[at-l] History Lesson on Global Warming, with references

[rcli4 at comcast.net]

I know Ya'll are probably tired of hearing this but,  Plant a tree, it removes the bad stuff that may or may not be causing Global warming.  If we are not causing it, worse case scenario you have an extra tree to look at :>))

Clyde

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: athummingbird <athummingbird at dnet.net> 

> Vi Vi, 
> 
> Thank you for posting those articles. I know I learned something from 
> them. But, unfortunately, some people are never going to listen. They 
> think they already know it all, so they just copy page after page of 
> falsehoods. Believe me, you cannot even get into a discussion. This 
> preaching has already had several women leave the WH list. Hopefully, 
> that will not happen here. 
> 
> Hugs, Hummingbird 
> 
> Vi Vi wrote: 
> > Coosa, 
> > 
> > Your post, dated 7-29-06, provides an article in the 
> > Wall Street Journal which found one person, along with 
> > a protege, who obliquely, without use of science, 
> > supports your “maybe.” 
> > 
> > [Reference your post, under the thread “US national 
> > parks: How the west was withered,” dated 7-28-06, 
> > wherein you guess, “Maybe what's happening is that 
> > the Earth is tired of being lopsided and it's going to 
> > melt enough ice and move enough water around and blow 
> > off a bit of steam and ash from volcanoes so that it 
> > can go back to its original axis.”] 
> > 
> > The thesis of your article is, "The fact that the 
> > earth's climate changes in cycles from warm to cold to 
> > warm, etc. ... was noted in the late 18th century by 
> > Edward Gibbon in his "Decline and Fall of the Roman 
> > Empire ..." 
> > 
> > This statement, alone and unsuppported, is a straw 
> > man. No one contests earth’s cooling and warming 
> > cycle. It is accepted as fact both by proponents and 
> > opponents of the Global Warming Theory. It is, 
> > therefore, irrelevant to any discussion of that 
> > theory. 
> > 
> > The point of contention rests with: proponents of the 
> > Global Warming Theory point to multiple converging 
> > indices that the current warming trend is progressing 
> > at a geometrically progressing rate, never seen 
> > before; opponents of the Global Warming Theory use 
> > very little science, but hold forth other sources for 
> > their thinking - such as the anecdotal account of the 
> > article you provided. 
> > 
> > Proponents of the Global Warming Theory consider man 
> > has changed earth‘s environment, causing this 
> > increased rate of change. Man’s ability to slow, 
> > stop, or reverse this perceived rate of change 
> > diminishes as time passes and the rate of change 
> > increases, causing them great alarm. 
> > 
> > What science opponents of the Global Warming Theory 
> > have is heavily contested. Their view is the latest 
> > warming is but part of a natural cycle, and deduce 
> > from this we don’t need to change any of our 
> > behaviors. This “what me worry?” attitude infuriates 
> > proponents of Global Warming. 
> > 
> > Your evidence - your reading of one article - seems 
> > insufficient to support your conclusion, “Guess ol' 
> > Coosa isn't as ignorant as some would make her out to 
> > be. (I've probably forgotten more information than 
> > most people learn in a lifetime.)” 
> > 
> > I offer three recent non-science articles as rebuttal 
> > of your professor. The first article suggests why so 
> > little support for the global warming theory exists in 
> > this country today. The second article bolsters the 
> > first, from a different angle. The third article 
> > cites your single source as capable, at the least, of 
> > negligence, and provides a brief overview of support 
> > for the global warming theory today. 
> > 
> > ** 
> > 
> > [Article #1] Scientists Say They're Being Gagged by 
> > Bush, Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post, April 16, 
> > 2006 
> > 
> > White House monitors their media contacts. 
> > 
> > Washington - Scientists doing climate research for 
> > the federal government say the Bush administration has 
> > made it hard for them to speak forthrightly to the 
> > public about global warming. The result, the 
> > researchers say, is a danger that Americans are not 
> > getting the full story on how the climate is changing. 
> > 
> > Employees and contractors working for the National 
> > Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, along with a 
> > U.S. Geological Survey scientist working at an NOAA 
> > lab, said in interviews that over the past year 
> > administration officials have chastised them for 
> > speaking on policy questions; removed references to 
> > global warming from their reports, news releases and 
> > conference Web sites; investigated news leaks; and 
> > sometimes urged them to stop speaking to the media 
> > altogether. Their accounts indicate that the 
> > ideological battle over climate-change research, which 
> > first came to light at NASA, is being fought in other 
> > federal science agencies as well. 
> > 
> > These scientists - working nationwide in research 
> > centers in such places as Princeton, N.J., and 
> > Boulder, Colo. - say they are required to clear all 
> > media requests with administration officials, 
> > something they did not have to do until the summer of 
> > 2004. Before then, climate researchers - unlike staff 
> > members in the Justice or State departments, which 
> > have long-standing policies restricting access to 
> > reporters - were relatively free to discuss their 
> > findings without strict agency oversight. 
> > 
> > "There has been a change in how we're expected to 
> > interact with the press," said Pieter Tans, who 
> > measures greenhouse gases linked to global warming and 
> > has worked at NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory 
> > in Boulder for two decades. He said that although he 
> > often "ignores the rules" the administration has 
> > instituted, when it comes to his colleagues, "some 
> > people feel intimidated - I see that." 
> > 
> > Christopher Milly, a hydrologist at the U.S. 
> > Geological Survey, said he had problems twice while 
> > drafting news releases on scientific papers describing 
> > how climate change would affect the nation's water 
> > supply. 
> > 
> > Once in 2002, Milly said, Interior officials 
> > declined to issue a news release on grounds that it 
> > would cause "great problems with the department." In 
> > November 2005, they agreed to issue a release on a 
> > different climate-related paper, Milly said, but 
> > "purged key words from the releases, including 'global 
> > warming,' 'warming climate' and 'climate change.' '' 
> > 
> > Administration officials said they are following 
> > long-standing policies that were not enforced in the 
> > past. Kent Laborde, a NOAA public affairs officer who 
> > flew to Boulder last month to monitor an interview 
> > Tans did with a film crew from the BBC, said he was 
> > helping facilitate meetings between scientists and 
> > journalists. 
> > 
> > "We've always had the policy, it just hasn't been 
> > enforced," Laborde said. "It's important that the 
> > leadership knows something is coming out in the media, 
> > because it has a huge impact. The leadership needs to 
> > know the tenor or the tone of what we expect to be 
> > printed or broadcast." 
> > 
> > Several times, however, agency officials have 
> > tried to alter what these scientists tell the media. 
> > When Tans was helping to organize the Seventh 
> > International Carbon Dioxide Conference near Boulder 
> > last fall, his lab director told him participants 
> > could not use the term "climate change" in conference 
> > paper's titles and abstracts. Tans and others 
> > disregarded that advice. 
> > 
> > None of the scientists said political appointees 
> > had influenced their research on climate change or 
> > disciplined them for questioning the administration. 
> > Several researchers have received bigger budgets in 
> > recent years because President Bush has focused on 
> > studying global warming rather than curbing greenhouse 
> > gases. NOAA's budget for climate research and services 
> > is now $250 million, up from $241 million in 2004. 
> > 
> > The assertion that climate scientists are being 
> > censored first surfaced in January when James Hansen, 
> > who directs NASA's Goddard Institute for Space 
> > Studies, told the New York Times and the Washington 
> > Post that the administration sought to muzzle him 
> > after he gave a lecture in December calling for cuts 
> > in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse 
> > gases. (NASA Administrator Michael Griffin issued new 
> > rules recently that make clear that its scientists are 
> > free to talk to members of the media about their 
> > scientific findings, including personal 
> > interpretations.) 
> > 
> > Two weeks later, Hansen suggested to an audience 
> > at the New School University in New York that his 
> > counterparts at NOAA were experiencing even more 
> > severe censorship. "It seems more like Nazi Germany or 
> > the Soviet Union than the United States," he told the 
> > crowd. 
> > 
> > NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher responded 
> > by sending an agency-wide e-mail that said he is "a 
> > strong believer in open, peer-reviewed science as well 
> > as the right and duty of scientists to seek the truth 
> > and to provide the best scientific advice possible." 
> > 
> > "I encourage our scientists to speak freely and 
> > openly," he added. "We ask only that you specify when 
> > you are communicating personal views and when you are 
> > characterizing your work as part of your specific 
> > contribution to NOAA's mission." 
> > 
> > NOAA scientists, however, cite repeated instances 
> > in which the administration played down the threat of 
> > climate change in their documents and news releases. 
> > Although Bush and his top advisers have said that 
> > Earth is warming and human activity has contributed to 
> > this, they have questioned some predictions and 
> > caution that mandatory limits on carbon dioxide could 
> > damage the nation's economy. 
> > 
> > In 2002, NOAA agreed to draft a report with 
> > Australian researchers aimed at helping reef managers 
> > deal with widespread coral bleaching that stems from 
> > higher sea temperatures. A March 2004 draft report had 
> > several references to global warming, including "Mass 
> > bleaching ... affects reefs at regional to global 
> > scales, and has incontrovertibly linked to increases 
> > in sea temperature associated with global change." 
> > 
> > A later version, dated July 2005, drops those 
> > references and several others mentioning climate 
> > change. 
> > 
> > NOAA has yet to release the coral bleaching 
> > report. James Mahoney, assistant secretary of commerce 
> > for oceans and atmosphere, said he decided in late 
> > 2004 to delay the report because "its scientific basis 
> > was so inadequate." Now that it is revised, he said, 
> > he is waiting for the Australian Great Barrier Reef 
> > Marine Park Authority to approve it. "I just did not 
> > think it was ready for prime time," Mahoney said. "It 
> > was not just about climate change - there were a lot 
> > of things." 
> > 
> > On other occasions, Mahoney and other NOAA 
> > officials have told researchers not to give their 
> > opinions on policy matters. Konrad Steffen directs the 
> > Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental 
> > Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder, a 
> > joint NOAA-university institute with a $40 million 
> > annual budget. Steffen studies the Greenland ice 
> > sheet, and when his work was cited last spring in a 
> > major international report on climate change in the 
> > Arctic, he and another NOAA lab director from Alaska 
> > received a call from Mahoney in which he told them not 
> > to give reporters their opinions on global warming. 
> > 
> > Steffen said that he told him that although 
> > Mahoney has considerable leverage as "the person in 
> > command for all research money in NOAA ... I was not 
> > backing down." 
> > 
> > Mahoney said he had "no recollection" of the 
> > conversation, which took place in a conference call. 
> > "It's virtually inconceivable that I would have called 
> > him about this," Mahoney said, though he added: "For 
> > those who are government employees, our position is 
> > they should not typically render a policy view." 
> > 
> > The need for clearance from Washington, several 
> > NOAA scientists said, amounts to a "pocket veto" 
> > allowing administration officials to block interviews 
> > by not giving permission in time for journalists' 
> > deadlines. 
> > 
> > Ronald Stouffer, a climate research scientist at 
> > NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in 
> > Princeton, estimated his media requests have dropped 
> > in half because it took so long to get clearance to 
> > talk from NOAA headquarters. Thomas Delworth, one of 
> > Stouffer's colleagues, said the policy means Americans 
> > have only "a partial sense" of what government 
> > scientists have learned about climate change. 
> > 
> > "American taxpayers are paying the bill, and they 
> > have a right to know what we're doing," he said. 
> > 
> > 
> > ** 
> > 
> > [Article #2] 10,000 EPA Scientists Protest Library 
> > Closures 
> > Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility | 
> > News Release, June 29, 2006 
> > 
> > Loss of access to collections will hamper emergency 
> > response and research. 
> > 
> > Washington, DC - In an extraordinary letter of 
> > protest, representatives for 10,000 U.S. Environmental 
> > Protection Agency scientists are asking Congress to 
> > stop the Bush administration from closing the agency's 
> > network of technical research libraries. The EPA 
> > scientists, representing more than half of the total 
> > agency workforce, contend thousands of scientific 
> > studies are being put out of reach, hindering 
> > emergency preparedness, anti-pollution enforcement and 
> > long-term research, according to the letter released 
> > today by Public Employees for Environmental 
> > Responsibility (PEER). 
> > 
> > In his proposed budget for FY 2007, President Bush 
> > deleted $2 million of support for EPA's libraries, 
> > amounting to 80% of the agency's total budget for 
> > libraries. Without waiting for Congress to act, EPA 
> > has begun shuttering libraries, closing access to 
> > collections and reassigning staff. The letter notes 
> > that "EPA library services are [now] greatly reduced 
> > or no longer available to the general public" in 
> > agency regional offices serving 19 states. 
> > 
> > The letter signed by presidents of 17 locals of 
> > four unions (the American Federation of Federal 
> > Employees, the National Treasury Employees Union, the 
> > National Association of Government Employees and the 
> > Engineers and Scientists of California) representing 
> > more than 10,000 EPA scientists, engineers and other 
> > technical specialists was sent to Congressional 
> > appropriators this morning and states: 
> > 
> > * "The ability of EPA to respond to emergencies 
> > will be reduced" due to a diminishing access to "the 
> > latest research on cutting-edge homeland security and 
> > public health" topics; 
> > * Approximately 50,000 original research documents 
> > will become completely unavailable because they are 
> > not available electronically and the agency has no 
> > budget for digitizing them; and 
> > * The public and academic researchers may lose any 
> > access to EPA library materials as services to the 
> > public are being axed and there are no plans to 
> > maintain "the inter-library loan process." 
> > 
> > "Eliminating library access is an absolutely awful 
> > way to run an agency devoted to public and 
> > environmental health," stated PEER Executive Director 
> > Jeff Ruch. "For example, important research on the 
> > Chesapeake Bay is locked away in boxes since EPA 
> > closed its Ft. Meade library this February, yet EPA 
> > still maintains that restoring the Chesapeake is a top 
> > priority." 
> > 
> > The dogged insistence by the Bush administration 
> > on a $2 million cut in an overall EPA budget of nearly 
> > $8 billion is particularly curious. EPA internal 
> > studies show that providing full library access saves 
> > an estimated 214,000 hours in professional staff time 
> > worth some $7.5 million annually, an amount far larger 
> > than the total agency library budget of $2.5 million. 
> > 
> > "The Bush administration apparently decided that 
> > it was politically easier to close the libraries than 
> > to burn the books, although the end result will be the 
> > same," Ruch added, noting that the EPA Administrator 
> > brushed aside an earlier request by the scientist 
> > unions to bargain about the library shutdowns 
> > internally. 
> > 
> > In their letter, the EPA scientists cite library 
> > closures as "one more example of the Bush 
> > administration's effort to suppress information on 
> > environmental and public health-related topics." At 
> > the same time, other outside observers, such as the 
> > Chair of EPA's own Science Advisory Board, are 
> > expressing growing concerns over the viability and 
> > coherence of EPA's research program. 
> > 
> > ** 
> > 
> > [Article #3] Global Warming - Signed, Sealed and 
> > Delivered, Naomi Oreskes, The Los Angeles Times, July 
> > 24, 2006 
> > 
> > Scientists agree: The Earth is warming, and human 
> > activities are the principal cause. 
> > 
> > An Op-Ed article in the Wall Street Journal a 
> > month ago claimed that a published study affirming the 
> > existence of a scientific consensus on the reality of 
> > global warming had been refuted. This charge was 
> > repeated again last week, in a hearing of the House 
> > Committee on Energy and Commerce. 
> > 
> > I am the author of that study, which appeared two 
> > years ago in the journal Science, and I'm here to tell 
> > you that the consensus stands. The argument put 
> > forward in the Wall Street Journal was based on an 
> > Internet posting; it has not appeared in a 
> > peer-reviewed journal - the normal way to challenge an 
> > academic finding. (The Wall Street Journal didn't even 
> > get my name right!) 
> > 
> > My study demonstrated that there is no significant 
> > disagreement within the scientific community that the 
> > Earth is warming and that human activities are the 
> > principal cause. 
> > 
> > Papers that continue to rehash arguments that have 
> > already been addressed and questions that have already 
> > been answered will, of course, be rejected by 
> > scientific journals, and this explains my findings. 
> > Not a single paper in a large sample of peer-reviewed 
> > scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 refuted the 
> > consensus position, summarized by the National Academy 
> > of Sciences, that "most of the observed warming of the 
> > last 50 years is likely to have been due to the 
> > increase in greenhouse gas concentrations." 
> > 
> > Since the 1950s, scientists have understood that 
> > greenhouse gases produced by burning fossil fuels 
> > could have serious effects on Earth's climate. When 
> > the 1980s proved to be the hottest decade on record, 
> > and as predictions of climate models started to come 
> > true, scientists increasingly saw global warming as 
> > cause for concern. 
> > 
> > In 1988, the World Meteorological Assn. and the 
> > United Nations Environment Program joined forces to 
> > create the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 
> > to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis 
> > for informed policy action. The panel has issued three 
> > assessments (1990, 1995, 2001), representing the 
> > combined expertise of 2,000 scientists from more than 
> > 100 countries, and a fourth report is due out shortly. 
> > Its conclusions - global warming is occurring, humans 
> > have a major role in it - have been ratified by 
> > scientists around the world in published scientific 
> > papers, in statements issued by professional 
> > scientific societies and in reports of the National 
> > Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society and 
> > many other national and royal academies of science 
> > worldwide. Even the Bush administration accepts the 
> > fundamental findings. As President Bush's science 
> > advisor, John Marburger III, said last year in a 
> > speech: "The climate is changing; the Earth is 
> > warming." 
> > 
> > To be sure, there are a handful of scientists, 
> > including MIT professor Richard Lindzen, the author of 
> > the Wall Street Journal editorial, who disagree with 
> > the rest of the scientific community. To a historian 
> > of science like me, this is not surprising. In any 
> > scientific community, there are always some 
> > individuals who simply refuse to accept new ideas and 
> > evidence. This is especially true when the new 
> > evidence strikes at their core beliefs and values. 
> > 
> > Earth scientists long believed that humans were 
> > insignificant in comparison with the vastness of 
> > geological time and the power of geophysical forces. 
> > For this reason, many were reluctant to accept that 
> > humans had become a force of nature, and it took 
> > decades for the present understanding to be achieved. 
> > Those few who refuse to accept it are not ignorant, 
> > but they are stubborn. They are not unintelligent, but 
> > they are stuck on details that cloud the larger issue. 
> > Scientific communities include tortoises and hares, 
> > mavericks and mules. 
> > 
> > A historical example will help to make the point. 
> > In the 1920s, the distinguished Cambridge geophysicist 
> > Harold Jeffreys rejected the idea of continental drift 
> > on the grounds of physical impossibility. In the 
> > 1950s, geologists and geophysicists began to 
> > accumulate overwhelming evidence of the reality of 
> > continental motion, even though the physics of it was 
> > poorly understood. By the late 1960s, the theory of 
> > plate tectonics was on the road to near-universal 
> > acceptance. 
> > 
> > Yet Jeffreys, by then Sir Harold, stubbornly 
> > refused to accept the new evidence, repeating his old 
> > arguments about the impossibility of the thing. He was 
> > a great man, but he had become a scientific mule. For 
> > a while, journals continued to publish Jeffreys' 
> > arguments, but after a while he had nothing new to 
> > say. He died denying plate tectonics. The scientific 
> > debate was over. 
> > 
> > So it is with climate change today. As American 
> > geologist Harry Hess said in the 1960s about plate 
> > tectonics, one can quibble about the details, but the 
> > overall picture is clear. 
> > 
> > Yet some climate-change deniers insist that the 
> > observed changes might be natural, perhaps caused by 
> > variations in solar irradiance or other forces we 
> > don't yet understand. Perhaps there are other 
> > explanations for the receding glaciers. But "perhaps" 
> > is not evidence. 
> > 
> > The greatest scientist of all time, Isaac Newton, 
> > warned against this tendency more than three centuries 
> > ago. Writing in "Principia Mathematica" in 1687, he 
> > noted that once scientists had successfully drawn 
> > conclusions by "general induction from phenomena," 
> > then those conclusions had to be held as "accurately 
> > or very nearly true notwithstanding any contrary 
> > hypothesis that may be imagined...." 
> > 
> > Climate-change deniers can imagine all the 
> > hypotheses they like, but it will not change the facts 
> > nor "the general induction from the phenomena." 
> > 
> > None of this is to say that there are no 
> > uncertainties left - there are always uncertainties in 
> > any live science. Agreeing about the reality and 
> > causes of current global warming is not the same as 
> > agreeing about what will happen in the future. There 
> > is continuing debate in the scientific community over 
> > the likely rate of future change: not "whether" but 
> > "how much" and "how soon." And this is precisely why 
> > we need to act today: because the longer we wait, the 
> > worse the problem will become, and the harder it will 
> > be to solve. 
> > 
> > Naomi Oreskes is a history of science professor at 
> > UC San Diego. 
> > 
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