Global warming

The Nightly Build...

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Lake Erie is Iced Over

Rodger Jones casts doubt on global warming by passing on news from his mother in Cleveland that Lake Erie has completely frozen over. Let's assume he's making a small joke as way of introduction of his more serious point, which is to cite a minority staff report issued by Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee titled, "More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims."

Jones says (jokingly again?) that he wished he understood global warming science as much as he gets the politics. He mocks Al Gore for warning of temperature changes that "would bring a screeching halt to human civilization." But he doesn't even identify Sen. Inhofe, perpetual climate change denier and easily mocked himself, as the source of the press release listing the dissenting "scientists." It sounds like Jones does know a lot about how to play politics.

Let's take a look at Inhofe's list of 650 "scientists," up from 400 in a list he published in 2007. The list includes physicists, biologists and even TV weathermen, probably all with good credentials in their field, but which usually isn't climate science. Some of the people on the list aren't even climate change deniers. For example, meteorologist George Waldenberger was on the 2007 list. In response, he contacted Inhofe's staffers and requested, "Take me off your list of 400 (Prominent) Scientists that dispute Man-Made Global warming claims. I’ve never made any claims that debunk the 'Consensus.'" Guess what? He's still on Inhofe's updated 2008 list. Some estimate the list to be 80-90% bogus, leaving a few dozen credible climate skeptics, compared to thousands of qualified, practicing climate scientists who remain convinced of human-caused emissions being the dominant cause of climate change. It looks like the scientific consensus is still solid.

For more information about climate change, I recommend RealClimate.org.