Global Warming? Not So Fast, Skeptics Say At Meeting

Here is more evidence that the big media outlets like the Washington Post and the alphabet networks do not cover the news in an objective and balanced way. On Tuesday, June 3, 2009, the 3rd Annual International Conference on Climate Change took place but not one single major news outlet covered it. Why? Because this conference was based on real science and would have shown evidence against the political agenda espoused by networks like CNN and NBC.

From Scott Harper of the Virginia-Pilot:

"We are seldom heard in the policy debate," said Joseph L. Bast, president of The Heartland Institute. "If you open your newspaper, turn on your TV set, you're likely to see global warming alarmism, and nothing else." Bast labeled as "popular delusion" the current conventional wisdom on the issue - that man-made emissions, notably carbon dioxide, from the burning of fossil fuels is dangerously heating up the planet, causing sea levels to rise and is increasing the ferocity of storms and drought. As such, the conference represents a lingering - and still powerful - sentiment that global warming is not such a big deal after all. Instead, attendees argued, the slow and slight increase in air, water and atmospheric temperatures during much of the 20th century is part of a natural cycle of the Earth's unpredictable, roller-coaster weather patterns.

How unpredicatable are the earth's weather patterns? So much so that the global warming alarmist people have gotten their own predictions wrong. The earth has been in a cooling trend since 2003.

More:

Bast acknowledged that the conference was hurriedly organized, and moved from New York City to Washington, to counteract proposals from President Barack Obama for a "cap-and-trade" program aimed at fighting global warming by drastically limiting carbon emissions. Bast and others described the proposed programs as a complete waste of money, with potentially crippling consequences for the economy, and without any attainable goals. "How do you control the weather?" asked Bob Carter, an Australian scholar from James Cook University. "For us to assume we can somehow control nature and regulate weather patterns, when we cannot even predict them correctly, is patently absurd."

And this:

[S]cientist after scientist at the conference pointed out flaws and shortcomings in the calculations of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations sponsored group), especially its reliance on computer models to make forecasts. One researcher, Roy Spencer, a professor at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, noted that the IPCC did not adequately calculate how clouds play a major role in ground temperatures. When there are few clouds in the sky, temperatures typically are warmer, Spencer said, and when it is cloudy outside, conditions typically are cooler. Is it possible then, Spencer asked, that decreasing clouds in recent decades caused the warmings recorded on Earth? Spencer said he asked the IPCC about this and was surprised to learn that the organization had not researched this point and had assumed that cloud cover does not change over time but is fairly consistent. The two revelations sparked more wry laughter from the audience. "If a 1 percent change in cloudiness could trigger global warming, or global cooling, wouldn't you think that'd be a pretty important thing to nail down?" Spencer asked. "They have never gone there."

How interesting it would have been to see this covered on the Today Show or Good Morning America or some other news broadcast. But that would have meant doing damage to the leftist political agenda, even if it meant bringing some truth to an issue that many people seem to be completely ignorant of.

But, where global warming alramists are politicians (or scientists trying to win research grants) the skeptics are mostly scientists objectively looking at the data:

William "Skip" Stiles, a Norfolk environmentalist, was working as a congressional aide back then, and he remembers the committee hearings, the charges and countercharges of bias and flawed science. "I will agree that these models are only as good as the data that goes into them," Stiles said. "But when you think of all the shots these folks have had at this, and all the years of research by the IPCC - we're talking 25 years! - you have to think we've reached some fairly solid conclusions that global warming is real and we, as humans, are playing a major role in it." Carl Hershner, a researcher and professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science who has tracked sea level rise in Virginia for years, expressed similar thoughts. "One thing about science is that you never get rid of all the naysayers," Hershner said. He described the IPCC as "an extremely conservative group" that "constantly looks at achieving consensus, and updates its findings regularly."

Let's get the politicians out of the debate and let the scientists discuss the full spectrum of data.

You can access the complete story on-line here:

Global Warming? Not So Fast, Skeptics Say At Meeting
Scott Harper
Virginia Pilot
June 6, 2009