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Kyoto critics better duck
Calgary Herald ^ | 11/4/2003 | Michael Campbell

Posted on 11/07/2003 12:13:23 PM PST by Dan Evans

When you question a multi-billion-dollar windfall, you'd better look out and, make no mistake about it, the Kyoto protocol translates into monster money for many researchers, bureaucrats and public institutions.

Kyoto is also perhaps the most potent weapon in the arsenal of those who oppose western capitalism and push instead for massive intervention.

That's why Toronto-based analyst Steve McIntyre and University of Guelph economics professor Ross McKitrick had better be battening down the hatches. Their paper, published last week in the respected British journal, Energy and Environment, is arguably the most damaging attack to date on the science behind Kyoto.

In a nutshell, they convincingly reveal that flawed calculations, incorrect data and a biased selection of climate records led Kyoto linchpin Michael Mann of the University of Virginia to declare that the 20th-century temperature rise was unprecedented in the past millennium. After correcting the data and then employing Mann's own methodologies, they found no such increase in global temperature variations had taken place, which places Kyoto's whole rationale in question.

The Canadian study comes on the heels of a recent Harvard climate study that made headlines in the scientific community by arguing that we are not living in the warmest period in the past 1,000 years, as Kyoto proponents claim. The authors, Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas, reviewed more than 250 research papers in the peer-reviewed scientific literature on past climate and concluded temperatures were higher in medieval times, from about 800 to 1300, than they are now.

Upon reviewing the study, David Legates, director of the Centre for Climatic Research at the University of Delaware, stated that it should lead the scientific community to the "inescapable conclusion that climate variability has been a natural occurrence."

A year ago, respected scientist Christopher Essex observed, "global warming ceased to be the subject of scientific debate years ago," but that sorry state of affairs now seems to be changing as an increasing number of scientists, even before the recent Canadian study, were recoiling against the political hijacking of the debate.

In September, at the closing session of the UN's World Climate Change Conference in Moscow, the conference chairman acknowledged that scientists who questioned the Kyoto "consensus" made up 90 per cent of the contributions from the floor. They pointed to numerous flaws and doubts in the scientific case underlying worries about climate change.

Keep in mind that this new research focuses on the science of climate change and doesn't include the numerous attacks on the economic analysis and modelling in Kyoto that John Reilly of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change declared were "an insult to serious analysis."

Asked why he changed his position on a particular issue, John Maynard Keynes once responded, "Sir, the facts have changed and when the facts change, I change -- what do you do, sir?"

In the case of Kyoto, the answer is predictable -- shoot the messenger. Both McKitrick and McIntyre can expect an avalanche of personal attacks from the politically motivated. In Canada, far too much money is at stake to derail the Kyoto juggernaut.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: climate; climatechange; globalwarming; globalworming; kyoto; science
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Kyoto is a monster that is not dead. We need to be eternally vigilant and stand by with wooden stakes and silver bullets.
1 posted on 11/07/2003 12:13:24 PM PST by Dan Evans
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To: Dan Evans; AAABEST; Ace2U; Alamo-Girl; Alas; amom; AndreaZingg; Anonymous2; ApesForEvolution; ...
Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

For real time political chat - Radio Free Republic chat room

2 posted on 11/07/2003 12:16:10 PM PST by farmfriend ( Isaiah 55:10,11)
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To: Dan Evans
INTREP - GLOBAL WARMING = JUNK SCIENCE
3 posted on 11/07/2003 12:21:36 PM PST by LiteKeeper
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To: farmfriend
BTTT!!!!
4 posted on 11/07/2003 12:27:45 PM PST by E.G.C.
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To: Dan Evans
...shoot the messenger.

Kinda like with John Lott's work on gun ownership.

5 posted on 11/07/2003 12:31:59 PM PST by facedown (Armed in the Heartland)
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To: Dan Evans
I will feel vindicated tonight when Dan Rather reports this story on the CBS Evening News. (Sarcasm)
6 posted on 11/07/2003 12:35:07 PM PST by Steve_Seattle ("Above all, shake your bum at Burton.")
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To: Dan Evans
I sill believe that the global warming scare is a plot by nerdy climatologists to get coeds into bed, i.e., "I'm studying global warming." "My hero!"
7 posted on 11/07/2003 12:37:33 PM PST by Steve_Seattle ("Above all, shake your bum at Burton.")
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To: Steve_Seattle
I will feel vindicated tonight when Dan Rather reports this story on the CBS Evening News. (Sarcasm)

Yes! We better tune in early because I'm sure this and the SSCI/DemoTreason memo will be the first two stories. Gee, I wonder which one Dan Blather will lead off with?

8 posted on 11/07/2003 12:42:48 PM PST by HenryLeeII
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To: Steve_Seattle
Most of the phoney Global Warmers I have seen aren't interested in getting girls in bed or any where.
9 posted on 11/07/2003 12:44:35 PM PST by Grampa Dave ("If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less.")
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To: Steve_Seattle
Riiiiiiiight !
10 posted on 11/07/2003 1:01:22 PM PST by Eric in the Ozarks
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To: Grampa Dave
BUMP
11 posted on 11/07/2003 1:01:37 PM PST by Publius6961 (40% of Californians are as dumb as a sack of rocks.)
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To: All
If you want to stay up to date on McKitrick and McIntyre, they publish the questions they've posed and regular updates of the responses from Mann & co:

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/trc.html
12 posted on 11/07/2003 1:08:05 PM PST by Dan Evans
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To: Dan Evans
Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas, reviewed more than 250 research papers in the peer-reviewed scientific literature on past climate and concluded temperatures were higher in medieval times, from about 800 to 1300, than they are now.

All this proves, is that medieval society was more industrious then we had previously thought--obviously they must have been driving SUVs. I would not be suprised to find that the evidence of this industrial history was purposly suppressed by the big oil comapanies.

13 posted on 11/07/2003 1:12:26 PM PST by AndyTheBear
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To: AndyTheBear
I'm sure that Cheney, Haliburton and the evil GW were responsible for the global warming back then.
14 posted on 11/07/2003 1:23:38 PM PST by Grampa Dave ("If you can read this, thank a teacher!....Since it is in English, thank a Veteran!")
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To: Dan Evans
News Flash!

Global warming is hoax. Data corrupt. Computer simulations in err. Thousands of global warming scientists seen jumping from windows. More at six. Now back to our regular programming "We Were Wrong. It's Global Cooling."
15 posted on 11/07/2003 1:53:36 PM PST by sergeantdave (You will be judged by 12 people who were too stupid to get out of jury duty)
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To: cogitator
bimp
16 posted on 11/07/2003 2:24:20 PM PST by boris (The deadliest Weapon of Mass Destruction in History is a Leftist With a Word Processor)
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To: Dan Evans
For a different view:

Quark Soup

17 posted on 11/07/2003 3:37:04 PM PST by cogitator
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To: boris
This again?
18 posted on 11/07/2003 3:37:27 PM PST by cogitator
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To: Dan Evans
Covered here extensively:

Researcher's question key global-warming study

The McIntyre-McKitrick paper is getting a lot of publicity for a paper that will likely turn out to be very, very wrong about what it tried to do. Apparently the mistakes in the paper haven't gotten out to the editorial writers who only read press releases.

19 posted on 11/07/2003 3:40:06 PM PST by cogitator
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To: LiteKeeper
In fact-GLOBAL WARMING=poorly written and/or researched Science Fiction.
20 posted on 11/07/2003 5:11:33 PM PST by F.J. Mitchell (If you seen yourself as other people do, you'd laugh too.)
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