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----- Original Message -----
From: S. Fred Singer
To: Distribution
Cc: jerrycuttler@rogers.com and others
Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2003 8:48 AM
Subject: Fwd: Editorial from Ottawa Citizen Kyoto after the Chretien government departs in Feb 2004. It will be a great political boost for George Bush -- in an election year Best Fred ************************************************************************************ > Sound science: Politicians should look at the facts, all of them, on > global warming > The Ottawa Citizen > 23 June 2003 > > A new report in Science magazine says Earth has become significantly > greener over the past two decades. Thanks to global warming, vegetation > has more heat, light, water and carbon dioxide and has responded by > increasing its total bulk by six per cent. According to lead author > Ramakrishna Nemani, changes in cloud cover, not carbon dioxide, seem to > be responsible. > > Only to scientists locked into the dogma of the environmentalist > movement could either part of this report be news. Skeptics of the > traditional cant have long predicted that global warming (man-made, > natural or some combination of the two) would expand growing seasons and > agricultural zones. Within limits, therefore, it's not a bad thing when > the Earth's population is still increasing and too much of it is still > hungry. It would still be foolish to heat the Earth on purpose and hope > it all worked out. But the really important part of the message is the > cloudy part. > > Science's report reveals an uncomfortable but important truth about > global warming: that much of the science behind the Kyoto Protocol and > its notions about man's effect on the planet have been under fire for > decades, especially the idea that only knaves and fools could doubt that > man, through well-understood mechanisms, is causing the climate to change > and could fairly easily make it stop. Scientists such as Dr. Fred Singer > and Frederick Seitz, a past president of the U.S. National Academy of > Sciences, have demolished much of the science behind the accepted wisdom > on global warming. And they're not alone. More than 17,100 scientists -- > including 2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, > meteorologists, oceanographers and environmental scientists, and 5,017 > scientists who specialize in chemistry, biochemistry, biology and other > life sciences -- have signed a petition opposing the Kyoto Protocol and > the orthodoxy behind it. > > For instance, while carbon dioxide levels have been rising since the > Industrial Revolution began 150 years ago and temperatures have risen > slightly, it is part of a warming trend that stretches back more than 300 > years to the end of the "Little Ice Age." In the Middle Ages, Earth was > warm enough to support Norse colonies in Greenland, abandoned when > temperatures fell. Yet no one claims man started, or ended, the medieval > warm period. > > Mr. Nemani's contention in Science that carbon dioxide may not be > responsible for recent rising temperatures is also old news. As data from > several studies have shown, during the 20 years with the highest carbon > dioxide levels, atmospheric temperatures have decreased. A 1990 Nature > paper reported that recent increases in carbon dioxide have shown a > tendency to follow a rise in global temperatures, not lead them -- > something many scientists attribute to oceans giving off the gas as part > of the 300-year-old warming trend, itself marked by fluctuations. > > If the argument over the science of global warming proves anything, it > is that it's foolish to take steps to solve a problem that doesn't exist. > As commentator Alan Caruba said earlier this year, "the UN > Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change literally offers 40 different > scenarios to support its specious claim in the hope that one of them > might actually prove correct. That's not science. That's science fiction." > > Unfortunately, that science fiction led to Canada's acceptance of the > Kyoto Protocol, the costs of which may outweigh its questionable > benefits. Plank by plank, the dogma of the environmentalist movement and > its advocates in the science community are being pulled up. Thousands of > other, dissenting scientists are taking another view. It's time to > abandon the notion that such dissent is loathsome heresy, and start > listening to both sides in the debate. > ***************************** S. Fred Singer, Ph.D. President, The Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) 1600 S. Eads St., Suite 712-S Arlington, VA 22202-2907 e-mail: singer@sepp.org Web: www.sepp.org Tel: 703-920-2744 E-fax 815-461-7448; notify by e-mail before sending ****************************************** "The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin." > Thomas H. Huxley ********** "If the facts change, I'll change my opinion. What do you do, sir? " >J. M. Keynes *********** |