The stampede away from global warming advocacy
July 23rd, 2008, 3:50 pm · 8 Comments · posted by Mark Landsbaum
You could get trampled by the stampede of former global warming believers who are fleeing to the other side. One of the latest is here. Read all about Dr. David Evans, formerly consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005:
“I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model that measures Australia’s compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.”
“. . . I’ve been following the global warming debate closely for years. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects.”
“The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.”
Then the global warming oops moment arrived:
“But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, ‘When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?’ “
“. . . So far that debate has just consisted of a simple sleight of hand: show evidence of global warming, and while the audience is stunned at the implications, simply assert that it is due to carbon emissions.”
“In the minds of the audience, the evidence that global warming has occurred becomes conflated with the alleged cause, and the audience hasn’t noticed that the cause was merely asserted, not proved.”
“If there really was any evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming, don’t you think we would have heard all about it ad nauseam by now? “
Of course, what we’ve heard ad nauseam are the alarmists claims of disaster. Not evidence, just as Evans points out.
“The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming.”
Meanwhile. . .
“The Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions.”
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July 23rd, 2008 at 5:42 pm
It was a complete farce from the start. Got study the relationship between the ecology and the left wing. Everyone should be ashamed.
July 23rd, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Let’s all chip, shall we, so Mr. Landsbaum, can get a day job.
First I find it interresting that Mr. Landsbaum gives no link for anything by Evans - not his usual M.O., though I note he’s done that a few times lately.
Next, our good Mr. Evans has admitted he’s not a climate modeller. He does claim to have been intimately involved with forming climate modelling for the Australian government, as seen,, but then he also claims to be a “top rocket scientist” and to be working on a new word processor for Microsoft (which turns out to be quite a surprise for Microsoft).
Oh, and his scientific articles? One, in an unrelated field, over twenty plus years.
He has published pieces, however, in various anti-climate change and right wing political publications (of which the Australian, which is a Rupert Murdoch publication, is an example. Fair and balanced, like Fox News). Others include the Lavoisier Group and the Ludwig von Mies Institute, again both right wing political think tanks - the former closely aligned with the Australian mining industry.
The “stampede” Mr. Landsbaum appears to be hearing, I think, is just that disturbing ringing in his ears.
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Stampede? Hardly. Evans a rocket scientist, again questionable. As a “newsource” you would think that you would do what any good journalist would do and that is to dig deeper into the story. I did and I wrote about here: http://www.desmogblog.com/who-is-rocket-scientist-david-evans
Another blogger quickly and easily debunked Evans’ claims here: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/07/the_australians_war_on_science_16.php
Evans has not published a single peer-reviewed scientific research paper on climate change, but his claims give you reason to write a headline like: “The stampede away from global warming advocacy.”
You are only adding to the misinformation by blindly echoing material such as this.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:52 pm
The Register’s circulation numbers are dropping like a stone, and at some point the publishers will be able to determine cause and effect, and they will summarily dismiss the anti-science brigade who are causing them to lose readers precipitously.
Those of us who have cancelled subscriptions won’t be back soon.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Hey Declining circulation.
The jokes on you… The NYTimes and many other liberal newspapers who promote AGW are also seeing declines in circulation. This shoots your flawed theory to heck.
Nice try though. Come back when you get a little more knowledge.
Mark
July 25th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Hey KGrandia,
Why don’t you do a background check on some of the IPCC scientists who worked on the WG1 report instead of just blindly following them like a lemon. Just a note though, it’s hard to find all of their names…
Mark
July 26th, 2008 at 7:03 am
Mark,
You are so right. It was so hard to type http://www.ipcc.ch in the address bar and then it took me one whole mouse click to find lists of authors for the IPCC reports.
duh
July 26th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Professor W,
Ok, so why don’t you check some of their backgrounds? I’m sure many of them did something in the past that would discredit their work.