The FORUM by SEPP and Virginia Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment (VA-SEEE) IS POSTPONED UNTIL SEPTEMBER 25. Inadvertently, the Forum was scheduled for Father’s Day which created conflict for many who desired to attend.
Fred Singer gave these lectures this week:
• June 12 at 8 am, DDP Conference, at Hotel Sheraton-Safari, Lake Buena Vista, FL, “The Collapse of IPCC: NIPCC, Copenhagen, ClimateGate, and the Rest”
• June 17 at 10 am, Interface 2010 Conference: 41st Symposium on Computational Statistics, at Westin Hotel, Seattle, WA “Testing the Hypothesis of Anthropogenic Global Warming: A continuing controversy”
Quote of the Week
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”
– Voltaire
THIS WEEK:
by Ken Haapala, Executive Vice President, SEPP
In recent months, global warming alarmists have lamented that they need to do a better job communicating to the public. Apparently, they have found their voice in: argumentum ad hominem. Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway have authored a new book titled “Merchants of Doubt.” TWTW will reserve specific comments on the book until later. For now, it is sufficient to discuss the review of this book, and eight others from the alarmist chorus, by Philip Kitcher, Department of Philosophy at Columbia University, as published in Science Magazine. One quote from the book, used in the review, provides an adequate summary:
“There are many reasons why the United States has failed to act on global warming, but at least one is the confusion raised by Bill Nierenberg, Fred Seitz, and Fred Singer.”
Governments have spent tens of billions of dollars on global warming alarmism. The environmental industry has spent hundreds of millions touting it. Yet, these three gentlemen are singled out as a principal reason for the derailment of the global warming express. Their powers of persuasion must be superhuman.
Throughout his review, the good Professor of Philosophy fails to differentiate between Medieval science, when knowledge was believed to come from authority (expert opinion), and modern, empirical science where knowledge comes from rigorous application of the scientific method – with all relevant physical evidence considered. He considers expert opinion satisfactory.
The Professor states that the issue may be too complex for many to understand. That argument would, of course, apply to both sides. But complexity is not a sufficient reason to accept the views of those who claim to be authorities, yet ignore the physical evidence contradicting their views.
[Full disclosure: The late Fredrick Seitz was Chairman of the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) and S. Fred Singer is the founder and current Chairman of SEPP. Both founded the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC).]On Thursday by a 53 to 47 vote, the US Senate defeated a proposal to remove from EPA the power to regulate carbon dioxide. Perhaps the length of the bill was confusing. After passing legislation ranging over 1,000 pages long without reading it, senators may have been perplexed by a simple bill which had a published length of eight lines.
The dire, false claims from the environmental industry were predictable. Comments by some senators were equally absurd. Senator Barbara Boxer (D. California) declared voting for the bill was equivalent to repealing the laws of gravity.
The Kerry-Lieberman cap and tax bill is in difficulty because it has provisions for off-shore drilling – which, thanks to the BP spill, is in great disfavor. Proponents of cap and tax are now endeavoring to produce another bill without off-shore drilling.
The BP oil spill continues to illustrate the inability of the Federal Government to work effectively with BP and local governments to contain the damage from the spill. EPA’s erratic actions concerning use of chemical dispersants were presented last week. According to reports, EPA also objected to the proposal from Governor Jindal of Louisiana to build berms to protect the coastal wetlands and shorelines. The berms would have openings, thus would not be 100% effective. Apparently, EPA’s thinking is that a break in the berm is similar to a breach in the dyke – a small breach will flood the entire area – and did not consider the possibility of partial protection from a berm.
Upon request from the administration, seven members of the National Academy of Engineering made recommendations on drilling in light of the BP disaster. According to their statements, the engineers recommended that new deep-water drilling permits be suspended for six months and a temporary pause in drilling be implemented for already-permitted deep-water wells so that additional testing can be done. The administration claimed the engineers recommended a six month moratorium on all such drilling which they did not. Fortunately, the engineers stood up to this distortion.
Last week’s TWTW referenced articles on NASA-GISS predicting that 2010 may become the hottest year on record, surpassing its surface record established in 1995. On his web site, Roy Spencer reports that the May satellite data indicates a temperature of 0.53 degrees C above the satellite norm and temperatures, thus far for 2010, are slightly less than the satellite record established in 1998. The Hadley Center did not agree with NASA-GISS in its projections of surface temperatures for 2010, but stated NASAGISS extrapolates Arctic temperatures where Hadley Center does not.