Found this interesting... from Rich Galen's
Mullings column this morning:
In the September issue of Discover Magazine (regular Mullsters know I like to read Discover because it provides me science in single syllables), there is a "Discover Dialogue" with a meteorologist named Dr. William Gray whom the mag's editors say "may be the worlds most famous hurricane expert."
Discover is big on global warming and generally falls into the column supporting the notion that if George W. Bush would only support the Kyoto thing we would be worrying about an impending ice age starting about Columbus Day.
The issue of whether man-made global warming is causing this spate of hurricanes is part of the interview:
- GRAY: Right now, I'm trying to work on his human-induced global-warming thing that I think is grossly exaggerated.
- DISCOVER: You don't believe global warming is causing climate change?
- GRAY: No. If it is, it is causing such a small part it is negligible. I'm not disputing there has been global warming. There was a lot of global warming in the 1930s and '40s, and then there was global cooling in the middle '40s to the early '70s.
- DISCOVER: That must be a controversial position among hurricane researchers.
- GRAY: Nearly all of my colleagues who have been around 40 or 50 years are skeptical as hell about this global-warming thing. But no one asks us.
At the end of the interview Gray is asked if his position on man-made global-warming has influenced funding for his work:
- GRAY: I had NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) money for 30 some years, and then when the Clinton Administration came in and Gore started directing some of the environmental stuff, I was cut off. [NOAA] turned down 13 straight proposals from me.
Let's review the bidding: The most respected hurricane expert over the last half-century holds a view on global-warming which is contrary to conventional wisdom and so his research money was cut off by Al Gore.