In light of what happened yesterday with The Independent apparently disappearing a famous climate prediction blunder article while leaving an article critical of its use intact, this opinion piece by Joe Wallach seemed pertinent -Anthony
Guest opinion by Joe Wallach
Warming alarmists use a curious method to promote their view of “climate change”, censorship. If 97% of the scientific community (read IPCC) are so certain that humans are responsible for global warming, they should present irrefutable, supporting scientific evidence. Instead panic and censorship are used to advance their cause. In a society where freedom of speech is a treasured attribute, and is sought for all sorts of causes, beneficial and farcical censorship is an anathema. According to one alarmist earlier in 2015, who refused to allow me to recommend the work of a group of French scientists and engineers to his readership, he stated that:
“Climate Change denial is one of the subjects we don’t allow on UnpublishedOttawa.com because it’s not based on real facts. Anyone can grab facts and make an argument out of it, but when the vast majority of scientists, who have little to gain, agree that we have a problem, a problem that is already manifesting itself all around the world, then allowing posts that deny this reality, is in our opinion akin to intentional deception.”
More recently, I submitted a post to another human climate change site in the Ottawa, Canada area, in which I asked if anyone could provide a single piece of irrefutable, undeniable evidence that humans are responsible for global warming. That, too, was blocked by the purveyor of the site http://www.boomerwarrior.org/.
In October, 2015 the cégep (a cégep is the community college equivalent in Québec, Canada) at Trois Rivières, Quebec cancelled a scheduled talk, in which retired Professor Reynald Duberger was invited by a faculty member to speak on global warming. Professor Duberger’s opposition to the idea of anthropogenic global warming is well known among francophones on both sides of the Atlantic, a position that is not acceptable to many institutions of higher education.
That is not the first time that Professor Duberger was so rebuffed, but it is noteworthy because it made headlines in the nearly 50,000-circulation newspaper, Le Nouvelliste, in Trois Rivières (population 130,000). Translated, the bold headline declares: Climate change: The Cégep cancels Reynald Duberger’s talk (http://www.lapresse.ca/le-nouvelliste/actualites/environnement/201510/13/01-4909558-changements-climatiques-le-cegep-annule-la-conference-de-reynald-duberger.php)
Educational institutions are supposed to provide a thorough education. At the high school, community college and university levels that includes the presentation of contrary points of view that may emerge over a critical, current events issue, such as global warming. Censoring legitimate, contradictory viewpoints on human-induced global warming is a gross disservice to the students, and to society. Advocating human-induced global warming without also providing information on contradictory, scientifically supported opinions is brainwashing.
Professor Duberger is an earth scientist (seismology and geology) who understands the behavior of the planet. He is a frequent guest on talk radio in Quebec City and speaks very eloquently so that one need not be a specialist to understand him. It is unfortunate for the students that Professor Duberger’s scheduled talk to them was cancelled by the Director of Studies, Denis Rousseau.
According to the reporter for Le Nouvelliste the following explanation, in italicized text, was advanced by Denis Rousseau as justification for the cancellation: Knowing how the courses in exact sciences offered here are taught we were reluctant to hear the ideas espoused by the author (he meant speaker)…we teach exact sciences here and our professors believe that global warming is a fact, which contradicts the opinion of the speaker. Then to “punctuate” his discourse Rousseau added: The majority of scientists believe that global warming is a fact. Duberger offers a natural retort to that last statement by referring to the derision endured by Alfred Wegener until his death because the majority of geoscientists ridiculed his now widely accepted and understood theory of Plate Tectonics.
It is fascinating that Rousseau referred to exact sciences, but he should have explained, with evidence, what an exact science is, particularly with respect to terrestrial, environmental or climatological processes. I’m sure that even Mother Nature would love to hear that. In the context of supporting a position with evidence one of Professor Duberger’s notable concerns is that no one seems to have furnished incontrovertible evidence that global warming is caused by human activity. As a geoscientist Professor Duberger is fully aware of temperature variations that have occurred throughout geological time including the global warming that wiped out most of the continental ice sheets, except for Greenland and the polar regions, that covered the northern hemisphere approximately 9,000 – 12,000 years ago. During none of those previous events were there factories or hydrocarbon-fueled machines of any kind.
Rousseau’s arguments scream for knowledgeable scientists to speak at the cégep to, at the very least, give the students good, concrete reasons to think critically about natural vs. anthropogenic global warming. This is not merely an academic distinction, but has definite economic consequences as well, as illustrated in the following link (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/how-canada-s-provinces-are-tackling-greenhouse-gas-emissions-1.3030535). The subject of global warming, or the more recently minted “climate change”, must be dealt with rationally, not by censorship.
This seems to be a very actual subject, since I’ve just read another post, on another blog, on the same idea. My thoughts are still the same: I’m no fan of those IPCC studies and, in my oppinion, IPCC made wrong analysis during the past years. Here’s an example: The IPCC Report from 1990 states: “Emission resulting from human activities is substantially increasing the atmospheric concentration of the greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and nitrous oxide. These increases will enhance the greenhouse effect, resulting on average in additional warming of the earth’s surface. The main greenhouse gas, water vapour, will increase in response to global warming and further enhance it”.
Not everybody agreed with IPCC and its “consensus” thesis. While most of the scientists and climatologists supported it, there were also voices which contradict the conclusions of IPCC. The most important document in this regard is the “Oregon Petition” of 1998, signed by 17,000 scientists who were protesting against the Kyoto Agreement. The petition requested the acknowledgement of the following statement: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth”.
The funny thing is that now, even after more than 25 years of climate change debate, we don’t agreee and won’t be able to solve the problem.
Government-wide censorship of scientists has now ended. If individual schools are cancelling speaking engagements that’s unfortunate.
Muzzled Canadian scientists now free to speak with media
“Our government values science and will treat scientists with respect,” said Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/11/06/muzzles-removed-for-federal-scientists-at-department-of-fisheries-and-oceans.html
Federal scientists eager to share their research now that muzzles are off
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/federal-scientists-eager-to-share-their-research-now-that-muzzles-are-off/article27171269/
This policy of the dumped former government applied to a wide range of sciences- not just climate, but pollution and pretty much anything in the way of the extractive industries.
At the end of this post, the author repeats an error. Claiming that “climate change” is recently minted is simply incorrect. Global Warming was coined in 1975, Climate Change was in the well-known PNAS “Charney Report” in 1979.
“The first decisive National Academy of Science study of carbon dioxide’s impact on climate, published in 1979, abandoned “inadvertent climate modification.” Often called the Charney Report for its chairman, Jule Charney of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, declared: “if carbon dioxide continues to increase, [we find] no reason to doubt that climate changes will result and no reason to believe that these changes will be negligible.”
In place of inadvertent climate modification, Charney adopted Broecker’s usage. When referring to surface temperature change, Charney used “global warming.” When discussing the many other changes that would be induced by increasing carbon dioxide, Charney used “climate change.””
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/climate_by_any_other_name.html
And look at the title and the last sentence from a 1975 paper:
“Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?”
Wallace S. Broecker
Science 8 August 1975: 460-463. [DOI:10.1126/science.189.4201.460]
final sentence: “There is little doubt, however, that this gradual warming will lead to changes in the pattern of global precipitation. Our efforts to understand and eventually to predict these changes must be redoubled.”
The science and the terms are not new.
‘Panic and censorship are used to advance the cause of
environmental alarmists.’
J.W. – put mildly. With focus on Paris the target narrows towards
breach of peace and incitement.
Regards – Hans
Not on this thread!
But related with Dr. Tim Balls
post on Vladimir Putin, where my comment misses the basic word PRIVILEGED –
here we go:
‘attempt to clear the views:
fascism is the follower of futurism.
– futurist is Who Declares himself a futurist.
– fascist is Who Declares himself a fascist.
– dictator is Who Acts like
a dictator.
– despot mostly Is Declared a despot, e.g. by literats and media.
– tyrann in the classic pollei Was Elected as tyrann by the PRIVILEGED citizens.’
Regards – Hans