Global Warming Critics Are Mobilizing

12/3/2009, by Proloy Bhatta

HIGHLIGHTS

• LA Times says the Republicans want to halt climate change legislation.
• Campaign For Liberty has a call to action for climate change skeptics.
• Poll of polls average: 53% support cap and trade, 40% oppose.

In late November, a hacker was able to retrieve more than 1,000 emails -- mostly from University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit in Britain.

Now the critics are mobilizing.

The GOP members of Congress want all global warming initiatives to be put on hold "until the controversy is resolved".

In the LA Times today is an article about their attempts to halt all climate change legislation.

Republicans who have long questioned global-warming science say that the e-mails show a pattern that undermines the theory of man-made global warming.

"One cannot deny that the e-mails raised fundamental questions concerning . . . transparency and openness in science," Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) said at a hearing Wednesday.

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), one of the authors of the letter to the EPA, said in a news release Wednesday that the e-mails "read more like scientific fascism than the scientific process. . . . It's time to take back the notion that the 'science is settled.' "

Adam Murdock from the Campaign For Liberty, published a thorough article disparaging the scientists involved in the emails -- from the perspective of a scientist.

Murdock says that the "scientific process requires a complete objectivity, a complete reliance on the data".

And criticizes the scientists for withholding data that supported contrary views.

What is clear from the conversations in these emails is that not only is the science not settled but there was a systematic attempt by these scientists to keep any contrary viewpoints out of the media, published literature, and the political arena. Does this sound like people genuinely seeking after truth or just scientists trying to protect their own turf, reputations, and agenda – whatever the cost?

As a former NASA employee, I simulated different aeronautical communication protocols for implementing goals outlined in the National Airspace System Architecture.

Since lives could be at stake from the results of my data, I concur with Murdock in how important it is to report any and all anomalies. It must then be peer reviewed. Even if the scientist believes the test itself was flawed and caused the "erroneous result", scientists would love nothing more than to discuss as a group whether the test really was flawed -- and if so, how. If doing this debunks theories currently held by scientists, then so be it. At least it keeps us and other scientists from barking up the wrong tree.

The Republicans looking to stop all climate change legislation want to ensure exactly that -- that we are not barking up the wrong tree.

To think that the scientists "exposed" by the hacker may have withheld data that could have debunked their theories is egregious.

I have not seen these emails nor would I even know the context in which they were written so I would prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt.

At the present point in time, the polls suggest that an average of 53% of adults are in support of a proposal called cap and trade -- taxing companies for producing an excess of greenhouse gases or forcing them to buy carbon credits.