the existence of poor peoples would be “criminally irresponsible,” and an attack upon the impoverished of the world.
As of this posting, I am still waiting for Pachauri to reprimand Boer for attempting to influence the proceedings.
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