Global warming and WMD

I ran across this site a few weeks ago. Yeah, it's a site that is a bit skeptical of the global warming hysteria, as I am (which does not mean that I don't agree that warming is taking place); it is pretty easy reading, just technical enough to keep my brain engaged, and doesn't stoop to shrill tactics to get its points across. I believe it was a Weblog Award winner just recently as Best Science Blog.

They had a post about a recent Guardian article which opens with the line, "Experts at Britain's top climate research centre have launched a blistering attack on scientific colleagues and journalists who exaggerate the effects of global warming."

Wow; pretty strong stuff for the likes of the Guardian, which has been pushing the apocalyptic global warming idea for some time. The reference is obviously to the likes of James Hansen, James McCarthy and Stephen Chu, who I posted about last week.

One quote from the article:

“It is easy for scientists to grab attention by linking climate change to the latest extreme weather event or apocalyptic prediction. But in doing so, the public perception of climate change can be distorted. The reality is that extreme events arise when natural variations in the weather and climate combine with long-term climate change.”

Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

This follows a recent article on HuffingtonPost (Jan. 3rd) absolutely blasting AlGore for "the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind." A bit angrier in tone, it too is well worth a read.

Finally, I ran across this little exchange over on Camille Paglia's blog:

(question) Have you noticed how much the call for combating global warming crusade has in common with how we got into the Iraq war?

In both cases, there are "experts" who tell us that evidence justifying action is undeniable. They say, "The risk of doing nothing is too great for us to do nothing." And as a fallback position they say, "Even if we're wrong, we'll still be doing some good in the world."

Kind of makes me think man-made CO2 emissions will turn out to be the biggest case of nonexistent WMD since Saddam Hussein's nukes. (Or maybe even bigger!) What do you think?

Jim Carroll

(reply) Wonderful letter! . . . I have been highly skeptical about the claims for global warming because of their overreliance on speculative computer modeling and because of the woeful patchiness of records for world temperatures before the 20th century . . . the global warming crusade has become a hallucinatory cult. Until I see stronger evidence, I will continue to believe that climate change is primarily driven by solar phenomena and that it is normal for the earth to pass through major cooling and warming phases.

Not that I place much scientific value on Ms. Paglia's climate theories, but the observation about the WMD evidence I thought was insightful. If you are going to apply the same skepticism to Colin Powell's UN testimony, why not apply it to climate "science?"