Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post observed that the March 3 report from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) “arguing that recent climate change stems from natural causes” was developed by “23 authors from 15 nations, some of them not scientists.” The release of the report came in the middle of the 2008 Conference on Climate Change in New York, a two-day conference that drew about 500 attendees. As Ms. Eilperin observed, that may be all the skeptics there are left. The tone of the gathering seems to have been rather jovial and heavily seasoned with Al Gore jokes.
Considering that “The Heartland Institute” emblazoned across all publicity materials speaks for itself, I might not have to delve deeper…but I can’t resist. Cosponsors for the event were, in some cases, hilariously transparent, like JunkScience.com, whose front page features an astonishing array of interesting takes on science, e.g., “Not CO2? Mayans may have caused climate change”. Several orgs with “Free Market” somewhere in the title, and the venerable Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP). SEPP’s website uses the fact that they have been quoted multiple times and used by politicians as kind of a rasion d’etre, and who either can’t be bothered to update their website or can’t find any new research to “debunk”:
Two research papers were published in Geophysical Research Letters (9 July 2004). We analyzed atmospheric temperature data (3 data sets) and concluded that they do not support the predictions of any of the leading climate models. In particular, models predict increased warming trends in the troposphere while observations show the opposite. [SEPP.org]
With solid research efforts like this under their belt, it’s no wonder that SEPP was eager to present for seminars entitled “The Great Global Warming Swindle” and “A Convenient Fiction”. SEPP’s own indomitable Fred Singer was present to give the following lecture “The NIPCC Report: Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate”. Another notable achievement of Singer’s was his co-authorship of a report attacking a 1993 EPA assessment of the links between smoking and cancer. Way to pick the winning team, Singer.
So, yeah, it’s disappointing that there’s still enough money coming out of the oil and coal industries to sponsor a relatively big international conference for “skeptics” of climate change. But it’s somehow reassuring to know that this is the best they can do. The New York Times’ coverage of the event concluded with the observation that it “was largely framed around science, but after the luncheon, when an organizer made an announcement asking all of the scientists in the large hall to move to the front for a group picture, 19 men did so.” If that’s the best you can do, skeptics? Bring it on.
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