June 18, 2007
Framing global warming
Professor Bryson, the father of scientific climatology says anthropogenic global warming is hooey. Naturally whenever scientists who do know what they are talking about offend the dogmatists, they are said to be going against the "scientific consensus". Science is science. Consensus is politics. And close examination of many of those part of that "consensus" reveals they are not climatologists,but grant seekers. From the Capital Times:
Reid Bryson, known as the father of scientific climatology, considers global warming a bunch of hooey.The UW-Madison professor emeritus, who stands against the scientific consensus on this issue, is referred to as a global warming skeptic. But he is not skeptical that global warming exists, he is just doubtful that humans are the cause of it.There is no question the earth has been warming. It is coming out of the "Little Ice Age," he said in an interview this week."However, there is no credible evidence that it is due to mankind and carbon dioxide. We've been coming out of a Little Ice Age for 300 years. We have not been making very much carbon dioxide for 300 years. It's been warming up for a long time," Bryson said.The Little Ice Age was driven by volcanic activity. That settled down so it is getting warmer, he said.Humans are polluting the air and adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, but the effect is tiny, Bryson said.[snip]""There is a lot of money to be made in this," he added. "If you want to be an eminent scientist you have to have a lot of grad students and a lot of grants. You can't get grants unless you say, 'Oh global warming, yes, yes, carbon dioxide.'"[snip] Reporters will often call the meteorology building seeking the opinion of a scientist and some beginning graduate student will pick up the phone and say he or she is a meteorologist, Bryson said. "And that goes in the paper as 'scientists say.'"The word of this young graduate student then trumps the views of someone like Bryson, who has been working in the field for more than 50 years, he said. "It is sort of a smear."