Scientists seek to remove climate fear promoting editor and ‘trade him to New York Times or Washington Post’
An outpouring of skeptical scientists who are members of the American Chemical Society (ACS) are revolting against the group’s editor-in-chief — with some demanding he be removed — after an editorial appeared claiming “the science of anthropogenic climate change is becoming increasingly well established.”
The editorial claimed the “consensus” view was growing “increasingly difficult to challenge, despite the efforts of diehard climate-change deniers.” The editor now admits he is “startled” by the negative reaction from the group’s scientific members. The American Chemical Society bills itself as the “world’s largest scientific society.”
The June 22, 2009 editorial in Chemical and Engineering News by editor in chief Rudy Baum, is facing widespread blowback and condemnation from American Chemical Society member scientists. Baum concluded his editorial by stating that “deniers” are attempting to “derail meaningful efforts to respond to global climate change.”
Dozens of letters from ACS members were published on July 27, 2009 castigating Baum, with some scientists calling for his replacement as editor-in-chief.
The editorial was met with a swift, passionate and scientific rebuke from Baum’s colleagues. Virtually all of the letters published on July 27 in castigated Baum’s climate science views. Scientists rebuked Baum’s use of the word “deniers” because of the terms “association with Holocaust deniers.” In addition, the scientists called Baum’s editorial: “disgusting”; “a disgrace”; “filled with misinformation”; “unworthy of a scientific periodical” and “pap.”
One outraged ACS member wrote to Baum: “When all is said and done, and you and your kind are proven wrong (again), you will have moved on to be an unthinking urn for another rat pleading catastrophe. You will be removed. I promise.”
Baum ‘startled’ by scientists reaction.
Baum wrote on July 27, that he was “startled” and “surprised” by the “contempt” and “vehemence” of the ACS scientists to his view of the global warming “consensus.”
“Some of the letters I received are not fit to print. Many of the letters we have printed are, I think it is fair to say, outraged by my position on global warming,” Baum wrote.
Selected Excerpts of Skeptical Scientists:
“I think it’s time to find a new editor,” ACS member Thomas E. D’Ambra wrote.
Geochemist R. Everett Langford wrote: “I am appalled at the condescending attitude of Rudy Baum, Al Gore, President Barack Obama, et al., who essentially tell us that there is no need for further research—that the matter is solved.”
ACS scientist Dennis Malpass wrote: “Your editorial was a disgrace. It was filled with misinformation, half-truths, and ad hominem attacks on those who dare disagree with you. Shameful!”
ACS member scientist Dr. Howard Hayden, a Physics Professor Emeritus from the University of Connecticut: “Baum’s remarks are particularly disquieting because of his hostility toward skepticism, which is part of every scientist’s soul. Let’s cut to the chase with some questions for Baum: Which of the 20-odd major climate models has settled the science, such that all of the rest are now discarded? […] Do you refer to ‘climate change’ instead of ‘global warming’ because the claim of anthropogenic global warming has become increasingly contrary to fact?”
Edward H. Gleason wrote: “Baum’s attempt to close out debate goes against all my scientific training, and to hear this from my ACS is certainly alarming to me…his use of ‘climate-change deniers’ to pillory scientists who do not believe climate change is a crisis is disingenuous and unscientific.”
Atmospheric Chemist Roger L. Tanner: “I have very little in common with the philosophy of the Heartland Institute and other ‘free-market fanatics,’ and I consider myself a progressive Democrat. Nevertheless, we scientists should know better than to propound scientific truth by consensus and to excoriate skeptics with purple prose.”
William Tolley: “I take great offense that Baum would use Chemical and Engineering News, for which I pay dearly each year in membership dues, to purvey his personal views and so glibly ignore contrary information and scold those of us who honestly find these views to be a hoax.”
William E. Keller wrote: “However bitter you (Baum) personally may feel about CCDs (climate change deniers), it is not your place as editor to accuse them—falsely—of nonscientific behavior by using insultingly inappropriate language. […] The growing body of scientists, whom you abuse as sowing doubt, making up statistics, and claiming to be ignored by the media, are, in the main, highly competent professionals, experts in their fields, completely honorable, and highly versed in the scientific method—characteristics that apparently do not apply to you.”
ACS member Wallace Embry: “I would like to see the American Chemical Society Board ‘cap’ Baum’s political pen and ‘trade’ him to either the New York Times or Washington Post.” [To read the more reactions from scientists to Baum’s editorial go here and see below.]
Physicist Dr. Lubos Motl, who publishes the Reference Frame website, weighed in on the controversy as well, calling Baum’s editorial an “alarmist screed.”
“Now, the chemists are thinking about replacing this editor who has hijacked the ACS bulletin to promote his idiosyncratic political views,” Motl wrote on July 27, 2009.
Baum cites discredited Obama Administration Climate Report
To “prove” his assertion that the science was “becoming increasingly well established,” Baum cited the Obama Administration’s U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) study as evidence that the science was settled. [Climate Depot Editor’s Note: Baum’s grasp of the latest “science” is embarrassing. For Baum to cite the June 2009 Obama Administration report as “evidence” that science is growing stronger exposes him as having very poor research skills. See this comprehensive report on scientists rebuking that report. See: ‘Scaremongering’: Scientists Pan Obama Climate Report: ‘This is not a work of science but an embarrassing episode for the authors and NOAA’…’Misrepresents the science’ – July 8, 2009 )
Baum also touted the Congressional climate bill as “legislation with real teeth to control the emission of greenhouse gases.” [Climate Depot Editor’s Note: This is truly laughable that an editor-in-chief at the American Chemical Society could say the climate bill has “real teeth.” This statement should be retracted in full for lack of evidence. The Congressional climate bill has outraged environmental groups for failing to impact global temperatures and failing to even reduce emissions! See: Climate Depot Editorial: Climate bill offers (costly) non-solutions to problems that don’t even exist – No detectable climate impact: ‘If we actually faced a man-made ‘climate crisis’, we would all be doomed’ June 20, 2009 ]
The American Chemical Society’s scientific revolt is the latest in a series of recent eruptions against the so-called “consensus” on man-made global warming.
On May 1 2009, the American Physical Society (APS) Council decided to review its current climate statement via a high-level subcommittee of respected senior scientists. The decision was prompted after a group of 54 prominent physicists petitioned the APS revise its global warming position. The 54 physicists wrote to APS governing board: “Measured or reconstructed temperature records indicate that 20th – 21st century changes are neither exceptional nor persistent, and the historical and geological records show many periods warmer than today.”
The petition signed by the prominent physicists, led by Princeton University’s Dr. Will Happer, who has conducted 200 peer-reviewed scientific studies. The peer-reviewed journal Nature published a July 22, 2009 letter by the physicists persuading the APS to review its statement. In 2008, an American Physical Society editor conceded that a “considerable presence” of scientific skeptics exists.
In addition, in April 2009, the Polish National Academy of Science reportedly “published a document that expresses skepticism over the concept of man-made global warming.” An abundance of new peer-reviewed scientific studies continue to be published challenging the UN IPCC climate views. (See: Climate Fears RIP…for 30 years!? – Global Warming could stop ‘for up to 30 years! Warming ‘On Hold?…’Could go into hiding for decades,’ peer-reviewed study finds – Discovery.com – March 2, 2009 & Peer-Reviewed Study Rocks Climate Debate! ‘Nature not man responsible for recent global warming…little or none of late 20th century warming and cooling can be attributed to humans’ – July 23, 2009 )
A March 2009 a 255-page U. S. Senate Report detailed “More Than 700 International Scientists Dissenting Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims.” 2009’s continued lack of warming, further frustrated the promoters of man-made climate fears. See: Earth’s ‘Fever’ Breaks! Global temperatures ‘have plunged .74°F since Gore released An Inconvenient Truth’ – July 5, 2009
In addition, the following developments further in 2008 challenged the “consensus” of global warming. India Issued a report challenging global warming fears; a canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian scientists revealed 68% disagree that global warming science is “settled”; A Japan Geoscience Union symposium survey in 2008 reportedly “showed 90 per cent of the participants do not believe the IPCC report.” Scientific meetings are now being dominated by a growing number of skeptical scientists. The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists’ equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008 and prominently featured the voices of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears. [See: Skeptical scientists overwhelm conference: ‘2/3 of presenters and question-askers were hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC’ & see full reports here & here – Also see: UN IPCC’s William Schlesinger admits in 2009 that only 20% of IPCC scientists deal with climate ]
h/t to ClimateDepot.com go there for links to the above referenced stories.
The ACS letters to the editor are here: http://pubs.acs.org/cen/letters/87/8730letters.html
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page48 (23:25:59) :
RE:
Eric B (16:38:59) “……First off, it’s a theory, not a hypothesis. ……”
Theory and hypothesis are roughly synonymous, Eric.
***********************
My understanding from school is …
1. Observation – a phenomenon is observed and there is no current understanding of it.
2. Hypothesis – a conjecture is made to explain the observation.
3. Experiment – an experiment or experiments are devised to test the hypothesis.
4. If enough experiments confirm the hypothesis, it becomes a theory.
5. If the theory is further confirmed and determined to be fundamental, it becomes a law, like the “law of gravity.”
Eric-the-not-B, “If you are a nonscientist, science to you, should be what scientists say it is.”
The issue with the whole AGW scam is that scientists DON’T say what you claim they say. Scientists speak with many different and often conflicting voices. There is, of course, the popular myth, which claims that there is such a coherent voice, but some careful reflection will show this not to be the case.
We are often told by Gore and others that 2,500 scientists agree that CO2 is causing global warming that will likely be catastrophic. Yet when we study the AR4 summary for policy makers, these dire predictions are written by a handfull of lead authors. Out of the whole report itself, it is only chapter 9 that deals with GHG forcings. All the rest deals with other topics such as land use and management (or lack of management).
You may be unaware, but the scientists who carried out the original research did not write chapter 9 (or any other chapter). The closest analogy I can give is to compare it with an undergraduate essay. The undergraduate researches the available papers, choses the bits that suit his thesis, and writes his essay, copiously sprinkled with references of course. And even though 100 or so scientists may be referenced (a far cry from the ridiculous 2,500 myth) they are not speaking with their own words, and they are not saying that CO2 is causing the earth to catastrophically warm. Moreover, there is as yet nothing in chapter 9 which proves most of the 20th century warming is caused by CO2. If you don’t believe me, go and read it.
Then there is the question of what is a scientist in the first place. Some AGWers use the argument that a skeptic isn’t a scientist or climate scientist and should be ignored. This belief is born of ignorance. Steve McIntyre has been criticized in this way for being, by training, an econometrician. Yet most people throwing these accusations have no idea of what econometrics is. In actual fact it involves a higher understanding of statistical techniques than most scientists possess. Imagine trying to calculate the elasticity of demand for a product from a sea of constantly shifting data, to separate income effects from substitution effects that act in opposite directions. The complexity is mind blowing. That is why when McIntyre and McItrick said Mann’s hockey stick study was wrong, they were proved correct. That is why if McIntyre says a study is flawed, then his view carries weight.
In 2007, after reading the AR4 summary for policy makers, I WAS alarmed, and I believed it all at the time. But I decided to find out more. I was guided through the ether. First Roger Pielke’s climate science and climate audit, then WUWT. I have read dozens of research papers. I’m not a scientist but I can read an abstract and a conclusion. Doing that often enough has led me to the position I’m now at. Scientists are not agreed on climate catastrophism. Not by a long way.
In January, the University of Illinois conducted a global warming survey of 3146 respondants from a listing in the 2007 edition of the American Geological Institute’s Directory of Geoscience Departments. At first sight, this would appear to represent a good sounding of informed scientific opinion. Widely reported and quoted, it is generally taken to reinforce the so-called ‘scientific consensus’ on AGW. viz from CNN
‘Two questions were key: Have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures? About 90 percent of the scientists agreed with the first question and 82 percent the second. The strongest consensus on the causes of global warming came from climatologists who are active in climate research, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role. Petroleum geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 percent and 64 percent, respectively, believing in human involvement.’
The latter two groups were waved aside as essentially irrelevant, strangely.
What is not made obvious is that the 97% of climatologists was only 79 people, but the most intriguing aspect of the survey is curiously never discussed. the clue is in the line ”Two questions were key’. For there were a total of nine questions, the reported two being introductory. The other seven questions and their responses, apparently of no consequence, totally unreported. Now, in a climate change survey of earth scientists, what could these questions of no consequence possibly have related to, perhaps, maybe, CO2 warming and its likely magnitude and severity? Clearly not worth revealing, anyway.
Britannic, In school I was involved in some “polling” to determine opinions. It gave me a few bucks. And meshed in with research classes.
I said before, I consider the paper cherry picked and misleading for a number of reasons. The question of it being warmer than 1800 is one.
However one of the problems with research involving asking people opinions. There is a tendency of respondents to try to give the pollster the answer he wants. To be nice.
Sometimes a good researcher will bury the question he really wants to know about in a whole bunch of irrelevant questions. And you don’t ask the important one first. Respondents tend to be more honest in their responses when you ask a whole lot of questions. They stop reading your mind or trying to. And get more honest.
But without seeing the questions, who knows.
If they’re honerable researchers they’ll give all the questions. And a whole lot more. If I were setting us such a design, I’d likely be asking 9 or 10 questions at a minimum.
But that’s just my unscientific opinion.
danbo (18:12:51) :
Very true. But in this case, the respondents were Earth scientists, and the survey on global warming. It is a strange Earth scientist who would not have formed in depth opinions given the saturation exposure we have all been inflicted with in recent times. I should know- I am one- but the survey was primarily US and I wasn’t asked. You could not conceal key questions even if they were in nuanced Gaelic written backwards. They knew precisely what they were being asked and why. The reported first question is a no brainer, the second an obfuscatory catch all. Including all human influences- historic land clearance and deforestation, major urban developments, large artificial lakes and reservoirs, wetland reclamations, etc. as well as fossil fuel emissions. The survey MUST have probed deeper.
In my opinion the way this survey was reported and publicised potentially compromises the integrity of that university. If I were its Dean, at the very least I would have the full results tabulated and published somewhere, and maybe they have, suitably obscurely?
Britannic True.
“The survey MUST have probed deeper. ” I’m not sure if that’s true. The no brainer first question, (Have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels?) probably tells you what was going on. We can manipulate an impression by asking the right questions. Like comparing tempertures to a base, drawn from a known cool period.
Which brings me to my complaint’s about Oreskes work. Her original search parameters biased her sample. And her use of by implication means you can read anything you want into the results. Is this any different?
The manipulation of the responses alone tell us they were likely looking for the answers they wanted. Rather than just following a desire for knowledge.
Sam Vilain
Too Easy: You ask for 3 so Richard Lindzen, Roger Pielke, Steve Idso, Landsea, Christy, Balling. My big handicap is that I am so lousy with remembering names, yet I can come up with half a dozen off the top of my head who are clearly experts and who don’t buy the pap that catastrophic global warming due to CO2 is coming. In fact I have a lot of trouble anymore finding serious scientists who do believe it.
If it is science than a scientifically trained reader who reads the published papers should be able to judge. Being a researcher directly in the field should not be necessary unless the published authors are grossly incompetent. Your premise is dead wrong in multiple ways.
A theory that fails to explain observations or fails to predict the results of observations is not a theory anymore.
Pamela Grey states: “There is no conspiracy – except maybe from people like Al Gore. I do believe he and his buddies do what they can to promote these ideas, but that does not amount to a “global” conspiracy.”
Unfortunately there IS a global conspiracy.
I was at ground zero of one of the moves 25 years ago. A NH “school teacher” started a nationwide blitz against Polystyrene. It killed the project my boss was head engineer on. Sweetheart Plastics, McDonald’s burgers and a Polystyrene company were about to break ground on a new plant to recycle post consumer clamshells, cups and cutlery. The project was designed to employ the handicap. No way a lone school teach went against powerful corporations and won, not without help. John Munsell’s e-coli experience shows this.
A friend, John Munsell told me a reporter from a big NY paper spent days with him getting an e-coli story about the events that lead to a woman’s death, a USDA coverup and a Congressional investigation. The owner of the paper killed the story.
In fighting the WTO sponsored Animal ID system I have watch data sources disappear or be replaced with out a date change so the USDA can label farmers “disinformation agents” The history of what is happening to your food supply is here: http://www.google.com/search?q=yupfarming+combs&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a
Check out the control of the money supply by the Federal Reserve or similar systems in other countries, Checkout the changes to the laws about using the American military against civilians (Posse Comitatus), checkout the homegrown terrorist list that includes bumper stickers for third party candidates, checkout the agreement (2/14/008) that allows Canadian Military forces into the USA to be used against American citizens.
Maurice Strong:
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” Maurice Strong
He put his beliefs into action with his ties to the UN. In 1970 he began the first in a series of high-level incarnations that included organizing the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the environment, founding and becoming the first head of the U.N.Environment Program, and chairing the 1992 Rio summit on the environment.
And his ties to the Rockefellers. He was a director of the Rockefeller foundation.
Rockefeller has stated:
“The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.”
2002 Rockefeller autobiography “Memoirs” on page 405: “For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents… to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as “internationalists and of conspiring with others around the world … If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”
David Rockefeller praised the major media for their complicity in helping to facilitate the globalist agenda by saying, “We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. . . . It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.”
“Once the ruling members of the CFR shadow government have decided that the U.S. Government should adopt a particular policy, the very substantial research facilities of (the) CFR are put to work to develop arguments, intellectual and emotional, to support the new policy, and to confound and discredit, intellectually and politically, any opposition.”
– Admiral Chester Ward, former CFR member and Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy
Control of Money, Food, Military and now Energy through a world “Cap and Trade scheme”
No conspiracy here, move along please or we will have to put you in a Hallibuton built detainment center. We are recruiting prison guards into the National Guard as we speak.
Posse Comitatus http://www.towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/911/
Military to be used in flu epidemic: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14543
Possible Mandatory vaccination with untested vaccine, (Congress already passed a law so the government and the vaccine manufacturer can not be sued if it harms or kills you.) http://fas.org/sgp/crs/RS21414.pdf
This is scary when all died in one trial: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/2235676/Homeless-people-die-after-bird-flu-vaccine-trial-in-Poland.html
And Baxer made a mistake:http://socioecohistory.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/live-avian-flu-virus-placed-in-baxter-vaccine-materials-sent-to-18-countries/
New detainment facilities : http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-645
National Guard Corrections Officer – Internment/Resettlement Specialist http://jobview.monster.com/getjob.aspx?JobID=82289279&brd=1&q=internment&cy=us&lid=316&re=130&AVSDM=2009-07-16+09%3a18%3a00&pg=1&seq=1&fseo=1&isjs=1&re=1000
Tracking the bills headed for Congress the last couple of years is scaring the bejees out of me.
David L. Hagen (20:11:16) :
Gary Lund
Please post here the letter you sent to ACS.
Sorry for the late response. Here it is:
Dear Editor,
In a recent editorial in the June 22, 2009 issue of C&EN entitled “Climate-Change News”, Rudy Baum opines that “the science of anthropogenic climate change is becoming increasingly well established” and that the scientific consensus on the reality of climate change has become increasingly difficult to challenge…..”
I find these statements interesting in view of my own experience investigating this admittedly emotionally charged subject inasmuch as I have arrived at precisely the opposite conclusion. Having recently been prompted to explore the whole anthropogenic global warming/climate change controversy by increasingly frequent claims of scientific consensus, I have personally been unable to find a satisfactory scientific study supporting a anthropogenic CO2 (or related “green house gas” emission) causal link to global temperature changes. Instead, the literature seems to be well populated with studies which implicitly assume an anthropogenic cause for climate change and proceed to address whatever effect being reported upon might result. The reliance of the anthropogenic climate change theory on global circulation models which appear to be poorly validated is hardly incontrovertible proof. One thing that does seem to have resulted from the recent focus on climate change is an apparent increasingly sophisticated understanding of the various natural forces effecting global temperature cycles.
Rather than sneering at opinions at odds with the so-called consensus and resorting to name calling and ad-hominem attacks, one would do well to retain an open mind towards such a politically important subject. The stakes have been raised to high levels and the consequences have the potential to be profound to future scientific funding and economic growth.
Thank you,
danbo (06:15:07)
Well, at least we can be sure that there are at least 3146 enlightened souls, who, if they have good memory recall, know more than both of us!
But clearly we both smell the same rat.
John M (08:08:42),
Those compensation numbers are astonishing!
And the 2002 compensation was small compared to subsequent years: click
Do these people have no shame?? ACS members should be pounding the table, and insisting that their annual dues should go toward supporting and improving the organization, instead of lining the pockets of ACS officers at the expense of working engineers.
From icecap.us, Scientists are talking to German Chancellor Merkel. From
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/2282/Consensus-Takes-Another-Hit-More-than-60-German-Scientists-Dissent-Over-Global-Warming-Claims
60 German Scientists Dissent Over Global Warming Claims! Call Climate Fears ‘Pseudo Religion’
Marc Morano, Climate Depot
More than 60 prominent German scientists have publicly declared their dissent from man-made global warming fears in an Open Letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The more than 60 signers of the letter include several United Nations IPCC scientists.
The scientists declared that global warming has become a “pseudo religion” and they noted that rising CO2 has “had no measurable effect” on temperatures. The German scientists, also wrote that the “UN IPCC has lost its scientific credibility.”
This latest development comes on the heels of a series of inconvenient developments for the promoters of man-made global warming fears, including new peer-reviewed studies, real world data, a growing chorus of scientists dissenting (including more UN IPCC scientists), open revolts in scientific societies and the Earth’s failure to warm. In addition, public opinion continues to turn against climate fear promotion.
The July 26, 2009 German scientist letter urged Chancellor Merkel to “strongly reconsider” her position on global warming and requested a “convening of an impartial panel” that is “free of ideology” to counter the UN IPCC and review the latest climate science developments.
“”” commonsense (13:58:21) :
Yes, the IPCC and nearly all the other climate models have been proven wrong:
THE WARMING AND MELTING ARE FAR WORSE THAN THOSE MODELS PREDICT.
The models were not alarmist: quite the opposite. “””
So what ? if the models and the real observational data don’t agree, then at least the models are wrong; so they should be discarded; that is ALL of them that don’t agree with the observed data; note the use of the word “observed” to distinguish it from the “manipulated” or “corrected” data.
And yes; when do you expect that they will have collected a sufficient set of sampled data to convince anybody that it actually can reconstruct correctly the full continuous funtion that is being sampled.
Surely one should at least reach that sufficiency point before asserting the at the results are “much worse” than the models predict.
“”” Britannic no-see-um (17:05:27) :
In January, the University of Illinois conducted a global warming survey of 3146 respondants from a listing in the 2007 edition of the American Geological Institute’s Directory of Geoscience Departments. At first sight, this would appear to represent a good sounding of informed scientific opinion. Widely reported and quoted, it is generally taken to reinforce the so-called ’scientific consensus’ on AGW. viz from CNN “””
So just where can we find the complete list of these 3146 “respondents”, along with their Scientific Credentials (or a short bio) and any abstract of their public statements in support of man made global warming.
We could then compare that information with the corresponding information on the 700 or so “scientists” who are listed in the US Senate Minority Report of the Senate EPW committee chaired by Senator Ma’am Boxer of California.
It is one thing for a “respondent” to comment anonymously to a preconceived canned questionaire; but quite another to openly under his own name and scientific credentials, to render his scientific opinion of the issue in his own words.
I can state categorically that I am not one of the 3146 “respondents” to the U of Illinois “survey”; but I am listed in that other 700 (once 400) compendium.
Indeed, but they are far from comparable. These were just random scientists from a range of geoscience departments, research departments and institutes picked out purely because of the convenience that the AGI directory obligingly listed their contact emails and affiliation. Many more were apparently sent the unsolicited mailshot survey, these 3146 were the minority who actually responded. It is therefore merely an extraction of random opinions from a passive, but scientifically literate pool. My suspicions lie firmly with the agenda surrounding the reporting of the results.
The blogosphere is picking up on Baum’s false AGW propaganda: click