Can the atmosphere really warm? Atmospheric gas retention.

[AndyH]

When I started driving, Klap, my dad showed me a cartoon. It was the center aisle in a church with two coffins side by side. The 'talk bubble' over one was "But I had the right of way".

One can judge the deniers to be 'immoral' and one can continue to 'indulge' them. But at the end of the day it hurts all of us, not just them.

Yes...?

The cartoon...the two coffins contained former automobile drivers. Both died in the same collision. One had the right of way and entered an intersection. The other driver, not having the right of way, entered anyway. They both died. Neither being 'right' or being 'moral' or wearing clean underwear changed the outcome.

Or do you hypothesize that it doesn't matter that the US, Canada, and Australia are locked in an information war that is destroying any ability for the world to start doing what we all know must be done (getting beyond fossil fuel)? (At this point, I hope not, but have to ask for the sake of covering at least some of the possibilities )

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/07/climate-denial-us-uk-australia-canada-english

Here in the United States, we fret a lot about global warming denial. Not only is it a dangerous delusion, it's an incredibly prevalent one. Depending on your survey instrument of choice, we regularly learn that substantial minorities of Americans deny, or are skeptical of, the science of climate change.

The global picture, however, is quite different...

Nonetheless, some pretty significant patterns are apparent. Perhaps most notably: Not only is the United States clearly the worst in its climate denial, but Great Britain and Australia are second and third worst, respectively. Canada, meanwhile, is the seventh worst.

What do these four nations have in common? They all speak the language of Shakespeare.

Why would that be? After all, presumably there is nothing about English, in and of itself, that predisposes you to climate change denial. Words and phrases like "doubt," "natural causes," "climate models," and other skeptic mots are readily available in other languages. So what's the real cause?

One possible answer is that it's all about the political ideologies prevalent in these four countries...

Indeed, the English language media in three of these four countries are linked together by a single individual: Rupert Murdoch. An apparent climate skeptic or lukewarmer, Murdoch is the chairman of News Corp and 21st Century Fox. (You can watch him express his climate views here.) Some of the media outlets subsumed by the two conglomerates that he heads are responsible for quite a lot of English language climate skepticism and denial.

 

[klapauzius]

The cartoon...the two coffins contained former automobile drivers. Both died in the same collision. One had the right of way and entered an intersection. The other driver, not having the right of way, entered anyway. They both died. Neither being 'right' or being 'moral' or wearing clean underwear changed the outcome.

Or do you hypothesize that it doesn't matter that the US, Canada, and Australia are locked in an information war that is destroying any ability for the world to start doing what we all know must be done (getting beyond fossil fuel)? (At this point, I hope not, but have to ask for the sake of covering at least some of the possibilities )

Well, yes, reality doesn't care for human ideology...And no, I think it highly matters, that particularly the US will need to do something.

Long term I am optimistic, that this current weird political situation in this country will eventually resolve and environmental politics will get the attention it deserves.

What I fear though is that it might be too late by then and all we do for the rest of the 21st century will be damage control...

I think you should emphasize though that it is not the countries that are engaged in this misinformation, but certain interest groups in these countries, which, at least in the US, due to the outdated and broken political system, get more political weight than they should have in a modern democracy.

For Australia and Canada one can hope that political change can move these countries more quickly into the right direction.

After all, Australia had a carbon tax.

 

[AndyH]

The cartoon...the two coffins contained former automobile drivers. Both died in the same collision. One had the right of way and entered an intersection. The other driver, not having the right of way, entered anyway. They both died. Neither being 'right' or being 'moral' or wearing clean underwear changed the outcome.

Or do you hypothesize that it doesn't matter that the US, Canada, and Australia are locked in an information war that is destroying any ability for the world to start doing what we all know must be done (getting beyond fossil fuel)? (At this point, I hope not, but have to ask for the sake of covering at least some of the possibilities )

Well, yes, reality doesn't care for human ideology...And no, I think it highly matters, that particularly the US will need to do something.

Long term I am optimistic, that this current weird political situation in this country will eventually resolve and environmental politics will get the attention it deserves.

What I fear though is that it might be too late by then and all we do for the rest of the 21st century will be damage control...

I think you should emphasize though that it is not the countries that are engaged in this misinformation, but certain interest groups in these countries, which, at least in the US, due to the outdated and broken political system, get more political weight than they should have in a modern democracy.

For Australia and Canada one can hope that political change can move these countries more quickly into the right direction.

After all, Australia had a carbon tax.

I'm not emphasizing countries. That was the first article I've found that pointed the arrows squarely at one of the disinformation vectors, though.

I want to be optimistic but as each new area comes into focus it looks less like 'fun.'

As for Australia, they no longer have a carbon tax.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/australia-repeals-carbon-tax-1405560964

CANBERRA, Australia—After almost a decade of heated political debate, Australia has become the world's first developed nation to repeal carbon laws that put a price on greenhouse-gas emissions.

In a vote that could highlight the difficulty in implementing additional measures to reduce carbon emissions ahead of global climate talks next year in Paris, Australia's Senate on Thursday voted 39-32 to repeal a politically divisive carbon emissions price that contributed to the fall from power of three Australian leaders since it was first suggested in 2007.

It's not enough to sit by and watch in hopes of having pieces to pick up in 40 years.

 

[klapauzius]

It's not enough to sit by and watch in hopes of having pieces to pick up in 40 years.

Well, in a democracy, there should be many ways to address the problem.

 

[WetEV]

As to the Nierenberg quibble, Wikipedia isn't a reliable source. Expedient but easily and often manipulated.

Yet the Wikipedia article agrees with my memories of 1980; OK, I guess that means that Wikipedia is wrong. :lol:

Since this gent's work is suggested to be an 'opening volley' in the propaganda war,

Not everyone is part of a propaganda war, Andy. In 1980, there were real skeptics, as the case wasn't nearly as strong as it is now. The Keeling curve was a cause for concern, not panic, and a reason for learning more. I didn't write about this subject, I only talked with a few people about it. My main activity on the subject was reading likely papers in journals on the subject in the library. This wasn't a common subject anywhere else. Think one of thousands of interesting (to those debating mostly) academic debates going on at any given time. I'd doubt if 10,000 people were as active as I was on this subject.

I thought of William Nierenberg (and the rest of the Scripps crowd) as a more radical proponents of the theory. I thought it was an interesting speculation for glacial maximums and for the warmer older periods of time, and if true, the Keeling curve suggested that it would become important for humans. That made me either a lukewarm skeptic or a lukewarm proponent. 1985 was the year things changed. Much before then, it would have taken a real psychic to predict that this issue would explode.

I'm aware many tend to cast this into a "Left vs Right" political debate, but it really wasn't then. In many ways, I would rather it wasn't one now.

 

[WetEV]

they have gone way overboard in claiming that small changes due to CO2 will lead to huge changes because the CO2 will co-opt water vapor in a positive feedback loop. I have provided many, many avenues of evidence that water in our system provides strong negative feedback, rendering the already-small contribution of CO2 to our Earth's temperature to be even smaller.

Then how did the glaciers advance at the Last Glacial Maximum?

More clouds, modulated by low solar activity.

Have you ever thought about the evidence for/against this? Is there a record of solar activity that you could compare with climate over a long time period, long enough to have significant variation in climate, like the Last Glacial Maximum?

At least two radioactive isotopes are created by cosmic rays, which are modulated by solar activity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryllium-10" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-14" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Although carbon is probably less useful due to changing carbon cycles during climate changes. Maybe you might want to look for the 10Be data.
(edit: fixed quotes)

 

[AndyH]

As to the Nierenberg quibble, Wikipedia isn't a reliable source. Expedient but easily and often manipulated.

Yet the Wikipedia article agrees with my memories of 1980; OK, I guess that means that Wikipedia is wrong. :lol:

Since this gent's work is suggested to be an 'opening volley' in the propaganda war,

Not everyone is part of a propaganda war, Andy. In 1980, there were real skeptics, as the case wasn't nearly as strong as it is now. The Keeling curve was a cause for concern, not panic, and a reason for learning more. I didn't write about this subject, I only talked with a few people about it. My main activity on the subject was reading likely papers in journals on the subject in the library. This wasn't a common subject anywhere else. Think one of thousands of interesting (to those debating mostly) academic debates going on at any given time. I'd doubt if 10,000 people were as active as I was on this subject.

I thought of William Nierenberg (and the rest of the Scripps crowd) as a more radical proponents of the theory. I thought it was an interesting speculation for glacial maximums and for the warmer older periods of time, and if true, the Keeling curve suggested that it would become important for humans. That made me either a lukewarm skeptic or a lukewarm proponent. 1985 was the year things changed. Much before then, it would have taken a real psychic to predict that this issue would explode.

I'm aware many tend to cast this into a "Left vs Right" political debate, but it really wasn't then. In many ways, I would rather it wasn't one now.

I agree that "not everyone is part of a propaganda war" Wet - truly (though innocent work can be used as a weapon). I absolutely do not intend this back and forth to be personal in any way. But as with science, I'll defer to experts when they rack and stack the history. This Desmog piece is most succinct:
http://www.desmogblog.com/oreskes-chronicles-birth-of-climate-change-denial

Naomi Oreskes, the science historian whose landmark article 2004 Science article, finally put the lie as to whether there was a legitimate climate change “debate,” has written a new piece for the TimesOnline, describing on of the best early warnings the U.S. received about global warming, and revealing the efforts of scientist-turned-lobbyist Bill Nierenberg in beginning to sow confusion.

As Oreskes reports, the U.S. government had solid information on the likelihood (and potential severity) of climate change in 1979 - delivered by a panel of some of the most impressive scientists in the land. But In 1980, then-President Ronald Reagan found the truth inconvenient. If the world community started worrying about climate change, Reagan figured everyone would start blaming America (because America was making the biggest contribution). Reagen tapped Nierenberg for an alternative report, and the big lie began.

When I used the radar jamming analogy, I may not have made clear enough that a proper 'system intrusion' begins with 100% factual information - and an intent to skew the data as time advances. I'm not judging Nierenberg or the data of the 1980s - I haven't done enough research to confirm or deny Oreskes' assessment - but even if Nierenberg's 'facts' are 100% correct, that he was tapped by a president that chose to disregard scientific consensus and look for an alternate opinion with which to work speaks volumes.

Fast forward to 26 minutes for a look at the start at denial:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T4UF_Rmlio[/youtube]

I'm with you 100% on a wish for this faux debate to cease to exist. But it appears that the 'climate conversation' transitioned from a polite conversation to a war in the 1980s - and that requires taking different actions. Not bringing a knife to a gun fight comes to mind.

 

[AndyH]

It's not enough to sit by and watch in hopes of having pieces to pick up in 40 years.

Well, in a democracy, there should be many ways to address the problem.

The English-speaking world took a turn in the 1980s with the "Reagan/Thatcher" years and policies that reduced the ability of the citizenry to push back against corporate interests. Today's US "democracy" requires one to have a large bank account (after all, money is speech and corporations are 'people' now).

There's a movement to amend the US Constitution to overturn the Citizens United 'money is speech' ruling but if successful this will take years to ratify and more time to overcome inertia. After that, we need politicians willing to stand up to corporations with more disposable income than many western countries. After that...we should probably find a safe place to build a museum to house the last copies of species from this extinction event.

"Should" doesn't appear to apply any longer.

 

[WetEV]

I agree that "not everyone is part of a propaganda war" Wet - truly (though innocent work can be used as a weapon). I absolutely do not intend this back and forth to be personal in any way. But as with science, I'll defer to experts when they rack and stack the history. This Desmog piece is most succinct:
http://www.desmogblog.com/oreskes-chronicles-birth-of-climate-change-denial

Naomi Oreskes, the science historian whose landmark article 2004 Science article, finally put the lie as to whether there was a legitimate climate change “debate,” has written a new piece for the TimesOnline, describing on of the best early warnings the U.S. received about global warming, and revealing the efforts of scientist-turned-lobbyist Bill Nierenberg in beginning to sow confusion.

As Oreskes reports, the U.S. government had solid information on the likelihood (and potential severity) of climate change in 1979 - delivered by a panel of some of the most impressive scientists in the land. But In 1980, then-President Ronald Reagan found the truth inconvenient. If the world community started worrying about climate change, Reagan figured everyone would start blaming America (because America was making the biggest contribution). Reagen tapped Nierenberg for an alternative report, and the big lie began.

One problem with that. Carter was president in 1980, not Reagan. But don't let easily verifiable facts get in the way of your information war... Do continue.

But it appears that the 'climate conversation' transitioned from a polite conversation to a war in the 1980s - and that requires taking different actions.

Sometimes the best answer to a war is to not fight it. Truth is powerful.

 

[AndyH]

I agree that "not everyone is part of a propaganda war" Wet - truly (though innocent work can be used as a weapon). I absolutely do not intend this back and forth to be personal in any way. But as with science, I'll defer to experts when they rack and stack the history. This Desmog piece is most succinct:
http://www.desmogblog.com/oreskes-chronicles-birth-of-climate-change-denial

Naomi Oreskes, the science historian whose landmark article 2004 Science article, finally put the lie as to whether there was a legitimate climate change “debate,” has written a new piece for the TimesOnline, describing on of the best early warnings the U.S. received about global warming, and revealing the efforts of scientist-turned-lobbyist Bill Nierenberg in beginning to sow confusion.

As Oreskes reports, the U.S. government had solid information on the likelihood (and potential severity) of climate change in 1979 - delivered by a panel of some of the most impressive scientists in the land. But In 1980, then-President Ronald Reagan found the truth inconvenient. If the world community started worrying about climate change, Reagan figured everyone would start blaming America (because America was making the biggest contribution). Reagen tapped Nierenberg for an alternative report, and the big lie began.

One problem with that. Carter was president in 1980, not Reagan. But don't let easily verifiable facts get in the way of your information war... Do continue.

There's no problem with either Oreskes' history (very tight)** or the Desmog article, though the folks at desmog should have said president-elect (or added an 's' to 1980). One might suggest that simply selecting James Watt for Secretary of the Interior and Anne Gorsuch for head of the EPA in 1980 was enough to set the stage...

But it appears that the 'climate conversation' transitioned from a polite conversation to a war in the 1980s - and that requires taking different actions.

Sometimes the best answer to a war is to not fight it. Truth is powerful.

Truth is powerful only when used - it's pretty impotent when it's bound into quarterly archives and left on a shelf behind a pay-wall.

Yes, sometimes the best answer is not to fight. Science has been not fighting since about 1860. How's that working for us so far? Are you happy with our current condition and prognosis Wet? I sure as hell am not.



** From Merchants of Doubt, page 176/177:

Congress was also looking into climate change. The 1978 National Climate Act had established a national climate research program, and Connecticut senator Abraham Ribicoff was planning to introduce an amendment to fund a closer look at CO2. It's a cliche that scientists always say that more research is need, but Ribicoff concluded that more research was needed. President Jimmy Carter was proposing a major effort to increase U.S. energy independence by developing "synfuels" - liquid fuels made from coal, oil shales, and tar sands - and scientific experts had warned that this could accelerate CO2 accumulation. Ribicoff's amendment authorized the National Academy of Sciences to undertake a comprehensive study of CO2 and climate. While the formal charge to the new committee was not formulated until June of the following year, a committee was already in place by October 1980, with Bill Nierenberg as its chair.

Nierenberg seems to have done a certain amount of groundwork, if not actual lobbying, for the job. In August 1979, as the Charney group was compiling its conclusions, John Perry had already been pondering the follow-up. Following normal Academy patterns, Perry suggested to members of the Climate Research Board that the new committee should not undertake new research, but simply review the adequacy and conclusions of existing work. Nierenberg disagreed and argued for a much broader view. He thought the Academy should undertake a comprehensive, integrated assessment of all aspects of the problem, and that the members of the committee should be chosen with more than the usual care. They were. They included Tom Schelling, and and another who would support his views, Yale economist William Nordhaus.

Most National Academy reports are written collectively, reviewed by all the committee members, and then reviewed again by outside reviewers. changes are made by the authors of the various sections and by the chairperson, and the report is accepted and signed by all its authors. An Executive Summary, or synthesis, sometimes written by the chairperson, sometimes by Academy staff, is also reviewed to ensure that it accurately reflects the contents of the study. That didn't happen here. The Carbon Dioxide Assessment Committee - chaired by Bill Nierenberg - could not agree on an integrated assessment, so they settled for chapters that were individually authored and signed. The result, Changing Climate: Report of the Carbon Dioxide Assessment Committee, was really two reports - five chapters detailing the likelihood of anthropogenic climate change written by natural scientists, and two chapters on emissions and climate impacts by economists - which presented very different impressions of the problem. The synthesis sided with the economists, not the natural scientists.

** From Merchants of Doubt, page 186:

In 1984 Bill Nierenberg retired as director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and joined the Board of Directors of the George C. Marshall Institute. As we saw earlier, Robert Jastrow had established the Institute to defend President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative against attack by other scientists. But by 1989, the enemy that justified SDI was rapidly disappearing. The Warsaw Pact had fallen apart, the Soviet Union itself was disintegrating, and the end of the Cold War was in sight. The Institute might have disbanded - it's raison d'etre disappeared - but instead, the old cold Warriors decided to fight on. The new enemy? Environmental "alarmists." In 1989 - the very year the Berlin Wall fell - the Marshall Institute issued its first report attacking climate science. Within a few years, they would be attacking climate scientists as well.

Their initial strategy wasn't to deny the fact of global warming, but to blame it on the Sun. They circulated an unpublished "white paper," generated by Jastrow, Seitz, and Nierenberg and published as a small book the following year, entitled "Global Warming: What Does the Science Tell Us?" Echoing the tobacco industry strategy, they claimed that the report would set the record straight on global warming. The Institute's Washington office staff contacted the White House to request the opportunity to present it. Nierenberg gave the briefing himself, to members of the Office of Cabinet Affairs, the Office of Policy Development, the Council of Economic Advisers, and the Office of Management and Budget.

The briefing had a big impact, stopping the positive momentum that had been building in the Bush administration.

edits..fixed typos; added Watt's selection in 1980.

 

[klapauzius]

The English-speaking world took a turn in the 1980s with the "Reagan/Thatcher" years and policies that reduced the ability of the citizenry to push back against corporate interests. Today's US "democracy" requires one to have a large bank account (after all, money is speech and corporations are 'people' now).

There's a movement to amend the US Constitution to overturn the Citizens United 'money is speech' ruling but if successful this will take years to ratify and more time to overcome inertia. After that, we need politicians willing to stand up to corporations with more disposable income than many western countries. After that...we should probably find a safe place to build a museum to house the last copies of species from this extinction event.

"Should" doesn't appear to apply any longer.

Yes, this what I meant by "outdated" (and broken) political system in the US.
Since peaceful change has to come from within a democracy, there is nothing outside the democratic process to speed things up.

 

[AndyH]

Yes, this what I meant by "outdated" (and broken) political system in the US.

Thanks - looks like I missed that. Sorry.

 

[AndyH]

Not everyone is part of a propaganda war, Andy.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/07/28/3461743/alec-annual-meeting-energy-climate/

With that high-profile case mostly subsided, ALEC can now return its attention to the low-profile war it’s waging for several years to keep renewable energy from gaining territory and promoting fossil fuel production across the country.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/07/28/3465030/house-republican-climate-rule-terrorism/

Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Kelly (R) had choice worlds for the Environmental Protection Agency’s new rule on power plant emissions Monday, moving beyond the usual “war on coal” language and likening the proposed regulations to an act of terrorism.

Everyone doesn't have to be part of a propaganda war where there's enough of an echo chamber to sway opinion. These two pieces are pulled out of today's news - and today was a relatively 'slow news day' on this front...

 

[WetEV]

One problem with that. Carter was president in 1980, not Reagan. But don't let easily verifiable facts get in the way of your information war... Do continue.

It's actually not a problem or inconsistency. Yes, Carter was in the last year of his presidency in 1980 and Reagan was elected in Nov of that year. That means that Reagan was president-elect in 1980. There's no problem with either Orestes' history (very tight)** or the Desmog article (slightly less so).

So in October 1980 William Nierenberg was nominated as chair, nominated by Reagan, who became President-elect in November 1980. And that is not a problem... How? A time machine??

The new enemy? Environmental "alarmists." In 1989 - the very year the Berlin Wall fell - the Marshall Institute issued its first report attacking climate science. Within a few years, they would be attacking climate scientists as well.

Feel free to lambaste the Marshall Institute post 1988. Major league politics had entered the field of play.

William Nierenberg was neither a saint or a devil. Making him into a devil bothers me, even though I've only talked with people that worked with him, and I never met him. On the positive side, he ran Scripps through some very critical years, lobbying for and getting funding for key climate research, including the Keeling curve. In later years, not so positive. And any line drawn between the two is likely to be unfair in some respect or another. No, I'm not trying to make him into a saint. However, you might want to read the Preface, and the Executive Summary of the report in question, at minimum, before you start to draw any line.

http://books.google.com/books?id=TkErAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Changing+Cliamte&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1983&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&as_brr=0&ei=m-zFS8jWJIbklQTSs-mqDg&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[AndyH]

One problem with that. Carter was president in 1980, not Reagan. But don't let easily verifiable facts get in the way of your information war... Do continue.

It's actually not a problem or inconsistency. Yes, Carter was in the last year of his presidency in 1980 and Reagan was elected in Nov of that year. That means that Reagan was president-elect in 1980. There's no problem with either Orestes' history (very tight)** or the Desmog article (slightly less so).

So in October 1980 William Nierenberg was nominated as chair, nominated by Reagan, who became President-elect in November 1980. And that is not a problem... How? A time machine??

Nobody but you and curators at the Reagan library care about someone becoming a chair of a committee. Only you are suggesting that Reagan nominated Nierenberg to the committee. I'm certainly not, and I don't think Ms. Oreskes is/did either. The timeline I posted said the Nierenberg paper that contributed to climate denial was in 1983 not 1980.

The point is that Mr. Nierenberg joined two other known denialists and joined the board of an Institute that makes their living spreading FUD. Why are you working so hard to miss the main point?

 

[WetEV]

Nobody but you and curators at the Reagan library care about someone becoming a chair of a committee. Only you are suggesting that Reagan nominated Nierenberg to the committee. I'm certainly not, and I don't think Ms. Oreskes is/did either. The timeline I posted said the Nierenberg paper that contributed to climate denial was in 1983 not 1980.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=16891&start=400#p380243" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

But In 1980, then-President Ronald Reagan found the truth inconvenient. If the world community started worrying about climate change, Reagan figured everyone would start blaming America (because America was making the biggest contribution). Reagen tapped Nierenberg for an alternative report, and the big lie began.

The report was issued in 1983. The committee was formed in 1980, before the election. Reagan almost certainly had little to do with it, he wasn't President-elect. And Nierenberg was, in 1980 terms, a mainstream scientist. And again, mainstream was a lot different than it is today... and 1988 was a different world, in so many ways.

The point is that Mr. Nierenberg joined two other known denialists and joined the board of an Institute that makes their living spreading FUD. Why are you working so hard to miss the main point?

Crackle of static ... strange wavy sounds ...

The point is that Mr. Nierenberg joined two other known communists and joined the board of an Institute that makes their living spreading RED.

more strange wavy sounds... a crackle of static...

 

[downeykp]

Wet, Andy H and Klapausius, wtf. You guys are thrashing each other and you are on the same team. Donald and Reg. have been quietly watching you three bash the sh!t out of each other. Enough.

 

[AndyH]

Nobody but you and curators at the Reagan library care about someone becoming a chair of a committee. Only you are suggesting that Reagan nominated Nierenberg to the committee. I'm certainly not, and I don't think Ms. Oreskes is/did either. The timeline I posted said the Nierenberg paper that contributed to climate denial was in 1983 not 1980.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=16891&start=400#p380243" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

But In 1980, then-President Ronald Reagan found the truth inconvenient. If the world community started worrying about climate change, Reagan figured everyone would start blaming America (because America was making the biggest contribution). Reagen tapped Nierenberg for an alternative report, and the big lie began.

The report was issued in 1983. The committee was formed in 1980, before the election. Reagan almost certainly had little to do with it, he wasn't President-elect. And Nierenberg was, in 1980 terms, a mainstream scientist. And again, mainstream was a lot different than it is today... and 1988 was a different world, in so many ways.

You might want to give those references another read, Wet. The folks at Desmog didn't say that Reagan formed the committee. That's more clear from the Merchants excerpts and the links in the piece I quoted from. You might also want to refresh yourself on President Reagan's environmental legacy. He was elected president in Nov 1980 - presidents don't wait until January to start assembling their cabinets. His choices for EPA and Interior were not positive for either environmental laws or climate. Further, from the forward of the CO2 committee report:

...The change of administration at that time slowed the discussions of the study's scope and objectives. However, in the summer of 1981 a plan of action was agreed on by which the NAS and OSTP [The Office of Science and Technology Policy is a congressional body, not a scientific group...] could respond to the congressional request fo ran independent and comprehensive assessment...The Committee began its work in September 1981.

Feel free to chew on your Nierenberg bone, though if you do check the references and spend a few quality minutes with Google I suspect you'll find enough info to help you understand that while the Desmog piece wasn't the most elegantly worded, it did cover the important points (here's another hint - 1980 is not important).

The point is that Mr. Nierenberg joined two other known denialists and joined the board of an Institute that makes their living spreading FUD. Why are you working so hard to miss the main point?

Crackle of static ... strange wavy sounds ...

The point is that Mr. Nierenberg joined two other known communists and joined the board of an Institute that makes their living spreading RED.

more strange wavy sounds... a crackle of static...

I think it's funny (yet juvenile) that you mention McCarthy, as the people and groups behind denial started life continuing McCarthy's work fanning the anti-communist flames until the Berlin Wall fell. After all, there was plenty of money to be made selling military hardware in response to the trumped-up 'red threat.' That's covered by the historians as well.

In addition:

The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, Mann, Page 63 "The Climate Wars"

The evidence for a well-organized, well-funded, and orchestrated climate change disinformation campaign has been laid out in detail on public interest group Web sites, in articles in popular magazines, and by an increasingly rich array of scrupulously researched books on the topic. The campaign has its roots in the larger industry-funded public relations efforts that emerged during the 1970s and the 1980s over acid rain, ozone depletion, missile defense, stem cell research, biodiversity loss, and a host of other issues. foreshadowing the climate change denying tactics outlined in the 2002 Luntz memo where the activities of the Global climate Coalition (GCC). Formed in the late 1980s, the GCC was a consortium of more than fifty companies and trade associations representing chemical, mining, automotive, transportation, fossil fuel, shipping, farming, power, defense, pharmaceutical, and manufacturing industries with the purpose of funding and organizing opposition to emerging policy efforts aimed at greenhouse gas emission reductions. They played a critical role, it may be recalled, in the attacks Ben Santer, accusing him of "political tampering" and "scientific cleansing" following publication of the IPCC Second Assessment Report.

The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, Mann, Page 65 "Agents of Denial"

Not only are there connections between the current campaign to attack the science of climate change and past industry-funded campaigns to deny other industrial health and environmental threats such as the dangers of smoking tobacco and of acid rain, environmental mercury contamination, and ozone depletion. [sic] Some of the very same scientists have been employed as advocates for not just one or two, but many of these issues. Think of them as all-purpose deniers.

The grandfather of all-purpose denial was Frederick Seitz, a solid-state physicist possessing impressive scientific credentials. Seitz was a former head of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and in 1973 was awarded the prestigious Presidential Medal of Science. Seitz found common cause with two other similarly minded physicists - Robert Jastrow, founder of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) laboratory now directed by James Hansen, and Nicholas Nierenberg, one-time director of the Scripps Institution for Oceanography - in supporting and advocating for President Ronald Reagan's 1980s missile defense program. Thet Strategic Defense Initiative was controversial enough that the issue of whether it was wise, let alone efficacious, divided the physics department faculty at UC Berkeley where I was doing my degree at the time.

In 1984, the three scientists joined together to form the George C. Marshall Institute - a conservative think tank that Newsweek magazine called a "central cog in the denial machine." Their chief mission was to combat efforts by Cornell University planetary scientist Carl Sagan and others who sought to raise awareness about the potential threat of "nuclear winter." The massive detonation of nuclear warheads during a thermonuclear war, Sagan and others hypothesized, might produce a global dust cloud as devastating for humanity asthe asteroid-induced global dust storm that ended the reign of the dinosaurs...

Upon retirement from academia in the late 1970s, Seitz worked for the tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds for roughly a decade. In this capacity, he accepted more than half a million dollars while lending his scientific credibility to advocacy efforts aimed at downplaying the health threats posed by the smoking of tobacco. In the early 1990s, Seitz went on to chair the George C. Marshall Institute full time, where he campaigned against the reality of global warming and the threat CFCs posed to the ozone layer.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2010/07/14/206422/merchants-of-doubt-naomi-oreskes-review/

Each of these campaigns could fit the same template: seemingly credible scientists, conservative think tanks (some created just for the campaigns), allied with industry, lubricated liberally with money and PR savvy, and leavened with a conviction that the ends justified the means. This explains why talented scientists willingly jettisoned the scientific method.

And what was the end that justified this extreme behavior?

An almost religious conviction in small government and the potential evils of big government; a doctrinaire belief in unconstrained free markets and the purity of capitalism; and the conviction that “environmentalism” and other do-gooder efforts threatened our free market, capitalistic system.

Oreskes and Conway show why cold warriors saw threats to their brand of uber-capitalism as threats to the United States, and they show how environmentalism came to be seen by them as “green on the outside, but red on the inside.” The evolution of the Marshall Institute from SDI defender to Exxon-funded climate denier is particularly illustrative.

When did the world take a right turn away from President Carter's energy sanity? In November of 1980.

 

[WetEV]

they have gone way overboard in claiming that small changes due to CO2 will lead to huge changes because the CO2 will co-opt water vapor in a positive feedback loop. I have provided many, many avenues of evidence that water in our system provides strong negative feedback, rendering the already-small contribution of CO2 to our Earth's temperature to be even smaller.

Then how did the glaciers advance at the Last Glacial Maximum?

More clouds, modulated by low solar activity.

Have you ever thought about the evidence for/against this? Is there a record of solar activity that you could compare with climate over a long time period, long enough to have significant variation in climate, like the Last Glacial Maximum?

At least two radioactive isotopes are created by cosmic rays, which are modulated by solar activity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryllium-10" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-14" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Although carbon is probably less useful due to changing carbon cycles during climate changes. Maybe you might want to look for the 10Be data.

To find the 10Be data or 14C data during the LGM, you probably need to look someplace other than WUWT. Need more clues?

 

[AndyH]

I also suggest Michael E. Mann's book "The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars" to see the depths corps and politicians went to intimidate climate scientists. I knew there was some pushback but the levels of harassment documented on the book are unbelievable.

Mann's book has the added bonus of including a lot of the history of the basic research.

Thanks for the poke on this book. I've had a copy of the paperback with updated postscript for a while but it's been difficult to finish. In spite of having read Merchants of Doubt twice and at least a dozen other books that cover the science-, politics- and denial-timelines, the amount of abuse the climate community have had to endure is breathtaking. It's somewhat telling that scientists need a legal defense fund.

http://climatesciencedefensefund.org/