Rick Perry, scientist skeptics of man's role in global warming

Larry Bell, Forbes:

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Cohen observed that “[Perry] occupies the cultural and intellectually empty heartland of the Republican party.” The article scorned Perry for publicly stating that he stood with an increasing number of scientists who have challenged the existence of man-made global warming threats, commenting “…whoever they (italics noted) might be. In Appleton, Wis., Sen. Joe McCarthy’s skeleton rattled a bit.” His reference to McCarthy went on to elaborate that “The late and hardly lamented demagogue pioneered the use of the concocted statistic” in suggesting that communists were literally everywhere. He further amplified “There were some, of course, just as there are some scientists who are global warming skeptics, but these few – about 2% of climate researchers – could hold their annual meeting in a phone booth, if there are any left. (Perhaps 2% of scientists think they are).”


This would require a pretty big phone booth, and actually, there really are many of those “global warming skeptics” still remaining. In fact, that number (yes- scientists with solid credentials) has been rapidly multiplying, not diminishing.

Since 2007 more than 31,000 American scientists from diverse climate-related disciplines, including more than 9,000 with Ph.D.s, have signed a public petition announcing their belief that “…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.” Included are atmospheric physicists, botanists, geologists, oceanographers, and meteorologists.

A 2008 international survey of climate scientists conducted by German scientists Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch revealed deep disagreement concerning two-thirds of the 54 questions asked about their professional views, with responses to about half of those areas skewing on the “skeptic” side and no consensus to support any alarm. The majority did not believe that atmospheric models can deal with important influences of clouds, precipitation, atmospheric convention, ocean convection, or turbulence. Most also did not believe that climate models can predict precipitation, sea level rise, extreme weather events, or temperature values for the next 50 years.

A 2010 survey of media broadcast meteorologists conducted by the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication found that 83% believe global warming is mostly caused by natural, not human, causes. Those polled included members of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the National Weather Association. Another survey published by the AMS found that only one in four respondents agreed with UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claims that humans are primarily responsible for recent warming.

A literature review of 928 scientific papers published on “global climate change” between 2004 and 2007 that appeared in a 2008 issue of Environment & Energy, reported that 31 (6%) of 591 explicitly or implicitly rejected the idea of consensus that more than half of warming over the past 50 years was likely to have been anthropogenic. Fewer than half endorsed consensus, and only 7% did so explicitly.

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There is more.

It appears that one of the big lies of the globo warmers is that everybody agrees with them. They are a group that tries to avoid debate by saying there is nothing to debate. There are a lot of scientist who are skeptical of that argument. There are also a lot of voters who are skeptical and who do not like to have their intelligence insulted by politicians who disagree with them.