From: dean@vexcel.com (dean alaska)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: Gore: anti-scientific demagogue
Date: 19 Aug 92 18:45:07 GMT
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder, CO

In article <16847AE7F.JHARTLEY@cmsa.gmr.com> JHARTLEY@cmsa.gmr.com writes:
>Hmm, I am starting to see a real trend in the Gore household.  First Tipper
>takes record labelling to the Senate and presents her case to Al Gore.
>Surprise.  The ladies get a very warm reception.
>
>Now it appears that Al Gore likes to stack the odds in his favor on matters
>of science.  I earlier posted an editorial denouncing the way Gore has tried to
>ruin the careers of recognizied scientists whose work does not fit into his
>views about the environment.  I just ran across this article from the
>Ocean Science News, Vol. 34, #15, May 31, 1992, excerpts of which follow:
>
>"On the eve of the so-called Earth Summit, more scientists than ever before
>are challenging the extraordinary media hype behind the concept of global
>warming.
>Just 10 weeks ago, 46 meteorologists went on the record with their concerns
>that global warming has become more of a political thing <<Albert Gore,
>are you there?>> than a scientific forecast based on fact (OSN, 23MAR, 92).
>Then on 28 April no less a pair of experts than William Nierenberg,
>director emeritus of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Frederick
>Seitz, president emeritus of Rockefeller University and past president of
>the National Academy of Sciences, briefed just a half dozen reporters
>on their most recent findings about global warming.  But no one from the major
>media bothered to show up and learn that ' global warming is substantially
>exaggerated.'

And just what do these meteorologists think the actual situation is?
Do they know more than the climatologists?  What about the
statement signed by 80-some nobel laureates and 700 or so members
of the National Academy of Sciences to the contrary.

>The just released spring issue of Regulation carries an article by Richard
>Lindzen, professor of atmospheric and planetary science at MIT with the
>conclusion that 'there is no substantive basis for predictions of sizable
>global warming due to observed increases in minor greenhouse gases such as
>carbon dioxide, methane, and chlorofluorocarbons."

Lindzen is in the minority on this issue.  An article in the April 17, 1992
article of the journal Science describes the _consensus_ of climatologists
that there is definitely cause for concern about global warming.  Lindzen's
minority theory is discussed in the article, and critiqued by many
climatologists, including his colleagues.  Check out this article if
you want to know what most climatologists think.
>
>Nierenberg cited Senator Al Gore (D TN) as "a big part of the problem of
>getting a more balanced point of view before the public".  Meeting with
>Gore had been "one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life",
>the former Scripps head told reporters.  And in disgust, "Gore started
>to lecture me on ice cores".  Nierenberg, of course, is one of the
>world's experts on the subject.  He also reported that Lindzen, who had
>appeared on one of Gore's teach-ins on global warming and climate change,
>had charged later that Gore had misquoted his (Lindzen's) conclusions in
>order to build the argument for global warming."

I don't know exactly what Gore has or hasn't said.  Maybe he shouldn't
be lecturing scientists on ice cores.  But if Nierenberg's theories are
as widely held as Lindzen's, then maybe Gore had a point.

I don't want to belittle Lindzen.  From what I have read, he is highly
respected in his field.  Nevertheless, he is not representative of the
consensus that exists among climatologists.
>-----end of quote----


-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)
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