Governments still promote climate fears despite contradictory advice from thousands of experts

[Part 4 of a 6 part series examining the so-called "consensus" in the climate science community, the scientists who dare dissent from political correctness and a new, less partisan way to promote rational climate policy] In part 1, part 2and part 3 of this series, it was shown that claims of a 'consensus' in the climate science community that our CO2 emissions are causing dangerous global warming are unfounded.

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It was also demonstrated that the most critical question for society is often not even addressed when scientists are polled. In this part, we look at some of the open letters and other joint statements from climate experts who disagree with official doctrine and start to answer the question: "why have climate skeptics failed to convince mainstream media to cover the issue properly?" According to climate activists, only a handful of unqualified naysayers dispute the CO₂/dangerous global warming hypothesis. "On one hand, you have the entire scientific community and on the other you have a handful of people, half of them crackpots", said Lord Robert May, former president of the Royal Society. But Lord May is completely mistaken. Not only is there no known broad agreement in the "entire scientific community" about the causes of climate change (and it only matters what climate experts think, not all scientists), but literally thousands of scientifically qualified individuals have endorsed open letters and other declarations opposing, either directly or indirectly, the CO₂/dangerous global warming hypothesis. Here are 14 of them (all linked to the documents and endorser lists): 2010: SPPI letter to the U.S. EPA--signed by 35 climate and related experts. 2009 * : Copenhagen Climate Challenge which currently lists 166 experts well qualified in climate science plus some in 'other related disciplines'. 2009: Open Letter to the Council of the American Physical Society--signed by 61 experts. 2009: Climate Change Reconsidered: 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Craig Idso and S. Fred Singer, eds.; 36 contributors listed. Easily read summary may be seen here. 2009: Cato Institute newspaper ad campaign letter; 115 scientist signers. 2008: Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change, 1,497 endorsers, over half of them well qualified in science and technology and 206 of them climate science specialists or scientists in very closely related fields. 2007 * : Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations (the "2007 Bali open letter"), 100 scientist signers. 2007: Independent Summary for Policymakers contesting many of the conclusions of the UN IPCC's 4^th Assessment report (2007). 2006: Open Kyoto to Debate - An open letter to Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, from 60 climate experts. 2003: Protocol lacks 'credible science' - Open letter to Canadian PM Paul Martin, 46 leading scientists endorsed this. 2002: Open letter to Canadian PM Jean Chretien, 30 scientist signers 1997: Global Warming Petition Project - organized through the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, starting in 1997. That document now claims some 31,486 U.S. scientists and technically qualified signers, 9,029 with PhDs--see breakdown. 1995: Leipzig Declaration on Climate Change, 80 scientist signers plus 25 TV meteorologists. 1992: SEPP Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming, 47 signers. * UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has yet to acknowledge receipt of either the 2007 Bali open letter, or the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Challenge (a U.S. postal trace (see here) was done on the latter after it was sent a second time and it was confirmed that Secretary General Moon did indeed receive the open letter). Judging from Moon's pre-G8 summit visit to Canada (May 12^th) to pressure Canada to "comply fully with the targets set out by the Kyoto Protocol", an impossible task at this point even if it were worthwhile, the Secretary General appears to be hoping most people never hear of the alternative advice he is receiving. And that is the problem faced by climate skeptics - most main stream media do not report on these declarations, and, on the rare occasion when they do, dismiss them as endorsed by unqualified 'outliers' from the scientific community. Consequently, even though these open letters are signed by some of the absolute leaders in the world in understanding the causes of climate change, the majority of the public know little about these lists, freeing government to proceed as if they didn't even exist. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the speeches and pronouncements of Canadian Federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice, who has either fallen, hook, line and sinker, for climate extremism, or wants the public to believe that he has. On June 15, Prentice told the Canadian Energy Forum in Ottawa, "The international scientific community has determined that recent changes in many aspects of global climate have been primarily caused by the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere..." His government's promotion of so-called "carbon capture and storage", pumping compressed CO₂ underground to supposedly help "stop climate change", is equally absurd in that it is extremely expensive, useless (except when used for enhanced oil recovery) and potentially dangerous should the CO₂ leak out in large quantities (as, being heavier than air, the leaked CO₂ will initially displace oxygen and suffocate animals and people--witness the animal bones in depressions on the slopes of volcanoes, which are major CO₂ sources). But government strategists are obviously counting on the public continuing to believe in the CO₂/dangerous global warming hypothesis for a little while longer - at least until they have forgotten about it entirely at which time the government can quietly back away from the issue. Considering no one has any idea how long man-made global warming will continue to push policy, this is a very dangerous and costly approach indeed. But, back to the topic at hand - why have the press generally disregarded the massive lists of highly qualified skeptical scientists to date? First and foremost, crisis sells media and global warming is the grand daddy of all crises, tailor-made for editors to insert into the news on any otherwise slow day. Statements like "It is the biggest problem that mankind has ever faced." and "No other species in the history of life on Earth has ever faced a problem of its own creation that is as serious as this one," from Lord May make great copy and lead to breathless speculation from editorialists anxious to portend disaster. "At best we face widespread climatic disruption; at worst, we face devastation," claimed The Guardian of London, a statement that undoubtedly helped circulation numbers that day. Truly accurate headlines such as "Sea level rise forecasts drop again in latest UN study", or "Worldwide cyclone energy now lowest in three decades", just don't complete with "Climate change far worse than thought before" (Times of India). While U.S. editor H.L. Mencken's famous quote ** was directed at politicians, it could have equally well apply to most reporters, especially those who see themselves as social crusaders instead of mere raconteurs of the events of the day. A few years ago, an editorial pages editor of a major eastern Canadian newspaper told me candidly that he didn't cover both sides of the climate debate because "our advertisers wouldn't like it". At first I thought he just meant that crisis sells media and advertisers were more likely to pay for expensive ads if the periodical had high circulation numbers. But a look at the paper told me more--major international corporations have identified reducing 'greenhouse gas emissions' as an important marketing tool and so often incorporate it into their advertising so as to appear virtuous--Dr. Tim Ball describes this well with respect to British Petroleum. The last thing an advertiser wants is for a climate expert to be stating in an opinion piece on the page opposite that what the advertiser is boasting about is nonsense. Ergo, many media outlets have obviously concluded, don't publish the OpEd but happily accept advertising dollars promoting how a corporation is helping 'stop climate change.' It is good business, though damaging to society at large. There isn't much we can do about the above barriers to publication in most main stream media but, in other ways, climate skeptics are at times their own worst enemies. In the concluding part of this series, I will lay out other reasons for our failure to bring the press along on what should be the science story of the century--how a poorly-substantiated scientific hypothesis has come to be accepted as reality right to the top of governments worldwide. This situation can be corrected, but only if we learn from our mistakes and develop a new, more functional strategy. ** The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. H. L. Mencken US editor (1880 - 1956)