1. Selected authors, primarily non-scientists, but with some unique perspective on this issue;
2. Distinguished veterans, mostly scientists, mostly retired;
3. Others, including active scientists, TV meteorologists, and state climatologists.

The Skeptics on the Global Warming Issue: Selected Authors
Four authors and their relevant work will be noted.

- Michael Crichton, book: State of Fear, Harper Collins, 2004
- George Will, column: “Global Warming? Hot Air,” Washington Post, December 23, 2004
- Myself, book: ‘Acid Rains’ on Liberal Propaganda, iUniverse, Lincoln, Nebraska, 2004
- Alex Kozinski, article, “Gore Wars,” Michigan Law Review, August, 2002(Kozinski sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.)

While there are many who take a dim view on global warming, they get little press coverage and even less respect. Crichton has been the exception. His novel is a type of James Bond science fiction. The warmers scream this book’s plot and characters are ridiculous, and not worth reading. George Will, in contrast, called this book a political broadside woven into an entertaining story. Crichton’s book includes an appendix, “Why Politicized Science is Dangerous.”

In his column, Will notes two major themes.

Theme 1: “Crichton’s subject is today’s fear that global warming will cause catastrophic climate change.” Al Gore has reported that 10,000 years ago the Gulf Stream (actually, the thermo-haline circulation) stopped due to an enormous pulse of fresh water roaring out of the St. Lawrence. However, Dr. Richard Lindzen, M.I.T. Sloan Professor of Meteorology and the field’s leading academician, has noted that the Gulf Stream is mostly driven by wind. “To shut it down, you’d have to shut off the wind.” Gore notes that scientists are worried this could happen again. Lindzen’s reaction: we were talking about fresh water shutting down the Gulf Stream, but that isn’t what physical oceanographers think.

The warmers reject such rebuttals, and argue that an analogous fresh-water pulse could occur today. A meltdown of Greenland would do it. However they refuse to recognize the incredibly low odds involved. Based on a super build-up of greenhouse gases, one paper predicted a 5 percent loss in this ice-sheet in about 200 years, and a complete loss in 3,000 years. A second report cited 0.4 percent per century.

Will’s second theme: “Crichton’s subject is also how conventional wisdom is manufactured, in a credulous and media-drenched society.” In turn, Acid Rains reports that a war is going on between the warmers and the skeptics. Gore’s book/movie, An Inconvenient Truth, is an example of alarmism, outright misrepresentation, and propaganda.

Chrichton’s book publicizes the fact that a debate on this issue is underway. One learns little of such debate from the mass media, which is busy manufacturing conventional wisdom about global warming. Today, the global warming issue has become conventional wisdom: it is happening, it is caused by society, it will be terrible, but we, the warmers, know what needs to be done to stop it. More on these assumptions later. Crichton notes that the political-legal-media complex has a vested interest in keeping society in a continuous State of Fear, hence the title for his book. This group has to resort to endless fear-mongering in order to keep the populace in a constant state of fear. And climate change is the perfect subject to scare the devil out of the average citizen.

While there is surely propaganda created by conservatives, it is my conviction that this is small compared to that created by Gore and his supporters. In my view, Gore and his ilk:

- Embrace simplistic science as the answer to complex problems
- Use complex science to isolate rather than to illuminate an issue
- Exploit environmental and climate issues for their own purposes
- Believe their cause is so righteous, or want their cause to be so righteous, that it justifies any means, including deceit, violent demonstrations, sabotage, and terrorism.

Now some might object to the use of science fiction in a professional article. However, I am in good company in the use of this technique. Not only does Crichton deal with science fiction, but the fourth writer, Alex Kozinski, used this approach in his 2002 article, “Gore Wars.” His commentary is a review of The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjørn Lomborg, a Danish environmental statistician. Kozinski bemoans the long chronology of doomsday edicts that started with The Limits to Growth in the early 70s. He notes the most recent addition to this alarmist chronology is on global warming.

Kozinski noted that Lomborg identifies global warming as the environmental trump-card. He also paints a picture of a world where human welfare is improving in just about every way one might measure. He asks, why "do we hear so much bad news about the environment?" The answer to this question "is because environmental activists often lie, in big ways and small, in order to create the false impression that we are going from one environmental crisis to another." He notes that Lomborg "demonstrates the ways in which professional environmentalists play fast and loose with the truth."

It is useful to stand back and take stock of the panorama of claims and predictions made by Gore and his acolytes. Never in the history of forecasting have more claims been made on forecasting capability. Not only have Gore and his pals predicted that we are moving into a future of hotter and more unpleasant days, but a future of terrifying climate change. They also claim that the climate is changing so fast that we have no time to contemplate; we must act.

Skeptics on Global Warming: the Distinguished Veterans

The careers and convictions of 11 distinguished veterans will be discussed in this section. Many are retired scientists, some with the title of emeritus. These individuals do not have to chase after grant money or curry favor with the department chair-person or other university/institute/agency brass. They are free to state their convictions and speak their minds. And the ones I will discuss are all highly skeptical of the global warming issue. These veterans all agree that the big picture on global warming, as painted by the alarmists, is seriously flawed. Because these people have each had grand careers, one must guard against over-selling them. However, they are presented here as individuals who understand the science. And they are presented under the assumption that, compared with any other group, the odds are much lower that they will deal in hype or propaganda or lies on this issue.

Hurricane Specialists

These include Neil Frank (chief meteorologist for Houston’s Channel 11 and former head of the National Hurricane Center), and William Gray of Colorado State. Both believe there is something wrong with the warmers’ case: their reliance on computer models. Frank notes that the models used in weather forecasting can’t be relied on for a three-day forecast, but for global warming we are asked to rely on similar but simpler models, applied to a more complex task. Gray is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS). In a speech in Houston he noted that “climate models, while surely useful, are far from perfect…but when modelers move out onto the climate area the complexity becomes too damn much.” Gray recently noted, “Nearly all my colleagues who have been around for 40 or 50 years are skeptical as hell about this whole global warming thing.”

Other experts include James O’Brien of Florida State University, where he is a distinguished professor of meteorology/oceanography. O’Brien has served as state climatologist for Florida. He sees no correlation between hurricane intensity and global warming. Rather he sees a 30-year cycle, 15 building and 15 waning.

The fourth hurricane specialist, Tad Murty, with a Ph.D. in oceanography/meteorology, has spent 27 years at Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and has been the director of the Australian National Tidal Facility. He has noted, “My colleagues in India and I put together a 200-year database. We found that the number of cyclones in the twentieth century is about half of that in the nineteenth.” Murty’s view about global warming: “This is the biggest scientific hoax being perpetrated on humanity.”

Experts in Physics

The Houston Chronicle recently reported an interview with Chris Rapley of the British Antarctic Survey. He asked, “If carbon is increasing, how can you really deny there’s going to be warming?” Rapley’s challenge to the readers was if you really knew how physics worked, you would stop arguing over global warming. So let’s see how three distinguished veterans in the physics field react to the global warming issue. The three are Robert Jastrow, William Nierenberg, and Frederick Seitz, all Ph.D.s in physics.

- Nierenberg (1919-2000) was Director of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography from 1965-86
- Seitz was president of Rockefeller University, a biomedical research and teaching center
- Jastrow formed the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in 1961 and directed it for 20 years.

In 1990, these scientists charged that the U.N. global warming range of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees Centigrade over the next century was far too pessimistic. Their analysis, based only on well-known observational data, included:

- Assuming the temperature increase – from pre-industrial levels to 1990 – was 0.3 to 0.6º C.
- Assuming this rise was all due to a 50 percent increase in greenhouse gases from pre-industrial levels
- With an assumed 100 percent increase in greenhouse gases, from 1990 to 2100, could thus see doubling the warming by 2100 to 0.6 to 1.2º C., and then with some fine tuning, to 0.4 to 1.8º C.

Based on this analysis, they felt the 1.5 to 4.5º C. represented a major exaggeration of the actual physical situation. These three men know their physics. They don’t deny there is going to be a warming, but contend it will be nowhere as large as the U.N. would like the public to believe. Clearly the U.N. paid zero attention to this criticism, as its 2001 range was set at 1.4 to 5.8º C.

Agriculture/Botany/Food Production Experts
Four experts are noted here.

Timothy Ball, who earned his Ph.D. from the University of London. His thesis was the reconstruction of climate from 1714 to 1952 using the extensive records of the Hudson Bay Company. He is the co-author of the book Eighteenth-Century Naturalists of Hudson Bay.

Sylvan Wittwer, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri. Wittwer is the author of five books, including Feeding a Billion – Frontiers in Chinese Agriculture. Wittwer conducted the original studies on CO2 enhancement of the production of food crops. He has noted that the rising levels of atmospheric CO2 are very favorable for the most essential of human activities – namely, the production of food.

Sherwood Idso, who obtained his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Minnesota. In 1967, he joined the U.S. Water Conservation Lab in Phoenix as a research physicist. Idso has published over 500 papers, plus the book Carbon Dioxide: Friend or Foe? In 1990 Idso critiqued Al Gore’s chart, which compared temperature and atmospheric CO2 content over the past 160,000 years. In 1996, Idso noted that rising levels of CO2 promote plant growth and at the same time reduce their demand for water. Thousands of papers – with CO2 ranging from 350 to 650 parts per million – have verified these effects.

Idso set up a Web-site, The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. The warmers have attacked it vigorously, accusing Idso and his sons Craig and Keith of being puppets of the energy industry. This charge surely is a great exaggeration and one of ultimate simplicity. It ignores completely the nature and quality of their research and writings.

Norman Borlaug, who obtained his Ph.D. in plant pathology from the University of Minnesota. He is credited with launching the Green Revolution and with saving perhaps a billion people via improved seeds and farming. He was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize. Borlaug has expressed his concern over rabid environmentalists. He has noted some scientists have jumped on the extremist environmental bandwagon in search of research funds. He has predicted there are real problems on food supply that will emerge shortly. By 2025, he believes the planet will have to nearly double its food production.

Other Witnesses: State Climatologists

Another group are the state climatologists. Appointees to these offices have university or government agency positions and have been certified by the American Association of State Climatologists (AASC). Today some of these appointees are skeptics on the global warming issue and have become inconvenient to several governors. These governors now seek to remove or silence such skeptics. For example, Oregon’s governor Ted Kulongoski wants to remove George Taylor from his job as state climatologist. Besides sound credentials (B.A., Mathematics; M.Sc., Meteorology; 12 years in meteorology; 19 years as State Climatologist; and two years as President of AASC), Taylor is a conservationist at heart. He believes that humans should act as stewards for God’s creation. However, he also believes that a balance between the environment and human welfare should occur. In any event, Taylor is not a political flunky and this governor wants a political flunky.

Four Key Assumptions on Global Warming

- The Earth is warming. Most skeptics are willing to accept about 0.3 to 0.6 º C. over the past century. Some skeptics, however, are concerned this warming may be largely due to the urban heat-island effect.
- Society is guilty. The primary evidence the warmers cite is from the huge computer models. Skeptics have a large number of concerns about these models and their output. Also, the warmers pay very little attention to the alternative warming cause, namely natural climate variation. Part of this variation may be due to solar and other astrophysical phenomenon.
- It will be catastrophic. Consider the following from a prominent warmer, Stephen Schneider: “We have to offer up some scary scenarios – make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. Each of us has to decide what is the right balance between being effective and being honest.”
- We know how to stop it. Consider the following inputs from two key prominent warmers.

1. Thomas Wigley. First of all, one should know that Wigley is a highly regarded scientist, but he is still a warmer. In 1998, his computer runs found that a full implementation of the Kyoto Protocol calling for extensive emissions cuts, would give trivial and non-measurable results. He found the warming reduction from 2010-50 was 0.07º C., and only 0.13º C. from 2050 to 2100. The total from the required emission cuts was thus estimated at 0.2º C.

If one assumed a 0.2º C. reduction, per the greenhouse gas cuts that are now being discussed, and if one accepted the U.N.’s expected global warming of 3.0º C. over this century, then one would need 15 such cuts to get to the 3.0º C. Yet today nearly every nation that has signed the Kyoto Protocol is struggling to find ways to meet their initial targets. Further, the warmers hardly ever talk about the need for any subsequent cuts.

2. James Hansen, the father of this issue (due to his 1988 congressional testimony), confessed ten years later, “The forcings that drive long-term climate change are not known with an accuracy sufficient to define future climate change.” Here the father of this issue publicly stated we don’t know. Hanson’s reputation in this field, along with his confession, should have been enough to have shut this issue down, or at least put off any type of policy initiative, say for 10 more years of research. It did not.

Conclusions

The views of four non-scientist authors have been reviewed. These skeptics may be viewed as news reporters. This group of authors is competing with science reporters – from the New York Times, the Houston Chronicle, Nature magazine, etc. – over who can best tell the public the latest scientific news.

The views of 11 distinguished veterans have been noted. All are skeptical. Their lifetime publications, speeches, and comments give the nature of this group’s views on the global warming issue. Their views are more proof that a serious and valid debate exists on the global warming issue.

The views of active scientists have been noted via petitions. The views of TV meteorological and state climatological communities have been scrutinized. There surely is no consensus in favor of the global warming issue. There may be a consensus against it. The claim that “all scientists agree” is ridiculous.

The four key assumptions on global warming have been assessed. None have been definitively confirmed. Hence it is premature to find CO2 guilty. The very best one can say about the global warming issue and the KP is that it is premature. The very worst is that it is a hoax or a fraud.

Westbrook, formerly a hydrocarbons and energy economist for Dow Chemical, is an associate at the Center for Energy Economics, Bureau of Economic Geology, at the University of Texas at Austin.