This is sort of disappointing.
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/08112650state03-08-09.htm (this site requires subscription, so I'll post the whole article):
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Former Astronaut Says Warming Natural
By John Fleck
Copyright © 2009 Albuquerque Journal
Journal Staff Writer
Since he was a kid, Harrison "Jack" Schmitt — geologist, moon-walking astronaut, former U.S. senator — has been fascinated by weather and climate.
When he was a child in Silver City, he and his father studied rainfall data from southern New Mexico. When he launched to the moon in 1972, he took the latest Earth weather charts with him and spent downtime during the journey looking back and trying his hand at weather forecasts.
So it should be no surprise that Schmitt is one of the keynote speakers Monday at the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change in New York City.
The surprise, given what you often hear about the views of climate scientists, might be Schmitt's views on the subject: He believes global warming, while real, is natural — that human greenhouse gas emissions cannot be blamed.
Schmitt argues that the current warming is part of a natural cycle that began in the 1800s, as Earth began emerging from the "Little Ice Age" — a warming that began long before industrial emissions could have played a role. Schmitt believes changes in the sun have effects on Earth's climate that are at this point poorly understood by scientists.
"It's a political issue," Schmitt said of global warming fears in a recent interview. "It's not a scientific issue."
Efforts to curtail greenhouse gas emissions, Schmitt said, "would be disastrous to our economy and actually our liberty."
Most climate scientists disagree with Schmitt's assessment. They say warming, especially during the second half of the 20th century, is far too rapid to be explained by anything other than increases of greenhouse gases, which trap heat near Earth's surface. They point to evidence that, while the sun has in the past played a role, recent warming cannot be explained by solar variability.
A recent survey of climate scientists found 97 percent agreed Earth is warming and that human activity has been "a significant factor" in that warming.
The results, published in January in the American Geophysical Union's Eos, represents "the collective wisdom of the biggest geoscience organization in the world," said John Geissman, chairman of the University of New Mexico's Department of Earth and Planetary Science and an Eos editor.
But Schmitt's appearance in the spotlight illustrates a schism that is coming into sharp relief as the U.S. government seriously contemplates legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
As the nation grapples with the issue, it raises a fundamental question about the scientific evidence on which political decisions are based, according to American University political scientist Matthew Nisbet: To whom should we listen?
There is a tendency to want to defer to expertise in the political and policy-making processes, according to Nisbet. But whose expertise, he asked, should count?
"What I do, frankly, is try to determine if there is a consensus among recognized scientists in a field and if there is a consensus, I defer to the scientists who subscribe to it," said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., a leader in Senate efforts on legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
On climate science, Bingaman said, he turns to the National Academy of Sciences, which holds that human activity is a significant cause of global warming, and action is needed to deal with it.
Over time, the science can change and the consensus can turn out to be wrong, Bingaman said in an interview. But asked to develop policy now, he said, the beliefs of the majority of experts is the best guide.
But at the intersection of science and politics, the debate is often shaped as much by which scientific sources people choose to cite and trust as it is by what the majority of scientists say, according to Dan Kahan, a researcher at Yale University who has studied public uses of science in political controversies.
Inevitably, Kahan said in an interview, members of the public extend trust to people whose values are similar to their own.
People opposed to government regulation, for example, are more likely to believe human action is not causing global warming, according to research by Kahan, and those who believe societal interests should take precedence over individual interests tend to believe humans are to blame.
The elevation of Schmitt, a former Republican senator, to informal spokesman for those who doubt human-caused climate change began in November when he resigned from the Planetary Society, a nonprofit advocate for space exploration.
Most of his resignation letter argued over the best approach to space exploration. But Schmitt also complained about the society's views on climate change.
In an open letter last July, Planetary Society executive director Louis Friedman called global warming "the most daunting challenge we confront today."
"You know as well as I," Schmitt wrote in his letter to Friedman and others in the society, "the 'global warming scare' is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making."
That led to the invitation to next week's global warming conference, sponsored by The Heartland Institute, a Chicago nonprofit that has played a central role in recent political debates over the science of global warming.
The organization has in the past received funding from Exxon-Mobil Corp., which has been accused of funding organizations to sow doubt about climate change in order to forestall government action to reduce greenhouse emissions. Heartland officials issued a statement saying, "No corporate dollars or sponsorships earmarked for the event were solicited or accepted."
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/08112650state03-08-09.htm (this site requires subscription, so I'll post the whole article):
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Former Astronaut Says Warming Natural
By John Fleck
Copyright © 2009 Albuquerque Journal
Journal Staff Writer
Since he was a kid, Harrison "Jack" Schmitt — geologist, moon-walking astronaut, former U.S. senator — has been fascinated by weather and climate.
When he was a child in Silver City, he and his father studied rainfall data from southern New Mexico. When he launched to the moon in 1972, he took the latest Earth weather charts with him and spent downtime during the journey looking back and trying his hand at weather forecasts.
So it should be no surprise that Schmitt is one of the keynote speakers Monday at the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change in New York City.
The surprise, given what you often hear about the views of climate scientists, might be Schmitt's views on the subject: He believes global warming, while real, is natural — that human greenhouse gas emissions cannot be blamed.
Schmitt argues that the current warming is part of a natural cycle that began in the 1800s, as Earth began emerging from the "Little Ice Age" — a warming that began long before industrial emissions could have played a role. Schmitt believes changes in the sun have effects on Earth's climate that are at this point poorly understood by scientists.
"It's a political issue," Schmitt said of global warming fears in a recent interview. "It's not a scientific issue."
Efforts to curtail greenhouse gas emissions, Schmitt said, "would be disastrous to our economy and actually our liberty."
Most climate scientists disagree with Schmitt's assessment. They say warming, especially during the second half of the 20th century, is far too rapid to be explained by anything other than increases of greenhouse gases, which trap heat near Earth's surface. They point to evidence that, while the sun has in the past played a role, recent warming cannot be explained by solar variability.
A recent survey of climate scientists found 97 percent agreed Earth is warming and that human activity has been "a significant factor" in that warming.
The results, published in January in the American Geophysical Union's Eos, represents "the collective wisdom of the biggest geoscience organization in the world," said John Geissman, chairman of the University of New Mexico's Department of Earth and Planetary Science and an Eos editor.
But Schmitt's appearance in the spotlight illustrates a schism that is coming into sharp relief as the U.S. government seriously contemplates legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
As the nation grapples with the issue, it raises a fundamental question about the scientific evidence on which political decisions are based, according to American University political scientist Matthew Nisbet: To whom should we listen?
There is a tendency to want to defer to expertise in the political and policy-making processes, according to Nisbet. But whose expertise, he asked, should count?
"What I do, frankly, is try to determine if there is a consensus among recognized scientists in a field and if there is a consensus, I defer to the scientists who subscribe to it," said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., a leader in Senate efforts on legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
On climate science, Bingaman said, he turns to the National Academy of Sciences, which holds that human activity is a significant cause of global warming, and action is needed to deal with it.
Over time, the science can change and the consensus can turn out to be wrong, Bingaman said in an interview. But asked to develop policy now, he said, the beliefs of the majority of experts is the best guide.
But at the intersection of science and politics, the debate is often shaped as much by which scientific sources people choose to cite and trust as it is by what the majority of scientists say, according to Dan Kahan, a researcher at Yale University who has studied public uses of science in political controversies.
Inevitably, Kahan said in an interview, members of the public extend trust to people whose values are similar to their own.
People opposed to government regulation, for example, are more likely to believe human action is not causing global warming, according to research by Kahan, and those who believe societal interests should take precedence over individual interests tend to believe humans are to blame.
The elevation of Schmitt, a former Republican senator, to informal spokesman for those who doubt human-caused climate change began in November when he resigned from the Planetary Society, a nonprofit advocate for space exploration.
Most of his resignation letter argued over the best approach to space exploration. But Schmitt also complained about the society's views on climate change.
In an open letter last July, Planetary Society executive director Louis Friedman called global warming "the most daunting challenge we confront today."
"You know as well as I," Schmitt wrote in his letter to Friedman and others in the society, "the 'global warming scare' is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making."
That led to the invitation to next week's global warming conference, sponsored by The Heartland Institute, a Chicago nonprofit that has played a central role in recent political debates over the science of global warming.
The organization has in the past received funding from Exxon-Mobil Corp., which has been accused of funding organizations to sow doubt about climate change in order to forestall government action to reduce greenhouse emissions. Heartland officials issued a statement saying, "No corporate dollars or sponsorships earmarked for the event were solicited or accepted."
