DOCTORS FOR DISASTER PREPAREDNESS NEWSLETTER

Recently appointed provost of the University of California's Sixth College in San Diego, Naomi Oreskes takes issue with those who say that science is not about consensus.

“The opposite is true: Science is precisely about consensus, because consensus is the application of community standards” (“Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How Do We Know We're Not Wrong?” presented Jun 2, 2005, in San Francisco).

This is the same historian of science who wrote: “Verification and validation of numerical models of natural systems is impossible.... Their predictive value is always open to question. The primary value of models is heuristic” (Oreskes N, et al. Science 1994;263:641-646). Problems include the lack of complete data.

So “what's new since 1979?” she asks, and answers: “Climate change [is] no longer a prediction, [it's] now an observed fact.” Indeed, “you don't need a climate model to know that global warming is a real problem“ (Oreskes N, cpt 4 in DiMento JF, Doughman P, Climate Change, MIT Press, 2007).

It's true that the global cooling feared in the 1970s did not happen; but at that time “there was no consensus on cooling.” Now we have the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and “consilience of evidence”–as defined by William Whewell, that means “multiple, independent lines of evidence converging on a single coherent account.”

Who decides whether the “diversity of evaluative criteria” is satisfied? The “community of scientific experts.” Dissenters (called “denialists” or “deniers”–“heretics,” “apostates,” “blasphemers,” or “unbelievers” are terms that would make the religious aspect of radical environmentalism more apparent) are “tiny” in number, Oreskes asserts (ibid.). She refers to her 2004 widely cited one-page essay in Science (see DDP Newsletter, July 2005), which she said she failed to find a single article opposing the consensus. The critique by Benny Peiser went down the Memory Hole. Oreskes's page on Wikipedia is locked down to prevent “vandalism”; the editing war can be reviewed in the “discussion” section.

Contrary evidence need not discredit the model, advocates say. If temperatures level off and then drop for a couple years, it's just natural variability superimposed on a long-term trend that will inevitably resume sometime soon (Science 5/2/08). The Germans have “prudently declared a ten-year hold on non-stop global warming” (Amer Thinker 7/12/08).

The consensus, however, is developing widening cracks. One shows up on the website of the American Physical Society (www.aps.org): an excellent invited article by Viscount Christopher Monckton, which had been meticulously reviewed by an eminent professor of physics (Physics & Society, July 2008).

A few days after publication, a bold red disclaimer appeared above the article: “The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions.” Only one of the 39 sections in APS was involved, after all. The disclaimer has since been removed.

It was like telling scientists not to look at the head of Medusa, lest they go blind or turn to stone. The APS learned that hundreds of its members disagree with its national policy of supporting reductions in greenhouse gases.

At the Lindau meeting of Nobel laureates, half (evidently not including the recent Peace Prize recipients) were reportedly skeptical about anthropogenic global warming (AGW) orthodoxy. Said Ivar Giaever: “But the number is not important: only those who are correct are important.”

Russian scientists reject the idea that CO₂ causes global warming, saying that the theory underlying the Kyoto protocol lacks scientific basis (Hindu7/1/08).

India issued its National Action Plan on Climate Change in June 2008, disputing man-made global warming fears and declaring it had no intention of cutting CO₂ emissions.

The list of 32,000 signatories at www.petitionproject.org ought to prove decisively that if a consensus exists, it is opposed to catastrophic AGW. Alarmists try to ignore, marginalize, or demonize them: “[Skepticism] can confuse the public,” James Hansen warned Congress on June 28.

The “relevant scientific community” has spoken. There's a “99% certainty” that AGW is correct. We have now “used up all the slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb.” Alligator-shod lobbyists are the only obstacle to saving the earth by shutting down the economy, and putting the miscreant dissenters on trial.

There is one man in charge of NASA's temperature data: James Hansen. He is also Al Gore's climate advisor and the foremost advocate of AGW catastrophism. And in recent years, historical temperatures have changed (Register 6/5/08). Readjustment has made temperatures prior to the 1970s lower, and recent years' temperatures higher.

Search Google for “painting by numbers: NASA” to see color maps of U.S. temperatures pre- and post-adjustment. This helps to explains increasing divergence between NASA's ground-based data and that from two satellite-based systems.

A close look at NASA's data for March 2008, which it calls the third warmest on record, shows that most of Canada, Africa, Antarctica, and Greenland have disappeared. In sharp contrast, satellite data that includes these regions show March to be barely above average for the entire globe, and the second coldest on record for the Southern Hemisphere.

The 2008 Edward Teller Award went to Paul Driessen for his work in defending human lives and human rights against their radical environmentalist enemies. He is the man most responsible for making DDT available in the fight against malaria in Africa. Together with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), he is battling for the rights of Africans and others to access the energy they need to emerge from poverty–or to remain prosperous.

Noah E. Robinson, Ph.D., received the Petr Beckmann Award for his work on the Global Warming Petition Project. He coauthored the outstanding review article, “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” with Arthur Robinson and Willie Soon, and directed the enormous task of doubling the number of signatures on what is called the Oregon Petition. He's also in charge of Petr Beckmann's Golem (printing press).

Commenting on Hansen's address to Congress, 20 years after his earlier one on AGW, John Brignell writes (Number Watch 6/29/08): “Any relationship between the Hansen phenomenon and science is rather remote. His latest calling down of fire and brimstone is upon the wicked oil executives, who are allegedly stoking up infidel opposition to the true gospel of the global warming catastrophe to come.... Perhaps the world will one day be grateful to the brave band of volunteers who at last got together to provide an audit of the activities of such fanatics..., [enabling] us to penetrate the unscientific veil of secrecy behind which they brew their spells and hokum. Not only [is the work] way below the standards officially embraced by NASA, some of the procedures are unbelievably bizarre, including even the Orwellian process of systematically rewriting the past.”

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