You may not be aware of it but there is a global warming conference going on this week. The International Conference on Climate Change is in New York. You probably haven’t heard about the conference because it is specifically for skeptics of global warming. You know, the folks who also believe that the Earth is flat and at the center of the universe?
Ronald Bailey from Reason magazine is covering the conference and has a recap of the presentations here. Included in yesterday’s presentations was the following scientific data:
- According to Indur Goklany, assuming the worse case scenario for global warming, income in both developed and undeveloped countries would be higher, worldwide deaths would increase by less than 1/2% and the amount of land required for agriculture would drop by 1/2.
- According to Paul Reiter, head of the insects and infectious disease unit at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, 150 EDEN studies have been published so far and that “none of them support the notion that disease is increasing because of climate change.” In fact,
Reiter pointed out that many of the claims that climate change will increase disease can be attributed to an incestuous network of just nine authors who write scientific reviews and cite each other’s work. None are actual on-the-ground disease researchers and many of them write the IPCC disease analyses. “These are people who know absolutely bugger about dengue, malaria or anything else,” said Reiter.
- Finally, Stanley Goldenberg, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Hurricane Research Division in Miami presented evidence refuting the notion that hurricanes have become more prevalent due to global warming. Goldenberg showed evidence that hurricanes increase and decrease over decadal cycles he provided this synopsis:
Tropical North Atlantic SST [sea surface temperature] has exhibited a warming trend of [about] ) 0.3 °C over the last 100 years; whereas Atlantic hurricane activity has not exhibited trend-like variability, but rather distinct multidecadal cycles….The possibility exists that the unprecedented activity since 1995 is the result of a combination of the multidecadal-scale changes in the Atlantic SSTs (and vertical shear) along with the additional increase in SSTs resulting from the long-term warming trend. It is, however, equally possible that the current active period (1995-2000) only appears more active than the previous active period (1926-1970) due to the better observational network in place.
Goldenberg completed his remarks with:
“Not a single scientist at the hurricane center believes that global warming has had any measurable impact on hurricane numbers and strength,”
Yesterday, President Obama announced that he would be lifting the ban on Federal funding for stem cell research that had been implemented by President Bush. In his statement describing the reason for his decision, President Obama said:
But let’s be clear: Promoting science isn’t just about providing resources — it’s also about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about letting scientists like those who are here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient — especially when it’s inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda — and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology. (emphasis mine)
I have to say, this is the first statement I can completely get behind President Obama on. We should allow science to operate “free from manipulation or coercion.” We should follow the facts and findings and “listen to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient.” That leaves me with just two questions for President Obama:
- Free from manipulation or coercion by whom?
- Even when it’s inconvenient for whom?
All animals created equally?
