Amid unfounded and frivolous charges that the Bush administration and the American Enterprise Institute are involved in pay for play science on Global Warming, it seems Theresa Heinz Kerry previously directed an unrestricted cash gift of up to a quarter million dollars to a nuclear scientist become climatologist, now leading the charge of doom-sayers on Global Warming. Additionally, one scientist recently quoted by the New York Times now appears to be disagreeing with his own extensive research and an exclusive preview of a soon to be published research paper from another Harvard scientist raises serious questions about a key item Global Warming proponents have recently enlisted in their cause.
Al Gore: "The only thing they have left is cash and now they're offering cash for so-called skeptics who will try to confuse people about what the science really say. But it's unethical because now the time has come when we have to act.
Yet, in a recent major article on the topic, the New York Times frequently quoted scientist John P. Holdren, formerly of Berkeley and seemingly more qualified for his previous stint as an anti-nuke expert and the paper failed to point out that Holdren received an unrestricted cash prize of up to $250,000 from Theresa Heinz-Kerry. The money came from her late husband's estate and appears to be prior to Holdren's taking the lead on Global Warming as a current political cause. His interests and area of expertise had been mostly nuclear disarmament.
Award recipients receive a medallion and an unrestricted cash prize of up to $250,000.
UPDATES SINCE RECEIVING THE HEINZ AWARD
July 2006 – Holdren co-writes article with Alan Leshner stating that there is no doubt about the reality of climate change and that the United States, “as the largest emitter of carbon dioxide on the planet, needs to become a leader in developing and deploying serious solutions.” – The San Francisco Chronicle
John P. Holdren is Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at the Kennedy School, as well as Professor of Environmental Science and Public Policy in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. Trained in aeronautics/astronautics and plasma physics at MIT and Stanford....
Had the New York Times been more thorough in reporting the previous research of another Global Warming authority it cited, Richard B. Alley, the story may have created more skeptics than believers in the purported threat.
This quote below is from Richard B. Alley in the recent New York Times piece:
“Policy makers paid us to do good science, and now we have very high scientific confidence in this work — this is real, this is real, this is real,” said Richard B. Alley, one of the lead authors and a professor at Pennsylvania State University. “So now act, the ball’s back in your court.”
Here's what Alley was writing for profit as recently as 2002:
From Publishers Weekly
Recent news reports about large holes in the ice and open waters at the Arctic Circle have prompted renewed concerns about the effects of global warming. In measured tones, however, geoscientist Alley reminds us that during the last 100,000 years or so the earth has experienced a wildly varied climate pattern. Using readings of ice cores taken from Greenland, where he participated for several years in the '90s in far-reaching research projects, Alley demonstrates that periods of slow cooling and centuries of cold have been punctuated by periods of sudden warming. In fact, he notes, climatic stability is the exception rather than the rule, and he contends that the unusually warm, stable climate we have experienced for the past 10,000 years is an anomaly. Through his study of the two-mile-long ice cores, Alley reveals a number of elements that contribute to global climatic changes: wind patterns, drifting continents and ocean currents.
Alley may now be speculating that man is causing Global Warming, but that theorizing would seem to fly in the face of his own extensive scientific research from the nineties.
Along with the now infamous and subsequently debunked image of polar bears that accompanied the NY Times article, I've been permitted to review and summarize a research paper from Wei-Hock (Willie) Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Soon is also receiving Editor for New Astronomy and author of The Maunder Minimum and the Variable Sun-Earth Connection (March 2004) The paper, "Polar bears of Western Hudson Bay and climate change: Are warming spring air temperatures the 'ultimate' survival control factor?," appears to undermine one of the fundamental charges behind the latest Global Warming kerfluffle and is slated to appear in Ecological Complexity in April 2007.
As previously documented, scientists have already admitted using alleged threats to polar bear and seal populations in an effort to manipulate public perception of the reality of Global Warming. Soon found that relevant spring air temperatures claimed to be endangering the Polar Bear actually show no significant warming trend and are more likely the result of natural climatic cycles, as opposed to any activity of man. It also appears as though some Global Warming advocates may have intentionally, or unwittingly reduced the time line for their analysis thereby suggesting a significant differentiation when none truly exists over a longer term. Soon defines any notion that climate changes are endangering Polar Bears as highly premature.
In a bit of irony, along with many more significant factors possibly impacting the health of Polar Bear populations, one issue may be increased human interaction as a result of science itself. It seems the animals are often tagged and observed most heavily during already stressful periods due to normal feeding and mating patterns.
Another key item is that Polar Bear populations where hunted, or thinned for years. As that ended through the eighties, naturally the population increased. Factors sited today as a result of Global Warming, lower body mass, a possible decline in numbers, could just as easily be a sign that the population has grown and is subsequently being regulated by natural forces such as food supply and range.
While a full public copy of the paper will not be available until April, it will be interesting to observe the reaction, assuming the Global Warming crowd isn't successful in keeping it out of the press, given that that seems to be a tactic they embrace.
In just the last year White said he has noticed a significant shift in media coverage of the subject.
"The reporting is better because I don't see the 'other side' anymore."
As Mark Steyn points out in a recent column, we should be slow to alter the world economy because of a slight temperature rise and the unproven claims of scientists who have been parroting one cause or another for years.
"Note that the IPCC report's conclusions were issued first, and the supporting research is now promised for several months from now. What does that tell you?"
