...to be followed immediately by your punishment...
Posted on 07/01/2007 7:31:26 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Since it was reported this month by The Capital Times, Professor Emeritus Reid Bryson's anti-establishment position against man-made global warming has provoked floods of interest, great indignation and -- particularly among his fellow University of Wisconsin scientists -- no shortage of exasperation.
The story of Bryson's denial that industrially produced carbon dioxide is linked to climate change caught the attention of national outlets like the Drudge Report and drew more than 30,000 readers in the first 90 minutes after it was posted on this paper's Web site.
More than 100 have posted their reactions to it on The Capital Times online forum, dozens of others have written letters to the editor and almost two weeks later the story remains among the most viewed.
Statements by the global warming skeptic also stirred up controversy in scientific departments across the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Many who work with the 87-year-old Bryson say they have the utmost respect for him, but fault his opinions for not being substantiated by fact.
"There is a huge mountain of evidence and scientific theory and publications, all out there in the public arena, and Reid comes along and has some other idea, but he provides no evidence. You just have to take his word for it," said Jonathan Foley, a climatologist at UW-Madison who directs the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment.
"If he could come up with any evidence for his hypothesis, anything that would back up what he is saying, and he could publish it, he would win the Nobel Prize," Foley said. "Everyone would be thrilled if he were right. Global warming is a major, major global crisis and it would be fantastic if Reid were correct. But sadly he is not."
'Fabulously unorthodox': Foley has a strong personal link to Bryson and says he has always looked up to him. He was the student of one of Bryson's students, making Bryson his "academic grandfather." He stepped into Bryson's old position and was the first person on campus to hold the Reid Bryson chair.
Thousands of scientists all over the world support the idea of global warming and hold up their data to public scrutiny, he said, adding that they have been putting out evidence -- not just computer models, but real-world observations.
"There is nothing hidden, nothing obscured. This has been going on for decades," he said.
Bryson has every right to hold his views on climate change, Foley said. "Unfortunately, in the scientific world we demand evidence, just like you would in a courtroom. And I think he came to court empty-handed in this case."
Jonathan Martin, chairman of the atmospheric and oceanic sciences department at UW-Madison, also acknowledges a deep affection for Bryson, calling him an icon.
Martin said he doesn't want to get into a public fight over the issue, adding that Bryson is entitled to his "fabulously unorthodox opinion."
"He tends to not back up his opinions with any facts, with any argument," Martin said. "He'll just rather flippantly tell you. There really isn't much of an argument there, it's an assertion. Let's just be careful to not give assertions the same weight as considered scientific opinion, the kind that have gone through peer review. It's not really the same thing."
Dan Vimont, assistant professor in the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and Center for Climatic Research, said he stands behind the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change findings.
"Our science has progressed quite a ways and I think it is pretty clear at this point that what the IPCC said is actually true: That humans are changing the climate," Vimont said. "We have introduced a good deal of carbon dioxide to the climate and we know that. And things will very likely continue to warm. I would object to the idea that this is a bunch of hooey."
Bryson's stand: After the Capital Times story was published, Bryson, known as the father of scientific climatology, said he got dozens of e-mails, some of them calling him a tool of the extreme right wing.
"They don't even know what that means," he said in a follow-up interview this week. "What far right? I don't even know anybody on the far right. And if I did, I would avoid them."
Bryson said politics gets in the way of looking at climate change.
He is not political, he said. He doesn't consider himself a Republican or a conservative. When asked who he voted for in the last presidential election, he said, "the wrong one."
Does that mean he voted for George Bush? "Of course not," he said. "I'm not that dumb."
Bryson acknowledges that he is up against an outspoken scientific community on the issue of anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming.
Some may call him "a global warming skeptic." But he is not skeptical that global warming exists, he is just doubtful that humans are the cause of it. There is no question the Earth has been warming. It is coming out of a "Little Ice Age," he said.
"However, there is no credible evidence that it is due to mankind and carbon dioxide. We've been coming out of a Little Ice Age for 300 years. We have not been making very much carbon dioxide for 300 years. It's been warming up for a long time," Bryson said in the story published June 18.
Bryson was the founding chairman of the department of meteorology at UW-Madison and of the Institute for Environmental Studies, now known as the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. He retired in 1985, but has gone into the office almost every day since to create climate models. He does it without pay from the university.
For the last 20 years of his career Bryson's research was funded by a benefactor, who wished to remain anonymous, and who is now dead, he said.
"I don't get very much money from the endowment she left the university in my name," Bryson said.
He receives $8,000 to $10,000 now from the endowment, enough to support a graduate student to help him and computer costs. "It isn't a lot," said Bryson, who can be found in his university office every morning and often works from home in the afternoons and evenings.
He is not paid by any oil company or any energy company, he said emphatically.
After 25 years of work, Bryson has a how-to book coming out this week called "Paleoclimate." It details how to model climate on a computer. The book comes with a CD that people can put into their computers and learn how to model past climate without having a doctorate in meteorology or climatology, Bryson said.
He is giving a workshop in Hot Springs, South Dakota, in September on how to do climate modeling and the session is full. He has led about 10 of these sessions already, in Sweden, Germany, Canada, Colorado and California.
Since The Capital Times article ran, he has been asked to give lectures, including a speech to a group from NASA, whose director recently drew criticism himself for saying he doubted global warming is "a problem we must wrestle with."
At the same time, nine UW-Madison professors -- including Martin -- wrote a June 21 letter in The Capital Times, wishing to make it "absolutely clear" that Bryson's opinions on global warming were not shared by other scientists at the University of Wisconsin's Center for Climatic Research and Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.
"The scientific evidence for human causation of global warming is now very strong, and gets stronger every year. Evidence includes well-documented rises in carbon dioxide concentrations and global mean temperatures, and repeated validations of the global climate models used to predict future climate changes," they wrote.
Two of the professors later expressed concern for their students in the wake of a comment Bryson made about beginning graduate students passing themselves off as experts on global warming when reporters call the meteorology building seeking the opinion of a scientist. "And that goes in the paper as scientists say ...'" Bryson said.
If the grad students are upset by his comment, Bryson asserted, they should come and talk to him and show him that they know the equivalent of a researcher with 20 or 30 years of experience. "I'm right there. My door's open. If they are upset, well, tough," he said.
"I didn't say they didn't know anything. But lumping a first-year grad student in with a 30-year experienced professor is sort of apples and pears. Someday they'll be there, but they aren't yet."
What's consensus: In the matter of going against so many of his scientific peers on global warming, Bryson said that throughout history there are clear cases where the consensus was wrong.
"The consensus was against Copernicus, Darwin and Galileo at the time. But were they wrong or was the consensus wrong? Now I am not necessarily a Galileo or a Copernicus, but the point is, the consensus does not mean that the science is right," he said.
Bryson said he moved the critical e-mails that The Capital Times story generated directly into his trash basket.
He estimated that 95 percent of the people who wrote him agreed with him.
A woman sent him an e-mail Sunday saying, "Thank you, thank you, thank you for being so brave. I wish I had said it but I didn't have the guts."
Libs are for free speech as long as it’s speech they want to hear.
No he wouldn't.
It is global warming nicely here in the middle of the nation.
We had another nice June with temps mostly in the low to mid 80s.
This moring, July 1, it is a beautiful 72 degrees.
I can remember some summers when the temps were nearing or over 100 degrees by the start of July.
Unless he changed his name to Jimmah Cahtah.
"There is nothing hidden, nothing obscured. This has been going on for decades," he said.
Whoops... That would explain the Global cooling theory that was advanced in the 70's?
There is no proof, and to assert it's been going on for decades is complete B.S.. If that was true, then why is it within the past few years that these idiots are so alarmed by it?
They shoot themselves in the foot everytime they open up their mouths.
No inherent bias in this guy.
Then the ad claimed fighting global warming creates jobs we need here in MI, LOL! These folks are beyond kooks.
Dingell shakes off `dinosaur' charge
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. John Dingell should move off his perch on Capitol Hill and take up residence in Jurassic Park.
That's the message from MoveOn.Org, which launched a radio attack ad against the Dearborn Democrat Tuesday. The Internet lobbying group claims he's a "dinosaur" when it comes to reversing global warming, calling him a "Dingell-saurus."
“Jonathan Foley, a climatologist at UW-Madison who directs the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment.”
This top critic of Bryson wouldn’t have a personal agenda, would he?
There were scads of “scientists” in danger of losing grant money and lab positions once DuPont caved in, saw the light, and rushed through new patents on refrigerant gases which punched a big hole in the clamorous balloon of pending disaster from ozone depletion; as a result, they simply moved on to the next disaster that had been simmering quietly on the back burner, just waiting for someone to turn up the heat, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The Court of the Inquistion will convene at the Holy See of Global Warming, Nashville, and this heretic will be promptly and severely dealt with by His Holiness, Albert I.
Such nonsense cannot be allowed to offend and challenge the True Religion of Global Warming.
...to be followed immediately by your punishment...
They are getting really close to labeling global warming skepticism as hate speech. Heidi Cullen already suggested this.
It is interesting that the guy with no financial interest is the one bold enough to speak up. I suppose they will offer him a cup of hemlock next.
It is 65 in Rochester NY. July is supposed to be our hottest month. The average high temp is listed as 81 with the average high in June as 77 and August as 79. Our highs are hovering around the average lows.....
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