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Throwing stones in the glass greenhouse

By Mark S. Lawson - posted Thursday, 7 June 2007


One prominent critic of the IPCC is Robert Balling, director of the Office of Climatology at Arizona State University. But when confronted with this, an IPCCer will point triumphantly to assertions that Balling has “links” with oil companies, as if that wipes him out as a credible sceptic. It does not, or if it did, then the bulk of the pro-greenhouse scientists would also be swept from the board. For not only do most of the greenhouse scientists take salaries and immense research grants from Greenhouse bodies of one sort or another, they have invested a lot of their careers in the Greenhouse story, and may even tell you they are “passionate” about the environment to boot.

For the environmental lobby to complain about oil company grants is not just throwing stones in the glass greenhouse, it is chucking around enormous boulders.

In any case, the amounts cited in allegations about grants to public policy bodies (to which the scientist in question may be connected) - $10,000 here $100,000 there - are tiny, even derisory in US terms, compared to the enormous amounts being lavished on greenhouse research.

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The Australian Greenhouse Office’s website indicates that the AGO, the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology alone have a four-year $90 million research program ending next year. The University of New South Wales recently announced a $6 million Climate Change Research Centre headed by two distinguished scientists.

I humbly suggest that these examples are just the tip of the funding iceberg.

In contrast, the oil and coal industry may be well-funded but they could not give away any of those funds for research if they tried. No environmental scientist would dare touch that source of funds and would have a great deal of trouble getting any subsequent research published.

No, the debate is being driven by the greenhouse industry and, as noted, certain elements of the industry are not about to permit balanced debate.

Another prominent sceptic is William M. Gray, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, and head of the Tropical Meteorology Project at CSU's Department of Atmospheric Sciences. A greenhouser may typically dismiss Professor Gray’s objections by saying that his expertise is in hurricanes and that he is not very good at predicting them, and that he is a meteorologist not a climatologist.

All three points may be true to some extent but, again, they are not relevant. Meteorology is not very far from climatology at all and Professor Gray is an eminent scientist indeed. In any case, the greenhouse industry has been banging-on about how storms will become more powerful in a warmed up world. Professor Gray, above many other scientists, would be in a position to know the truth of those assertions and he seems to have doubts, so maybe the emphasis should be on listening to what he has to say rather than on finding gossamer thin excuses for pushing his objections aside.

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Confronted with a list of eminent sceptics, a greenhouser may use the above tricks to cast doubts on a few then wave the whole list away as “doubtful”, although the list may include those whom they can find no pretext for dismissing. Those others include the likes of Associate Professor Stewart Franks, a hydro climatologist at the University of Newcastle in NSW, or Tim Ball, a former Professor of Climatology at the University of Winnipeg.

Another argument frequently used is that many of the sceptics are senior or even retired scientists. This is certainly true, although why seniority should be a problem I don’t know. However, in the current climate (pun intended) only a brave mid-career environmental scientist would voice scepticism. The scientist’s funding would almost certainly depend on some greenhouse body, and discrimination can be expected.

The best known example of discrimination against sceptics concerns Hendrik Tennekes, a former director of research at the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute and now a professor of aeronautical engineering at Pennsylvania State University. Considered the elder statesman of the sceptics, he was forced out of his job at the Dutch Institute in the 1980s for daring to speak out against climate change dogma.

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About the Author

Mark Lawson is a senior journalist at the Australian Financial Review. He has written The Zen of Being Grumpy (Connor Court).

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