The Wall Street Journal frequently runs articles that are skeptical about anthropogenic climate change or skeptical whether climate change will make much of a difference to anyone.
In years past, prestigious newspapers like the WSJ could just ignore their critics (as could the New York Times and the Washington Post)
Now scientists who represent another view, in this case the main stream view which business as usual hopes is not so, don’t have to confine their objections to obscure journals available only in hard copy at libraries.
Now climatologists can reply in a very frequently read blog.
Read: Global Warming Delusions at the Wall Street Journal. Real Climate.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
Ralph,
Everyone imagines themselves as global warming experts. As a scientist I have never seen this in any other scientific field. For those people who would like to learn about the realities of energy and climate change, I refer them to the Nobel Lecture webcasts at Gustavous College; see http://gustavus.edu/events/nobelconference/2007/
In a related note, James Hansen is speaking about climate issues at the University of Montana-Missoula on Monday. It is a seminar from 3:10-4:30, then a speech at 8:00 PM.
It is probably true that most folks on either side of the climate issue have never read one scientific paper on this subject. Human induced climate change skeptics may, for the most part, base their beliefs on ideology or theology while non-skeptics believe that there is pretty much a”world wide scientific consensus” on human induced climate change. My question is where can someone find the numbers, statistics & qualifications of those who are pro & con on this issue?. I have read that something in the order of 2500 “certified scientists” are pro on climate change with a handfull who are con. Enlighten me>
Monty,
As a scientist, I would estimate that greater than 90% of the climate scientists believe in “man-made” global warming.–note that I said man-made. Global warming of itself is not in dispute among any scientist that I know. You have the oddball true climate scientist like Dr. Richard Lindzen of MIT who has doubts, but then he doesn’t believe that smoking causes an increase in lung cancer either. Interestingly among the doubtful scientists a large group tends to be cosmologists. Another group of non-scientist non-believers is your average TV weatherman.
Two other notes, when you watch your TV weather man and he gives you an average high and low temperature for the date, this is actually a running 30 year average even though they may have data for a longer period of time at the measuring weather station. This tends to “dampen” changes that are actually taking place. And finally, when the Hansen group says of science in general and climate research, in particular, “one often gets the impression that scientific progress consists of a series of revolutions where scientists discard all their past thinking each time a new result gets published. This is often because only a small handful of high-profile studies in a given field are known by the wider public and media, and thus unrealistic weight is attached to those studies. New results are often over-emphasized (sometimes by the authors, sometimes by lobby groups) to make them sound important enough to have news value. Thus “bombshells” usually end up being duds”.