Climate Depot Editorial
[Update: Prof. Brown ducks responding to Climate Depot’s point by point rebuttal: “[I am] eager to share [my] reasoning on ethical conclusions in a reasoned way but will not respond to unreasonable ad hominem attacks,” Brown wrote on Aug. 13.]
Note from Climate Depot’s Executive Editor Marc Morano to Penn State Ethics Prof. Donald A. Brown. ([email protected])
Dear Professor Brown:
You have recently been making the news with some very unique and serious claims regarding man-made global warming.
You have made the laughable claim that Senate’s failure to pass cap-and-trade the “worst ethical scandal…and a moral lapse of epic proportions.”
Sadly, this claim alone proves that your understanding of science and economics is what is truly the “worst ethical scandal” here.
How would passing a climate bill that was ‘scientifically meaningless’ improve ethics or morality or the climate? See: Even Obama’s EPA admits cap-and-trade bill ‘will not impact world CO2 levels’
You spend most of your “science” argument trying to convince the public of dangerous man-made global warming by noting that the Earth has been warming.
Wow. So in your simplistic scientific mind Warming = Human caused. Sorry Professor that is not a very deep and well thought out argument.
You claim: “2010 is the hottest year so far and the last decade is the hottest on record.”
Oh really? How long does “so far” go? You are aware that these are land based temperature data and we are talking minute fractions of a degree. See: Climate Depot’s full statement to USA Today on ‘Hottest’ Year And Arctic Ice: NOAA’s Jay Lawrimore ‘should be ashamed of himself’ — ‘Declaration that we are experiencing the ‘hottest’ year is purely a political statement. Lawrimore knows that these statistics are merely tenths of a degree or LESS’
If you had cared to look at satellite data you would find that 2010 is not even the “hottest year” in the last 12 years, let alone of all time. Why do you cherry pick your evidence?
You resort to pure climate astrology when you claim: “More wildfires are being seen around the world…Droughts and floods are increasing in intensity and frequency…Storm damage is rising as predicted.”
Once again, wow! As Prof. Roger Pielke Jr. has noted, claims like yours “have a status similar to interpretations of Nostradamus and the Mayan calendars.”
Tell me Professor, which of the below worst floods on record were caused by carbon dioxide?
Date Location Dead
1887, September-October Hwang Ho (Yellow) River, China Over 900,000
1939 North China 500,000
1642 Kaifeng, Honan Province, China Over 300,000
1099 England and the Netherlands 100,000
1287, December 14 The Netherlands 50,000
1824 Russia 10,000
1421, November 18 The Netherlands 10,000
1964, November-December Mekong Delta, South Vietnam 5,000
1951, August 6-7 Manchuria 4,800
1948, June Foochow, China 3,500
You claim: ‘Fire seasons start earlier and are harder to contain”
Wow, it must be rising Co2 from mankind, right? But then again, your assertions don’t hold up. See: ‘Global warming theory doesn’t come anywhere close to explaining why it’s so darn hot this summer in Moscow…confluence of several naturally-occurring atmospheric circulation patterns’
How about land use issues? See: Russia’s Fires ‘Caused In Large Part By Forest Mismanagement’
Do you ever ponder other factors, or are you “ethically bound” to cut and paste really lame talking points of global warming claims?
You throw out the claim that 97% of climate scientists support the alleged global warming “consensus.” Once again, is your time so consumed by your brand of ‘ethics’ that you do not care what silly talking points you parrot?
If you had spent a moment researching the 97% claim, you would have realized it was a con. See: Climate Con: 97% ‘Consensus’ Claim is only 76 Anonymous Self-Selected Climatologists
Your appeal to the authority of the science groups is not only intellectually lazy, but it misses glaring ethical questions!
Are you aware that there is no direct vote of scientific members and that surveys that have been done, like in the AMS and other groups show that huge portions are skeptical?
Scientist Dr. William Schlesinger admitted in 2009 that only 20% of UN IPCC scientists deal with climate. Schlesinger said he thought, “something on the order of 20 percent [of UN scientists] have had some dealing with climate.” By Schlesinger’s own admission, 80% of the UN IPCC membership has no dealing with the climate as part of their academic studies.
In April 2009, the Polish National Academy of Science “published a document that expresses skepticism over the concept of man-made global warming.”
In 2008, a canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian Earth scientists revealed 68% disagree that global warming science is “settled”, with only 26% of the scientists attributing global warming to “human activity like burning fossil fuels.”
American Physical Society editor conceded a “considerable presence” of scientific skeptics exists – 2008
March 2009 U. S. Senate Report: ‘More Than 700 International Scientists Dissenting Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims’
India Issued a report challenging global warming fears – 2008
Skeptical scientists overwhelm Prestigious Geologist conference in Norway in 2008: ‘2/3 of presenters and question-askers were hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC’ & see full reports here & here ]
# #
It is fair to say that most of the scientific members of these groups are not even aware of their governing boards’ statements endorsing man-made global warming claims. These statements are voted on by two dozen or so members of governing boards who are tied to political correctness.
Does it trouble you that once “esteemed” science groups like the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is now corrupted and using taxpayer money to lobby for the passage of climate bills? See below:
Cicerone’s Shame: NAS Urges Carbon Tax, Becomes Advocacy Group — ‘political appointees heading politicized scientific institutions that are virtually 100% dependent on gov’t funding’ — ‘This is the same kind of foolishness that led the IPCC to overreach in proposing climate policies’
Professor, do the above facts register at all in your “ethics” world: Or is the fact that the leadership of the science institutions are towing the line of what politicians want (and pay for) of no ethical concern to you? The IPCC, the NAS and many others are oftentimes producing the best science that politics can manufacture.
Shouldn’t you and those who respect you be a tad suspicious that the NAS is now a compromised science group — not a group we could expect objective science to flow from?
Your concept of “ethics” appears to be far removed from most people’s ethical concepts. Your appeal to the authority of science group governing board statements is nothing more than a political appeal. Please do not pretend it is a scientific argument.
You also make the unsubstantiated claim that “Sea level is rising at the fastest level on record.”
Really, where is your evidence?
See: Peer-Reviewed Study in Journal of Geophysical Research: ‘There has been no statistically significant acceleration in sea level rise over the past 100+ years’ – ‘Sea levels have been rising naturally since the end of the last major ice age 20,000 years ago’
‘Oceangate nonsense’: S. African UN Scientist Mocks Sea Level and Ocean Acidification Fears — Sea Level ‘increase is equal to the width of your thumbnail every 10 years’ — ‘The time must come when these alarmists and their institutions are exposed for what they are’
UN IPCC scientist and sea level expert: Sea Level Rises…What Sea Level Rises?
UK Ocean Research Center: Sea Level Rise Not Accelerating, Per The Actual Measurements
Analysis: Sea Level Rise is Decelerating: ‘According to both tide gauge and satellite altimetry data, rate of sea level rise since 1900 has been decelerating, not accelerating’ — ‘Rate of sea level rise as determined by satellite altimetry has also decelerated over the past 5 years from 3.2 mm/yr to only 1.5 mm/yr’
You really outdo yourself when you note that there is a greenhouse effect so therefore, man-made global warming is a problem. Have you heard that there are other factors influencing climate? It is simply, not Co2 or the Sun; Nor is it simply Co2 or the Oceans.
See Excerpt: Scientists caution that the key to remember is “climate change is governed by hundreds of factors, or variables,” not just CO2. UK Professor Emeritus of Biogeography Philip Stott of the University of London decried the notion that CO2 is the main climate driver. “As I have said, over and over again, the fundamental point has always been this: climate change is governed by hundreds of factors, or variables, and the very idea that we can manage climate change predictably by understanding and manipulating at the margins one politically-selected factor is as misguided as it gets,” Stott wrote in 2008. Even the climate activists at RealClimate.org let this fact slip out in a September 20, 2008 article. “The actual temperature rise is an emergent property resulting from interactions among hundreds of factors,” RealClimate.org admitted in a rare moment of candor.]
Perhaps, MIT scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen observation in 2009 explains your current situation. “Ordinary people see through man-made climate fears — but educated people are very vulnerable,” Lindzen said.
Finally, Professor Brown, you wrote: “To claim that this (man-made warming claims) is all a fraud is not credible.”
Yes, I agree, it is not “all” a fraud, but your vacuous spinning of science and your subpar understanding of the Congressional climate bill leaves many of us questioning your research skills and your intellectual devotion to climate issues.
Alas, professor, it may be time for you to go back to the drawing board on climate issues. To do any less would be ethically dubious.
Sincerely,
Marc Morano
Executive Editor
Climate Depot
Related Links:
Climate Depot Responds to Washington Post Attack
