Proof that the Global Warming sceptics are Big Oil lackeys.

[Odin]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1758233,00.html

Scientists fear new attempts to undermine climate action

David Adam, environment correspondent
Friday April 21, 2006
The Guardian


Britain's scientists are drawing up a plan to fight renewed attempts by sceptics and industry-funded lobby groups to derail international action on climate change.
According to a confidential internal memo, the Royal Society expects "groups and individuals" to question the science of global warming and the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

It predicts that lobbyists will try to undermine a report next year from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is expected to give a new warning on climate change.

Sources say the report, a draft of which was handed to governments earlier this month, will warn that global warming could drive the Earth's temperature to levels far higher than previously predicted. The report draws together research over the past five years and will be made public in February.
The Royal Society memo says: "It seems likely that these groups will again seek to undermine the IPCC in the period around publication. There are already signs these groups will be targeting European countries and Canada to seek to provoke opposition to the Kyoto protocol."

The document says the oil company Exxon Mobil has tried "to influence public opinion about the threat of climate change". It also says "concerted efforts" were made in 2004-05 to change the way the UK media covered climate science after Tony Blair declared that global warming was one of his priorities.

The memo shows concern that parts of UK media do not reflect the scientific consensus that human emissions of carbon dioxide are driving climate change. It highlights articles in the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, which it says "appeared to be directly influenced by information distributed by lobbyists".

But the memo also criticises environmental campaigners for misrepresenting scientific evidence and says that green groups and the British media "have been guilty of expressing unjustified certainty about the science of climate change".

It criticises Greenpeace for blaming global warming for the 2003 heatwave that killed 30,000 people across Europe. Global warming could not be blamed for individual weather events, although it does make some more likely to occur.

In a statement, the Royal Society said: "This is an internal memorandum based on our own analysis of the way in which climate change has been covered in the UK media.

"It is clear that a number of well-funded and well-orchestrated media campaigns were carried out, by groups that are opposed to the Kyoto protocol and measures to restrict greenhouse gas emissions. There are signs that these groups are preparing similar media and political offensives ahead of the publication of the IPCC fourth assessment report in 2007."

Profits > Science to Big Oil. They view the IPCC is a threat to thier profits so they must discredit it.

Oh, and before people like PA start squaking "It's The Guardian, so it's all leftist lies!", note that Greenpeace is criticized, too.

[Asher]

Science --> Profits for Big Oil.

I'll break this down so even a hippy can understand it.

Unless you have a viable large-scale alternative, and unless you have a plan to replace all of the aging fossil-fuel based energy systems, shut the f*ck up because it doesn't matter.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Shocking that people with vested interests try to control the message.

Damn that Greenpeace.

[Elok]

I'm not sure how this makes them "lackeys." They got funding from interested parties, yes, but that doesn't automatically invalidate their skepticism. If you honestly think global warming is bunk anyway, industry giants giving you cash for saying so is just gravy.

And criticizing Greenpeace doesn't make a source "fair and balanced," it just makes it "not obviously insane." A conservative news outlet that badmouthed right-wing separatist militias would not gain credibility for doing so, would it?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Evil Greenpeace.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Elok
I'm not sure how this makes them "lackeys." They got funding from interested parties, yes, but that doesn't automatically invalidate their skepticism. If you honestly think global warming is bunk anyway, industry giants giving you cash for saying so is just gravy.

This would be like creationists funding Michael Behe. It's about making the skeptic position look reasable to the layman when the vast, vast, vast majority of scientists know that such possition is ludicrous. Big Oil is simply trying to legitamize the hypothesis of cranks because the position accepted by nearly all climatologists, that we need to cut fossil fuel emissions, is bad for Big Oil.

[Pekka]

Greenpeace has been hijacked a long time ago by political activists.

Move on to other organizations that still has their integrity attached. There must be many good environmental organizations out there that needs your help.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Pekka
Greenpeace has been hijacked a long time ago by political activists.

QFT.

[Elok]

I can see your position and all, but this isn't really "proof," is what I'm saying. If the makers of vitamin pills funded studies on the health benefits of vitamin supplements, that wouldn't imply that vitamins are based on "junk science," as it's called. Regardless of the merits (or lack thereof) of the idea on its own, this just shows that oil companies know how to play politics like everyone else.

[Berzerker]

Proof that the Global Warming sceptics are Big Oil lackeys.

Britain's scientists are drawing up a plan to fight renewed attempts by sceptics and industry-funded lobby groups to derail international action on climate change.

Odious

[The Mad Monk]

Should I drop this in here? Oh, why the hell not...

Sun's Direct Role in Global Warming May Be Underestimated, Duke Physicists Report

Study does not discount the suspected contributions of 'greenhouse gases' in elevating surface temperatures

Friday, September 30, 2005

Durham, N.C. -- At least 10 to 30 percent of global warming measured during the past two decades may be due to increased solar output rather than factors such as increased heat-absorbing carbon dioxide gas released by various human activities, two Duke University physicists report.

The physicists said that their findings indicate that climate models of global warming need to be corrected for the effects of changes in solar activity. However, they emphasized that their findings do not argue against the basic theory that significant global warming is occurring because of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse” gases.

Nicola Scafetta, an associate research scientistworking at Duke's physics department, and Bruce West, a Duke adjunct physics professor, published their findings online Sept. 28, 2005, in the research journal Geophysical Research Letters.

West is also chief scientist in the mathematical and information sciences directorate of the Army Research Office in Research Triangle Park.

Scafetta's and West's study follows a Columbia University researcher's report of previous errors in the interpretation of data on solar brightnesscollected by sun-observing satellites.

The Duke physicists also introduce new statistical methods that they assert more accurately describe the atmosphere's delayed response to solar heating. In addition, these new methods filter out temperature-changing effects not tied to global warming, they write in their paper.

According to Scafetta, records of sunspot activity suggest that solar output has been rising slightly for about 100 years. However, only measurements of what is known as total solar irradiance gathered by satellites orbiting since 1978 are considered scientifically reliable, he said.

But observations over those years were flawed by the space shuttle Challenger disaster, which prevented the launching of a new solar output detecting satellite called ACRIM 2 to replace a previous one called ACRIM 1.

That resulted in a two-year data gap that scientists had to rely on other satellites to try to bridge. "But those data were not as precise as those from ACRIM 1 and ACRIM 2,” Scafetta said in an interview.

Nevertheless, several research groups used the combined satellite data to conclude that that there was no increased heating from the Sun to contribute to the global surface warming observed between 1980 and 2002, the authors wrote in their paper.

Lacking a standardized, uninterrupted data stream measuring any rising solar influence, those groups thus surmised that all global temperature increases measured during those years had to be caused by solar heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases such as carbon dioxide, introduced into Earth's atmosphere by human activities, their paper added.

But a 2003 study by a group headed by Columbia's Richard Willson, principal investigator of the ACRIM experiments, challenged the previous satellite interpretations of solar output. Willson and his colleagues concluded, rather that their analysis revealed a significant upward trend in average solar luminosity during the period.

Using the Columbia findings as the starting point for their study, Scafetta and West then statistically analyzed how Earth's atmosphere would respond to slightly stronger solar heating. Importantly, they used an analytical method that could detect the subtle, complex relationships between solar output and terrestrial temperature patterns.

The Duke analyses examined solar changes over a period twice as long -- 22 versus 11years -- as was previously covered by another group employinga different statistical approach.

"The problem is that Earth's atmosphere is not in thermodynamic equilibrium with the sun," Scafetta said. "The longer the time period the stronger the effect will be on the atmosphere, because it takes time to adapt."

Using a longer 22 year interval also allowed the Duke physicists to filter out shorter range effects that can influence surface temperatures but are not related to global warming, their paper said. Examples include volcanic eruptions, which can temporarily cool the climate, and ocean current changes such as el Nino that affect global weather patterns.

Applying their analytical method to the solar output estimates by the Columbia group, Scafetta's and West's paper concludes that "the sun may have minimally contributed about 10 to 30 percent of the 1980-2002 global surface warming."

This study does not discount that human-linked greenhouse gases contribute to global warming, they stressed. "Those gases would still give a contribution, but not so strong as was thought," Scafetta said.

"We don't know what the Sun will do in the future," Scafetta added. "For now, if our analysis is correct, I think it is important to correct the climate models so that they include reliable sensitivity to solar activity.
"Once that is done, then it will be possible to better understand what has happened during the past hundred years."

For more information, contact: Monte Basgall | (919) 681-8057 | monte.basgall@duke.edu
Home>2005>Sun's Direct Role in Global Warming May Be Underestimated, Duke Physicists Report

http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2005/09/sunwarm.html

[The Mad Monk]

By the way...

What proof was provided by this memo?

[The Mad Monk]

Scratch that.

There's no way to determine that, since the Guardian didn't see fit to release the actual text of memo.

I wonder why.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Evil Greenpeace.

They're not evil... just utterly stupid and unable to follow even basic science. They're all about ideology and rhetoric instead of using science to find the best policy.