Utah's Jon Huntsman: I believe in climate change because 90% of scientists do

Hotair ^ | 05/17/2011 | Ed Morrissey

[SeekAndFind]

Jon Huntsman gave a relatively brief interview to Time, but it’s likely to create longer term problems for his rumored presidential run in the GOP. Huntsman says he opposes cap-and-trade proposals because “this isn’t the moment,” but he buys the climate change argument because “90% of the scientists” say it’s happening. If 90% of oncologists identified a carcinogen, Huntsman says, he’d believe them too (via Taegan Goddard):

You also believe in climate change, right?

This is an issue that ought to be answered by the scientific community; I’m not a meteorologist. All I know is 90 percent of the scientists say climate change is occurring. If 90 percent of the oncological community said something was causing cancer we’d listen to them. I respect science and the professionals behind the science so I tend to think it’s better left to the science community – though we can debate what that means for the energy and transportation sectors.

Matt [David, Huntsman’s communications director,] says you’ve changed your mind about cap-and-trade.

Cap-and-trade ideas aren’t working; it hasn’t worked, and our economy’s in a different place than five years ago. Much of this discussion happened before the bottom fell out of the economy, and until it comes back, this isn’t the moment.

Will it ever be the moment, though? The environment never takes priority because it never seems like something has to be addressed this quarter or else, but if you look at what’s happening to our planet…

If anyone knows about the need to clean up the planet, we do; we’ve been living somewhere [Beijing] where you feel like you’re killing your kids sending them out to school every day. But putting additional burdens on the pillars of growth right now is counter-productive. If we have a lost decade, then nothing else matters. Ask Japan about that.

Do “90% of the scientists” believe in anthropogenic global warming? “Climate change” is a meaningless term; the climate is always changing. “Global warming” is also meaningless in a policy sense, as warming due to natural changes can’t be reversed by political policy. I have seen plenty of claims of “consensus” on AGW, but I’ve never seen anyone claim that agreement on AGW totals to 90% of all scientists, or even all climate scientists.

The better evaluation is whether the modeling for the claims of AGW bear out in terms of data. On that score, the answer is an emphatic no, as one former AGW theorist discovered. Bruce McQuain wrote about David Evans last weekend and his conversion to AGW skepticism:

This is the core idea of every official climate model: For each bit of warming due to carbon dioxide, they claim it ends up causing three bits of warming due to the extra moist air. The climate models amplify the carbon dioxide warming by a factor of three — so two-thirds of their projected warming is due to extra moist air (and other factors); only one-third is due to extra carbon dioxide.

That’s the core of the issue. All the disagreements and misunderstandings spring from this. The alarmist case is based on this guess about moisture in the atmosphere, and there is simply no evidence for the amplification that is at the core of their alarmism.

What did they find when they tried to prove this theory?

Weather balloons had been measuring the atmosphere since the 1960s, many thousands of them every year. The climate models all predict that as the planet warms, a hot spot of moist air will develop over the tropics about 10 kilometres up, as the layer of moist air expands upwards into the cool dry air above. During the warming of the late 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, the weather balloons found no hot spot. None at all. Not even a small one. This evidence proves that the climate models are fundamentally flawed, that they greatly overestimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide.

This evidence first became clear around the mid-1990s.

And when should people like Huntsman stop buying what scientists claim? When they cease being scientists:

At this point, official “climate science” stopped being a science. In science, empirical evidence always trumps theory, no matter how much you are in love with the theory. If theory and evidence disagree, real scientists scrap the theory. But official climate science ignored the crucial weather balloon evidence, and other subsequent evidence that backs it up, and instead clung to their carbon dioxide theory — that just happens to keep them in well-paying jobs with lavish research grants, and gives great political power to their government masters.

At least Huntsman says he opposes cap-and-trade … for now. When the economy recovers, will Huntsman decide to support government intervention in energy production and consumption in response to bad science? Do we want to find out the hard way?

[hannibaal]

I dont see anything wrong with what he said. Sounds like most here want to crucify him, when he has probably said the smartest thing any politician has ever said on the issue. He leaves judgement to the scientific community because it is their field.

I would laugh in the face of a politician giving his opinion on anything related to chemical engineering if the politician has, lets say, a law degree.

Its absurd for people to be so reactionary to something they have no idea about. Lets be real honest here, 99% of the people here do not have the knowledge required to tackle or answer this question about our climate. He is right when he says most scientific acadmies around the world(including many in the US) believe that there is significant human contribtion to the climate. This isnt a liberal, conservative issue because I cant see how anyone can be liberal or conservative on this issue, unless if being conservative these days means echoing the views of a certain politician.

From one of the academies disputing climate change: American academy of petroleum geologists (AAPG) statement in 2007:

“the AAPG membership is divided on the degree of influence that anthropogenic CO2 has on recent and potential global temperature increases ... Certain climate simulation models predict that the warming trend will continue, as reported through NAS, AGU, AAAS and AMS. AAPG respects these scientific opinions but wants to add that the current climate warming projections could fall within well-documented natural variations in past climate and observed temperature data. These data do not necessarily support the maximum case scenarios forecast in some models”

Consequently, most of the members of the AAPG resigned or threatened to quit. In 2010 a new statement concerning climate change:

“Climate change is peripheral at best to our science…. AAPG does not have credibility in that field…….and as a group we have no particular knowledge of global atmospheric geophysics”

This is a group that has motive to dismiss a phenomenon such as this because it would directly damage the petroleum sector.

A 2010 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States reviewed publication and citation data for 1,372 climate researchers and resulted in the following two conclusions:

(i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC (Anthropogenic Climate Change) outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers

Oh geez I can just imagine the load of garbage im going to get now because I choose to take the rational road instead of the party line on a topic that apparently can turn people liberal eventhough it has no liberal/conservative context to it aside from Al bore. Im still yet to understand why this is such a polarizing topic, aside from having impacts on the energy sector. Ironic, since I work in the energy sector.

[PATRIOT1876]

* Well...97.23 % of all political statistics are made up on the spot....*

Yes, but Man-bear-pig said that they have a consensus! That means 100%...no 110%...yeah, that’s the ticket… 120% of all scientists believe in global warming..erm…climate change….uh…diruptification…oh whatever they are calling it today, we know for a certainty that if it rains or if it’s dry it will either be dry or wet. Wetness can cause dryness or wetness. Arid conditions produce more arid conditions or extreme wetness…or just a little wetness-depending. Of course everyone knows that heat causes cold or heat and cold causes more cold or extreme heat, except when it doesn’t.

We run the roulette wheel. You lose if the marble lands on black or red, now give us your money!

[PATRIOT1876]

Anyone in government who STILL believes in AGW cannot be trusted with the simplest of tasks. You might as well turn the reins over to Simple Jack, Lenny from “Of Mice and Men”, Lenny from Laverne & Shirley, or Joe Biden.

After Climategate, a politician should at least look at the evidence against the AGW scam.

Too bad. He’s too lazy or too stupid.

[repub4ever1]

Mr. Huntsman, which man made activity caused the melting of ice age glaciers 15,000 or so years ago? These glaciers were enormous and had enough water in them to form the Great Lakes.

[Interesting Times]

Scientists who don’t “believe in global warming” don’t get their grants renewed.

[olezip]

Jon Huntsman gave a relatively brief interview to Time, but it’s likely to create longer term problems for his rumored presidential run in the GOP. Huntsman says he opposes cap-and-trade proposals because “this isn’t the moment,” but he buys the climate change argument because “90% of the scientists” say it’s happening.

Jon ought to take another look. He might find out that “30% of the scientists” still believe in AGW. It would be even lower than 30% if you take away the votes of the "scientists" getting paid to prove that current climate change is caused by AGW; these folks would be more accurately classified as "lobbyists."

[Mike Darancette]

I believe in “Climate Change” 100%; 14,000 years ago Ice covered Central Park in NYC thousands of feet deep. 1,000 years ago they were growing wheat in Greenland. The climate is always changing.

[hellbender]

The thing is that climate research was a small and esoteric field until the govt. poured billions into research following the initial fraudulent claims of catastrophic global warming. Therefore most of the "scientists" who are now working are hacks chasing govt. grants. Many of the older atmospheric physicists (who tend to be retired or tenured, and therefore willing to speak out) oppose anthropogenic global warming.

I remember when the medical establishment told everyone that ulcers were caused by diet and stress. The lone Aussie Dr. who discovered they were caused by Helicobacter pylori was ridiculed. Now everyone knows he was right.

[Let's Roll]

Not these scientists:
http://www.petitionproject.org/

Oh, wait, I bet the GW people have changed the definition of ‘scientist’ while rational people weren’t looking.

[JerseyHighlander]

Valid points indeed,

I’ve been following every post at Morano’s ClimateDepot.com and Rob Pielke Jr’s blog for several years...

Here’s the RSS feed.
http://www.climatedepot.com/rss.asp
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Posters on FR have been contrarians on AGW since before GWB declared in the 2000 primary. It’s been a long long road, having someone like Huntmans Jr come out and make statements like he did, is infuriating, to say the least.

[PATRIOT1876]

Ok, let’s pretend like there is a small chance that AGW is true.

It’s not worth destroying the economies of the world, giving up several trillion dollars and all of our freedoms to the government to reduce the temperature of the Earth .0000007105 of a degree over the next century.

[dfwgator]

It is the height of arrogance to think that man can influence the climate.

There could be a case that the climate is changing, it’s been changing since the beginning of time. But there is no way man has anything to do with it.

[Ratman83]

The man is an imbecile.

[PATRIOT1876]

^ .0000007105 is not the actual number that is predicted, I just used .0000007105 to illustrate that it is a ridiculously small amount.

[tayper]

Different Huntsman

[Ratman83]

It is true but it is not caused by man, it is nature.

[PilotDave]

“Brer Rabbit and the Briar Patch”

Just got done watching “Song of the South” on Youtube, here’s your scene...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4D470YSl2Y

[chooseascreennamepat]

“because if they don’t, they aren’t scientists.”

Damn, you mean I wasted 4 years and thousands of $ for nothing?

[dagogo redux]

And another one bites the dust.

[hannibaal]

Why is it so arrogant. Doesnt our atmosphere have a specific volume? Therefore why is it wrong to think that we are significant enough to change this concentration?
Im not 100% against you here, im against the fact that you are unwavering in your beliefs, when even you will admit that you dont understand enough to give a justifiable answer. I mean this isnt religion so its just weird to be that some people can be so immovable on a topic that requires scientific study and facts to determine if the phenomenon is true.

On the economic point of view, I think the free market would fix itself. Drilling for oil wont stop because of this, as there are 1000s more uses for oil than burning it to provide energy. All that would happen is that there would be harsher emissions regulations, in fact I think the market will do fairly well as it always does and will find a balance. Then again, im no economist so predicting the economic impact is out of my scope.