Scientists from around the world are denouncing an Associated Press article hysterically claiming that global warming is "a ticking time bomb" about to explode, and that we're "running out of time" to do anything about it.
As reported by NewsBusters, Seth Borenstein, the AP's "national science writer," published a piece Sunday entitled "Obama Left With Little Time to Curb Global Warming."
Scientists from all over the world have responded to share their view of this alarmist propaganda:
How can this guy call himself a "science reporter?"
He is perhaps the worst propagandist in all the media, and that's stating something.
In his latest screed, he screams: "global warming is accelerating"
How then does he explain the fact that the mean global temperature (as measured by satellite) is the same as it was in 1980?
How can global warming be "accelerating" when the last two years have seen dramatic cooling? Is this guy totally removed from all reality?????
He completely ignores any evidence contrary to his personal beliefs, and twists everything to meet his preconceived notions.
How can anyone so ignorant be a reporter for AP? Seriously? -- David Deming, University of Oklahoma
“Since
's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Clinton , Alaska and California . The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Texas 's second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating.” Clinton Rubbish! Global warming is not “accelerating”: global warming has stopped. There has been no statistically significant rise in (mean global temperature: MGT) since 1995 and MGT has fallen since 1998.
The Earth has been warming from the Little Ice Age (LIA) for 300 years so, of course, the warmest years happened recently. But that warming from the LIA peaked in the El Nino year of 1998. MGT has been near but below that peak for the last 10 years.
Arctic ice advances and recedes over decades. 2007 saw a minimum in Arctic ice cover in the short period that it has been monitored using satellites. But 2008 saw the most rapid growth in Arctic ice cover in that same period and Arctic ice cover is now back to the average it has had in the period. Also, 95% of polar ice is in the Antarctic and Antarctic ice is increasing.
Nobody can know if the recent halt to global warming is temporary, permanent or the start of a new warming or cooling phase. But it is certain that anybody who proclaims that “Global warming is accelerating” is a liar, a fool, or both. -- Richard S. Courtney, a UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate and atmospheric science consultant.
The Great Global Warming Hoax appears to be a collaborative effort between the worlds [sic] incompetent scientists and the worlds [sic] scientifically illiterate journalists. Science Illiterates like Borenstein are the Chicken Littles of the 21st Century, spreading climate change poppycock like bread crumbs in the forest. The crumbs, hopefully, will lead them to a paycheck at the end of the week from their similarly science-illiterate employers. Well, the lower-I.Q. portion of the population has to eat, too....< sigh > -- James A. Peden, atmospheric physicist formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.
Borenstein, time is definitely running out – for you to save any possible credibility unless you find a new drama to act out on the public because your current one is going down the drain faster than a so-so sitcom in September.
The world hasn’t “warmed” in a dozen years and over the past year not even Jim Hansen and His Magic Bag of Tricks can make it appear we’re all getting “warmer”.
Once the Public gets wind of the true data that shows their intuition has been right all along – not even the tabloids will pick you up for an occasional column to entertain them. -- Chemical Scientist Dr. Brian G. Valentine of the U.S. Department of Energy and Professor at University of Maryland, has studied computational fluid dynamics and modeling of complex systems
"Hottest on record" means little for a 5 billion yr old planet, when the 'record" is only 100 years or less. Please avoid parsing the data, to support you [sic] indefensible conclusions and to ignored [sic] the data which don't support your conclusions. Selecting data for a desired outcome is as old as drying labbing [sic] chemistry labs. This seems to be SOP for today as environmental journalists and just as silly (and detectable---you are outta my chem. class).Your hypothesis is easily falsified, and has been falsified. Lots of Temp stations show cooling for decades while CO2 rises, ergo falsified. Ergo there are more powerful unspecified climate forces involved. CO2 is likely uninvolved or if so a minor player. Next problem please. -- Michael R. Fox, Ph.D., is a retired nuclear scientist and university chemistry professor. He is the science and energy writer/reporter for the HawaiiReport.com
One of the biggest problems in all this is that the major media are so busy bashing President Bush for any and every thing that they have lost sight of what he realized 5+ years ago: none of the CO2-related strategies will work unless China and India join the community. Bush's initiative to form an "Asia-Pacific" consortium of nations was the very first realistic step in the direction of a coherent approach to climate-change mitigation.
What is going on currently is that A) India has dismissed the whole thing, saying "we will never be higher in "per capita" energy use than the western countries; B) the Europeans have figured out that it will cost them big bucks and are fleeing from their Kyoto promises; C) the bandwagon in the USA is still going forward in high gear, and in about a year they'll realize they're way out in front with no followers. -- Dr. Thomas P. Sheahen, an MIT educated physicist, author of the book "An Introduction to High-Temperature Superconductivity," and writer of the popular newspaper column "Ask the Everyday Scientist"
One further critical aspect of global warming alarmists that is so fiercely debated by all is the "climate forcing" property of carbon dioxide. Allow me to state categorically that, despite any and all arguments to the contrary, including the most elaborately well-balanced mathematical formulae by the best mathematicians in the world, the climate forcing ability of carbon dioxide equals exactly zero. Not 4 degrees C, not 1 degree C, not even 0.0001 degree C. Just plain zero. Even the much heralded graphic indicating that the first 20ppmv of carbon dioxide makes a difference to the air temperature that is much greater than any subsequent increase in concentration is a useless bit of info based on laboratory tests that have absolutely no relation to the open atmosphere. There exists not one single laboratory test on climate that can be extrapolated to mimic the open atmosphere and that includes the most advanced computers that in any case treat the earth as a flat disc with a 24 hour haze of solar radiation - about as far removed from reality as is possible. -- Hans Schreuder, Ipswich, UK, www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/carbondioxide.html
In responce to what is happening to global temperatures. The key is using the right statistical technique to plot the "average" temperature. I do not have the qualifications to establish what the correct technique is. I just understand such things as non-linear least square regression analysis. There are five organizations which report global temperature anomalies on a monthly basis. If you use simple non-linear analysis, and include 2008 data, then all five data sets show that world temperatures seem to have passed through a shallow maximum. My guess is that when we can look back with 20/20 hindsight, we will be able to see that this maximum occurred around 2005. So it is understandable that recent years are amongst the warmest on record. This fact is no argument that temperatures are still rising. What counts is the slope of the average temperature/time graph at the present time. For a couple of years, this slope has been negative; global temperatures have been falling. We do not know, of course, if this will continue. But so far as I can see, none of the IPCC and other pro-AGW organizations predicted falling temperatures. However, before you attempt to use an argument like this, you need someone who really knows statistical analysis techniques. -- Physicist F. James Cripwell, a former scientist with UK’s Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge who worked under the leading expert in infra red spectroscopy -- Sir Gordon Sutherland – and worked with the Operations Research for the Canadian Defense Research Board
What does it take to ignore 10 years of global cooling, sharply declining temperatures the last couple of years, record setting lack of sun spots, flipping of the PDO into its cool mode, failure of computer models to predict real climate, predictable warming and cooling climates for the past 500 years, and ................
The answer is really quite simple--just follow the money! -- Don J. Easterbrook, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Geology, Western Washington
University, U.S.
*****Update: American Thinker's Thomas Lifson adds his view:
The willingness of media outlets to offer self-evident tripe in the face of both the data of the past decade and the immediate experience of people in their daily lives right now has to be considered a form of hysteria. Both the Associated Press and the newspapers which collectively own it are in serious economic trouble, with substantial layoffs accomplished and likely to be repeated, and questions about their survivability evident to everyone.
Instead of focusing on improving performance and survivability, the organs putting forth this claptrap jeopardize their already shaky reputations. It is suicide by propaganda.
As does AT's Marc Sheppard:
This isn't the first time the AP "science writer" has gone H.G Wells in his reporting.
You may recall us taking him to task in March 2007 for a number of similarly over-the-top doom-saying articles. Among them was one so inept in its prediction that the IPCC AR4 would blame Hurricane Katrina on manmade global warming that Professor Neville Nicholls, the Lead Author of WG1's Chapter 9, felt compelled to write:
"I was disappointed that after more than two years carefully analyzing the literature on possible links between tropical cyclones and global warming that even before the report was approved it was being misreported and misrepresented."
The professor then addressed Borenstein's bogus sooth-saying directly:
"We concluded that the question of whether there was a greenhouse-cyclone link was pretty much a toss of a coin at the present state of the science, with just a slight leaning towards the likelihood of such a link. But the premature reports suggested that we were asserting the existence of much stronger evidence."
Here we are over a year and a half later and this man continues to slip his counterfeit wisdom past his editors.
Fortunately, as the overheated predictions of both alarmists like Borenstein and agenda-driven agencies like the IPCC fail to meet observed cold reality, this hoax may finally be singing its swan-song.
CEI's Chris Horner also took Borenstein to task:
So Borenstein takes to his word processor to claim that it has warmed since the Clinton inauguration, and therefore global warming is accelerating. Ahem. Has there been anything else since a Clinton administration, like, say, a Bush administration . . . during which it has cooled. Third base!