Facts vs. Climate Alarmism

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 14, 2009

Editor’s note: Bradley’s op-ed appeared in the December 8th Washington Times under the title “Alarmists Cold-Shoulder Facts”)

Facts are awfully stubborn things. And global-warming alarmists—who generally don’t let facts get in the way of a good, agenda-driven argument—recently lost a key ally in the run-up to the U.N. global-warming pep rally opening today in Copenhagen. They lost actual data supporting their claims.

In defiant acts of desperation, many out-of-the-mainstream environmental alarmists quickly moved to plan B. Some cite the current El Niño—a natural climate variation—warning of “record” high temperatures just on the horizon.

Others continue to trumpet “studies” that paint terrifying environmental fairy tales if world governments do not immediately criminalize carbon, ban fossil fuels, and ration energy.

But these tactics are not new. Paul Ehrlich’s “population bomb” of the 1960s predicted food riots in the United States and around the world.…

Climategate: There Is Normal Scientific Discourse Too (revisiting the millennial temperature ‘trick’)

By Chip Knappenberger -- December 12, 2009

[see bottom of post for an update]

Steve McIntyre, chief blogger and workhorse at the blog ClimateAudit, has a recent post which is grabbing a lot of attention across the web and being trumpeted by some as a triumphant unmasking of the fraudulent behavior in the preparation of the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR).

Science/science policy blogger Roger Pielke Jr. covers Steve’s post, with a post of his own, under the title The “Trick” in Context. However, I think the post should more accurately have been titled The “Trick” in “Context.” For the “context” is one supplied by Steve McIntyre. My read of the relevant emails surrounding the incident in question doesn’t lead me to the same conclusions as Steve.

Context must be supplied in this case. For as anyone who has looked through any of the leaked/stolen Climategate emails (available here) quickly realizes, most of the email threads are not complete from start to finish, and, as is typical of most conversations, they assume the participants already know a lot of what is being discussed, including the context. …

Roger Pielke Sr.: Towards Climate Science Pluralism–and Starting Over With Climate Policy

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 11, 2009

Roger Pielke Sr. is a well respected climatologist and professor. His blog is a top go-to place on the Internet for those searching for the happy middle of the contentious climate-change debate. (His son, Roger Pielke, Jr., also has a must-read blog for Climategate students.)

Here at MasterResource, Chip Knappenberger covers climate science. Knappenberger is skeptical of ultra-skepticism and trenchantly challenges exaggerated science in the service of climate alarmism.

In this tradition, I recently read a very interesting post on Pielke senior’s blog, titled “Three Distinctly Different Climate Science Perspectives,” that is worth sharing with MasterResource readers. Here is what he wrote, and my critical comment is at the end.

There needs to be recognition that there are three distinctly different viewpoints with respect to the extent that humans alter the climate system.