Answer to Kluk' critique in the Saturday Union

Russ Steele

Michael Kluk from Grass Valley has written a critique of my 6 March 2010 Column in the Union claiming that I relied on “half-truths and conveniently omitted facts” to reach my conclusions.  It is difficult to deal with a complex issue in just 750 words, so column writers have to summarize for the reader. To over come that limitation I listed links on my web page to the source material used in the column. Details Here.

Now lets us look at some of Michael’s omissions. He claims he went on my web site,  but could not find any evidence of support for a MWP.

“The “Medieval warming period” referenced by Mr. Steele is a nonstarter. As Dr. Jones pointed out in his interview, there is no evidence that was a global phenomenon. It may have been limited to the North Atlantic and possibly portions of Asia.”

Since I provided a link to a web site with an interactive map showing multiple studies that have validated the MWP world wide, ( http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/description.php,) we have to assume that Michael was not interest in the facts, or did not really visit my blog.  Details here. 

Michael Writes:

“To begin, these are excerpts from an interview with Dr. Jones found on a Web site with a bias similar to Mr. Steele's. Given that amount of prior editing, it is hard to say what the original interview would tell us if reviewed in its entirety.”

Again there is not enough space allocated by the Union to present the whole interview, so I used a summary.  The original interview with Phil Jones was here:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8511670.stm Perhaps Michael can point to the critical points I left out of the discussion of temperature.

Phil Jones does not believe in the WMP because it destroys the whole premise of AGW and his revenue source. If we have natural warming, there is nothing humans can do about it, and there is nothing to study but how to adopt. How can you tax a natural climate cycle? 

Michael Writes:

“While there are plenty of differing opinions on the timing and degree of climate change at this early stage of the research, there does not seem to be a reputable climate scientist who would conclude we are not facing the reality of a warming planet.”

To this we can agree the planet has warmed and will again. But, there is no proof that humans have caused that warming. The hypothesis is that human generated CO2 is responsible for the warming. Those promoting this hypothesis point to the their computer models as proof.  These models only reflect the assumptions that they fed in to the model, they do not reflect reality. Until the models can predict future climate change, that can be validated by scientific measurements, they will remain just that an unvalidated hypothesis.  While CO2 continues to accumulate, the models did not predict the last century of cooling.  Perhaps Michael can provide a list of credible scientist that can prove humans are responsible with out relying the models that have not been validated.

This we can also agree too:

“Good teachers will expose children to the full range of facts, pro and con, encouraging them to think critically and openly about this and other controversial topics without telling them what conclusion they should reach.”

My question was, are teachers doing exactly what Michael asserts, presenting both pro and con without influence?  The only way for parents and grand parents to find out was to ask their students. How hard is that?