Shallow Science Criticized by Global Warming Experts
Written By: Dan Miller
Publication date: 05/01/2009


Willie Soon, a Harvard University astrophysicist and geophysicist with
scores of peer-reviewed papers and books to his credit, said he is
“embarrassed and puzzled” by the shallow science in papers asserting the
Earth faces a climate crisis caused by global warming.

Soon told the second International Conference on Climate Change on March in
New York City, “We have a system [of peer reviewing scientific literature]
that is truly, truly appalling.”

Soon’s criticisms echoed an earlier presentation at the 2-1/2-day conference
that was attended by about 700 scientists, economists, and policymakers
considering the issue of “Global Warming: Was it ever really a crisis?”

John Sununu, former governor of New Hampshire, former chief of staff to
President George H.W. Bush, and holder of a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering,
had lamented what he called the “restrictive distribution of research funds”
through government channels.


Funding Fairness Needed

Sununu called for a “fairness doctrine” to be “applied to the funding of
research and to the journal review and publishing of papers.”

Sununu and Soon both said global warming alarmists, particularly the
politicians and the few scientists who wrote the United Nations’
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, have captured the
scientific paper process, and in Sununu’s words, have been successful in
“taking control of who gets funding, who gets published, who gets acclaimed,
and who gets demonized.”

“What happened to the peer-review process?” Soon asked rhetorically while
reviewing egregious and complex examples of doctored data and sloppy
scholarship in global warming alarmist literature.


Alarmists Fighting Growth, Development

Sununu warned the attendees the climate change debate will never be settled,
no matter how persuasive sound science is. He accused alarmists of using
global warming as a decoy to provide cover for anti-growth and
anti-development activists.

Sununu noted these same anti-growth activists in the 1960s alleged a
population crisis to justify restrictive command-and-control regulations,
and then turned to global cooling as the alarm-of-the-decade in the 1970s.
Climate cooling mutated into the dangerous warming cult of the 1990s and
today.


Hansen Soundly Rebuked

In a separate presentation, John Theon, retired senior atmospheric scientist
at NASA, accused his former underling, James Hansen, of embarrassing NASA
with his increasingly strident claims of imminent death and destruction from
global warming. Among other charges, Hansen has asked for a Nuremberg-style
trial of climate realists who disagree with his predictions of upcoming
global warming catastrophes.

Theon said some 300 scientists, including Hansen, reported to him when he
was at NASA, “but [Hansen] didn’t receive the attention from me that he
should have.”

Theon noted, for instance, that Hansen, a NASA astronomer, received a
six-figure grant from the Heinz Foundation, run by the wealthy wife of U.S.
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), and afterwards, endorsed Kerry for the presidency.
Theon said Hansen’s endorsement violated the federal Hatch Act, which
prohibits federal employees from endorsing candidates. But Hansen, Theon
said, had “too many powerful friends” in Washington, and so far has escaped
discipline.

Theon added that since Hansen has engaged in many hundreds of interviews in
recent years, he clearly has not been muzzled, as he claims.


Warming Myths Debunked

Lord Christopher Monckton, former science advisor to British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher, brought the conference to a close with a standing ovation
as he identified many of the deliberately misleading myths about climate
change propagated by warming alarmists:

* “Global warming is happening now”—it’s actually cooling.

* “Global warming is getting worse”—it’s actually getting better.

* “Arctic sea ice is disappearing”—in fact there is no discernible trend in
winter sea ice area over the past 30 years.

* “Antarctic sea ice is disappearing”—in fact the area of sea ice around
Antarctica reached a 30-year record high in 2007.

* “The Great Barrier Reef is being damaged by global warming”—actually there
is no trend in the sea surface temperature of the reef over the past 40
years.

* “Hurricanes are being made worse by global warming”—on the contrary, the
accumulated cyclone energy index in October 2008 was at its lowest recorded
value in the past 30 years.


‘Forces of Darkness’

Monckton closed the conference with ringing words of praise for the 700-plus
who attended over 2-1/2 days.

“You, in this room, have bravely upheld the truth and the scientific method
against all manner of lies, threats, sanctions, personal attacks, and
entertaining revisions to your CreepyMedia biographies,” Monckton said.
“Because you have not failed or faltered, the Forces of Darkness are now
scuttling back into their lairs, there to snivel in the eternal darkness of
utter oblivion and CNN.”