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Clearing theAir on Climate Change

by Paul Perry

Sun, Jun 8, 2008, 09:03 PM

Congressman Joe Barton and I have often disagreed on local and state
Republican Party business; however, I find myself usually agreeing with him
on issues. That is no surprise, since we are members of the same party. When
issue positions actually morph into votes in the House of Representatives, I
find myself in agreement with his vote roughly 90 percent of the time. Recently, The Dallas Morning News published what I will generously call an
unbalanced news piece about Barton’s stance on global warming legislation.
There is a trend in journalism not to clearly distinguish between opinion
and factual reporting. To me, this piece was camouflaged as hard news, but
it appeared to be loaded with the author’s opinion.

Congressman Barton, in addition to a Bachelors of Science degree in
industrial engineering from Texas A&M, has a master’s in engineering from
Purdue. Joe has serious reservations regarding the manmade global warming
hypothesis. I generally do not write news articles; I write opinion columns.
So this is my opinion. With some factual support, let’s clear the air.

I think Joe Barton is in good company. Richard Lindzen is a skeptic of
manmade global warming. He is a professor who teaches and researches in
climate-related sciences at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. He stated at the National Press Club that alarmist predictions
of more hurricanes, the forecasts of catastrophic rises in sea levels, the
melting of poles and even a speculated plunge into a new ice age are not
supported by the science. The "advocates of (climate change) want us to be
afraid," said Lindzen. "In response to the fear, they want us to do what
they want."

In the recent article in the metroplex daily, pro-manmade climate change
scientists from Joe Barton’s alma mater Texas A&M are invoked to try to make
Barton’s opinion of the issue look less informed. One could argue the author
of the article was also trying to embarrass Cong. Barton into changing his
opinion. Perhaps you could even use the word "pressure." I don’t think that
is appropriate for a news piece, but I’m just part-time suburban columnist
offering an opinion. As I stated earlier, Barton has company on this issue,
qualified company.

Don Easterbrook is professor emeritus at Western Washington University. Dr.
Easterbrook is currently involved in intensive research on climate cycles
spanning the last 15,000 years, concentrating on the last 500 years. His
conclusion is that the Earth has warmed faster than the current trend at
least 10 times in the last 15,000 years. He made this statement during a
recent interview on CNN: "It’s disturbing as a scientist, because there’s
definitely a move today in the direction that anybody who doesn’t sign on to
CO2 as the cause of global warming is somehow either stupid or has some
political reason or just some financial reason for saying that."

Many who are in favor of letting the manmade climate change hypothesis drive
our governmental policies disparage privately funded research. I think it is
wise to be skeptical of funding sources. It is a human tendency to want to
please those who are providing us with money and a paycheck. I also think it
is dangerous to see government funding as neutral or necessarily less
coercive, especially since the findings from government/tax dollar-funded
research often pave the way for more government control and taxation. That
effect is certainly self-serving for the bureaucrats who help determine
government funding in most cases.

Barton is skeptical that carbon dioxide, a naturally occurring gas, is a
dire threat to the environment. Even some environmental scientists have
changed their stance on the issue of whether mankind is really having a
great effect on temperatures.

Claude Allegre is an internationally respected environmental scientist, is a
member of both the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the French National
Academy of Science and was an invited participant in the Apollo program. As
reported in The National Post, he did work that resulted in lowering lead
exposure and was an early advocate for protecting the ozone layer. He also
was an early advocate of the man-caused climate change hypothesis. Dr.
Allegre has reversed most of his views on climate change. In an article
entitled "The Snows of Mount Kilimanjaro," published in the French weekly I’Express,
he announced that he no longer believed that mankind was the primary cause
of climate change. He instead was seeing the retreat of ice and snow on
Kilimanjaro and the increase of ice in the Antarctic as naturally driven
events. He has stated that there is no basis for saying "the science is
settled."

An Australian paleoclimatologist, Bob Carter, Ph.D., has stated his finding
that no global warming has occurred since 1998 in spite of an increase in
CO2 gases. In a recent article, Roy Spencer, Ph.D., suggests that climate
change science has become corrupted because of an "extreme reluctance" for
many scientists to even entertain that a portion of climate change might be
natural in origin. Dr. Spencer is formerly of NASA but now hangs his hat and
is a principal research scientist at The University of Alabama at
Huntsville.

Some have tried to demonize Barton’s skepticism of the manmade climate
change hypothesis, but he is in good company. Joe Barton has that technical
degree I mentioned earlier, a master’s degree in engineering from Purdue. He
has come to the same conclusion as many scientists with more advanced
credentials. Nevertheless, an engineer should understand that all
mathematical models can have their weaknesses, including the climate change
models. Factoring in the effect of clouds is just one. There simply is not
enough computing power to do that, according to a number of the
mathematically trained. Hundreds of scientists with training in
climate-science-related disciplines are on record as disagreeing in whole or
in part with the climate change hypothesis. Joe is one of them; many of his
mostly law school-trained colleagues are not. On this issue, I’m with the
engineer.

Paul D. Perry is a businessman and mediator who resides in Ellis County.

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...
written by Right Wing Republican Volunteer , June 09, 2008

Outstanding work, Paul!

...
written by Steve Heath , June 15, 2008

Paul is certainly not afraid to tell it like it is -even if it is politically incorrect. Paul will make an excellant State Chairman in 2010- or maybe even a Congressman when Joe Barton decides to retire.

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