Crackpot Science Advisor attacks global warming skeptics

Russ Steele

Lefty, a regular contributor in the comment section, lists all of John P. Holdren's credentials here in a effort to convince us that Holdren is not a Science Crackpot. Steve Frisch another regular comment contributor also weighs in several times this morning, see his comments on the right of this page.

Long before Holdren collected this latest Science Adviser's scalp for his academic belt, I read a rather lengthy paper by Professor Richard S. Lindzen, Program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is not impressed by Holdren's scientific grasp of climate science nor his scientific credentials. In Appendix 3 to his paper Lindzen includes a Holdren op-ed from the Boston Globe, August 4, 2008  Titled: Convincing the climate-change skeptics. Full paper is here.

I thought it might be interesting to examine Holdren's writing and grasp of climate science, since I am mentioned in his Op-Ed as an Internet blogger without any climate science credentials. But, the last time I checked, I have not lost my ability to read scientific papers, do my own BS analysis, and do some thinking which I share with readers for their own analysis.

Holdren's words are in italics, mine are in plain type.

"THE FEW climate-change "skeptics" with any sort of scientific credentials continue to receive attention in the media out of all proportion to their numbers, their qualifications, or the merit of their arguments. And this muddying of the waters of public discourse is being magnified by the parroting of these arguments by a larger population of amateur skeptics with no scientific credentials at all.

I wonder what Holdren thinks is a Few?  By definition: a few(a): more than one but indefinitely small in number. What is Holdren's small number?  Ten perhaps, maybe twenty, possibly sixty, or an hundred, perhaps six hundred and fifty.  Here is link to 650 scientist and their qualifications that do not believe in human caused global warming. Is 650 more than a few?  I think so.

Here is a partical list of skeptical blogs, more than a few?  I think so.
William M. Briggs
Climate Audit
Climate Change Facts
Climate Change Fraud
Climate Police
Climate Resistance
Climate Scam
Climate Science
CO2 Science
Friends of Science
Global Climate Scam
Global Warming Heretic
Global Warming Hoax
Global Warming Skeptic
GlobalWarming.org
Greenie Watch
Bruce Hall
Warwick Hughes
Lucia Liljegren
Jennifer Marohasy
Warren Meyer
Maurizio Morabito
Luboš Motl
Tom Nelson
Newsbusters climate
Planet Gore
Roger Pielke Sr.
Fred Singer
David Stockwell
Philip Stott
Anthony Watts
World Climate Report

Then we are treated to Holdren's sketical straw man:

Long-time observers of public debates about environmental threats know that skeptics about such matters tend to move, over time, through three stages. First, they tell you you're wrong and they can prove it. (In this case, "Climate isn't changing in unusual ways or, if it is, human activities are not the cause.") Then they tell you you're right but it doesn't matter. ("OK, it's changing and humans are playing a role, but it won't do much harm.") Finally, they tell you it matters but it's too late to do anything about it. ("Yes, climate disruption is going to do some real damage, but it's too late, too difficult, or too costly to avoid that, so we'll just have to hunker down and suffer.")

All three positions are represented among the climate-change skeptics who infest talk shows, Internet blogs, letters to the editor, op-ed pieces, and cocktail-party conversations. The few with credentials in climate-change science have nearly all shifted in the past few years from the first category to the second, however, and jumps from the second to the third are becoming more frequent. All three factions are wrong, but the first is the worst. Their arguments, such as they are, suffer from two huge deficiencies.
 
First, they have not come up with any plausible alternative culprit for the disruption of global climate that is being observed, for example, a culprit other than the greenhouse-gas buildups in the atmosphere that have been measured and tied beyond doubt to human activities. (The argument that variations in the sun's output might be responsible fails a number of elementary scientific tests.)

And what are those elementary scientific tests? We do not know because Holdren fails to provide any clues. Is this science, or politics? 

Second, having not succeeded in finding an alternative, they haven't even tried to do what would be logically necessary if they had one, which is to explain how it can be that everything modern science tells us about the interactions of greenhouse gases with energy flow in the atmosphere is wrong. 

What?  Well perhaps Holdren can explain why temperature are going down while CO2 is going up, since has has such a clear understanding of energy flow in the atmosphere.

Members of the public who are tempted to be swayed by the denier fringe should ask themselves how it is possible, if human-caused climate change is just a hoax, that: The leaderships of the national academies of sciences of the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Russia, China, and India, among others, are on record saying that global climate change is real, caused mainly by humans, and reason for early, concerted action. This is also the overwhelming majority view among the faculty members of the earth sciences departments at every first-rank university in the world.

All three of holders of the one Nobel prize in science that has been awarded for studies of the atmosphere (the 1995 chemistry prize to Paul Crutzen, Sherwood Rowland, and Mario Molina, for figuring out what was happening to stratospheric ozone) are leaders in the climate-change scientific mainstream.

Ah, the consensus argument. Now remove the billions of climate change research funding and who will be signing up for human caused global warming? The current warming and cooling are natural cycles. They will will soon be requesting funds to study the transition to a colder world.

US polls indicate that most of the amateur skeptics are Republicans.

Really?  Could it be that Republican climate skeptic are thinkers instead of Democratic feelers.  And what about those international deniers like Steve McIntyre (Canada), Ross McKitrick (Canada) Benny Peiser (UK), Jennifer Marohasy (Australia), Bob Carter (Australia), Warwick Hughes (Australia), Dr Vincent Gray (New Zealand), Chris de Freitas (Australia), Lubos Motl (Czech Republic ), and Philip Stott (UK) are they Republicans too?

These Republican skeptics should wonder how presidential candidate John McCain could have been taken in. 

That is too easy, McCain is a political opportunist who was looking for moderate votes who according to the polls were warmers. Without Palin on the ticket, Obama would have won with a landslide. McCain was not a true conservative candidate. Anyone that would buy into the global warming crap lacks the necessary intelligence to lead. When the data shows cooling and leaders claim warming, how can you trust them to be effective leaders?

He has castigated the Bush administration for wasting eight years in inaction on climate change, and the policies he says he would implement as president include early and deep cuts in US greenhouse-gas emissions. (Senator Barack Obama's position is similar.)

I wonder if Holdren has noted that the EU at the latest global warming conferences has adopted the Bush position that CO2 ceilings should voluntary not mandatory . Bush was right, McCain was wrong, as is Barack Obama.

The extent of unfounded skepticism about the disruption of global climate by human-produced greenhouse gases is not just regrettable, it is dangerous. It has delayed - and continues to delay - the development of the political consensus that will be needed if society is to embrace remedies commensurate with the challenge. The science of climate change is telling us that we need to get going. Those who still think this is all a mistake or a hoax need to think again.

Really. In the real world temperatures are below what the models forecast as hysterical global warming.  And, in the past ten year there has not been any significant warming, and in the past two years the temperatures have cooled.

 

Now I ask you, would you call a Scientific Advisor that ignores real world facts a scientific crackpot? Me too.