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Michael Crichton Debates Global Warming Wednesday 03/14/2007
Intelligence Squared.org ^ | March 14, 2007 | Event Staff

Posted on 03/15/2007 9:35:38 AM PDT by Matchett-PI

NOTE: I don't know if this is on Youtube yet, or not]

Wednesday, March 14, 2007 Global warming is not a crisis

Speaking for the motion: Michael Crichton, Richard S. Lindzen, Philip Stott Speaking against the motion: Brenda Ekwurzel, Gavin Schmidt, Richard C.J. Somerville Moderator: Brian Lehrer

SOLD OUT MODERATOR:

Brian Lehrer is host of the highly-acclaimed “Brian Lehrer Show” heard weekday mornings on WNYC® New York Public Radio®, 820 AM, 93.9 FM and wnyc.org. He is also an award-winning author and documentary producer. Lehrer holds masters degrees in journalism and public health/environmental sciences.

SPEAKERS FOR THE MOTION: Michael Crichton is a writer and filmmaker, best known as the author ofJurassicPark and the creator of "ER." Crichton graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College, received his MD from Harvard Medical School, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. He has been a visiting instructor at Cambridge University and MIT. Crichton's 2004 bestseller, State of Fear, challenged extreme anthropogenic warming scenarios.

Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT since 1983, previously held professorships at Harvard, where he received his A.B., S.M. and Ph.D., and the University of Chicago. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the recipient of various awards. He is the author or co-author of three books and over 200 papers. His current research is on climate sensitivity, atmospheric convection and the general circulation of the atmosphere.

Philip Stott is an Emeritus Professor and biogeographer from the University of London, UK. Although a scientist, for the past ten years he has also employed modern techniques of deconstruction to grand environmental narratives, like “global warming.” Stott was editor of the internationally-important Journal of Biogeography for 18 years. He broadcasts widely on TV and radio, and writes regularly on environmental issues for The Times of London , among other publications.

SPEAKERS AGAINST THE MOTION: Brenda Ekwurzel works on the national climate program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Prior to joining UCS, she was on the faculty of the University of Arizona. Doctorate research was at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and post-doctoral research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

Gavin Schmidt is a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. His publications include studies of past, present and potential future climates. Scientific American cited him as a top 50 Research Leader in 2004, and he has worked on education and outreach with the American Museum of Natural History, the College de France and the New York Academy of Sciences, among others. He is a contributing editor at RealClimate.org.

Richard C.J. Somerville is Distinguished Professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. He is a theoretical meteorologist and an expert on computer simulations of the atmosphere. Among many honors, Somerville is a Fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Meteorological Society. He has received awards for both his research and his popular book, The Forgiving Air: Understanding Environmental Change

Wednesday, March 14, 2007 Asia Society and Museum, 725 Park Avenue at 70th Street, New York City Reception 6:00 p.m. Debate 6:45 p.m. Finish 8:30 p.m [snip]


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: climatechange; energy; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; michaelcrichton
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To: SuzyQue

bookmark


41 posted on 03/15/2007 11:06:51 AM PDT by SuzyQue (Remember to think.)
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To: alnitak

Gore and his Gorebull Warming Scam are laughable. However, we need to get a lot of people laughing and discrediting his Gorebull Warming Scam.


42 posted on 03/15/2007 11:07:36 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (GW has more Honor and Integrity in his little finger than ALL of the losers on the "hate Bush" band)
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To: Excellence

It may be too early for it to be posted yet. The debate just happened last night.


43 posted on 03/15/2007 11:07:40 AM PDT by Matchett-PI (To have no voice in the Party that always sides with America's enemies is a badge of honor.)
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To: CedarDave

AGW in global warming circles = Anthropogenic global warming, i.e. man made-----not Anti global warming.


44 posted on 03/15/2007 11:08:25 AM PDT by jsh3180
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To: Kellis91789

You got it!


45 posted on 03/15/2007 11:08:43 AM PDT by Matchett-PI (To have no voice in the Party that always sides with America's enemies is a badge of honor.)
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To: Matchett-PI

Please ping me and I will combine the two links with a Gorebull Warming Cartoon.


46 posted on 03/15/2007 11:09:18 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (GW has more Honor and Integrity in his little finger than ALL of the losers on the "hate Bush" band)
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To: Grampa Dave
That is the same link, I have been using for a few days.

No, my link goes to the second program on that page (the one that looks like a black pyramid). My link is wide screen which eliminates the scrunched-up look of the participants.

47 posted on 03/15/2007 11:23:55 AM PDT by CedarDave
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To: jsh3180; alnitak
AGW in global warming circles = Anthropogenic global warming, i.e. man made-----not Anti global warming.

Ah, now alnitak's post makes sense.

BTW, septics = skeptics in my post.

48 posted on 03/15/2007 11:26:52 AM PDT by CedarDave
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To: Grampa Dave
Gore and his Gorebull Warming Scam are laughable. However, we need to get a lot of people laughing and discrediting his Gorebull Warming Scam.

They are all so arrogant and condescending, marking any who doubt their conclusions as small, ignorant people who are to be barely tolerated, but certainly not listened to.

49 posted on 03/15/2007 11:29:49 AM PDT by CedarDave
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To: CedarDave
AGW = anthropogenic global warming - ie man made GW.

I don't think M&M have taken a position on AGW, what they are doing is trying to apply a normal degree of scientific rigour to the GW "science". Full and fair disclosure, for example - it's a principle of science that results must be replicatable, but the GW side seem to be a bit lax about publishing their methods and data.

Both sites are not typical blogs, there are well qualified scientists who post on both, plus the usual "hangers on". A deep reading over several days of climateaudit will be very rewarding for bolstering scepticism.

I have spent the last couple of weeks reading them, and my impression is that realclimate is they are rather defensive and dismissive of anyone who doesn't share their opinions.

I'd also heartily recommend the Wegman paper which deals with networks of pro-GW scientists - http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/others/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf - by reading it you will come to understand how incestuous the AGW crowd are!

Here are some of the findings

Findings

In general, we found MBH98 and MBH99 to be somewhat obscure and incomplete and the criticisms of MM03/05a/05b to be valid and compelling. We also comment that they were attempting to draw attention to the discrepancies in MBH98 and MBH99, and not to do paleoclimatic temperature reconstruction. Normally, one would try to select a calibration dataset that is representative of the entire dataset. The 1902-1995 data is not fully appropriate for calibration and leads to a misuse in principal component analysis. However, the reasons for setting 1902-1995 as the calibration point presented in the narrative of MBH98 sounds reasonable, and the error may be easily overlooked by someone not trained in statistical methodology. We note that there is no evidence that Dr. Mann or any of the other authors in paleoclimatology studies have had significant interactions with mainstream statisticians.

In our further exploration of the social network of authorships in temperature reconstruction, we found that at least 43 authors have direct ties to Dr. Mann by virtue of coauthored papers with him. Our findings from this analysis suggest that authors in the area of paleoclimate studies are closely connected and thus ‘independent studies’ may not be as independent as they might appear on the surface. This committee does not believe that web logs are an appropriate forum for the scientific debate on this issue. It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community. Additionally, we judge that the sharing of research materials, data and results was haphazardly and grudgingly done. In this case we judge that there was too much reliance on peer review, which was not necessarily independent. Moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that this community can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility. Overall, our committee believes that Mann’s assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.

50 posted on 03/15/2007 11:30:39 AM PDT by alnitak ("That kid's about as sharp as a pound of wet liver" - Foghorn Leghorn)
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To: CedarDave
"TGGWS"

Watched it yesterday. Very interesting. If the gw doomists cannot satifactorily answer the anti-gw scientists contention that many times in the past temperature rises PRECEEDED!!! CO2 rises, then the whole gw hysteria campaign collapses.

51 posted on 03/15/2007 11:45:45 AM PDT by driftless2
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To: Pete98

The more dumb-dumbs (I.e. Lefties) that they convince about GW, the less trouble they'll have when they impose their draconian measures on us.


52 posted on 03/15/2007 12:41:53 PM PDT by Catholic Canadian ( I love Stephen Harper!)
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To: BufordP

Read that and thought surely Michael Moore must dream he is Rush Limbaugh. . .


53 posted on 03/15/2007 12:47:09 PM PDT by cricket
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To: Grampa Dave
"Please ping me and I will combine the two links with a Gorebull Warming Cartoon."

Will do!

54 posted on 03/15/2007 12:51:01 PM PDT by Matchett-PI (To have no voice in the Party that always sides with America's enemies is a badge of honor.)
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To: alnitak
I highly recommend both blogs.

ClimateAudit.org to get a good idea about one aspect of the "resistance". It reveals numerous questionable tactics in gathering (and preserving, or even better NOT preserving) data upon which all of IPCC's conclusions are based. You will witness attempts through Freedom of Information Act to get the data, and how the IPCC folks reject the requests.

RealClimate.org is worth visiting regularly if for no other reason than to witness how smug and arrogant the AGW theorists are. My sense, compared to reading various other blogs, is that most posters are NOT scientists but rather eager kool-aid drinkers with Gavin Schmitt, et. al. more than willing to do the pouring. I have to say that I experienced a great feeling of Schadenfreud witnessing them licking their wounds after last nights debate and whining about how unfair the forum was to them and how they were the only people representing science and that is was necessarilly less glamorous.

I regularly visit several other blogs (mostly skeptics in nature):

Roger Pielske Sr's Climate Science Blog
Bruce Hall's Hall Of Record
A Better World: Graeme Bird for High Office

All of these blogs are great, and often they will cross-post. These are REAL climate scientists, some of which are the most prominent "resistance" scientists in their fields. I particularly like Roger Pielske Sr.'s blog for balance. Gavin Schmitt frequently drops in, makes criticisms, gets spanked, then departs. I have rarely seen Mr. Pielske NOT come out on top in dust-ups with Gavin. Mr. Pielske, BTW, does believe that man has had a significant impact on the climate, but not in the ways that the IPCC and Gavin, et. al. postulate. He believes that man-induced climate change is mostly regional and result from land-use changes. He also is a firm believer that the IPCC has made many mistakes and have not been very honest in their tunnel-vision that everything comes down to man's introduction of fossil-based CO2 emissions.

Bruce Hall is a regular poster on Pielske's blog, as is Graeme Bird. Graeme is a rather colorful character with VERY strong opinions. He seems a little "out-there" if you know what I mean, but his theories are interesting to read nonetheless.
55 posted on 03/15/2007 1:22:35 PM PDT by AaronInCarolina
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To: AaronInCarolina
Mr. Pielske, BTW, does believe that man has had a significant impact on the climate, but not in the ways that the IPCC and Gavin, et. al. postulate. He believes that man-induced climate change is mostly regional and result from land-use changes. He also is a firm believer that the IPCC has made many mistakes and have not been very honest in their tunnel-vision that everything comes down to man's introduction of fossil-based CO2 emissions.

As a geologist in the SW US, I concur with Pielske's belief. It's pretty obvious that the increase in black bodies (streets, buildings, etc.) and moisture (watered lawns, recreational lakes) in Phoenix has changed the microclimate in that area since I was a youngster living there in the '50s.

56 posted on 03/15/2007 1:31:44 PM PDT by CedarDave
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To: Grampa Dave; Matchett-PI
Not a friendly Web Site....no granularity at all..... They want you to see all of their stuff.....

Lets see if this works:

Inconvenient Truth?

Is Al Gore cashing in on carbon credit scheme?

****************************************************

Today this is under Fox and Friends.,...tomorrow .....who knows.....

57 posted on 03/15/2007 1:39:24 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (The DemonicRATS believe ....that the best decisions are always made after the fact.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; Grampa Dave; CedarDave; xcamel; AaronInCarolina; jsh3180

Thanks for the link!


In the comments section of Gavin Schmidt's ---[he was one of those who debated Crichton, et.al.]--- web site http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/global-warming-debate/ ---, someone references this thread at comment #66 here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/adventures-on-the-east-side/#comment-28304

#66 "well cynically, if you guys are going to help the skeptics win support, then perhaps doing these publicity stunts is a bad idea!

Although considering uber-right-wing sites like FreeRepublic were following this, and they are notorious for stacking ("freeping") polls in a childish attempt to facilely swap opinion, that could explain some things:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1801351/posts

Comment by Carl Christensen ­ 15 Mar 2007 @ 1:16 pm"

LOL

They were up to 100 comments there last I looked.


58 posted on 03/15/2007 3:13:08 PM PDT by Matchett-PI (To have no voice in the Party that always sides with America's enemies is a badge of honor.)
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To: Matchett-PI

The Gorebal Warming BS can't stand up to any close scientific review. This is why they are trying to ram it through and call those of us who say no, the bad guys and gals.


59 posted on 03/15/2007 3:57:42 PM PDT by Grampa Dave (GW has more Honor and Integrity in his little finger than ALL of the losers on the "hate Bush" band)
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To: CedarDave
saying we just don't know enough yet?

They're saying that many of the studies don't seem to really say what their authors are saying that they say. When you dig into them, you find proxies being used for things they don't represent, statistical errors (both mathematical and conceptual), self-selecting methodologies, "independent" studies by close associates of the original authors that reuse the same datasets as the one they are "verifying" and using the same known-to-be-flawed methods, finding various publications peer review process doesn't include looking at either the data or what calculations were done on it, proxies for which the originator can't say where they got them, and many other flaws which make the studies *meaningless*.

By and large they take no position on what is. They are primarily pointing out that what IS being put out there on the subject of AGW is not science, or is at best merely an inkling worthy of investigation not a conclusion.

60 posted on 03/15/2007 4:00:24 PM PDT by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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