s same practice of Lysenkoism has long been under way in western science in regard to the politically correct theory of man caused, catastrophic, global warming. That theory serves the political fashions of the day in promoting vastly increased government powers and control over the private economy. Advocates of the theory are lionized in the dominant Democrat party controlled media in the U.S., and in leftist controlled media in other countries. Critics of the theory are denounced as “deniers,” and even still bourgeois fascists, with their motives impugned. Those who promote the theory are favored with billions from government grants and neo-Marxist environmentalist largesse, and official recognition and award. Faked and tampered data and evidence has arisen in favor of the politically correct theory. Is not man-caused, catastrophic global warming now the only theory allowed to be taught in schools in the West? Those in positions of scientific authority in the West who have collaborated with this new Lysenkoism because they felt they must be politically correct, and/or because of the money, publicity, and recognition to be gained, have disgraced themselves and the integrity of their institutions, organizations and publications. The United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) is supposed to represent the best science of the U.S. government on the issue of global warming. In January, the USGCRP released the draft of its Third National Climate Assessment Report. The first duty of the government scientists at the USGCRP is to produce a complete picture of the science of the issue of global warming, which is what the taxpayers are paying them for. But it didn’t take long for the Cato Institute to do the job of the USGCRP with a devastating line by line rebuttal, The Missing Science from the Draft National Assessment on Climate Change, Center for the Study of Science, Cato Institute, Washington, DC, 2012, by Patrick J. Michaels, Paul C. Knappenberger, Robert C. Balling, Mary J. Hutzler & Craig D. Idso. Check it out for yourself if you dare. Both publications are written to be accessible by intelligent laymen. See which one involves climate science and which one involves political science. All the climate alarmist organizations simply rubber stamp the irregular Assessment Reports of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). None of them do any original science on the theory of anthropogenic catastrophic global warming. But the United Nations is a proven, corrupt, power grabbing institution. The science of their Assessment Reports has been thoroughly rebutted by the hundreds of pages of science in Climate Change Reconsidered, and Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report, both written by dozens of scientists with the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, and published by the Heartland Institute, the international headquarters of the skeptics of the theory of anthropogenic catastrophic global warming. Again, check it out for yourself. You don’t have to read every one of the well over a thousand pages of careful science in both volumes to see at least that there is a real scientific debate. The editors of the once respected journals of Science and Nature have abandoned science for Lysenkoism on this issue as well. They have become as political as the editorial pages of the New York Times. They claim their published papers are peer reviewed, but those reviews are conducted on the friends and family plan when it comes to the subject of anthropogenic catastrophic global warming. There can be no peer review at all when authors refuse to release their data and computer codes for public inspection and attempted reconstruction of reported results by other scientists. They have been forced to backtrack on recent publications relying on novel, dubious, statistical methodologies not in accordance with established methodologies of complex statistical analysis. Formerly respected scientific bodies in the U.S. and other western countries have been commandeered by political activist Lysenkoists seizing leadership positions. They then proceed with politically correct pronouncements on the issue of anthropogenic catastrophic global warming heedless of the views of the membership of actual scientists. Most of what you see and hear from alarmists regarding global warming can be most accurately described as play acting on the meme of settled science. The above noted publications demonstrate beyond the point where reasonable people can differ that no actual scientist can claim that the science of anthropogenic catastrophic global warming has been settled or that there is a settled “consensus” that rules out reasonable dissent. Indeed, 31,487 U.S. scientists (including 9,000 Ph.Ds) with degrees in atmospheric Earth sciences, physics, chemistry, biology and computer science have signed a statement that reads: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” See here. Some consensus. Real science, of course, is not a matter of “consensus,” but of reason, with skepticism at its core. Page 1 2 Next Page » 577 comments, 31 called-out Comment Now Follow Comments Print Report Corrections Reprints & Permissions Post Your Comment Please log in or sign up to comment. Enter Your Comment Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. Youll be notified if your comment is called out. Comments Called-Out Expand All Comments Follow Comments michaeljones michaeljones 10 months ago Just another desperate smear attack by some “economist”, main purpose is to sway the public in the false notion there is still a question on Global Warming. Here we have the Arctic summer sea ice melting at a rate even the climate scientists are finding hard to believe; over 75% volume loss and over 43% surface reduction since 1979! No warming? Go to the National Geographic channel and watch “Chasing Ice” a film about their photographer and his project to capture the melting glaciers. Disappearing right before our very eyes in time lapse photos. We are talking about years. Wish Forbes stops with these business majors writing about science. Their “voodoo” rants just discredit the publication. Reply Author Peter Ferrara Peter Ferrara, Contributor 10 months ago michaeljones, I gave you the actual data on arctic and global sea ice. Your cited data appears to be fabricated not just outdated. Your cited photographer is a dope because every real scientist knows that some glaciers are melting and some are expanding all the time. If you want to know the true story on the issue check out the voluminious science sources I cited for you in the article. If you are comfortable in your ideological verities, don’t be surprised if the world ignores you. The emerging developing economies like Brazil, India and China have already vetoed global action urged by the UN hysterics and power grabbers. Called-out comment Reply michaeljones michaeljones 10 months ago accuweather/en/weather-blogs/climatechange/satellite-confirms-uw-estimate/6229388 Peter, stick to your “science” of economics. Reply Rob Honeycutt Rob Honeycutt 10 months ago Peter Ferrara, What an incredibly offensive gish-gallop of errors you present here. You trumpet non-experts in the field of climate with the Oregon Petition and with your other list. Meanwhile you ignore the overwhelming consensus of over 33,000 scientists who are actively researching and publishing in the field. That’s not science, Peter, that’s promoting a political agenda. So, in light of that, who exactly is the Lysenkoist here? It would be YOU. Reply Author Peter Ferrara Peter Ferrara, Contributor 10 months ago Mr. Honeycutt, Please document your alleged consensus. Why not address the substance of what I wrote rather than hide behind a distracting smokescreen about a phony consensus? Can you not discuss the substance? Science is not about consensus. Do you know those 31,000 scientists? Then why are you slandering them? In my opinion your apology is in order. Called-out comment Reply Rob Honeycutt Rob Honeycutt 10 months ago Slandering? You have the gall to suggesting that **I** am slandering anyone after the article that you have written here? Go read your own article again. It is the epitome of slander! Reply Rob Honeycutt Rob Honeycutt 10 months ago What I SAID about the 31,000 scientists had nothing to do with any of them individually. What I SAID was that they represent an extremely tiny fraction of people who hold the credentials the OISC requests the signers to have. How is saying they are a small fraction of people slander? And compared to what you have written? OMG. Reply Author Peter Ferrara Peter Ferrara, Contributor 10 months ago Mr. Honeycutt, You said they were “non-experts” in black and white right here in this comment exchange. Not just that 31,000 scientists is too small of a sampling to matter. The whole global warming issue was a fraudulent power grab from the beginning. You guys have failed and will be remembered in history as worse than Lysenko. You should have known that this phony power grab would not work in an ultimately still free society. Called-out comment Reply Rob Honeycutt Rob Honeycutt 10 months ago Yes, there is nothing in the petition that screens for any expertise in climate research. That makes it a list of “non-experts” in the field of climate. That’s not an insult to whatever expertise each of them may have. It’s merely saying they have no established background in the research which they are being asked to comment on. Reply Rob Honeycutt Rob Honeycutt 10 months ago Peter, you say, “The whole global warming issue was a fraudulent power grab from the beginning.” Dude, the beginning goes back to Joseph Fourier in the 1820′s. It includes the work of John Tyndall in the 1850′s, and the work of Svante Arrhenius in the 1890′s through the 1910′s. That’s quite an amazing “power grab” if it’s been going on for nearly 200 years. The irony is that people like you are actually causing this to become more of a problem by delaying action on this vitally important scientific issue. I believe in a free society as much as anyone else. But when climate change becomes a bigger crisis, that is when governments will be required to step in and take greater action. It will create more intrusion into our private and personal lives, again, very much BECAUSE people like you are causing delay in action. Reply Author Peter Ferrara Peter Ferrara, Contributor 10 months ago Mr. Honeycutt, None of that early work you cite established the sensitivity of global temperatures to CO2. The voluminous science sources I cite show that it is not very sensitive, and the feedbacks are more likely negative than positive. The temperature patterns of the 20th century do not follow the steady rise of CO2, but cylical natural causes such as solar activity and ocean churning temperature cycles You are completely ignorant of the actual debate, which you so wrongly deny even exists. Check out the good beating James Taylor delivered in a debate posted on the Heartland Institute website. No wonder the alarmists like yourself concede that they can’t defend their position in public debate. Taylor proved that true. It is not me that is stopping global action on “climate change,” as if humans are even capable of stopping global climate change. It is the world’s developing countries, who made clear at the last UN confab on the subject that they are not going along with your western environmentist imperialism. They are going to develop and provide electricity and all the conveniences of modern life for their people too. Game over. Called-out comment Reply Rob Honeycutt Rob Honeycutt 10 months ago Peter… You really should not be posting articles on Forbes if you don’t know anything about the subject on which you are writing. Svante Arrhenius’ work clearly DID did work on CS. That was the entire impetus of his work. In fact, it was Arrhenius that established the concept of CS as a function of doubling atmospheric CO2 levels over pre-industrial levels. “The voluminous science sources I cite…” You are NOT citing anything close to voluminous. You are merely citing what agrees with your ideological position, and is, in fact, representative of only a tiny fraction of the available research done on the topic of climate change. “You are completely ignorant of the actual debate…” No, Peter, I’m not. You know nothing about me. I have been active on this issue for over 3 years. I’ve read some 4000 published research papers on climate. I’ve participated in research. I know far more than you likely ever will on the issue. “…a debate posted on the Heartland Institute website.” You needn’t say any more to reveal your ideological bent. “No wonder the alarmists like yourself concede that they can’t defend their position in public debate. ” Wrong. The real debate takes place in the published peer-reviewed research. Why is it that deniers like you can not seem to find the intellectual honesty to participate in a process where you are held to standards of rational debate. You always retreat to formats, like your Forbes article here, where you can lie and people will not test the accuracy of your statements. “ …your western environmentist imperialism.” Again, your extremist political position is clear. You can’t deal with the actual research so you try to turn this into some form of political debate which it’s not. “Game over.” That is exactly what you offer emerging economies. Reply Author Peter Ferrara Peter Ferrara, Contributor 10 months ago Mr. Honeycutt, Oh so now the truth comes out at last. In the interest of full disclosure, why don’t you tell us which Lysenkoist organization you are a paid propagandist for? Not a very good propagandist, however, because Svante Arrhenius did not establish the senstivity of global temperature to CO2 in 1890 to 2010. The voluminous (over 1,000 pages discussing peer reviewed scientific literature) sources I cite, which you are afraid to read because you might lose your income if you were fully informed on the issue, do. I guess you think you have suspended democracy in America and you don’t have to defend your position in public debate. Your elitist environmentalist friends will tell us all what the policies shall be in America, and the rest of us have nothing to say about it, unless we get an article in your peer reviewed literature. But the authors that participated in producing the sources I cited in the article have long lists of peer reviewed published articles, far longer than yours, like Lindzen, you fraudulent sophist. And if peer review is so important, smart one, why is it that the EPA failed to submit their Endangerment Finding to their own peer review board, as required by federal law. Please explain why if the EPA is not going to comply with the law, I should do so. And if you are willing to participate in open public debate to convince the rest of us, then let’s see you debate James Taylor, who you are clearly scared of, and could not possibly stand toe to toe with. This is why you have lost the public debate, not only here, but globally. Give it up. Your attempted coup d’ etat has failed. Called-out comment Reply Rob Honeycutt Rob Honeycutt 10 months ago Peter, unlike you, I am paid by no one do inform myself on this issue. I spend my time doing this merely because I am concerned about the future my children will inherit. You state, “Svante Arrhenius did not establish the senstivity of global temperature to CO2 in 1890 to 2010.” What are you talking about? This is another statement showing that you have no clue what you’re discussing. Climate sensitivity doesn’t change from year to year, or over a period of time. It is a response to a given radiative forcing. “The voluminous…sources I cite…” compared to the ACTUAL overwhelming body of scientific research which you don’t read. “I guess you think you have suspended democracy in America and you don’t have to defend your position in public debate.” Again obfuscating by trying to make a scientific issue into a political one. We can choose to disagree on the political actions that need to be taken, that is definitely a worthwhile debate, but whether the science is correct or not, this is an issue which you are misinformed and clearly out of step with the full weight of evidence. “Please explain why if the EPA is not going to comply with the law, I should do so.” The EPA does comply with the law. “…if you are willing to participate in open public debate to convince the rest of us…” Again, the legitimate public debate on THE SCIENCE takes place in the published peer reviewed scientific literature. “Give it up.” You are full of contradictions. You want me to both “engage in debate” and to “give it up.” So, which is it? Reply SkyHunter SkyHunter 10 months ago You didn’t cite any scientific sources. Unless you seriously consider the Heartland Institute a credible science resource. Reply Peter Sinclair Peter Sinclair 10 months ago This is like watching a Monty Python skit unfold in real time. For conversations with leading experts at NSIDC and NASA re sea ice, see youtube/watch?v=MPnj9eR7t0g youtube/watch?v=nTUghG2Zwsk the second one includes equally hilarious footage of “Lord” Christopher Monckton. Wondering when you’ll write about how the lysenkoists are covering up His Lordship’s AIDS cure youtube/watch?v=hl2lShU6zD0 by the way Mr Ferrara, did you visit your friend Jack Abramoff in Prison, or wait till he got out? thanks for completing my afternoon! Reply Eli Rabett Eli Rabett 10 months ago Well Peter, Eli is glad that you asked. A friend of his back in 2000 actually traced the first 150 signers. Not an atmospheric scientist amongst them, and the list of “experts” was pretty bare of atmospheric scientists too. Would you like more? Reply Eli Rabett Eli Rabett 10 months ago Thanks to the miracle of the INTERTUBES, we can read Arrhenius’ paper 1896 in which he calculates the climate sensitivity. Eli refers you to Table VII. High, but in the ballpark. Please do RTFR before you make more of a fool of yourself. Reply arnoarrak arnoarrak 10 months ago Rob Honeycott – you are misinformed about climate science. First, it is likely that your children whom you say you are protecting will be ashamed of your distortions when they grow up. That motivation you took from the title of the stupid book by Hansen, thinking it might be good for your propaganda. Now about Svante Arrhenius. He did know that carbon dioxide absorbs in the infrared and from that jumped to the conclusion that doubling it should warm the atmosphere. Doubling effect was not called sensitivity then. He even calculated the amount of warming from theory and got it wrong. He realized that he was wrong, recalculated it, and still got it wrong. And by the way, he was not a climate scientist. Not many of the big shots were. Steven Schneider, the one who dropped dead on a plane, was an automotive engineer. And James Hansen, the one who just quit NASA, was an astronomer on the Pioneer Venus probe, even had an experiment on the spacecraft going to Venus. But in 1978 he suddenly abandoned the Venus project and transferred to NASA GISS because the atmosphere of our planet was changing before his eyes. That was a good move because in two years he was the boss and was able to change the entire research program at GISS to climate science. He was in with environmental advocates like senator Wirth who invited him to talk about global warming to his senate committee. Hansen agreed, but it did not work out well. It was cold, no one wanted to hear about warming, and the media just ignored it. But senator Wirth did not give up. When at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, and he sure did. First he asked the weather bureau what was the warmist day in Washington, DC. The original meeting had been in November 1997 but the new meeting was now set for June 23rd, the warmest day of 1988. He also cued in the networks. And the night before the meeting he went out, opened up all the windows in the meeting room, and made sure the air conditioning did not work. It paid off because the new meeting was a tremendous success. Hansen showed calculated warming curves until 2019 and scared everyone. His predictions were way off but nobody knew that then. There were TV cameras in double digits (Wirth’s own words), the cameramen and the guest of honor sweated profusely, and global warming was on everyone’s evening news that night. This was the beginning of the present global warming craze. Wirth and company had already planned for the IPCC and Hansen’s presentation provided the final push for it. He was later rewarded with the Heinz prize for it. From his Pioneer Venus days Hansen remembered that the atmosphere of Venus was very hot and jumped to the conclusion that runaway global warming was to blame. A little knowledge, however is a dangerous thing. He kept warning us about tipping points that could push the earth over the edge like Venus had been pushed without really knowing what was happening on Venus. It turns out that Venus has no plate tectonics. On earth radioactive heat is constantly vented by plate-boundary volcanism. On Venus it steadily builds up underneath the crust until the crust weakens, breaks up into large slabs that sink into the interior, and a new crust is formed. Judging by impact crater distribution a full repavement cycle may take from 300 to 600 million years on Venus. If it is the same age as the earth is it may have had time for as many as ten such cycles in its past. Its atmosphere is entirely a product of these giant eructations and has nothing whatever to do with any runaway greenhouse effect. Now back to Arrhenius. Problem with his greenhouse calculation was that carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. The main greenhouse gases in our atmosphere are carbon dioxide and water vapor. I already described part of Miskolczi’s work in another comment but there is more we need to know. Miskolczi has shown that if more than one greenhouse gas in the atmosphere actively absorbs IR there exists an optimum absorption window for the atmosphere as a whole that the gases present jointly maintain. For example, if we add more carbon dioxide to air and its absorption increases, water vapor present will diminish until the optimum total absorption amount is restored. This is equivalent to negative water vapor feedback, the exact opposite of that used by IPCC. This is the explanation of why Miskolczi’s observations I referred to failed to detect increased absorption from carbon dioxide added to air. And that is why the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide simply does not exist. Among other things, it follows that all emission control laws and regulations based upon computer models using the greenhouse effect were passed under false premises and should be nullified. And likewise, moneys allocated for emission control projects are a total waste and should be stopped forthwith. As to organizations promulgating the pseudoscience of anthropogenic global warming, they should all be closed down. Reply Tom Dayton Tom Dayton 10 months ago arnoarrak, Miskolczi’s work is just plain wrong: scienceofdoom/roadmap/miskolczi/ Reply glenntamblyn glenntamblyn 10 months ago Lysenkoist? Peter, get your far Right obsession with Communism out in the open why don’t you. Have a look around the world Peter, Communism is dead, has been for several decades. Only among the Far Right in America is there still this old obsession with a phantom enemy. Old Cold Warriors who don’t know what to do with their lives now that there is no enemy to fight. And to clarify just on single error in your giant Gish Gallop, just as an example. Yes CO2 levels were much higher in the geological past. Life couldn’t have existed if they weren’t because the Earth woukd have been a giant snowball. Because the Young Sun was cooler than now. Go read some Stellar Physics Peter, read about the ‘Faint Young Sun’ problem. Life flourished all those years ago precisely because all that extra CO2 compensated for the colder Sun to leave the Earth warm enough to inhabit. As a ball park figure, every 150-200 million years that we go back into the past, CO2 levels needed to double, just to maintain the same climate. If you want to disagree with that, then please explain to the Stellar Physics community exactly what is wrong withe the Standard Solar Model. Reply Author Peter Ferrara Peter Ferrara, Contributor 10 months ago Mr. Honeycutt, I just filed a brief with the United States Supreme Court in the lawsuit against the EPA for failing to submit its Endangerment Finding for peer review to its own Science Advisory Board as required by Federal law. EPA’s failure to do so in violation of federal law is not even in dispute in the case. See Pacific Legal Foundation v Environmental Protection Agency, Case No. 12-1153 on the Supreme Court docket. How amusing that after all the high and mighty phony posturing about peer review to intimidate folks out of public debate the EPA blows off its own legal requirement for peer review for the very Endangerment Finding launching its global warming regulation. But I see the fact that you didn’t know anything about this did not stop you from running your mouth over it. That is what you are doing with your more obscure science references as well. Called-out comment Reply Craig Thomas Craig Thomas 10 months ago I think that’s actually what he is trying to say. Hilarious that he’s accusing respected, professional scientists of being involved in some kind of communist conspiracy while at the same time using the chronically unreliable non-science Heartland Institute as a source for his “information”. Reply Author Peter Ferrara Peter Ferrara, Contributor 10 months ago arnoarrak, Thank you for your fine effort to elevate the discussion. But as you can see, for people like Tom Dayton, glenntamblyn, Honeycutt, and others, this is about religious warfare and not about science, and your comments are way over their heads. But the public debate in which they have refused to participate is over, and they have lost. Even the Europeans are giving up on it. The world of commerce will be moving on without them. Called-out comment Reply Rob Honeycutt Rob Honeycutt 10 months ago My guess… Your suit will get tossed out. The Endangerment Finding was a very carefully crafted document anticipating paid fossil fuel shills such as you. Reply gallopingcamel gallopingcamel 10 months ago Dwight Eisenhower warned us against the “Military-Industrial Complex” that was going to control science just as Lysenko did under Stalin: youtube/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY He had the right idea but the wrong target. Today, what is most to be feared is politics and science riding together. You could hardly find a better example of this than CAGW, a “Heroic Problem” that only governments and their “Climate Scientist” toadies can solve. Reply gallopingcamel gallopingcamel 10 months ago Any reasonable person will want to”Delay Action”if it involves spending billions or even trillions on something that is not a problem. Anyone who wants to turn the clock back to the Little Ice Age that produced untold misery from the 16th century is cuckoo. Reply Rob Honeycutt Rob Honeycutt 10 months ago arnoarrak… Ever heard of a think called a “paragraph.” It’s a highly useful tool to make one’s writing actually readable. Reply Rob Honeycutt Rob Honeycutt 10 months ago “…this is about religious warfare and not about science.” Again, you can’t seem to argue facts so you retreat into your conspiracy theories. If you were to actually read the published research you would understand how wrong you are. I hold, though, that you already know how wrong you are but persist because of ideology. Reply Rob Honeycutt Rob Honeycutt 10 months ago And not too shabby considering Arrhenius was working with pencil and paper!! Reply Craig Thomas Craig Thomas 10 months ago Ferrara is right to say this isn’t about science – after all, he’s quoting Heartland for his misinformation instead of relying on what the scientists have to say. Reply Russell Seitz Russell Seitz 10 months ago Why must Forbes make do with felon Jack Abramoff’s pay-for-play leavings ? One reads in Businessweek: ” Peter Ferrara, a senior policy adviser at the conservative Institute for Policy Innovation, says he, too, took money from Abramoff to write op-ed pieces boosting the lobbyist’s clients. “ I do that all the time,” Ferrara says. “I’ve done that in the past, and I’ll do it in the future…. jack lost interest in me and felt he had other writers who were writing in more prominent publications,” Ferarra’s misrepresentation of the facts of science and natural history in this case brand him as a hirable witness in the worst tradition of K-Street and Faux News. Reply Rob Honeycutt Rob Honeycutt 10 months ago GC said, “…if it involves spending billions or even trillions on something that is not a problem.” Yes, you’re right. It would be foolish to spend money on something that is not a problem. BUT you have to look at this from a risk management stance. How sure are you that the 97% of climate scientists are wrong? How sure are you that the 100,000+ published research papers showing AGW is real, are wrong? How sure are you that every scientific body who has a published statement on this issue is wrong? Are you 50% sure they’re wrong? Are you 50% sure your home will not burn down because of a faulty appliance or wiring, sometime in the next 10 years? You’re probably 95% sure that won’t happen. But you spend money on insurance in case it does happen. Is that wasted money? The research shows, with a high degree of certainty, that we likely have a serious problem facing us. We must mitigate that risk in some way. All those scientists and scientific organizations may be wrong. But they also may be right. Are you honestly so jaded, so ideologically wed to your position, that you are willing to risk future generations on the extremely low likelihood this is all made up? Really? Reply Russell Seitz Russell Seitz 10 months ago How extraordinary that Peter vacilates between denying the validity of a scientific show of hands and pointing to a petition. Larger numbers of signatures are garnered annually in support of nominations for dog catcher, and what counts here is scientific quality as well as quantity. The commonest denominator of the sources he cites is negative scientific credibility- where real contrarians insist on informing their views by constant reference to the ever growing corpus of peer reviewed climate science literature, on which thousands of scientists of all political stripes labor , Heartland’s ludicrously short scientific bibliography stems for the most part from less than two dozen authors, most of whom are, like Peter, confessdly on the oil and coal patch payrolls. The main differece between the Heartland Institute and Lysenko’s criminal enterprise was that, as Stalin’s buddy, old Trofim had brigades of the evil empire’s best and brightest at his disposal, while Peter’s cohort is hard pressed to produce a platoon of warm bodies to recite the party line. As no mean legal minion himself, Peter ought to know that the guff he spouts on his client’s behalf here would never prevail in hearings before a genuine master. Reply Andy Lee Robinson Andy Lee Robinson 10 months ago I would advise you to sit down and secure any cups of coffee in the vicinity before viewing this: Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes – 1979-2012 https://youtube/watch?v=YgiMBxaL19M Don’t worry, I will understand if this comment isn’t called out! Reply Wilbert Robichaud Wilbert Robichaud 10 months ago ” In two years he was the boss and was able to change the entire research program at GISS to climate science.” ..And he became M Mann’s Boss which also included Gavin Smith. Reply Russell Seitz Russell Seitz 10 months ago Note that peter has exercised his call out power to grab all the space on the first comment page and bury the wholesale fisking of his screed. Reply Bob Lacatena Bob Lacatena 10 months ago Mr. Ferrara, why is it that you only call out your own comments? Do you have an agenda to sell? As to your laughable appraisal of arnoarrak for… let me see, his “fine effort to elevate the discussion…” Let’s see what sorts of things he said that you laud: “…your children whom you say you are protecting will be ashamed of your distortions when they grow up. ” “ …the stupid book by Hansen…” “…your propaganda…” “…jumped to the conclusion that…” “Steven Schneider, the one who dropped dead on a plane…” “… the media just ignored it…” “… the night before the meeting he went out, opened up all the windows in the meeting room, and made sure the air conditioning did not work…” “… scared everyone…” “… the present global warming craze…” “… jumped to the conclusion that runaway global warming was to blame…” “On earth radioactive heat is constantly vented by plate-boundary volcanism…”[lol] “…Miskolczi’s work…” [lol, again] “…the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide simply does not exist…”* “…computer models using the greenhouse effect were passed under false premises and should be nullified…” [lol, yet again] “…organizations promulgating the pseudoscience of anthropogenic global warming, they should all be closed down.” *You might want to ask your heroes Spencer and Lindzen about the truth about the greenhouse effect. Really? That’s what you term “elevating the discussion?” Reply Bob Armstrong Bob Armstrong 10 months ago “Pal review” is so 20th century . Peer review is happening right here and now on the web . I’ve been disgusted with this criminal stupidity since it first offended my sense of the most basic physics I learned as a grade school nerd during the Eisenhower administration . You offend the memory of some of the greats of classical physics with your distortions of what they found and what they claimed . 3 years , eh ? What’s your hard science background ? This is just a singularly retarded field of applied physics after all . Reply Bob Armstrong Bob Armstrong 10 months ago The most basic calculations of “radiative balance” show that for Venus’s surface temperature to be the observed 2.25 times the temperature of a gray ball in its orbit , it would have to be 10 times as reflective in the IR as aluminum foil . CO2 can’t fill that bill . ( I doubt if anything can . ) Therefore Hansen’s claim that it is due to a “runaway greenhouse effect” should have been thrown out by “peer review” years ago . Reply Russell Seitz Russell Seitz 10 months ago As Forbes readership includes investors in climate sensitive commodities, what ever will the SEC make of this Heartland stalwart directing them to heed the advice of an Institute whose Science Director statutorially banned from giving investment counsel by his Federal felony conviction for defrauding the EPA? Reply economart economart 10 months ago Hello Russell and Honeyboy, Nice to see the AGW nutjobs bringing their ridiculous science along for all to laugh at. This is just fantastic. AGW is falling apart. Not even the great AGW scientists believe it anymore. So sad, too bad. Suckers. GM Reply gallopingcamel gallopingcamel 10 months ago Arrhenius’ theory does not work. It is simply an absurd speculation that does not fit observations. diggingintheclay.wordpress/2013/03/07/arrhenius-revisited/ Reply Eli Rabett Eli Rabett 10 months ago Mann never had a position at GISS. Get the simple stuff right first Reply James McDonald James McDonald 10 months ago Even though Arctic sea ice is vanishing before our eyes, that is only a small part of the story. Far more important is that the volume of land-based ice is dropping by hundreds of cubic kilometers per year — more than enough to run two Mississippi rivers full-time. Greenland and Antarctica are each losing around 100 to 200 km^3 of ice each year, while glaciers around the world are losing around 400 km^3. It’s disingenuous in the extreme to leave out the numbers when noting that “some” glaciers are losing 400 km^3 while “some” others are gaining 1 km^3. Reply James McDonald James McDonald 10 months ago As long as he gets paid enough, he’ll say anything. That’s how psychopaths roll. Reply economart economart 10 months ago Who? Hansen, Mann, Gore or Jones? GM Reply Russell Seitz Russell Seitz 10 months ago Some readers may be tempted to equate the tone of the preceding rant by Ferrara with the desperation in the voice of a high school debater caught swearing on a cookbook he’s substituted for a Bible. If he wants to avoid perjuring himself , he’d better switch to pounding the table instead of the vanity press volume to which he refers, comissioned by his side’s backers fron Heartland , and which Fred Singer was paid $100,000 to collate. Reply gwkimball gwkimball 10 months ago The whole AGW fangango absolutely is about religion – the green religion. In reality that is all it is about – cultural mythology of man’s proper place in Nature. God Mother Nature perfection of God perfect system of Nature Sinner modern man sin polluting repentance shut down industrialized nations piety shivering in the dark, eating rice, no cattle damnation ecological collapse See Michael Crichton’s essay. Reply Joshua Studen Joshua Studen 9 months ago As a scientist, I find a lawyer commenting on scientific consensus laughable. A scientific consensus is not reached via some poll conducted by Rasmussen or Gallup, a scientific consensus is determined when the vast vast majority of the people in the field stop arguing about it. That means -literally- the people in the field. It does not mean lawyers, politicians, or scientists from other fields. Take for example, a survey of academic literature: iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article Of the publications that actually went out of their way to express an opinion on climate change, only 1% of the publications denied it. 1%. Funny that denialists can only claim “the studies are flawed” but can never provide any studies backing up their claims that we’re undergoing a natural fluctuation. Reply Joshua Studen Joshua Studen 9 months ago Right. His data is fabricated. If it disputes your statement, the data is fabricated! Amazing how this works! You: “evolution isn’t real” Him: well, yes it is. You see, there’s fossil records, DNA tracking, and we’ve witnessed it in laboratories. You: “No, it’s all a lie. It’s fabricated data”. That’s pretty much all you do. Reply Joshua Studen Joshua Studen 9 months ago I’ll debate you in public right here. Saturday. We can spend all day on it, if you want. I know you won’t accept the challenge. Only citations from climate researchers is allowed. Reply eb1225 eb1225 10 months ago It’s a great debating trick to try to get someone to prove a negative. You say “the data was faked” and then demand that your opponent prove that the data wasn’t faked. The flim-flam artist knows that it’s impossible to prove a negative. How about having this economist (yeah, economist) prove his claim – that the data was faked. If the data has been faked, then thousands of climate scientists all over the world are engaged in a gigantic conspiracy to fool the world. (Lysenko was successful in the Soviet Union only because he convinced the dictator Stalin. The world isn’t ruled by a Joseph Stalin who can execute any scientist who questions him.) So scientists are lying but the people who work for or on behalf of the carbon-intensive industries like fossil fuels are telling the truth. Ask yourself – Who is likely to gain more by lying? Not only that, but basic science is wrong! It has been known for over 150 years that the tiny amount of greenhouse gases such as CO2 in the atmosphere keep Earth about 60 degrees F warmer than it would be without them. CO2 concentrations have risen about 40 percent and continue to rise at an accelerating rate. This economist is telling us in effect that even if CO2 levels double, it will not cause temperatures to rise. What a miracle. Who are you going to trust when it comes to a scientific issue, an economist or the scientists who actually have expertise in the subject? Forbes keeps running columns by deniers who have no expertise in science in general or climate science in particular. It’s like having plumbers write about the stock market. Reply Author Peter Ferrara Peter Ferrara, Contributor 10 months ago eb1225, As to the faked data, google “climategate”. It is part of the public record. Please cite where I demanded that anyone prove a negative, or apologize for your fairy tale assertion. I never said all the data has been faked. But it is also part of the public record that the land temperature records have been heavily tampered as well. The satellite temperature records are uncorruptible. But even the temp records as they are do not follow the pattern of CO2 emissions. That is not a statement over which reasonable people can differ. See, e.g., the Economist magazine quote in the article. The voluminous science sources I cite in the article demonstrate what is now the emerging awareness that the climate is not nearly as sensitive to CO2 as alarmists such as yourself have argued. The pattern of temp records follow instead the pattern of natural causes such as ocean current cycles and solar activity. You can check those sources out or you can remain comfortable in your ideological certitude. See lyrics to the song “Fool on a Hill.” I am sorry your public schooling never taught you that ad hominem attacks are logical fallacies. Called-out comment Reply Sparta of Phoenix, AZ USA Sparta of Phoenix, AZ USA 10 months ago “It’s a great debating trick to try to get someone to prove a negative.” Yes, you mean like proposing a theory where the planet may die in the distant future on the behest of man made models which aren’t panning out? A theory that can’t be proven one way or another without said models, whose outcomes vary and then refusing to allow scrutiny of said models? Despite ignoring the last 4.5 billion years with all of its natural variability without the convenience of man we will just focus on the now or data which fits our theory? The first major attempt to “change” this upcoming disaster was to lay tax predominantly on the WEST to be doled out to the utterly corrupt developing world? Give me a break…You “Brethren” are getting desperate…Should have stuck with the impending “ice ball” prediction being made by these same “scientists” 40 years ago…Any fool can look back in time and see “freezing” is the the killer not “warming”. Even if everything you brethren hold dear was true we have plenty of time to “ADAPT” like we always have…If you will remember the last ice age for example, when man walked out of Africa thanks to the “melting”! Idiots…. Reply michaeljones michaeljones 10 months ago Climategate? All investigations cleared the scientists of any wrong doing and upheld the science. That is the public record. Why do you spread falshoods? Reply Author Peter Ferrara Peter Ferrara, Contributor 10 months ago michaeljones, That is not the public record. That is more Lysenkoism. What I said in the article is in the public record, and the party’s propaganda cannot whitewash it out. Called-out comment Reply Rob Honeycutt Rob Honeycutt 10 months ago Peter, in fact, all the investigations into the stolen CRU emails clearly IS public record. You just don’t want to look it up. Reply SkyHunter SkyHunter 10 months ago Climategate proved that deniers like yourself will cling to any straw in order to support their idiotic belief that AGW is a vast UN conspiracy dating back to the end of the 19th century and literally involves every science institute in the world. Peter, your beliefs are nonsense! Reply glenntamblyn glenntamblyn 10 months ago “That is not the public record, that is Lysenkoism”!!!!! WOW Peter, your really are a delusional conspiracy theory crackpot aren’t you. The world of you Far Right types really is a strange alternate universe isn’t it? Reply Craig Thomas Craig Thomas 10 months ago Good grief – trotting out “climategate” as if it were anything other than proof of the delusions that were suffered by the deniers. Quite a number of investigations were conducted into the “climategate”, all of which found that the denier crackpots had nothing but hot wind. Reply Craig Thomas Craig Thomas 10 months ago Can you elaborate on this “theory where the planet may die in the distant future”? I’ve never heard of that one before. Sounds alarming… I thought the issue here was the very real fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that by releasing more of it into the atmosphere, we cause the planet to warm up? It’s difficult to understand how somebody can be in denial of this very straightforward set of empirical facts, although Ferrara’s laughable claim that the “land temperature record has been heavily doctored to suit an agenda” is certainly a clue… Reply gallopingcamel gallopingcamel 10 months ago Climategate showed that there is something seriously wrong with so called “Climate Science”. The new Lysenkoism of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming is much more dangerous than the old Lysenkoism. Reply Russell Seitz Russell Seitz 10 months ago Peter informs us without qualification that “the satellite temperature records are uncorruptable. ” What is that supposed to mean? On the one hand we have the apologetic retraction made by Spencer & Christy in Science for their reseach group’s algorithmic misinterpretation of the satellite record, which they for decades misconstrued to signify as flat or falling a global temperature trend that was rising all along. On the other we have Peter’s pals Pat Michaels and Fred Singer who said it wasn’t so in a 2004 Cato report: >i>“Bombshell papers have just hit the refereed literature that knock the stuffing out of the United Nations, and its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In two research papers in…Geophysical Research Letters…we have a quarter-century of concurrent balloon and satellite data, both screaming that the U.N.‘s climate models have failed, as well as indicating its surface record is simply too hot.” They were dead wrong—the satellite data they cited was Spencer & Christy’s , who following their retractionin Science in 2005, told Newsweek in 2006 that “our satellite trend has been positive.” Reply Bob Armstrong Bob Armstrong 10 months ago Peter , Exactly . It’s the same appeal to their own authority as their hang up ( when it serves them ) on their “peer review” . It’s a denial that the battle which is crushing their arrogance is right here in real time on the web . Anybody can look at the Climategate emails and judge for themselves . From my perspective , they don’t reveal anything other than a particularly sleazy example of the “pal review” charade I saw in my decade in grad school in the 1970s . It’s academic incest . Some of these people , like Glenn , are , I know , open to rational argument . But the quality of understanding of the most basic relevant physics and math apparent in the field is pathetic and stagnant . The remediation has to begin with the physics and scientific method which are no longer being taught in government high schools . Reply Russell Seitz Russell Seitz 10 months ago Or better still just read The Economist for a more disnterested take on the Climate Wars than Heartland, and Peter, are paid to provide. Reply Russell Seitz Russell Seitz 10 months ago Peter, denying evolution as fiercely as your Discovery Instiute allies , Lysenko directed the wrath of the Party at biologists whose work lent Darwin street cred, and instead presented a cranky Lamarkian alternative to natural selection. A half century later , the Party line is over, but your Heartland colleagues have inherited Lysenko’s mantle by cheering on barratry- the courts have soundly rejected the persecution of climate scientists by inquisitorial know-nothings like Cuccinelli, and politically Apparatchiks like former ‘State Climatolgist’ Pat Michaels. The jury isn’t out on this one Peter- it’s you lot that have impeached yourselves by exceeding the limits of legal taste in suborning witness your 800 page bible is a paid for cut and paste job , not a bona fide scientific endeavor – and you know it. Reply superbowlpatriot superbowlpatriot 10 months ago I’m aware of the various formal inquiries into the leaked CRU emails, but I’d be curious to hear what the peanut gallery has to say about this tidbit: “You can delete this attachment if you want. Keep this quiet also, but this is the person who is putting in FOI requests for all emails Keith and Tim have written and received re Ch 6 of AR4. We think we’ve found a way around this.” assassinationscience/climategate/1/FOIA/mail/1210341221.txt Don’t defer to Muir Russell or whatever, please take some time to understand the context yourself and then actually respond to the substance of the email. This should be interesting. Reply Rob Honeycutt Rob Honeycutt 10 months ago superbowlpatriot… What was in the attachment? Do you know? Was it deleted? Was it kept? Was this part of the investigation? If so, what did the investigation say about it? You have to take some time and dig. Don’t just take one statement from one email and think that it somehow invalidates 200 years of scientific research. Someone who is actually skeptical will look at all sides and try to put any single item into a broader context. Reply James McDonald James McDonald 10 months ago So-called “climate gate” was an entirely manufactured slander of reputable scientists. As several investigations concluded, including those conducted by legal experts. You have to be incredibly dim-witted or malicious to repeat that libel years after the lies from the right-wing were exposed. Reply James McDonald James McDonald 10 months ago superbowl, that comment referred to a denial-of-service attack that was being directed at the researchers. The person in question (I forget his name) created a web-site with a form letter asking the folks at CRU to provide data on “pick five countries at random” (or something quite similar). So the researchers were getting hundreds of FOI requests per week for the data on “Ireland, Somalia, Brazil, Japan, and Norway” or “Pakistan, North Korea, Mexico, Sweden, and Argentina”. Many of the requests were actualy for the data from “pick five countries at random”! This coordinated attack was designed to keep the researchers so busy dealing with bogus FOI requests that they would have no time to do any research. With that background, perhaps you can understand the quoted email better. Reply graphicconception graphicconception 10 months ago You obviously have not noticed how the 1930′s in the USA got colder again only last year according to NASA? Reply renewableguy renewableguy 10 months ago gc: Your statement isn’t making sense. Reply Joshua Studen Joshua Studen 9 months ago A few problems with climategate. 1) “Climategate” consists of a few scientists.. less than 5, I believe. 2) There was actually nothing to climategate: forbes/sites/alexknapp/2011/08/24/climategate-scientists-cleared-of-wrongdoing-again/ It’s just standard right-wing babble: they can’t dispute the facts, so they make something up to say the facts are a lie. Reply Jim Lindelien Jim Lindelien 10 months ago Mr. Ferrara, save this tripe for your grandchildren, for the day they ask why you were part of the problem. Reply Author Peter Ferrara Peter Ferrara, Contributor 10 months ago Mr. Lindelien, Let’s commit to paper the following wager. If you are proved right, my grandchildren will pay your grandchildren $1,000 per month for life. If I am proved right, your grandchildren will pay my grandchildren $1,000 a month for life. Called-out comment Reply michaeljones michaeljones 10 months ago Too bad you won’t be around to see your grandchildren pay when they lose, Peter. Reply Rob Honeycutt Rob Honeycutt 10 months ago Peter, You can’t make bets for other people to pay, for one. And the bet needn’t be so extended. You will be fully retracting your position within the next decade because that’s the timeframe in which it’s likely to become extremely obvious to everyone on the planet that we have an extremely serious problem that we have to address. I’m backed on this position by every scientific organization on the planet. I’m backed up by nearly 200 years of scientific research consisting of well over 100,000 published and peer reviewed scientific research papers. You are backed up by the Oregon Petition (which you cite) representing 0.1% of people who have a “BSc or better.” And you’re backed up by a handful of retired NASA scientists, whom also represent a small fraction of retired NASA scientists. You’re going to find yourself on the wrong side of history on this issue. You are allowing your Libertarian ideology to dictate what you want to believe, and ignoring the actual research. Try this experiment (I dare you). Go to google scholar and start pulling up random papers on climate change. Read enough to evaluate for yourself whether the paper supports or rejects man-made global warming. Keep a tally. See for yourself where the balance of research is. Reply 1 2 3 4 Follow Comments Most Read on Forbes News People Places Companies Why Wu-Tang Will Release Just One Copy Of Its Secret Album +404,246 views Review: Captain America: The Winter Soldier Proves More Is Less +82,996 views California Democrat And Gun Control Advocate Charged With Arms Trafficking +56,427 views Top 100 Inspirational Quotes +45,496 views Vince McMahons Over-The-Top Move: Why The Billionaire CEO Is Betting Big On The New WWE Network +39,174 views Huh? 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I am a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and the author most recently of Americas Ticking Bankruptcy Bomb (New York: Harper Collins, 2011). I write about new, cutting edge ideas regarding public policy, particularly concerning economics. The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. More from Peter Ferrara
Posted on: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 22:34:46 +0000