POWER MAGAZINE

BY SENATOR INHOFE

AUGUST 2007

We are witnessing an international awakening of scientists who are speaking out in opposition to former Vice President Al Gore, the United Nations, and the media-driven "consensus" on man-made global warming. In May, I released a report detailing scientists who were former believers in catastrophic man-made climate change but who have recently reversed themselves and are now skeptics.

I will also be releasing a list of the hundreds of scientists, many of them affiliated with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) process, who have spoken out recently to oppose climate alarmism. It is ironic that the media's climate hysteria grows louder as the latest scientific reports grow less and less alarming. Even the alarmist UN has cut sea level rise estimates in half since 2001 and has reduced man's estimated impact on the climate by 25%. Meanwhile, a separate UN report found that cow emissions are more damaging to the planet than all of the CO₂ emissions from cars and trucks.

The New York Times is now debunking aspects of climate alarmism. An April 23, 2006, article in the Times by Andrew Revkin stated: "few scientists agree with the idea that the recent spate of potent hurricanes, European heat waves, African drought and other weather extremes are, in essence, our fault (a result of manmade emissions). There is more than enough natural variability in nature to mask a direct connection, [scientists] say." The Times is essentially conceding that no recent weather events are outside of natural climate variability. So all the climate doomsayers have to back up their claims of climate fears are unproven computer models. Of course, you can't prove a prediction of the climate in 2100 wrong today.

Climate models fallible

In fact, a prominent UN scientist questioned the reliability of such climate models. In a recent candid statement, IPCC scientist Dr. Jim Renwick—a lead author of the IPCC 4th Assessment Report—publicly admitted that the computer models that predict a coming catastrophe may not be so reliable after all. Renwick stated, "Half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don't expect to do terrifically well."

Let me repeat: a UN scientist admitted, "Half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable."

A leading scientific skeptic, meteorologist Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, a scientific pioneer in the development of numerical weather prediction and former director of research at The Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute, recently took the critique of climate computer models one step further. Tennekes said in February 2007, "I am of the opinion that most scientists engaged in the design, development, and tuning of climate models are in fact software engineers. They are unlicensed, hence unqualified to sell their products to society."

Yet the media insist that there is a "consensus" on global warming and claim that the UN IPCC Summary for Policymakers is the voice of hundreds or even thousands of the world's top scientists. But such claims do not hold up to even the lightest scrutiny.

Numbers game

According to the Associated Press, during the IPCC Summary for Policymakers meeting in April 2007, only 52 scientists were present. Many of the so-called "hundreds" of scientists who have been affiliated with the UN as "expert reviewers" are in fact climate skeptics. Skeptics like Virginia State Climatologist Dr. Patrick Michaels, Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John Christy, New Zealand climate researcher Dr. Vincent Gray, and former head of the Geological Museum at the University of Oslo, Tom V. Segalstad, have served as IPCC "expert reviewers" but were not involved in writing the alarmist Summary for Policymakers.

In addition, we often hear how the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the American Meteorological Society (AMS) have issued statements endorsing the so-called "consensus" view that man is driving global warming. But what you don't hear is that both the NAS and AMS never allowed member scientists to vote on these climate statements. Essentially, only two dozen or so members on the governing boards of these institutions produced the "consensus" statements. It appears that the governing boards of these organizations buckled to pressure from those promoting the politically correct view of UN and Gore-inspired science.

Second opinion

Rank-and-file scientists are now openly rebelling. James Spann, a certified meteorologist with the AMS, openly defied the organization when he said in January that he does "not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype." In February a panel of meteorologists expressed unanimous climate skepticism, and one panelist estimated that 95% of his profession rejects global warming fears.

Another question I frequently get asked is: Can you name a single peer-reviewed study to counter the scary climate computer model predictions of doom? I simply refer to the more than 100 scientific studies with more than 300 coauthors cited in the new book Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years by climate scientist Dr. Fred Singer and Dennis Avery. The book details extensive research going back decades to reveal how solar activity is linked to Earth's natural temperature cycles. These peer-reviewed studies are just one component of the "inconvenient truth" that the mainstream media does not want to report. Fortunately, those interested in a rational scientific approach to climate can bypass the media and go to the committee web site at www.epw.senate.gov.

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