Humans have such a large impact on the environment...

monkeyman · February 3, 2007, 11:36am

.

BillyTheMountain · February 3, 2007, 12:27pm

No more double posting.

Hey, after Bethlehem Steel killed Lake Erie in the 1960s, it came back to life (after the Bethlehem steel plant on the lake shore rusted). Everything industrial pollution has killed has come back to life, except all the dead animals and people. Maybe air pollution and water pollution isn’t really that serious.

maybe we just need to develop a greater tolerance for environmental poisons. maybe we just need more melanin, to tolerate much more sun.

threeinchtire · February 3, 2007, 5:08pm

No, you’re wrong. “Likely”, from the report (actually:“very likely”) means, 90-99% sure. If that’s not good enough evidence for you (from the top scientists in the world), then what is? I don’t know anything about other planets warming, is there evidence somewhere? This is most certainly not related, or if it is it represents only a small percentage of what we are experiencing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6321351.stm

This is simply a news article about the findings, but it is from a good, reputable source and is written in understandable language.

I’m not really sure where you’re going with this…Are you saying that the people who put the IPCC report together (they seem like trustworthy fellows to me) are doing this with some ulterior motive?
Also: If you’ve seen the graphs of the chunk of time humans have been keeping track of, it is quite obvious that this is not part of the natural cycle…And I don’t think the sun has been turned up recently either, it follows a natural cycle (and has stayed relatively constant of late) and wouldn’t appreciate being blamed for what’s going on down here

Please read the link before posting!

UniGeezer · February 3, 2007, 6:33pm

I truly belive this is what it’s ALL about! YEs! Good point.

Victory · February 3, 2007, 7:59pm

^^ I agree also with these statements.^^

Lately here in Canada the big talk in politics is the kyoto protocol. It’s rather sad how so many ppl are pushing it and jumping on board without even understanding how it works and what it entails.

Here is a documentary that goes actually talks about mankind’s role or (lack of role) in global warming.
check it out:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1399900408121222150&q=climate+catastrophe+cancelled

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4468713209160533271&q=climate+catastrophe+cancelled

ivan · February 4, 2007, 4:48am

BillyTheMountain:

Angela Charlton, Canadian Press
Published: Saturday, February 03, 2007 Article tools
Printer friendly

E-mail
Font: * * * * PARIS (AP) - Fear of runaway global warming pushed 46 countries to line up Saturday behind France’s bid for a new environmental body that could single out - and perhaps police - nations that abuse the Earth.

“It is our responsibility. The future of humanity demands it,” President Jacques Chirac said in an appeal to put the environment at the top of the world’s agenda.

He spoke at a conference a day after the release in Paris of a grim landmark report from the world’s leading climate scientists and government officials that said global warming is so severe that it will “continue for centuries” and that humans are to blame.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report sparked calls for fast, planet-wide action. But not everyone at Chirac’s conference welcomed the idea of a body that would define and possibly enforce environmental rules.

Key world polluters - including the United States, China, India and Russia - steered clear, while Europeans embraced it. A total of 46 countries agreed to pursue plans for the new organization, and to hold their first meeting in Morocco this spring.

Damn USA, China, India and Russia.
The selfish bastards!

It’s good that 46 countries agreed to make a change, though. I hope they’ll actually be doing something as opposed to having multiple conferences about it. I wonder if Cyprus is on the list. Cypriots pretty much shit all over their island, a change is needed.

JusticeZero · February 4, 2007, 8:01pm

Trees give off a lot of CO2 when they are burned. HOWEVER, they also give off a lot of smoke and ash and other debris which is solid and primarily carbon. Furthermore, trees shed leaves, bark, etc. over the course of their lives, which decompose and become soil - this material is also made up of carbon. Soil does not burn in a fire.
In the normal cycle, trees grow, and are burned in regular fires. Old-growth forests actually are NOT absorbing much, if any, carbon from the atmosphere - they aren’t growing much, and are mostly a wasteland because they block the sun. Newer growth such as is naturally burned and replenished in regular fire deforestation cycles is absorbing and fixing carbon at a faster rate. Not that people are comfortable with this fact, especially as they love to live on the interface where the necessary fires would need to happen.

bugman · February 5, 2007, 7:00pm

Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide
Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts?

By Timothy Ball

Monday, February 5, 2007

Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn’t exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth. But few listen, despite the fact that I was the first Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition.“Few listen, even though I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and was a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg.” . For some reason (actually for many), the World is not listening. Here is why.

What would happen if tomorrow we were told that, after all, the Earth is flat? It would probably be the most important piece of news in the media and would generate a lot of debate. So why is it that when scientists who have studied the Global Warming phenomenon for years say that humans are not the cause nobody listens? Why does no one acknowledge that the Emperor has no clothes on?

Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification. For example, Environment Canada brags about spending $3.7 billion in the last five years dealing with climate change almost all on propaganda trying to defend an indefensible scientific position while at the same time closing weather stations and failing to meet legislated pollution targets.

No sensible person seeks conflict, especially with governments, but if we don’t pursue the truth, we are lost as individuals and as a society. That is why I insist on saying that there is no evidence that we are, or could ever cause global climate change. And, recently, Yuri A. Izrael, Vice President of the United Nations sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed this statement. So how has the world come to believe that something is wrong?

Maybe for the same reason we believed, 30 years ago, that global cooling was the biggest threat: a matter of faith. “It is a cold fact: the Global Cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for ten thousand years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance; the survival of ourselves, our children, our species,” wrote Lowell Ponte in 1976.

I was as opposed to the threats of impending doom global cooling engendered as I am to the threats made about Global Warming. Let me stress I am not denying the phenomenon has occurred. The world has warmed since 1680, the nadir of a cool period called the Little Ice Age (LIA) that has generally continued to the present. These climate changes are well within natural variability and explained quite easily by changes in the sun. But there is nothing unusual going on.

Since I obtained my doctorate in climatology from the University of London, Queen Mary College, England my career has spanned two climate cycles. Temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and in the early 1970’s global cooling became the consensus. This proves that consensus is not a scientific fact. By the 1990’s temperatures appeared to have reversed and Global Warming became the consensus. It appears I’ll witness another cycle before retiring, as the major mechanisms and the global temperature trends now indicate a cooling.

No doubt passive acceptance yields less stress, fewer personal attacks and makes career progress easier. What I have experienced in my personal life during the last years makes me understand why most people choose not to speak out; job security and fear of reprisals. Even in University, where free speech and challenge to prevailing wisdoms are supposedly encouraged, academics remain silent.

I once received a three page letter that my lawyer defined as libellous, from an academic colleague, saying I had no right to say what I was saying, especially in public lectures. Sadly, my experience is that universities are the most dogmatic and oppressive places in our society. This becomes progressively worse as they receive more and more funding from governments that demand a particular viewpoint.

In another instance, I was accused by Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki of being paid by oil companies. That is a lie. Apparently he thinks if the fossil fuel companies pay you have an agenda. So if Greenpeace, Sierra Club or governments pay there is no agenda and only truth and enlightenment?

Personal attacks are difficult and shouldn’t occur in a debate in a civilized society. I can only consider them from what they imply. They usually indicate a person or group is losing the debate. In this case, they also indicate how political the entire Global Warming debate has become. Both underline the lack of or even contradictory nature of the evidence.

I am not alone in this journey against the prevalent myth. Several well-known names have also raised their voices. Michael Crichton, the scientist, writer and filmmaker is one of them. In his latest book, “State of Fear” he takes time to explain, often in surprising detail, the flawed science behind Global Warming and other imagined environmental crises.

Another cry in the wildenerness is Richard Lindzen’s. He is an atmospheric physicist and a professor of meteorology at MIT, renowned for his research in dynamic meteorology - especially atmospheric waves. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has held positions at the University of Chicago, Harvard University and MIT. Linzen frequently speaks out against the notion that significant Global Warming is caused by humans. Yet nobody seems to listen.

I think it may be because most people don’t understand the scientific method which Thomas Kuhn so skilfully and briefly set out in his book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” A scientist makes certain assumptions and then produces a theory which is only as valid as the assumptions. The theory of Global Warming assumes that CO2 is an atmospheric greenhouse gas and as it increases temperatures rise. It was then theorized that since humans were producing more CO2 than before, the temperature would inevitably rise. The theory was accepted before testing had started, and effectively became a law.

As Lindzen said many years ago: “the consensus was reached before the research had even begun.” Now, any scientist who dares to question the prevailing wisdom is marginalized and called a sceptic, when in fact they are simply being good scientists. This has reached frightening levels with these scientists now being called climate change denier with all the holocaust connotations of that word. The normal scientific method is effectively being thwarted.

Meanwhile, politicians are being listened to, even though most of them have no knowledge or understanding of science, especially the science of climate and climate change. Hence, they are in no position to question a policy on climate change when it threatens the entire planet. Moreover, using fear and creating hysteria makes it very difficult to make calm rational decisions about issues needing attention.

Until you have challenged the prevailing wisdom you have no idea how nasty people can be. Until you have re-examined any issue in an attempt to find out all the information, you cannot know how much misinformation exists in the supposed age of information.

I was greatly influenced several years ago by Aaron Wildavsky’s book “Yes, but is it true?” The author taught political science at a New York University and realized how science was being influenced by and apparently misused by politics. He gave his graduate students an assignment to pursue the science behind a policy generated by a highly publicised environmental concern. To his and their surprise they found there was little scientific evidence, consensus and justification for the policy. You only realize the extent to which Wildavsky’s findings occur when you ask the question he posed. Wildavsky’s students did it in the safety of academia and with the excuse that it was an assignment. I have learned it is a difficult question to ask in the real world, however I firmly believe it is the most important question to ask if we are to advance in the right direction.

Dr. Tim Ball, Chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (www.nrsp.com), is a Victoria-based environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. He can be reached at letters@canadafreepress.com

Chew on that awhile.

BillyTheMountain · February 5, 2007, 8:16pm

Did you read that ultra oddball blogspot crap?

bugman · February 6, 2007, 4:27am

So it’s true then. If you can’t dispute the facts, dispute the source, person etc…

threeinchtire · February 6, 2007, 6:23am

I’m assuming you aren’t serious about this and are just trying to get some discussion going…
If you are, it’s not even worth responding to. Reminds me of a Weekly World News article…

steveyo · February 6, 2007, 8:00am

Okay, I chewed, swallowed, and now allow me to defecate all over this Ball guy.

First, let me say that I read all of this article. (Bugman, you have to read all of mine because I read all of yours.) While Ball’s article was written very authoritatively and convincingly, there is no scientific fact included in it. None.

For example:

What the…? How do global temperature trends now indicate a cooling? From all the real data-backed science I’ve read, Ball’s statement is utter nonsense. He just spewed out this sentence, contradicting all current scientic, peer-reviewed, hard data, and didn’t back it up with anything. To me that’s not very credible.

From 1988 thru 1996 Mr. Ball was a geography professor at U of W, not climatology, as he claims. Prof. Ball hasn’t published on climate science in any peer-reviewed scientific journal in more than 14 years. He has been paid to speak by a public-relations company that works for energy firms. His travel expenses are covered by a group supported by donors from the Alberta oil patch. Hmmm…less credibility.

Timothy Ball was formerly on the board of FoS (Friends of Science), a lobbying firm almost wholly supported by oil companies. Ian Rutherford, Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) executive director, said, “No member from Friends of Science presented any papers, viewpoints or even attended the CMOS meeting…they never present their arguments in front of scientists…” Credibility? Ummm…I’m still a big no.

Further, the NSRP (Ball is the Chairman) is also headed by other energy industry lobbyists. Tom Harris, the Exec. Director, is former director of High Park Group, a lobbying company working for Canadian electric, gas, oil, and other energy companies. And Dr. Sallie Baliunas, on the NRSP “Scientific Advisory Committee”, also sat on the board of advisors for the Greening Earth Society, which was an industry front group funded and controlled by the Western Fuels Association. Baliunas is also listed as an “expert” with the George C. Marshall Institute, a think tank that has recieved millions from ExxonMobil and oil industry-linked foundations.

Despite his suspect ulterior motives, if Ball backed up some (any!) of what he said, it would be worth considering his “climate change” denial, but he doesn’t. Not one bit.

bugman · February 6, 2007, 3:52pm

steveyo:

Okay, I chewed, swallowed, and now allow me to defecate all over this Ball guy.

First, let me say that I read all of this article. (Bugman, you have to read all of mine because I read all of yours.) While Ball’s article was written very authoritatively and convincingly, there is no scientific fact included in it. None.

For example:
What the…? How do global temperature trends now indicate a cooling? From all the real data-backed science I’ve read, Ball’s statement is utter nonsense. He just spewed out this sentence, contradicting all current scientic, peer-reviewed, hard data, and didn’t back it up with anything. To me that’s not very credible.

From 1988 thru 1996 Mr. Ball was a geography professor at U of W, not climatology, as he claims. Prof. Ball hasn’t published on climate science in any peer-reviewed scientific journal in more than 14 years. He has been paid to speak by a public-relations company that works for energy firms. His travel expenses are covered by a group supported by donors from the Alberta oil patch. Hmmm…less credibility.

Timothy Ball was formerly on the board of FoS (Friends of Science), a lobbying firm almost wholly supported by oil companies. Ian Rutherford, Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) executive director, said, “No member from Friends of Science presented any papers, viewpoints or even attended the CMOS meeting…they never present their arguments in front of scientists…” Credibility? Ummm…I’m still a big no.

Further, the NSRP (Ball is the Chairman) is also headed by other energy industry lobbyists. Tom Harris, the Exec. Director, is former director of High Park Group, a lobbying company working for Canadian electric, gas, oil, and other energy companies. And Dr. Sallie Baliunas, on the NRSP “Scientific Advisory Committee”, also sat on the board of advisors for the Greening Earth Society, which was an industry front group funded and controlled by the Western Fuels Association. Baliunas is also listed as an “expert” with the George C. Marshall Institute, a think tank that has recieved millions from ExxonMobil and oil industry-linked foundations.

Despite his suspect ulterior motives, if Ball backed up some (any!) of what he said, it would be worth considering his “climate change” denial, but he doesn’t. Not one bit.

This reads very similarly to his article. I also am reading it in a forum. Based on previous posts in this thread, I must discount it in it’s entirety.

bugman · February 6, 2007, 4:00pm

From one of your favorite News Sources Clinton News Network aka CNN

The Russian didn’t bark

Thursday, October 16, 2003 Posted: 10:50 AM EDT (1450 GMT)

WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) – A largely overlooked, widely misinterpreted event in Moscow two weeks ago transformed the international conflict over the environment and growth.

On September 29, President Vladimir Putin was expected to open the World Climate Change Conference by announcing Russian ratification of the 1997 Kyoto global warming treaty. Instead, he gave an opposite signal.

Russia’s ratification is needed to enforce Kyoto’s global requirements for reduced greenhouse gas emissions, with vast economic consequences. Global warming “might even be good,” cracked Putin. “We’d spend less money on fur coats.” But like Sherlock Holmes’s dog that didn’t bark, what the Russian leader left unsaid was more important. He didn’t say: we shall ratify.

Contrary to claims that Putin was just raising Moscow’s asking price, his economic and scientific advisers made clear that Russia opposes Kyoto. The Bush administration is no longer so isolated in the world. A U.S.-Russian partnership against global warming zealots opens the way for a new alignment of nations.

President Bush affirmed two years ago that the U.S. would not ratify Kyoto, opening him to abuse at home and abroad. For the treaty’s anti-growth constraints to go into effect, 55 nations responsible for at least 55 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions must ratify. So far, 119 ratifying nations account for 44 percent of emissions. Russia would have put the treaty over the top, even without the United States.

Almost everybody, anti-Kyoto as well as pro-Kyoto activists, expected the Russians to do just that two weeks ago. Fred L. Smith, president of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, was as surprised by Putin’s decision as the environmentalists.

The statement issued by Smith was euphoric: “This is the most important development in the public debate over global warming since President Bush’s decision.” Uncharacteristically, Washington-based environmentalist organizations have yet to issue any statements.

At the Moscow conference, advocates of the treaty accused the Russians of trying to bleed more money from the rest of the world. They may be confused by Putin’s circuitous rhetoric, as befits a career Soviet bureaucrat and former KGB officer. Instead of denouncing Kyoto, he merely didn’t bark. While United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan welcomed the Moscow conference by anticipating Russian ratification, Putin said he would wait and see: “We would like to attentively analyze all information.”

What Putin really thought came out after his non-ratification brought outraged complaints and accusations that Russia had lost an opportunity. He pushed back at critics with his suggestions that global warming was not so bad if you come from Siberia. He noted that “Russia is a northern country, so if it warms up two or three degrees, it’s not terrible.”

If any Kyoto supporter was misled by Putin into thinking Russia is just playing for time before it ratifies, his chief economic adviser emphasized at the Moscow conference that this was not the case. Andrei Illarionov declared it is necessary to balance costs against benefits, noting that the U.S. and Australia calculate “they cannot bear the economic consequences of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. If they aren’t rich enough to deal with those questions, my question is whether Russia is much richer than the U.S. or Australia.”

The Russian scientists were even more resolute. Yuri Izrael, Putin’s most influential science adviser, declared: “All the scientific evidence seems to support the same general conclusions, that the Kyoto Protocol is overly expensive, ineffective and based on bad science.”

Illarionov combined the economic and scientific factors in ways that Bush aides would do well to emulate: “The temperature of the atmosphere is not rising. . . . For 30 years, diametrically opposite tendencies developed. . . . If we are to double GDP within the next 10 years, this will require an average economic growth rate of 7.2 percent. . . . No country in the world can double its GDP with a lower increase in carbon dioxide omissions or with no increase at all.”

This is even stronger than Vladimir Putin’s cracks about fur coats. It means George W. Bush will not be faced with a global mandate to undermine the American economy in quest of environmental purity. Maybe the American president really saw something in 2001 when he gazed into the soul of his Russian counterpart.

Borges · February 6, 2007, 4:32pm

The Russians did ratify it, but not because Yuri Izrael changed his mind.

steveyo · February 6, 2007, 5:13pm

Really? I give up. Let’s just ride, dude.

ThisGuyIKnow · February 6, 2007, 5:41pm

CNN is NOT a liberal news source. But I guess from way over there on the right it looks liberal because it’s slightly to the left of Fox News

ThisGuyIKnow · February 6, 2007, 5:56pm

Just to be nit picky the article in question is actual a column and not an actual news article. Also it’s not a CNN article it’s a Syndicated column from Creator’s Syndicate.

I think the whole world is still waiting to see a single anti-Global warming article in a peer-reviewed Scientific journal.

If you scour News Max heavily enough you might be able to find some reference to one.

dudewithasock · February 6, 2007, 6:02pm

Hate to interject here, but lay off the WWN…they’re a very reputable source.

bugman · February 6, 2007, 8:05pm

I realize this is an Opinion piece, but it is worth a read.

Climate of Fear
Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.

BY RICHARD LINDZEN
Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

There have been repeated claims that this past year’s hurricane activity was another sign of human-induced climate change. Everything from the heat wave in Paris to heavy snows in Buffalo has been blamed on people burning gasoline to fuel their cars, and coal and natural gas to heat, cool and electrify their homes. Yet how can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of recent weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into unlikely claims about future catastrophes?

The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism. Ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a vested interest in alarm, thus raising the political stakes for policy makers who provide funds for more science research to feed more alarm to increase the political stakes. After all, who puts money into science–whether for AIDS, or space, or climate–where there is nothing really alarming? Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today. It can also be seen in heightened spending on solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol and clean coal technologies, as well as on other energy-investment decisions.

But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.

To understand the misconceptions perpetuated about climate science and the climate of intimidation, one needs to grasp some of the complex underlying scientific issues. First, let’s start where there is agreement. The public, press and policy makers have been repeatedly told that three claims have widespread scientific support: Global temperature has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30% over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming. These claims are true. However, what the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man’s responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred. In fact, those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It isn’t just that the alarmists are trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn’t happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming.

If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not more. And, in fact, model runs support this conclusion. Alarmists have drawn some support for increased claims of tropical storminess from a casual claim by Sir John Houghton of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a warmer world would have more evaporation, with latent heat providing more energy for disturbances. The problem with this is that the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity, not less–hardly a case for more storminess with global warming.

So how is it that we don’t have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It’s my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by fear. An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium. Mr. Barton’s concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out Mr. Mann’s work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And they did so before his work could be replicated and tested–a task made difficult because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details for analysis. The scientific community’s defense of Mr. Mann was, nonetheless, immediate and harsh. The president of the National Academy of Sciences–as well as the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union–formally protested, saying that Rep. Barton’s singling out of a scientist’s work smacked of intimidation.

All of which starkly contrasts to the silence of the scientific community when anti-alarmists were in the crosshairs of then-Sen. Al Gore. In 1992, he ran two congressional hearings during which he tried to bully dissenting scientists, including myself, into changing our views and supporting his climate alarmism. Nor did the scientific community complain when Mr. Gore, as vice president, tried to enlist Ted Koppel in a witch hunt to discredit anti-alarmist scientists–a request that Mr. Koppel deemed publicly inappropriate. And they were mum when subsequent articles and books by Ross Gelbspan libelously labeled scientists who differed with Mr. Gore as stooges of the fossil-fuel industry.

Sadly, this is only the tip of a non-melting iceberg. In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. Aksel Winn-Nielsen, former director of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of the IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism. Respected Italian professors Alfonso Sutera and Antonio Speranza disappeared from the debate in 1991, apparently losing climate-research funding for raising questions.

And then there are the peculiar standards in place in scientific journals for articles submitted by those who raise questions about accepted climate wisdom. At Science and Nature, such papers are commonly refused without review as being without interest. However, even when such papers are published, standards shift. When I, with some colleagues at NASA, attempted to determine how clouds behave under varying temperatures, we discovered what we called an “Iris Effect,” wherein upper-level cirrus clouds contracted with increased temperature, providing a very strong negative climate feedback sufficient to greatly reduce the response to increasing CO2. Normally, criticism of papers appears in the form of letters to the journal to which the original authors can respond immediately. However, in this case (and others) a flurry of hastily prepared papers appeared, claiming errors in our study, with our responses delayed months and longer. The delay permitted our paper to be commonly referred to as “discredited.” Indeed, there is a strange reluctance to actually find out how climate really behaves. In 2003, when the draft of the U.S. National Climate Plan urged a high priority for improving our knowledge of climate sensitivity, the National Research Council instead urged support to look at the impacts of the warming–not whether it would actually happen.

Alarm rather than genuine scientific curiosity, it appears, is essential to maintaining funding. And only the most senior scientists today can stand up against this alarmist gale, and defy the iron triangle of climate scientists, advocates and policymakers.

Mr. Lindzen is Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT.