THEY
SAID IT !
A compendium of interesting
and illuminating quotes
from leading figures in the Greenhouse Industry
(exact source references available
on request)
compiled
by
John L. Daly
The
More Things Change ...
"There
is a finite possibility that
a serious worldwide cooling could befall the Earth within the next 100
years"
- (from a U.S. National Academy of Sciences
Report, 1975)
"When
I was going to graduate school, it was gospel that the Ice Age was about
to start.
I had trouble warming up to that one too.
This (Greenhouse) is not the first climate apocalypse, but it's certainly
the loudest."
- (Prof. Patrick Michaels, interview for UK
Channel 4, 1990)
"There
is no reason not to anticipate the onset of the next cycle
of 90 thousand years of glaciation beginning at any time.
In this context, I find it remarkable that one rarely, if ever, hears the
suggestion that
increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is just what is needed
to prevent or delay the onset of the next period of glaciation
which, if anything, is apparently already overdue, or already in progress."
- (Dr Hugh Ellsaesser, 13 Feb 1990)
"On
the short time scale, If CO2 is augmented by another 10 percent in the
next 30 years,
the increase in the global temperature may be as small as +0.1 deg."
(Dr Stephen Schneider, in 1971 paper on the
effect of atmospheric aerosols)
"...
An increase by a factor of 8 in the amount of CO2
(which is highly unlikely in the next several thousand years),
will produce an increase in the surface temperature of less than 2 deg.
K.
However, the effect on surface temperature of an increase in the aerosol
content
of the atmosphere is found to be quite significant.
An increase by a factor of 4 in the equilibrium dust concentration in the
global atmosphere,
which cannot be ruled out as a possibility within the next century,
could decrease the mean surface temperature by as much as 3.5 deg. K.
If sustained over a period of several years,
such a temperature decrease could be sufficient to trigger an ice age.
"
(Dr Stephen Schneider, (from a 1971 paper
in `Science' on the effect of atmospheric aerosols)
The
Politics of Climate Change Science
(A triple oxymoron?)
"I hope there is a major glitch.
It might give Mother Earth a rest. I think it would be wonderful if things
collapsed for a few days. Chaos would happen ... but it would be an amazing
opportunity for people to really start thinking about things -- and a global
collapse would really make people think."
- David Suzuki, just before Christmas 1999,
anticipating a Y2K meltdown
(as quoted by Terence Corcoran of the National Post)
"No
matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental
benefits....
Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and
equality in the world." Christine Stewart
1998, Canada's Minister of the Environment
as quoted by the Calgary Herald
"For those environmentalists who have felt threatened by technological progress and economic growth, the campaign to prevent global warming has become a vehicle for achieving many other goals. (Dr Hugh Ellsaesser - Dec 8 1995)
"Both environmentalist groups, like GCI and Greenpeace, and industry groups like the Global Climate Coalition, are having great difficulty understanding how the IPCC conducts itself with regard to peer review. What is clear, however, is that the UN panel is so thoroughly politicized that its integrity and objectivity cannot be taken for granted" -- (James M. Sheehan, 1996)
"We may get to the point where the ONLY WAY of saving the world will be for the industrial civilization to collapse." (Maurice Strong, Secretary General Rio Summit -- 1992)
"The two main tasks for the present are to promote social stress and instability in industrial society and to develop and propagate an ideology that opposes technology and the industrial system. When the system becomes sufficiently stressed and unstable, a revolution against technology may be possible". - (The Unabomber Manifesto)
"To
capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios,
make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one
might have.
Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and
being honest."
(Dr. Stephen Schneider, NCAR, in interview
for "Discover" magazine, Oct 1989)
"The
rate of change is so fast that I don't hesitate to call it potentially
catastrophic for ecosystems."
- (Dr Stephen Schneider, UK Channel
4 interview, 1990)
"Looking
at every bump and wiggle of the record is a waste of time -
it's like trying to figure out the probability of a pair of dice by looking
at the individual rolls.
You've got to look at averages.
So, I, don't set very much store in looking at the direct evidence."
- (Dr Stephen Schneider, UK Channel 4 interview,
1990)
"The
issue of the 'greenhouse effect' has assumed a peculiar life of its own.
Politicians, government officials, and various policy specialists
cling with remarkable tenacity to the notion
that this is a proven and intolerable danger about which there is scientific
unanimity.
At the same time, one has no difficulty hearing the muttering in the corridors
of any meteorology department that this is an issue that has gotten out
of hand,
that the claims are insupportable,
that the models are inadequate,
and the data contradictory."
- (Prof. Richard Lindzen (MIT), May 1989)
"Would
you walk down the road towards a policy which
people have rightly said requires an economic restructuring of the world,
knowing that the world was doing the opposite to what the basis for that
policy said?"
- Prof Patrick Michaels, University of Virginia,
1991
0
Funding
... (Shhhhhhh....)
"The
issues arising from the Greenhouse Effect -
is the best thing that's ever happened for us."
- (Remark by a scientist, overheard at the
"Greenhouse '88" conference,
Hobart, Tasmania, Nov. 1988)
"It's
easier to get funding if you can show some evidence for impending climate
disasters.
In the late 1970's it was the coming ice age.
Who knows what it will be ten years from now.
Sure, science benefits from scary scenarios."
-Dr Roy Spencer, NASA, 1990 TV Interview
"A
lot of people are getting very famous and very well funded as a result
of promoting
the disastrous scenario of greenhouse warming."
- Prof. Sherwood Idso, University of Arizona,
1990
"My
suspicion is that if you have a crisis like this,
it's easier to gain funds for the profession as a whole"
- Prof Reginald Newell, MIT, 1990
"Using
my organization as an example,
we have only one permanently-funded university scientist - and that's me
!
I have a dozen research workers with Ph.D's
who are working in the Climate Research Unit (CRU)
and they are all funded on so-called soft money.
Their existence requires me, or us jointly, to get external support."
- Prof Tom Wigley, CRU, 1990
"I
was warned when I wrote my first paper (which discussed the difference
between the climate models and some figures I was looking at for the tropics)
that it would be very difficult,
and my funding would probably be cut.
In fact, it has been cut."
- Prof. Reginald Newell, MIT, 1990
On
Climate Models ...
"There
is no more common error than to assume that,
because prolonged and accurate mathematical calculations have been made,
the application of the result to some fact of nature is absolutely certain."
- A.N. Whitehead
"A
troubling trend of the "new physics" is that
the theories have many arbitrarily adjustable parameters.
Although these theories do make predictions,
their effectiveness is compromised by excessive flexibility.
The strategy (goes) something like this -
Test the predictions, and if they are not borne out experimentally,
then achieve agreement, or at least avoid conflict,
by twiddling with the adjustable parameters
- or switching to a slightly modified version of the theory."
- (Robert Oldershaw, New Scientist, 22/29-Dec
1990).
"The
so-called consensus on greenhouse warming
exists only among climate modelers and their associates.
The majority of practicing meteorologists have very strong misgivings
about the amount of warming predicted for a doubling of CO2,
but they are hesitant to speak out
for fear of revealing or being accused of ignorance of the principles of
radiation transport."
- (Prof. Hugh Ellsaesser, 13 Feb 1990)
"I
don't think we can speak of these models as being accurate at this point.
They are experimental tools. We're trying to forge these tools.
To use them to forecast delicate things like warming
is calling for an accuracy these models simply do not have."
-Prof Richard Lindzen (in interview for UK
Channel 4, 1990)
"There
has really been no warming in the polar regions at all,
even though this is where computer models predict warming should be greatest"
- (Dr Phillip Jones, CRU, in New Scientist,
19-Jan-91)
"We
have to accept the possibility that
the GCM's will function far less effectively as predictive tools than is
presently claimed."
- CSIRO Report, 5-Feb-90)
"(Of
the) fundamental ingredients of radiative convective models,
(namely) Radiative Equilibrium, Convective Adjustment to 6.5 K/Km,
Absorbing layer Cloud Simulations, and Fixed Relative Humidity
- only Radiative Equilibrium has a sound physical basis.
The others are ad hoc characterizations of how the atmosphere works."
- (Dr Christopher Essex, Univ. of Western
Ontario, 1986)
"The
observed surface temperatures of Mars,. Earth, and Venus
would indeed appear to confirm the existence, nature, and magnitude
of the greenhouse effect, ...
but they yeild a result for contemporary Earth,
ie. a predicted warming for a 300 to 600 ppm doubling of the air's CO2
content,
which is a full order of magnitude (ie.
ten-fold) less
than that produced by essentially all state-of-the-art GCM's."
- (Prof. Sherwood Idso, Univ. of Arizona,
1989)
The
Silver Lining
"Slight
changes inn cloudiness can drastically influence how the world resonds
to the trace gases".
- Prof Patrick Michaels, MIT, 1990
"Cloud
albedo) causes less warming at the earth's surface so that the increase
in temperature produced by carbon dioxide is reduced by the presence of
clouds."
- Prof Peter Jonas, University of Manchester,
1990
"Additions
of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
will certainly cause an increase in the downward flux of energy at the
surface,
but that will not necessarily change the temperature of the lower layers
of the atmosphere.
I think it will cause more water to evaporate which will have a lot of
ramifications,
one of which will be the radiative effects.
These will tend to produce more cooling,
and also more clouds which will reflect the solar radiation.
So it's not at all obvious
that increasing the carbon dioxide in the system will make the temperature
rise.
- Prof Reginald Newell, MIT, 1990
"The
presence of cloud cover strongly damps the net effect on planetary albedo
of any perturbation in sno-ice extent (an effect that is neglected in simple
treatments of the ice-albedo feedback mechanism)."
- Prof Ann Henderson-Sellers, 1984
Peer
Review
Dr. Tom Wigley of NCAR, reveals these review comments by those of his `peers' who reviewed a research paper of his for `Science'.
Referee #1: "Overall evaluation: Excellent and exciting...presents an insightful and deceptively simple analysis..."
Referee #2: "Overall evaluation: excellent and exciting...an exciting paper using an underutilized technique...deserves rapid publication...
Referee #3: "This is an excellent and exciting paper...has some very interesting and important results...a novel, yet simple approach..."
"I
hope you will note the uniformity of the referees opinions."
Wigley's own self-congratulation of the above
referee comments -
"I
have had experiences with editors of more than one journal
who have said that my papers have been rejected
because they are held to a higher standard of review than others.
I believe this is because what they say is not popular.
That's OK, I'm a big boy.
I know that I would have been more successful if I had said the world is
coming to an end,
but I can't quite bring myself to do that."
- Prof Patrick Michaels, University of Virginia,
1990
Times
Past ...
"We
have to be careful when we look at people who say they have detected global
warming, because what they may have detected is urban warming."
- (Dr Robert Balling, Univ. of Arizona, 1990)
"There
appears to have been little or no global warming over the past century."
- (MIT Technology Review, 1989)
"There
is no statistically significant evidence of an overall increase in annual
temperature or change in annual precipitation for the contiguous U.S.A.,
1895 - 1987."
- (Thomas Karl et al, NOAA, 1989)
"We
looked at a thousand stations in the United States that came from very
small towns averaging no more than about 5,800 people. We looked at the
temperature patterns over this century and found that most of the United
States has cooled this century, not warmed."
- (Dr Robert Balling, Univ. of Arizona, 1990)
"It's
pretty apparent that the lion's share of the warming ocurred before the
lion's share of the trace gases went in."
- Prof Patrick Michaels
"Yes, - that's a remarkable puzzle."
- Prof. Tom Wigley
- (from interviews with UK Channel 4, August 1991)
Hysterical
Science
"But
just who are the 2,600 scientists proclaiming the certitude of human-caused
global warming? One would assume climate experts, but an analysis of the
academic backgrounds of the signatories to Vice President Gore's letter
found only one bona fide climatologist."
Dr Hugh Ellsaesser, 1997
"Warmer
temperatures will lead to a more vigorous hydrological cycle;
this translates into prospects for more severe droughts and/or floods in
some places
and less severe droughts and/or floods in other places".
IPCC 1995 Report Executive Summary
"...
the media, because they rely on news impact,
have given the greatest weight to the most extreme forecasts,
and are not interested in emphasising uncertainty.
To compound the difficulty we are greatly outnumbered
(and outranked in political terms)
by a community of experts in other such disciplines
as economics, geography, geology, and social sciences,
all of which are pleased to justify their own activity
in terms of the consequences of climate change."
Dr A.D. McEwan, CSIRO Oceanography, 1990
"Some
greenhouse scientists have adopted an almost missionary zeal
in dealing with their subject...
Such uncritical zeal and a constant need for backpeddling
on the original doom-laden predictions do little for scientific credibility.
Predictions on climate change have in effect changed from working hypotheses
to being dogma central to a large research effort,
and are communicated to the media and the general public
with much more credibility than they merit."
Dr Richard Hobbs, CSIRO, 1990
"Panic
statements about impending climatic disasters and rising sea levels
because of increased carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases
may be distracting our attention from the real reasons for existing climatic
change.
Given the present state of knowledge,
the publicity on sensational but very improbable aspects of the greenhouse
scenario
are actually counter-productive and irresponsible."
Prof. Edward Bryant, University of Wollongong,
1988
"The
signal that the atmosphere is warming or that the sea level is rising
is scarcely greater than the `noise' level, and requires the eye of faith"
Dr A.D. McEwan, CSIRO Oceanography, 1990
For more revealing quotes from Douglas V. Hoyt, click here
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