The 2,500 or so scientists, economists and other experts of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) call global warming "unequivocal" and think it "very likely" that humans have contributed to the problem. The world's governments agree with the panel, which also shared last year's Nobel Peace Prize.
Then there's the Non-Governmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). These 23 individuals from 15 countries, including a handful of scientists, disagree. Led by physicist S. Fred Singer—best known for his denial of the dangers of secondhand smoke—they argue the reverse: "Natural causes are very likely to be the dominant cause" of climate change.
The NIPCC goes on to contend: "We do not say anthropogenic greenhouse gases cannot produce some warming. Our conclusion is that the evidence shows they are not playing a significant role."
In other words, even skeptics, deniers, contrarians—pick your favorite term—agree that global warming is real, or so it appears from the recent three-day conference in New York City put together by the Heartland Institute, a bastion of free-market thinking on the perils of junk science and government economic regulation. They just disagree—even amongst themselves—whether it is man-made.
On the one side sits Patrick Michaels, the recently resigned state climatologist of Virginia who ascribes global warming to fluctuations in the sun's energy output aided and abetted by human activity. In his conference dinner address, Michaels said: "Global warming is real and people have something to do with it."
On the other side is astrophysicist Willie Soon of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. He lays the blame on the sun for all the agreed-on warming. And meteorologist William Gray of Colorado State University in Fort Collins believes the sun will soon reverse its effect. "We should begin to see cooling coming on," he predicts. "I'm ready to make a big financial bet."
If you are interested in seeing a contrarian in action, here is your chance:
See the president and co-founder of the Heartland Institute, Joseph Bast, explain how the science of climate change is shifting, how a little global warming would be a good thing, and the reason not to vote. (download the original)
See what we're tweeting about
20 Comments
Add CommentScientific opinion changes but slowly. Get 3 scientists together & you'll get 3 opinions all from using the same source material.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShame on them, something worth to keep for future generations
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis would fit right in to The Daily Show, The Colbert Report or the Rick Mercer Report. In the Scientific American?? Your call.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDuane Pendergast
The Climate fanatic still don't get it. Skeptic do not deny the change of climate. They seriously doubt and have evidence showing that humans cause it. This is very simple, but the political hacks who seek to alarm us refuse to comprehend the nature of the debate. Instead, they hope to squelch real science and declare that the debate is over. Well, it isn't.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe slick big oil PR guy in this clip is a good talker. Unfortunately, he said nothing of substance. When the reporter asked him who his sponsors were, he suddenly clammed up! Interesting..He says he's all about science, which is all about transparency and peer review, but ask him who's behind his little denier conference and he has to kill you to tell you. It stinks of propaganda on the order of "scientists" paid to disprove that smoking casues cancer. It reeks of the same "teach the controversy" strategy employed by the "Intelligent Design" crowd. Probably the same bunch of idiots quite masterful of mixing cherry-picked facts and outright lies to confuse us poor laymen enough to doubt the science. Years ago, the deniers denied global warming was real. Now they say it's real but it's not our fault, heck, might even be a good thing. Please!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSad ! Politics by obfuscation!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe evident political and big-money bias were rampant in Bast's testimony.
I would bet that the Director of NASA's Climatology branch, and the President of the US National Academy of Science were not on the speaker's list: They have both strongly and publically stated that the overwhelming scientific evidence demonstrates that Global Warming is both extant and with a critically large human-generated component.
All 4 global temp series agree the globe's temp hasn't increased in a decade. The downturn since 2001 arguably falsifies IPCC's 2001 near-term projections at the 95% confidence level, showing what their GCM's are worth. JPL's robots show the ocean temp decreased from 2003-2008. Proxy data shows the globe's temperature has increased since the little ice age. They also show, any recent upturn is unremarkable compared to the swings over the last 1500 years. Any reasonable person who goes to http://surfacestations.org and looks at the pictures is going to appreciate that the surface data is highly suspect. Satellite data shows much less than surface. Published analysis indicate that thus recent warming is half what is normally claimed. When you say "global warming is real", what do you mean? Over the last 200 years? OK. Over the last 10 years? Didn't happen. Over the next 20 years? The models are pretty near worthless.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the News.Global Warming, truth or consequences. Please pass
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thison to your friends. Thanks
http://www.quazen.com/News/Opinions/Al-Gores-Decree-on-Global-Warming-is-Not-Our-Only-Crisis.51904
Al Gore's Decree on Global Warming is Not Our Only Crisis
Whichever side of the argument you fall on, this coverage is off course for Scientific American, formerly a respectable science journal. Now it's Grist meets Discover, probably largely because of the limitations of its pool of reporters. It is actually possible to present an argument that you disagree with in a fair manner, with the benefit that you then have testable claims to consider. That would seem to be the role of a magazine on science and critical thinking, but apparently that is no longer a part of SciAm's mandate or expertise.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is a vacuous statement to suggest that there are any scientists that deny climate change; however the evidence in support of anthropogenic CO2 driven global warming is at best doubtful, at worst down right dishonest. It is unfortunate of Scientific American to couch this article in the way that it has in an attempt to ridicule. Scientists by their very nature have enquiring minds and as such develop different opinions and theory and through the scientific process (which should include open discussion) either promote or disprove hypotheses. To ridicule open debate and fair doubt about anthropogenic CO2 driven global warming is in itself is evident that Scientific American itself is active in the process of damaging the scientific process and to use a term coined by Richard Feynman is becoming a cargo-cult science magazine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe world community of top scientists in the field must ask themselves...What about Global Pollution? Are we forgetting something?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.quazen.com/Science/Environment/Is-Global-Warming-or-Global-Pollution-the-Issue--.17376
Is Global Warming, or Global Pollution the Issue?
We should tackle world pollution first
In the News...What about Global Pollution? We should tackle world pollution first
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.quazen.com/Science/Environment/Is-Global-Warming-or-Global-Pollution-the-Issue--.17376
Is Global Warming, or Global Pollution the Issue?
I was pleased to hear Dr, Spenser talk about scientific honesty. He compares infrared absorptions of CO2 and N2 and conveniently neglects to mention a difference of approximately 1E12 in the respective absorption cross sections in the mid infrared region. Will he now correct his error and reconsider his conclusions?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSanity has made a comeback, and the fight against eco Nazis. There is no doubt that the climate has warmed 1 Celsius over the past 100 years. But humanity's contribution is inconsequential. The hottest known year recorded was during the middle ages. If the climate was as bad as they say, we would still have the dust bowel from the 1930's. Eco Nazis who think humanity is more responsible for global temperatures than the sun should have a mental enema. The correlation of Artic Temps vs. solar radiation is directly related, whereas Man's contribution is indirectly related. Eco Nazis ignore that the sun has solar cycles. In the 1980's there was a consensus on GLOBAL COOLING! So the eco Nazi main goal isn't saving the planet, its controlling the political landscape and making people pay carbon "indulgences". The idea that man is the main factor for climate change would require a willing suspension of disbelief, a disbelief you can pry from my dead god fearing, gun toting, SUV drivin fingers!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst they deny climate change is happening
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen they say its happending but its not man made
Then its one-third man made but its a good thing.
How long will they keep avoiding the reality that we can not continue to harvest the Earth's bounty for short term gain?
Does Roy Innis have a relationship with the coal industry?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFortunately most Americans do not believe Global Warming is a serious danger. The media loves Global warming and continues to equate skeptics with deniers. Scientific American worries about distrust of authority, but continues to ignore evidence contrary to the IPCC party line. The last year has been cooler than predicted, recent computer models show a natural cooling trend expected to continue until 2015 and Green House Gas contributions by "dormant" volcanoes can be ignored as long as the magazine continues to publish stories about the coming climate catastrophe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd even after the world was proven to be round there were those who refused to believe. Who are those "privet" funders of this event?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this--
Edited by dawsonives at 05/16/2008 11:07 AM
AGW is discredited. Real live data don't match models. I was recently disappointed to see an article where satellite temperature readings over the past 8 years were "re-crunched" until they showed warming and agreed with the AGW computer models. I wonder if the same "re-crunching" was applied to the previous data set, or whether those numbers agreed with the model so they were left alone. Bad science is bad science, and I'm disappointed that SA has sunk to the to sci-porn level of the long defunct Omni magazine to publish inane and politically driven articles for the sake of circulation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI doubt that any thinking person doesn't believe that human emissions have some effect on climate, the big question is how much and so far, that question remains unanswered.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpending vast amounts of money to reduce a miniscule quantity of a gas that's affect on the atmosphere is unknown, is to my way of thinking, quite ridiculous.
More research on the effect of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is necessary before jumping in blindly, with both feet to reduce it.