Global Warming And Consensus Science: Dangerous And Wrong

The following article explains why the usage of the concept of consensus is wrong and dangerous as it applies to global warming and climate change. (I apologize for the strange formatting, I couldn't fix it.)
Peter


Benny Peiser is a social anthropologist with particular research interest in human and cultural evolution. His research focuses on the effects of environmental change and catastrophic events on contemporary thought and societal evolution.
Benny is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a member of Spaceguard UK. He has written extensively on neo-catastrophism and the potential risk posed by near-Earth objects. He is the editor of CCNet, an electronic science and science policy network with more than 5,000 subscribers from around the world. It is in this capacity that a 10km-wide asteroid, Minor Planet (7107) Peiser, was named in his honour by the International Astronomical Union. Wonderfully, in 2002, a second asteroid was named after Benny’s youngest daughter, Minor Planet (11956) Tamarakate.
He is a member of the editorial board of Energy & Environment and a scientific advisor to the Lifeboat Foundation.

source:

THE DANGERS OF CONSENSUS SCIENCE

National Post, 17 May 2005
http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=b93c1368-27b7-4f55-a60e-5b5d1b1ff38b

By Benny Peiser

Six eminent researchers from the Russian Academy of Science and the Israel
Space Agency have just published a startling paper in one of the world's
leading space science journals. The team of solar physicists claims to have
come up with compelling evidence that changes in cosmic ray intensity and
variations in solar activity have been driving much of the Earth's climate.
They even provide a testable hypothesis, predicting that amplified cosmic
ray intensity will lead to an increase of the global cloud cover which,
according to their calculations, will result in "some small global cooling
over the next couple of years."

I remain decidedly skeptical of such long-term climate predictions.
Nevertheless, it is quite remarkable that the global mean temperature, as
recorded by NASA's global Land-Ocean Temperature Index, has actually dropped
slightly during the last couple of years -- notwithstanding increased levels
of CO2 emissions. Two more years of cooling and we may even see the
reappearance of a new Ice Age scare.

Whatever one may think of these odd developments, the idea that the sun is
the principal driver of terrestrial climate has been gaining ground in
recent years. Last month, Jan Veizer, one of Canada's top Earth scientists,
published a comprehensive review of recent findings and concluded that
"empirical observations on all time scales point to celestial phenomena as
the principal driver of climate, with greenhouse gases acting only as
potential amplifiers."

What the Russian, Israeli and Canadian researchers have in common is that
they allocate much of the climate change to solar variability rather than
human causes. They also publish their papers in some of the world's leading
scientific journals. So why is it that a recent study published in the
leading U.S. journal Science categorically claims that skeptical papers
don't exist in the peer-reviewed literature?

According to an essay by Naomi Oreskes, published by Science in December,
2004, there is unanimous "scientific consensus" on the anthropogenic causes
of recent global warming. Oreskes, a professor of history, claims to have
analyzed 928 abstracts on global climate change, of which 75% either
explicitly or implicitly accept the view that most of the recent warming
trend is man-made. When I checked the same set of abstracts [plus an
additional two hundred found in the same ISI data bank], I discovered that just
over a dozen explicitly endorse the "consensus," while the vast majority of
abstracts does not mention anthropogenic global warming. Oreskes
even claims that this universal agreement had not been questioned once in
any of the papers since 1993 and concludes: "This analysis shows that
scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the
National Academy of Sciences and the public statements of their professional
societies. Politicians, economists, journalists and others may have the
impression of confusion, disagreement or discord among climate scientists,
but that impression is incorrect."

What happened to the countless research papers that show global temperatures
were similar or even higher during the Holocene Climate Optimum and the
Medieval Warm Period, when atmospheric CO2 levels were much lower than
today; that solar variability is a key driver of recent climate change, and
that climate modeling is highly uncertain? An unbiased analysis of the
peer-reviewed literature on global warming will find hundreds of papers
(many of them written by the world's leading experts in the field) that have
raised serious reservations and outright rejection of the concept of a
"scientific consensus on climate change." The truth is, there is no such
thing.

In fact, the explicit and implicit rejection of the "consensus" is not
restricted to individual scientists. It also includes distinguished
scientific organizations such as the Russian Academy of Science and the U.S.
Association of State Climatologists, both of which are highly skeptical of
the whole idea. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists formally
rejects the view that anthropogenic factors are the main trigger of global
warming, emphasizing: "The Earth's climate is constantly changing owing to
natural variability in Earth processes. Natural climate variability over
recent geological time is greater than reasonable estimates of potential
human-induced greenhouse gas changes. Because no tool is available to test
the supposition of human-induced climate change and the range of natural
variability is so great, there is no discernible human influence on global
climate at this time."

In the meantime, activists, campaigners and a number of scientific
organizations routinely cited Oreskes' essay as final confirmation that the
science of climate change is settled once and for all. In a worrying sign of
attempted press containment, Britain's Royal Society has even employed her
study to call upon the British media to curtail reporting about the
scientific controversy altogether.

Yet the scientific community is far from any global warming consensus, as
was revealed by a recent survey among some 500 international climate
researchers. The survey, conducted by Professors Dennis Bray and Hans von
Storch of the German Institute for Coastal Research, found that "a quarter
of respondents still question whether human activity is responsible for the
most recent climatic changes." Remarkably, a research paper about their
survey and some of its key results were submitted to Science in August,
2004. Yet shortly after the paper was rejected, the journal published
Oreskes' study, which claimed a universal consensus among climate
researchers.

The decision to publish Oreskes' claim of general agreement (just days
before an important UN conference on global warming, COP-10) was apparently
made while the editors of Science were sitting on a paper that showed quite
clearly the opposite. It would appear that the editors of Science knowingly
misled the public and the world's media. In my view, such unethical
behaviour constitutes a grave contravention, if not a corruption of
scientific procedure. This form of unacceptable misconduct is much worse
than the editors' refusal to publish the numerous letters and rebuttals
regarding Oreskes' flawed study.

The stifling of dissent and the curtailing of scientific skepticism is
bringing climate research into disrepute. Science is supposed to work by
critical evaluation, open-mindedness and self-correction. There is a fear
among climate alarmists that the very existence of scientific skepticism and
doubts about their gloomy predictions will be used by politicians to delay
action. But if political considerations dictate what gets published, it's
all over for science.

Benny Peiser is a social anthropologist at Liverpool John Moores University.

Copyright 2005, National Post

NOTE: In my analysis, I used the same ISI data base and the same key words
as Oreskes but used all documents listed therein. While Oreskes did not specify here
methodology in her SCIENCE essay, it would appear that she excluded the abstracts in
the “Social Sciences Citation Index” and “Arts & Humanities Citation Index”. She also
seems to have limited her search to “Articles", while I included “all document types”.
These differences may explain the discrepancy between the 928 documents analysed by
Oreskes and the 1117 documents I analysed, although her figures don’t add up. Some
critics have claimed that these differences essentially undermine my main case while
they validate Oreskes'. These commentator, however, ignore the more important flaw
I discerned: Only 13 abstracts explicitly endorse what Oreskes has called the 'consensus
view', while a majority of abstracts does not include any direct or indirect reference to
anthropogenic forcing of recent climate change. BJP, 26/08/05

The Science of Climate Change, How and Why It Is Corrupted

This is a well-written summary of the reasons why objective science does not support the idea than man is causing global warming because of carbon dioxide emissions. The article also explains how and why the United Nations IPCC reports are misinterpreted and misunderstood. The entire issue is a political, social, and economic scandal. Politicians must be held accountable for their deliberate deception.
Peter

From: http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=100

THE SCIENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE
The Emphasis on Man-made Global Warming
The possibility that CO2 may affect climate was first put forward nearly 100 years ago. More recently, James Hansen focused attention on anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 as a cause of global warming. In that same year (1988) the United Nations established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The Panel has issued three Assessment Reports, in 1990, 1996 and 2001, hefty collections of scientific papers by individual researchers with a variety of opinions. With the Assessment Reports the IPCC typically issues a "Summary For Policy Makers" (SPM) for the media and policy makers. Unfortunately, these contain very little science, are compiled largely by UN bureaucrats and political representatives and do not convey the lack of consensus on science questions that often exist. The net result is that politicians and the media ignore the scientific panel reports (which are confusing to them) and read only the politically biased SPMs.
These reports and SPMs are available on the IPCC's web site http://www.ipcc.ch/ . Scientists objecting to the SPM bias signed the Oregon Petition and a typical scientists critique is shown here.
The CO2 - Global Warming Hypothesis
Hansen (1988) suggested that increasing levels of CO2 produced from burning of fossil fuels would lead to catastrophic warming of the earth's atmosphere. To support that claim, some scientists point to the increase of atmospheric CO2 from 280 ppm to 370 ppm over the last 100 years, and suggest this was the cause of a global temperature rise, purported to be on the order of 0.6°C.
Computer simulation models of the atmosphere, called General Circulation Models (GCM's), incorporate projections of ever-increasing CO2 levels with many other parameters in efforts to forecast climate into the future. These models suggest increasing temperature levels, which the IPCC and others attribute to CO2.
Problems with the CO2 - Global Warming Hypothesis

Global temperatures for the past 1000 yearsIPCC 1995
An examination of published scientific data show many inconsistencies between the climate record and the CO2 - Global Warming hypothesis. Some of these are:
The major greenhouse gas is water vapour, and the nature of CO2 / water vapour interactions is not clearly understood. Moreover, James Hansen (2000) downplayed the role of CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
Antarctic ice cores in one study show carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 80 to 100 ppm about 600 years after the warming of the last three deglaciations, while in another study Antarctic ice core data show that CO2 levels lag an increase in temperature by 900 to 1200 years.
World Climate Report shows that annual growth in concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere have remained essentially flat from 1975 to the present - during a time of maximum production of CO2 from fossil fuels. This casts doubt on the claim that rapid and dramatic build-ups of CO2 will occur in the future.
We know that CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels was not the cause of dramatic historical climate changes, for example, 1000 years ago, in the Medieval Warm Period or in the Little Ice Age that followed from about 1350 to about 1860. We are still emerging, in an oscillating fashion, on the warming trend that came after the Little Ice Age. Global historical temperature data is readily available, for example Canada, Mediterranean, Alaska, China and Canadian Rockies.
In the 20th century, there was little correlation between temperature changes and CO2 levels. Some surface temperature measurements show a 0.5°C rise over the past 100 years. However, that average hides some significant details. From 1905 to 1940, a rise of about 0.5°C was measured, during which time there was an imperceptible rise in CO2. From 1940 to 1975, the temperature decreased about 0.2°C, while CO2 levels started to increase more rapidly. The out-of-sync relationship is obvious.
Observations on Climate Change
Global climate change has been a constant throughout the history of the Earth, driven by a variety of global and astronomical natural factors. The variability of and interactions among these factors are the subjects of active research, but are still very poorly understood by climate scientists. Observations of past climatic variations show much better correlation with astronomical variables such as solar activity and orbital changes than they do with atmospheric CO2 levels. Bruno Wiskel does an excellent job of explaining, in laymans language, these complex natural factors and their historical effect on climate in his publication "THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLIMATE". To obtain a copy, in the main menu of his website, click on Gift Shop, then Books by Bruno.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased, but it is impossible to determine how much this increase is due to human activities. The best attempts to remove biases from temperature data still do not show a good correlation between changes in atmospheric CO2 and changes in global temperatures.
Global circulation models attempt to represent climatic influences with numerical equations, and are used to predict future climate variations. However, they are hampered by our poor understanding of the relationships and feedback loops among many of the key variables.
These observations suggest that global climate change is a natural and fundamental part of earth history, and that the effects of human activities on global climate are no more than a poorly understood fourth-order factor.
In terms of the recent public debates about global climate change, there is no body of evidence, and certainly no consensus in the scientific community, that man-made CO2 emissions are a significant contributor to climate change.
Possible Explanations For Global Climate Change
If the burning of fossil fuels was not the cause of earlier changes in climate, what might the possibilities be?
Total Solar Irradiance (TSI): Soon et al (1996) found an excellent correlation between global temperatures and the sun's variable radiant energy, while Baliunas and Soon (1996) found a near perfect fit between solar magnetic cycle length and earth temperature and Usoskin describes in Physical Review Letters (91/21) a millennium scale sunspot reconstruction; evidence for an unusually active sun since the 1940s. Click here
Orbital Cycles: Earth's distance and angle of exposure to the sun vary in several fashions: Orbital eccentricity; precession of the equinox, the so-called "wobble"; and variations in the tilt of the earth's spin axis.
Ice Sheets: The interactions of ice sheets and global temperature variations are not well understood. Increasing temperatures would increase oceanic evaporation, and thus may increase accumulation rates of snow and ice on the polar ice caps.
Ocean Currents: Currents are critical agents in the distribution of heat across the Earth's surface. Broecker and more recently, Gagosian of the Woods Hole Institute, have highlighted the possibility that a reorganization of the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic might cause an abrupt cooling in North America and in Europe.
Solar Activity Most Likely The Principal Driver Of Climate Change
Dr. Jan Veizer, Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, University of Ottawa, Canada, and Institut fuer Geologie, Mineralogie und Geophysik, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum, Bochum, Germany, reinforces the concept of natural causes for climate change in an important article published in GSA TODAY on July 2003. It deals with cloud formation through charged nuclei provided by cosmic ray flux, which itself is subject to variation in the sun’s magnetic field.
A later article by Dr. Jan Veizer: “Celestial Climate Driver: A Perspective From Four Billion Years Of The Carbon Cycle” - SOLAR ACTIVITY MOST LIKELY THE PRINCIPAL DRIVER OF CLIMATE CHANGE was published in March 2005 in GEOSCIENCE CANADA. Full Article Here
Other scientific articles which provide evidence of the importance of solar activity include The Varying Sun & Climate Change by Soon & Baliunas, and Length of Solar Cycle- An Indicator of Solar Activity Closely Associated With Climate by E.Friis-Christensen & K. Lassen.

Science Versus Faith

This is the difference between science and faith. Make what you will of it.

Peter

Critical Website: CO2 Science

I just discovered a website that is extremely important to any discussion on anthropogenic (man-made) global warming. Here is a their Mission Statement.
Peter
Here is their address: http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/Index.jsp


Mission Statement
The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change was created to disseminate factual reports and sound commentary on new developments in the world-wide scientific quest to determine the climatic and biological consequences of the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content. It meets this objective through weekly online publication of its CO2 Science magazine, which contains editorials on topics of current concern and mini-reviews of recently published peer-reviewed scientific journal articles, books, and other educational materials. In this endeavor, the Center attempts to separate reality from rhetoric in the emotionally-charged debate that swirls around the subject of carbon dioxide and global change. In addition, to help students and teachers gain greater insight into the biological aspects of this phenomenon, the Center maintains on-line instructions on how to conduct CO2 enrichment and depletion experiments in its Global Change Laboratory (located in its Education Center section), which allow interested parties to conduct similar studies in their own homes and classrooms.

Michael Crichton: Our Environmental Future

I wish I could post this entire speech, but I can only quote parts of it and encourage you to read it all here: http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/npc-speech.html

In the speech given January 25, 2005 before The Press Club, in Washington, D.C., Mr. Crichton talks about our environmental history, our perception of the present state of the climate, global warming, and the future. His insight, understanding, and interpretation are profound. It is unfortunate he is dismissed in some sectors as a "just" a fiction writer.
Peter


After his introduction, he says this about global warming:

"Okay. With this as a preparation, let’s turn to the evidence, both graphic and verbal, for global warming. As most of you have heard many times, the consensus of climate scientists believes in global warming. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had. "

"Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. "

"So we must remember the immortal words of Mark Twain, who said, “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

He summarizes by saying:

"The idea of spending trillions on the future is only sensible if you totally lack any historical sense, and any imagination about the future. "

"If we should not spend our money on Kyoto, what should we do instead?"

and........

"Second, and most important—we can’t predict the future, but we can understand the present. In the time we have been talking, 2,000 people have died in the Third World. A child is orphaned by AIDS every 7 seconds. Fifty people die of waterborne disease every minute. This does not have to happen. We allow it. "

and finally,

"What is wrong with us that we ignore this human misery and focus on events a hundred years from now? What must we do to awaken our phenomenally rich, spoiled and self-centered society to the issues of the wider world? The global crisis is not 100 years from now—it is right now. We should be addressing it. But we are not. Instead, we cling to the reactionary and anti-human doctrines of outdated environmentalism and turn our backs to the cries of the dying and the starving and the diseased of our shared world."

"And if we are going to remain too self-involved to care about the third world, can we at least care about our own? We live in a country where 40% of high school graduates are functionally illiterate. Where schoolchildren pass through metal detectors on the way to class. Where one child in four says they have seen a murdered person. Where millions of our fellow citizens have no health care, no decent education, no prospects for the future. If we really have trillions of dollars to spend, let us spend it on our fellow human beings. And let us spend it now. And not on our impossible fantasies of what may happen one hundred years from now."

Will Science and Reason Prevail Over Hype?

Boxorox has left a new comment on your post "Unstoppable........Another Excellent Review":

I happen to be reading "Unstoppable" at the same time that I am struggling through Tim Flannery's "The Weather Makers." Could two written works possibly be more in opposition to one another than these two?? No way!
I started the Flannery junk piece a month ago and can only get through 4-5 pages at a time before anger at his nonsense, stupidity causes me to throw the book against the wall. Singer and Avery's work is refreshing and reassuring that reason in science still exists.

Important New Website on Climate

Yesterday I discovered a great new website. They have an impressive list of contributing and supporting scientists. They address the issues of global warming from all angles, and as they say, "this is not about politics, but about science." From what I have seen so far, it's very good. Here is what they say on their homepage. http://icecap.us/index.php/go/about-us
Peter


About Us
ICECAP, International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project, is the portal to all things climate for elected officials and staffers, journalists, scientists, educators and the public. It provides access to a new and growing global society of respected scientists and journalists that are not deniers that our climate is dynamic (the only constant in nature is change) and that man plays a role in climate change through urbanization, land use changes and the introduction of greenhouse gases and aerosols, but who also believe that natural cycles such as those in the sun and oceans are also important contributors to the global changes in our climate and weather. We worry the sole focus on greenhouse gases and the unwise reliance on imperfect climate models while ignoring real data may leave civilization unprepared for a sudden climate shift that history tells us will occur again, very possibly soon.

Through ICECAP you will have rapid access to our experts here in the United States and to experts and partner organizations worldwide, many of whom maintain popular web sites or insightful blogs or newsletters, write and present papers, have authored books and offer interviews to the media on climate issues. We spotlight new findings in papers and reports and rapidly respond to fallacies or exaggerations in papers, stories or programs and any misinformation efforts by the media, politicians and advocacy groups.

Included is a section called All About Climate where users are able to interactively access all the latest thinking on climate topics along with lists of references, stories, links and experts (with contact information).
ICECAP is not funded by large corporations that might benefit from the status quo but by private investors who believe in the need for free exchange of ideas on this and other important issues of the day. Our working group is comprised of members from all ends of the political spectrum. This is not about politics but about science.

We are an open society that welcomes your membership and appreciates your endorsement and support.
-->

This is one of the graphics used to get people all riled up about so called "greenhouse gases", in this case carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Of course every time we exhale we emit CO2, but nobody mentions that. Carbon dioxide sounds so evil, doesn't it? Plants need it as part of their growth process. We drink it every day in our carbonated beverages. Real dangerous stuff, isn't it!

Here's what just one of the leading scientists says about carbon dioxide as it relates to global warming. Are you listening Big Al? (I doubt it.) Maybe Congress will listen. I have a novel idea, send this to every member of Congress. In fact send this whole blog to them....
http://petesplace-peter.blogspot.com/

This is from Dr. Reid A. Bryson, "the Father of Modern Climatology":
Click here for the entire article: http://petesplace-peter.blogspot.com/2007/03/global-warming-nonsense-detector-by-dr.html


These are what he feels are some very major and important misconceptions:

2. It is a fact that the warming of the past century was anthropogenic in origin, i.e. man-made and due to carbon dioxide emission. Wrong. That is a theory for which there is no credible proof. There are a number of causes of climatic change, and until all causes other than carbon dioxide increase are ruled out, we cannot attribute the change to carbon dioxide alone.

3. The most important gas with a "greenhouse" effect is carbon dioxide. Wrong. Water vapor is at least 100 times as effective as carbon dioxide, so small variations in water vapor are more important than large changes in carbon dioxide.

5. I am arguing that the carbon dioxide measurements are poorly done. Wrong. The measurements are well done, but the interpretation of them is often less than acceptably scientific.

6. It is the consensus of scientists in general that carbon dioxide induced warming of the climate is a fact. Probably wrong. I know of no vote having been taken, and know that if such a vote were taken of those who are most vocal about the matter, it would include a significant fraction of people who do not know enough about climate to have a significant opinion. Taking a vote is a risky way to discover scientific truth.

More from Dr. Reid A. Bryson on Global Warming

Here is another wonderful link to use as ammunition against the Al Gore the Prophet fan club....
Peter

http://whyfiles.org/247sci_politics/index.php?g=4.txt

Why Files talks with Reid Bryson. Reid Bryson helped found the field of climatology with pioneering studies documenting how climate changed over the centuries. He was long associated with the idea that, based on climatic history, another ice age was coming, and he has long questioned the conventional wisdom about global warming: that the globe is warming due to human activity.
Bryson founded what is now the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1977, he co-authored a pioneering book on the two-way interaction between humans and weather (see "Climates of Hunger ..." in the bibliography). He was long-time founding director of the Institute of Environmental Studies at UW-Madison, and remains active in climate research.
University of Wisconsin-Madison atmospheric and oceanic sciences professor Jonathan Martin helps students in a meteorology computer lab. Photo: Jeff Miller, Courtesy UW-Madison

On Oct. 17, the Why Files spoke with Bryson about global warming, politics and science.

The Why Files: In your opinion, is global warming occurring?

Reid Bryson: I'm not skeptical about global warming. It's occurring. The question is, what is the human hand in this? Back in 1968, I gave a talk at the AAAS [American Association for the Advancement of Science] suggesting that people could change the climate a little bit, and I was laughed off the platform. Now some of those same people say the human influence is the only thing that can change the climate. That's simply nonsense. We know that the climate has been warming at least since the early 1800s. Why was this happening before all that carbon dioxide was released during the industrial revolution? Until they answer that, they can't say why the current warming is going on. They say in the last 50 years, temperature and carbon dioxide are correlated. Okay, but how much causality does correlation show? Nothing.

WF: Back in 1968, why did you say people could affect climate?

RB: I said, "Let's look at contrails [left by jet planes]. They are making clouds, and everybody says clouds are important in weather and climate. Do they put enough clouds to make a difference?" I'm sitting in my office right now, looking south, and I can almost always see a bank of contrails from planes going west from Chicago.
Jet contrails are one of many ways that people affect climate. Photo: NOAA

WF: We have seen frightening graphs with CO2 and average temperature rising hand in hand. What do you make of that?

RB: It's all hype, those graphs that show CO2 not changing [until recently], then going up. Most of that rise is projected, not measured. How good are the models they are using? They stink. If you can't model today, you sure as hell can't model 50 years from now, and they can't model today. [Climate modelers started as meteorologists] and they tried to model climate as if it was weather. Climate is not average weather, it's a boundary condition problem. For climate, you have to know the incoming radiation, the reflected radiation from Earth's surface, how much ice is there, what is the topography, things like that. Weather evolves from one day to the next, it's an initial state problem.

WF: Many people say global warming is the worst current example of politicizing science.

RB: In my opinion, the one thing the Administration is doing right is not doing anything about global warming. Unless we know in detail the mechanics of global warming, should we risk the economy of the whole country? Suppose we want to go to nuclear power, what is the cost of that? You don't have to convince me there is a human hand in climate, I am the guy who said it first. You have to convince me you understand it well enough to know what else is going on. If you say the warming that happened before the industrial revolution is "natural variation," we are natural scientists, and that's a copout. What exactly do you mean?
Adding it up: Is science more political than ever?

A Book about science gone mad

There are many instances in history where science has been used for evil purposes, when scientists are controlled and manipulated for political reasons. No, I'm not talking about global warming, I'm referring to the science of eugenics. This horrible misuse of science occurred not long ago. It can happen again if we're not careful. Let us question the basis for the theory of man-caused global warming very, very carefully before we regulate and tax ourselves to death.

The book I'm referring to and highly recommending is titled "By Trust Betrayed: Patients, Physicians, and the License to Kill in the Third Reich", by Hugh Gregory Gallagher.

To quote from the back cover:

"By Trust Betrayed" provides new insight into the horrors of
ordinary people doing monstrous things under the aegis of "science" in Nazi
Germany. It also raises troubling questions about many contemporary
theories and ideas dealing with euthanasia, health care, and medical
ethics.