Wall Street Journal "No Need to Panic About Global Warming"

There's no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to 'decarbonize' the world's economy.

Editor's Note: The following has been signed by the 16 scientists listed at the end of the article:


A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about "global warming." Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed.

In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of President Obama in the last election, publicly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) with a letter that begins: "I did not renew [my membership] because I cannot live with the [APS policy] statement: 'The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.' In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?"

In spite of a multidecade international campaign to enforce the message that increasing amounts of the "pollutant" carbon dioxide will destroy civilization, large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever. And the number of scientific "heretics" is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts.

Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 "Climategate" email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2.

The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.

The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Better plant varieties, chemical fertilizers and agricultural management contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century, but part of the increase almost certainly came from additional CO2 in the atmosphere.

Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job.

This is not the way science is supposed to work, but we have seen it before—for example, in the frightening period when Trofim Lysenko hijacked biology in the Soviet Union. Soviet biologists who revealed that they believed in genes, which Lysenko maintained were a bourgeois fiction, were fired from their jobs. Many were sent to the gulag and some were condemned to death.

Why is there so much passion about global warming, and why has the issue become so vexing that the American Physical Society, from which Dr. Giaever resigned a few months ago, refused the seemingly reasonable request by many of its members to remove the word "incontrovertible" from its description of a scientific issue? There are several reasons, but a good place to start is the old question "cui bono?" Or the modern update, "Follow the money."

Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.

Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.

A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world that would like to share some of the same advantages of material well-being, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the world enjoy now. Many other policy responses would have a negative return on investment. And it is likely that more CO2 and the modest warming that may come with it will be an overall benefit to the planet.

If elected officials feel compelled to "do something" about climate, we recommend supporting the excellent scientists who are increasing our understanding of climate with well-designed instruments on satellites, in the oceans and on land, and in the analysis of observational data. The better we understand climate, the better we can cope with its ever-changing nature, which has complicated human life throughout history. However, much of the huge private and government investment in climate is badly in need of critical review.

Every candidate should support rational measures to protect and improve our environment, but it makes no sense at all to back expensive programs that divert resources from real needs and are based on alarming but untenable claims of "incontrovertible" evidence.

Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.

 

Rich people's magazine doesn't want to fight pollution, OMGZ how shocking.

 

Environmentalist will go crazy over this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygY57FdRcr0

 

How about scientists prove that Humans are the cause of Global Warming, maybe then I will get behind it. If we aren't the cause, then who friggin cares?

 

I want to know how the earth went through cold and warm cycles before man was here yet we're the problem now.

 

Well I'd show some fringe loonies on the right but it's generally too violent.

 

I'm not really sure what the Financial Mouthpiece of the Corrupt NewsCorp is trying to accomplish. Well actually I do. They are trying to take a scientific debate and turn it into a political debate. Why? Because they have no argument against the science and years and reams of data gathered by thousands of researchers all over the world. If they have the science and the studies to dispute the established and well documented mechanisms of anthropogenic warming then cite it. Otherwise it's just noise.

 

I am all for protecting the environment, lowering the pollution, etc, if for nothing else than for quality of life. But be fair, carbon credits is just another scam.

 

we have a no global warming thread rule here.

Actually I'm not too sure but they always end up closed.

 

I think you're a fool to buy into the man-made global warming dogma but you are equally foolish if you think we can just continue destroying the Earth with far more immediate methods such as mass deforestation and deep sea oil spills. Without CO2 plants die, without the plants all oxygen breathing creatures on the Earth die. In my experience the majority of the 'climate alarmists' are young university/college students who have not lived through the 70's and 80's and the 'global cooling' scare and it's origins. I've seen them with their t-shirts off marching around Parliament chanting 'Save the Whales' one day and 'Stop Global Warming' the next (confirmed same people). Many seem to get their information from 'Greenpeace' and the like and appear to believe every word they hear because 'I've seen the ice melting on the news and the polar bears looking lost in the water!'.

The educated scientists who believe this however need to get stuck into the Climategate 2.0 email leaks: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesta...0-new-e-mails-rock-the-global-warming-debate/

If they would just direct their attention to the climate change occurring on Mars and Venus for example they would at least think; 'Hang on a minute, there ain't any SUVs on Mars?' - The climate is constantly changing; Yes we need to stop polluting the oceans and chopping down the Rain Forest but NO we do not need to be taxed for breathing.

 

I'm always amused that folks think the entire scientific community is unaware of what occurs elsewhere in the solar system. Really? That is an argument? Young students, activists , whatever, have nothing to do with the debate and are just noise. Once again, there is nothing provided disputing the science. Climategate 2.0? Funny...http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevezwick/2011/11/28/climategate-2-0-more-like-climatefluff-3-12/

 

Regardless of the 'science' we simply don't produce enough CO2 compared to 'nature' to warrant any of the carbon tax crap being loaded onto the masses worldwide. If a person believes in 'global warming' that is absolutely fine and it is their right to do so but to expect others to be required by law to pay tax on CO2 emissions is economically absurd.

 

Incorrect. Industrial CO2 emissions have increased the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere by over 30%. This is an established fact.
Putting science in single quotes is supposed to have some meaning? Is that code for being a 'Flat Earther'? The so called carbon tax is an entirely separate political issue. This isn't about the 'right to believe'. Science isn't about faith. You can easily look all this up on this wonderful technology called the internet. I see though that you have faith in your view and I'm not going to change it.

 

The Wallstreet Journal, the bastion of journalism, the standard bearer of integrity has spoken. Cower in fear, people!

Oh, wait, this is yet another worthless piece of **** paper that is only good at mouthing Israeli and US propaganda.

 

Look I agree that the WSJ is part of the corrupt NewsCorp Empire, but we can still have a discussion on the merits or lack thereof.

 

HAHAHA! You referenced a News Corporation-run publication as evidence against the existence of global warming?

That's like asking the Westboro Baptist Church to write a publication on whether homosexuality is O.K.

The bias is blatantly apparent in all News Corporation-run stuff. It's EXTREME right-wing. Not center-right. RADICAL right.

Murdoch has a right-wing agenda, and he does a good job spreading propaganda. Notice his outrage at Obama for opposing SOPA/PIPA? Why? Because fighting claims of global warming REALLY financially helps out a LOT of big businesses.

Sadly, it doesn't seem like very many people in here are going to be enlightened about the deal with global warming. Regardless of the fact that the vast majority of scientists (especially those NOT on the payroll of these huge firms) have gathered more than enough evidence to determine that it is, in fact, happening.

So basically this post is a big waste of time - simultaneous preaching to the choir and yelling at those with fingers in their ears. Apologies.

- PR-0927

 

If the evidence was irrefutable then there would not be more and more reputable scientists coming out against it. Either all these scientists are bought out or they are incapable of understanding the 'facts' they were earlier involved in establishing. The alternative of course is that Global warming has not in fact been occurring as claimed and these scientists have decided to follow the evidence and not cling to a recently discredited theory.

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html