Deep Currents

I was just in the middle of some reading up on sustainability when I came across a report from the Senate Minority called “More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims.” I’d just seen a TED talk denying climate change by the guy who invented PCR, so I was curious, and all the more so since the Council on Foreign Relations labeled it a “vital primary source underpinning the foreign policy debate.” Opening the report, I found what appeared to be, as promised, a long list of quotes from credible scientists who denied various aspects of the consensus that climate change is caused by human-created carbon emissions, that it’s caused by carbon at all, and that it’s even happening. The main objections were listed as the following four: “1) The Earth is currently well within natural climate variability. 2) Almost all climate fear is generated by unproven computer model predictions. 3) An abundance of peer-reviewed studies continue to debunk rising CO2 fears and, 4) “Consensus” has been manufactured for political, not scientific purposes.”

This really had me worried that there could be reason to doubt the science. After all, the report was issue just last month and claimed that it was just in 2008 that the group of consensus-deniers had really begun to grow in numbers, so it could easily have been a twist in the climate debate that I’d simply missed with my eyes turned to other concerns.

Then I started looking around for anyone who’d discussed the report, and boy was I pleased to find that Climate Progress debunked it nose to stern the day it came out, ending with the conclusion: “There is no news in Inhofe’s new report — just a recycling of long-debunked denier talking points and padded, irrelevant lists of names.”

Thank God — now I can get back to the real business of figuring out what the debate looks like about how to solve the problem and where the commercial demand stands for green products and services.

Written: January 31st, 2009