The following letter appeared in the New Zealand magazine “North and South” from a Christchurch geologist Dr Gerrit van den Lingen
A scientist wonders
In your September issue Pete Hodgson wrote about “The Kyoto Question”: “The scientific argument is over and the world, with the Kyoto Protocol as a starting point, is beginning to act”.
One wonders where Hodgson got his scientific advice. The scientific argument is far from over.
I am a geologist and paleoclimatologist belonging to an international discussion group where about 250 well-qualified scientists discuss the science behind Kyoto in great depth. Most of these scientists are highly critical of the politicisation of the climate change discussion, as highlighted by the actions of the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Continue reading A Scientist Wonders →
Interesting commentary on 6 Dec 2005 from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s journalist Rex Murphy who says, “Perhaps Kyoto is Japanese for hypocrisy.”:
REX MURPHY (Commentator): It’s been a strange week. I’ve been wondering why the global warming conference in Montreal is getting relatively little attention. Probably because of the cold weather. It’s odd for another reason. Ten thousand people have come to Montreal, ten thousand. For a conference on reducing energy consumption. Now, ten thousand is a large number, elephantine, in fact. I don’t suppose many delegates walked. As conferences go, this one is a real Leviathan. Just think of the Montreal summit’s ecological footprint.
Continue reading Montreal Bonanza →
TESTIMONY OF Dr. MICHAEL CRICHTON BEFORE THE UNITED STATES SENATE
Michael Crichton, Committee on Environment and Public Works, 28 September 2005
www.crichton-official.com/speeches/senate.html
Thank you Mr. Chairman, and members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the important subject of politicization of research. In that regard, what I would like to emphasize to the committee today is the importance of independent verification to science.
Dr. Crichton’s full speech is at the above link or NZ Climate Truth 79
On the 5th October Dr. Crichton made the following brief comment on the ClimateAudit web site.
My testimony was intended to be an argument for transparency.
More broadly, I wanted to suggest that the US government needs stricter standards for many kinds of information it uses to set policy. The Vioxx story is one non-climate example.
In response to the Vioxx controversy, last month a dozen major medical journals published a joint editorial in which they called for a publicly-accessible database for trial results similar to the NIH clinicaltrials.gov, and they said they would not publish results of trials that had not been registered on the database.
It will be interesting to see if other fields of science follow this straightforward example.
After all, who opposes transparency?
(I won’t be commenting further. Thanks to all those who have taken the trouble to read my testimony carefully, and to spell my name correctly. )
Primarily exposing faulty methodologies behind global temperature trend compilations