[Pvgreens-discussion] Global Warming Forum

[eric levine]

Here's a small sampling of the roughly two dozen different "debunks" on
climate change.
This one from renowned physicist F. Dyson. Perhaps this gives an inkling
of the complexity of discussion.
I've worked on 4 or 5 of these.

..... eric levine



HERETICAL THOUGHTS ABOUT SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
By Freeman Dyson
 
 
 
FREEMAN DYSON is professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced
Study, in Princeton. His professional interests are in mathematics and
astronomy. Among his many books are Disturbing the Universe, Infinite in
All Directions Origins of Life, From Eros to Gaia, Imagined Worlds, and
The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet. His most recent book, Many Colored
Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe (Page Barbour
Lectures), is being published this month by University of Virgina Press.
 
 
2. Climate and Land Management 
 
The main subject of this piece is the problem of climate change. This is
a contentious subject, involving politics and economics as well as
science. The science is inextricably mixed up with politics. Everyone
agrees that the climate is changing, but there are violently diverging
opinions about the causes of change, about the consequences of change,
and about possible remedies. I am promoting a heretical opinion, the
first of three heresies that I will discuss in this piece. 
 
My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly
exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model
experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers
predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree
in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have
studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve
the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of
describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a
very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the
biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe
the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and
full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a
scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models,
than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening
outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model
experts end up believing their own models. 
 
There is no doubt that parts of the world are getting warmer, but the
warming is not global. I am not saying that the warming does not cause
problems. Obviously it does. Obviously we should be trying to understand
it better. I am saying that the problems are grossly exaggerated. They
take away money and attention from other problems that are more urgent
and more important, such as poverty and infectious disease and public
education and public health, and the preservation of living creatures on
land and in the oceans, not to mention easy problems such as the timely
construction of adequate dikes around the city of New Orleans. 
 
I will discuss the global warming problem in detail because it is
interesting, even though its importance is exaggerated. One of the main
causes of warming is the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
resulting from our burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal and
natural gas. To understand the movement of carbon through the atmosphere
and biosphere, we need to measure a lot of numbers. I do not want to
confuse you with a lot of numbers, so I will ask you to remember just one
number. The number that I ask you to remember is one hundredth of an inch
per year. Now I will explain what this number means. Consider the half of
the land area of the earth that is not desert or ice-cap or city or road
or parking-lot. This is the half of the land that is covered with soil
and supports vegetation of one kind or another. Every year, it absorbs
and converts into biomass a certain fraction of the carbon dioxide that
we emit into the atmosphere. Biomass means living creatures, plants and
microbes and animals, and the organic materials that are left behind when
the creatures die and decay. We don’t know how big a fraction of our
emissions is absorbed by the land, since we have not measured the
increase or decrease of the biomass. The number that I ask you to
remember is the increase in thickness, averaged over one half of the land
area of the planet, of the biomass that would result if all the carbon
that we are emitting by burning fossil fuels were absorbed. The average
increase in thickness is one hundredth of an inch per year. 
 
The point of this calculation is the very favorable rate of exchange
between carbon in the atmosphere and carbon in the soil. To stop the
carbon in the atmosphere from increasing, we only need to grow the
biomass in the soil by a hundredth of an inch per year. Good topsoil
contains about ten percent biomass, [Schlesinger, 1977], so a hundredth
of an inch of biomass growth means about a tenth of an inch of topsoil.
Changes in farming practices such as no-till farming, avoiding the use of
the plow, cause biomass to grow at least as fast as this. If we plant
crops without plowing the soil, more of the biomass goes into roots which
stay in the soil, and less returns to the atmosphere. If we use genetic
engineering to put more biomass into roots, we can probably achieve much
more rapid growth of topsoil. I conclude from this calculation that the
problem of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a problem of land
management, not a problem of meteorology. No computer model of atmosphere
and ocean can hope to predict the way we shall manage our land. 
 
Here is another heretical thought. Instead of calculating world-wide
averages of biomass growth, we may prefer to look at the problem locally.
Consider a possible future, with China continuing to develop an
industrial economy based largely on the burning of coal, and the United
States deciding to absorb the resulting carbon dioxide by increasing the
biomass in our topsoil. The quantity of biomass that can be accumulated
in living plants and trees is limited, but there is no limit to the
quantity that can be stored in topsoil. To grow topsoil on a massive
scale may or may not be practical, depending on the economics of farming
and forestry. It is at least a possibility to be seriously considered,
that China could become rich by burning coal, while the United States
could become environmentally virtuous by accumulating topsoil, with
transport of carbon from mine in China to soil in America provided free
of charge by the atmosphere, and the inventory of carbon in the
atmosphere remaining constant. We should take such possibilities into
account when we listen to predictions about climate change and fossil
fuels. If biotechnology takes over the planet in the next fifty years, as
computer technology has taken it over in the last fifty years, the rules
of the climate game will be radically changed. 
 
When I listen to the public debates about climate change, I am impressed
by the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations
and the superficiality of our theories. Many of the basic processes of
planetary ecology are poorly understood. They must be better understood
before we can reach an accurate diagnosis of the present condition of our
planet. When we are trying to take care of a planet, just as when we are
taking care of a human patient, diseases must be diagnosed before they
can be cured. We need to observe and measure what is going on in the
biosphere, rather than relying on computer models. 
 
Everyone agrees that the increasing abundance of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere has two important consequences, first a change in the physics
of radiation transport in the atmosphere, and second a change in the
biology of plants on the ground and in the ocean. Opinions differ on the
relative importance of the physical and biological effects, and on
whether the effects, either separately or together, are beneficial or
harmful. The physical effects are seen in changes of rainfall,
cloudiness, wind-strength and temperature, which are customarily lumped
together in the misleading phrase “global warming”. In humid air, the
effect of carbon dioxide on radiation transport is unimportant because
the transport of thermal radiation is already blocked by the much larger
greenhouse effect of water vapor. The effect of carbon dioxide is
important where the air is dry, and air is usually dry only where it is
cold. Hot desert air may feel dry but often contains a lot of water
vapor. The warming effect of carbon dioxide is strongest where air is
cold and dry, mainly in the arctic rather than in the tropics, mainly in
mountainous regions rather than in lowlands, mainly in winter rather than
in summer, and mainly at night rather than in daytime. The warming is
real, but it is mostly making cold places warmer rather than making hot
places hotter. To represent this local warming by a global average is
misleading. 
 
The fundamental reason why carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is critically
important to biology is that there is so little of it. A field of corn
growing in full sunlight in the middle of the day uses up all the carbon
dioxide within a meter of the ground in about five minutes. If the air
were not constantly stirred by convection currents and winds, the corn
would stop growing. About a tenth of all the carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere is converted into biomass every summer and given back to the
atmosphere every fall. That is why the effects of fossil-fuel burning
cannot be separated from the effects of plant growth and decay. There are
five reservoirs of carbon that are biologically accessible on a short
time-scale, not counting the carbonate rocks and the deep ocean which are
only accessible on a time-scale of thousands of years. The five
accessible reservoirs are the atmosphere, the land plants, the topsoil in
which land plants grow, the surface layer of the ocean in which ocean
plants grow, and our proved reserves of fossil fuels. The atmosphere is
the smallest reservoir and the fossil fuels are the largest, but all five
reservoirs are of comparable size. They all interact strongly with one
another. To understand any of them, it is necessary to understand all of
them. 
 
As an example of the way different reservoirs of carbon dioxide may
interact with each other, consider the atmosphere and the topsoil.
Greenhouse experiments show that many plants growing in an atmosphere
enriched with carbon dioxide react by increasing their root-to-shoot
ratio. This means that the plants put more of their growth into roots and
less into stems and leaves. A change in this direction is to be expected,
because the plants have to maintain a balance between the leaves
collecting carbon from the air and the roots collecting mineral nutrients
from the soil. The enriched atmosphere tilts the balance so that the
plants need less leaf-area and more root-area. Now consider what happens
to the roots and shoots when the growing season is over, when the leaves
fall and the plants die. The new-grown biomass decays and is eaten by
fungi or microbes. Some of it returns to the atmosphere and some of it is
converted into topsoil. On the average, more of the above-ground growth
will return to the atmosphere and more of the below-ground growth will
become topsoil. So the plants with increased root-to-shoot ratio will
cause an increased transfer of carbon from the atmosphere into topsoil.
If the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide due to fossil-fuel burning
has caused an increase in the average root-to-shoot ratio of plants over
large areas, then the possible effect on the top-soil reservoir will not
be small. At present we have no way to measure or even to guess the size
of this effect. The aggregate biomass of the topsoil of the planet is not
a measurable quantity. But the fact that the topsoil is unmeasurable does
not mean that it is unimportant. 
 
At present we do not know whether the topsoil of the United States is
increasing or decreasing. Over the rest of the world, because of
large-scale deforestation and erosion, the topsoil reservoir is probably
decreasing. We do not know whether intelligent land-management could
increase the growth of the topsoil reservoir by four billion tons of
carbon per year, the amount needed to stop the increase of carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere. All that we can say for sure is that this is a
theoretical possibility and ought to be seriously explored. 
 
3. Oceans and Ice-ages 
 
Another problem that has to be taken seriously is a slow rise of sea
level which could become catastrophic if it continues to accelerate. We
have accurate measurements of sea level going back two hundred years. We
observe a steady rise from 1800 to the present, with an acceleration
during the last fifty years. It is widely believed that the recent
acceleration is due to human activities, since it coincides in time with
the rapid increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But the rise from
1800 to 1900 was probably not due to human activities. The scale of
industrial activities in the nineteenth century was not large enough to
have had measurable global effects. So a large part of the observed rise
in sea level must have other causes. One possible cause is a slow
readjustment of the shape of the earth to the disappearance of the
northern ice-sheets at the end of the ice age twelve thousand years ago.
Another possible cause is the large-scale melting of glaciers, which also
began long before human influences on climate became significant. Once
again, we have an environmental danger whose magnitude cannot be
predicted until we know more about its causes, [Munk, 2002]. 
 
The most alarming possible cause of sea-level rise is a rapid
disintegration of the West Antarctic ice-sheet, which is the part of
Antarctica where the bottom of the ice is far below sea level. Warming
seas around the edge of Antarctica might erode the ice-cap from below and
cause it to collapse into the ocean. If the whole of West Antarctica
disintegrated rapidly, sea-level would rise by five meters, with
disastrous effects on billions of people. However, recent measurements of
the ice-cap show that it is not losing volume fast enough to make a
significant contribution to the presently observed sea-level rise. It
appears that the warming seas around Antarctica are causing an increase
in snowfall over the ice-cap, and the increased snowfall on top roughly
cancels out the decrease of ice volume caused by erosion at the edges.
The same changes, increased melting of ice at the edges and increased
snowfall adding ice on top, are also observed in Greenland. In addition,
there is an increase in snowfall over the East Antarctic Ice-cap, which
is much larger and colder and is in no danger of melting. This is another
situation where we do not know how much of the environmental change is
due to human activities and how much to long-term natural processes over
which we have no control. 
 
Another environmental danger that is even more poorly understood is the
possible coming of a new ice-age. A new ice-age would mean the burial of
half of North America and half of Europe under massive ice-sheets. We
know that there is a natural cycle that has been operating for the last
eight hundred thousand years. The length of the cycle is a hundred
thousand years. In each hundred-thousand year period, there is an ice-age
that lasts about ninety thousand years and a warm interglacial period
that lasts about ten thousand years. We are at present in a warm period
that began twelve thousand years ago, so the onset of the next ice-age is
overdue. If human activities were not disturbing the climate, a new
ice-age might already have begun. We do not know how to answer the most
important question: do our human activities in general, and our burning
of fossil fuels in particular, make the onset of the next ice-age more
likely or less likely? 
 
There are good arguments on both sides of this question. On the one side,
we know that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was much lower
during past ice-ages than during warm periods, so it is reasonable to
expect that an artificially high level of carbon dioxide might stop an
ice-age from beginning. On the other side, the oceanographer Wallace
Broecker [Broecker, 1997] has argued that the present warm climate in
Europe depends on a circulation of ocean water, with the Gulf Stream
flowing north on the surface and bringing warmth to Europe, and with a
counter-current of cold water flowing south in the deep ocean. So a new
ice-age could begin whenever the cold deep counter-current is
interrupted. The counter-current could be interrupted when the surface
water in the Arctic becomes less salty and fails to sink, and the water
could become less salty when the warming climate increases the Arctic
rainfall. Thus Broecker argues that a warm climate in the Arctic may
paradoxically cause an ice-age to begin. Since we are confronted with two
plausible arguments leading to opposite conclusions, the only rational
response is to admit our ignorance. Until the causes of ice-ages are
understood, we cannot know whether the increase of carbon-dioxide in the
atmosphere is increasing or decreasing the danger. 
 
4. The Wet Sahara 
 
My second heresy is also concerned with climate change. It is about the
mystery of the wet Sahara. This is a mystery that has always fascinated
me. At many places in the Sahara desert that are now dry and unpopulated,
we find rock-paintings showing people with herds of animals. The
paintings are abundant, and some of them are of high artistic quality,
comparable with the more famous cave-paintings in France and Spain. The
Sahara paintings are more recent than the cave-paintings. They come in a
variety of styles and were probably painted over a period of several
thousand years. The latest of them show Egyptian influences and may be
contemporaneous with early Egyptian tomb paintings. Henri Lhote’s book,
“The Search for the Tassili Frescoes”, [Lhote, 1958], is illustrated with
reproductions of fifty of the paintings. The best of the herd paintings
date from roughly six thousand years ago. They are strong evidence that
the Sahara at that time was wet. There was enough rain to support herds
of cows and giraffes, which must have grazed on grass and trees. There
were also some hippopotamuses and elephants. The Sahara then must have
been like the Serengeti today. 
 
At the same time, roughly six thousand years ago, there were deciduous
forests in Northern Europe where the trees are now conifers, proving that
the climate in the far north was milder than it is today. There were also
trees standing in mountain valleys in Switzerland that are now filled
with famous glaciers. The glaciers that are now shrinking were much
smaller six thousand years ago than they are today. Six thousand years
ago seems to have been the warmest and wettest period of the interglacial
era that began twelve thousand years ago when the last Ice Age ended. I
would like to ask two questions. First, if the increase of carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere is allowed to continue, shall we arrive at a climate
similar to the climate of six thousand years ago when the Sahara was wet?
Second, if we could choose between the climate of today with a dry Sahara
and the climate of six thousand years ago with a wet Sahara, should we
prefer the climate of today? My second heresy answers yes to the first
question and no to the second. It says that the warm climate of six
thousand years ago with the wet Sahara is to be preferred, and that
increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may help to bring it back. I
am not saying that this heresy is true. I am only saying that it will not
do us any harm to think about it. 
 
The biosphere is the most complicated of all the things we humans have to
deal with. The science of planetary ecology is still young and
undeveloped. It is not surprising that honest and well-informed experts
can disagree about facts. But beyond the disagreement about facts, there
is another deeper disagreement about values. The disagreement about
values may be described in an over-simplified way as a disagreement
between naturalists and humanists. Naturalists believe that nature knows
best. For them the highest value is to respect the natural order of
things. Any gross human disruption of the natural environment is evil.
Excessive burning of fossil fuels is evil. Changing nature’s desert,
either the Sahara desert or the ocean desert, into a managed ecosystem
where giraffes or tunafish may flourish, is likewise evil. Nature knows
best, and anything we do to improve upon Nature will only bring trouble. 
 
The humanist ethic begins with the belief that humans are an essential
part of nature. Through human minds the biosphere has acquired the
capacity to steer its own evolution, and now we are in charge. Humans
have the right and the duty to reconstruct nature so that humans and
biosphere can both survive and prosper. For humanists, the highest value
is harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. The greatest evils
are poverty, underdevelopment, unemployment, disease and hunger, all the
conditions that deprive people of opportunities and limit their freedoms.
The humanist ethic accepts an increase of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere as a small price to pay, if world-wide industrial development
can alleviate the miseries of the poorer half of humanity. The humanist
ethic accepts our responsibility to guide the evolution of the planet. 
 
The sharpest conflict between naturalist and humanist ethics arises in
the regulation of genetic engineering. The naturalist ethic condemns
genetically modified food-crops and all other genetic engineering
projects that might upset the natural ecology. The humanist ethic looks
forward to a time not far distant, when genetically engineered food-crops
and energy-crops will bring wealth to poor people in tropical countries,
and incidentally give us tools to control the growth of carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere. Here I must confess my own bias. Since I was born and
brought up in England, I spent my formative years in a land with great
beauty and a rich ecology which is almost entirely man-made. The natural
ecology of England was uninterrupted and rather boring forest. Humans
replaced the forest with an artificial landscape of grassland and
moorland, fields and farms, with a much richer variety of plant and
animal species. Quite recently, only about a thousand years ago, we
introduced rabbits, a non-native species which had a profound effect on
the ecology. Rabbits opened glades in the forest where flowering plants
now flourish. There is no wilderness in England, and yet there is plenty
of room for wild-flowers and birds and butterflies as well as a high
density of humans. Perhaps that is why I am a humanist. 
 
To conclude this piece I come to my third and last heresy. My third
heresy says that the United States has less than a century left of its
turn as top nation. Since the modern nation-state was invented around the
year 1500, a succession of countries have taken turns at being top
nation, first Spain, then France, Britain, America. Each turn lasted
about 150 years. Ours began in 1920, so it should end about 2070. The
reason why each top nation’s turn comes to an end is that the top nation
becomes over-extended, militarily, economically and politically. Greater
and greater efforts are required to maintain the number one position.
Finally the over-extension becomes so extreme that the structure
collapses. Already we can see in the American posture today some clear
symptoms of over-extension. Who will be the next top nation? China is the
obvious candidate. After that it might be India or Brazil. We should be
asking ourselves, not how to live in an America-dominated world, but how
to prepare for a world that is not America-dominated. That may be the
most important problem for the next generation of Americans to solve. How
does a people that thinks of itself as number one yield gracefully to
become number two? 
 
I am telling the next generation of young students, who will still be
alive in the second half of our century, that misfortunes are on the way.
Their precious Ph.D., or whichever degree they went through long years of
hard work to acquire, may be worth less than they think. Their
specialized training may become obsolete. They may find themselves
over-qualified for the available jobs. They may be declared redundant.
The country and the culture to which they belong may move far away from
the mainstream. But these misfortunes are also opportunities. It is
always open to them to join the heretics and find another way to make a
living. With or without a Ph.D., there are big and important problems for
them to solve. 
 
I will not attempt to summarize the lessons that my readers should learn
from these heresies. The main lesson that I would like them to take home
is that the long-range future is not predetermined. The future is in
their hands. The rules of the world-historical game change from decade to
decade in unpredictable ways. All our fashionable worries and all our
prevailing dogmas will probably be obsolete in fifty years. My heresies
will probably also be obsolete. It is up to them to find new heresies to
guide our way to a more hopeful future. 
 









On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 15:43:57 -0800 (PST) joe kissell <jrfk54 at yahoo.com>
writes:
I am having a hard time understanding why people who feel that climate
change is a serious human induced problem are unwilling to suggest
someone who can debunk Dr. Gray's points of view in a public forum. I'm
surprised there would be no one in our area who feels comfortable,
knowledgable enough and moreover enthusiastic about doing so. 

I really thought people would be all over the chance to knock down Gray's
theories. 

I certainly appreciate your work and committment to this Eric. Are the
people you are involved with really afraid that you can't counter Gray's
arguments or do you just think that it is giving equal time to the
contrarian and that any press at the event would do the same?

Joe Kissell



eric levine <eric.levine at juno.com> wrote:
"... it is far from settled in the public mind."

In fact, a recent national poll (in Time mag. feb.) showed only 14% of
Republicans thought climate change a serious problem.

---------------------------------------------

However, that's neither here nor there. In Fort Collins, our most recent
(2007) survey shows 82% believe we are getting warmer, and 73.5% believe
it's caused by humans. I've pasted relevant survey info below.

I humbly suggest I know a little about the subject, having spent nearly a
year as a founding member of the Fort Colilns Sustainability Group
getting a climate resolution through City Council.

I've now spent another year on Ft. Colllins' climate task force, which it
was my idea in the first place to start. (We're about to come out with a
widescale climate program, and could use all the help we can get.) It was
also myself who was in and got our original climate program past city
council in 1999, and again it was me who was able to remove City manager
discretion from the reporting requirements.

Just as I've pasted a real measured Ft. Collins survey response on the
subject here, I've also engaged in real internet debates on the subject.
I'm not ashamed to say I went into it thinking it a slam dunk, only to be
sent scurrying numerous times for hours of research to debunk all the
cleverly misleading graph and chart links which debaters referenced. I
don't know if Grey is that slick, but I DO know there is no shortage of
clever liars on the subject who ARE slick, and who have a wealth of
clever misleading info to point to.

I personally think we could use a debate about what we, in Fort Collins
can and should do about continuing climate damage. That could play very
nicely into support of our new Climate Program. (1st council worksession
on it this Tues)


........ eric levine

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question 10 is a new set of question for this year’s survey. The scale,
or set of questions, attempts to investigate the beliefs, knowledge and
attitudes around the issue of global warming.
Most of the respondents “Agree” that The earth is getting warmer (global
warming) (82.5%).
Most also “Agree” that Human caused emissions are causing global warming
(73.5%); Individual choices can make a positive difference in impacting
global warming (reduce it) (78.2%); Governments should do more about
global warming by offering community programs that enable citizens and
businesses to make choices that can reduce global warming (79.4%) and,
Governments should do more about global warming by enacting legislation
and regulations intended to reduce global warming (68.6%). In support of
these findings, most respondents
“Disagree” that Technology will solve global warming without any changes
needed in individual behavior (79%) and they also “Disagree” that Nothing
can be done to reduce global warming  (72.6%).
The City of Fort Collins Air Quality Survey-Spring 2007 was conducted in
March and April of 2007. Of the 1,500 surveys sent to a random sample of
residents of Fort Collins by mail, an adequate response rate occurred for
a total of 577 returned and completed, or 38%.
Environmental Behavior Consulting
Cheryl L. Asmus, Ph.D., Environmental Psychologist
4056 La Veta Drive
Loveland, CO 80538
970-461-8453
stillwater119 at comcast.net
June 2007
 
 
 




On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:40:23 +0000 ericfried at comcast.net writes:
Here's why we should go full speed ahead with this forum. While the real
debate among scientists is indeed settled, it is far from settled in the
public mind. Large segments of the population still doubt or deny the
measurable, observable reality of global warming, helped by a
disinformation campaign by Exxon-Mobil and the rest of the fossil fuel
complex. Simply saying "Debate's Over - We Won!" does not convince anyone
- it strengthens the other side's conviction that we are either bullies
or cowards, unable or unwilling to debate the facts. Since the case for
global warming is a slam dunk, why is anyone afraid to confront Dr. Gray
in public and make it clear to the world that he is out of his depth when
he goes to the broader issue of large-scale climate changes from his
niche of predicting hurricanes? Because he is a nice guy?? And they are
afraid he might be perceived as winning such a debate? That is so weak...


As far as I know, Dr. Gray has NEVER engaged in such a public debate, as
scientists instead prefer the back and forth volleys of published
articles. Some of the world's leading experts on climate change are right
here in Fort Collins or in Boulder, as is Gray. We would not be giving
him a platform - he already has a sizeable one in the public view. We
would be making him step off his platform. I am not debating whether or
not global warming is happening - I am a passionate advocate for taking
action to halt or at least slow the climate change underway. I just think
debunking one of the iconic contrarians in the field, on his home turf,
might be the single greatest contribution our little band of greens can
do to advance our cause. I want to treat Dr. Gray with the civility and
respect he deserves (we all deserve), but tear his false arguments to
shreds with real science. I mean come on: the White House/executive
branch/science establishment is only funding pro-global warming research
and shutting down the opposing view? This is the BUSH White House we are
discussing. Absurd. 

So, tomorrow I will be making more calls to find the best person to
debate against him. We decided several meetings ago to do this, and that
train has already left the station. It is time to make this happen, not
second-guess ourselves.

I would like to add that I think Sandy has conducted himself honorably
and transparently on this matter, and I applaud that, even though we
disagree on the best way forward. Per his instructions, I declined to
send the large pdf files to this discussion list, but they are available
on request from him.

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: sandylemberg at juno.com 

> I agreed to work on finding a speaker for the proposed Global Warming 
> Forum to present the consensus position which is opposed by Bill Gray. 
> The first person I called, who wishes to remain anonymous, persuaded me

> that this forum is not a good idea. I am pasting below information I 
> received from that person which supports that position. 
> 
> Additionally, I am forwarding separately two large pdf files. Those 
> emails are likely to be blocked by the PV Greens email list because of 
> their size. I am asking that the moderator of the PV Greens list allow 
> them through, since they are essential to our discussion. 
> 
> I am suggesting that the PV Greens reconsider the idea and consider 
> cancelling the forum. I hope this discussion can be conducted entirely
by 
> email and that we can agree to cancel the forum well before our next PV

> Greens meeting. 
> 
> Because I now oppose the idea of this forum, I am abdicating. effective

> immediately, from any efforts to put it together. 
> 
> Thanks for your attention, Sandy Lemberg 
> 
> “A debate would be giving Bill Gray's views equal time with the 
> mainstream scientific views that are closer to my own. His views do not

> deserve equal time, because they are representative of only a very tiny

> fraction of scientists -- 1% at most. A debate would give the
impression 
> that there is actually a scientific controversy, when the truth is that

> there isn't. A debate plays into the hands of the skeptics. 
> 
> The web site 
> 
> http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/Science/Skeptics.asp 
> 
> contains the following quote, which I agree with: 
> 
> “To gain an understanding of the level of scientific consensus on
climate 
> change, a recent study examined every article on climate change
published 
> in peer-reviewed scientific journals over a 10-year period. Of the 928 
> articles on climate change the authors found, not one of them disagreed

> with the consensus position that climate change is happening or is 
> human-induced. 
> 
> These findings contrast dramatically with the popular media's reporting

> on climate change. One recent study analyzed coverage of climate change

> in four influential American newspapers (New York Times, Washington
Post, 
> LA Times, and Wall Street Journal) over a 14-year period. It found that

> more than half of the articles discussing climate change gave equal 
> weight to the scientifically discredited views of the skeptics. 
> 
> This discrepancy is largely due to the medi a’s drive for balance in 
> reporting. Journalists are trained to identify one position on any
issue, 
> and then seek out a conflicting position, providing both sides with 
> roughly equal attention. Unfortunately, the “balance” of the different 
> views within the media does not always correspond with the actual 
> prevalence of each view within society, and can result in unintended 
> bias. This has been the case with reporting on climate change, and as a

> result, many people believe that climate change is still being debated
by 
> scientists when in fact it is not.” “ 
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