Politics of global warming

The politics of global warming is dominated by advocates who urge action to "prevent" global warming, generally on the grounds that the Modern Warming period is headed for ecological catastrophe. These advocates are predominantly liberals and environmentalists and are opposed by conservatives. Scientific thought about anthropogenic global warming is evenly divided. There is no consensus.

US Politics

Registered voters are evenly divided on the issue, with 75% of Democrats believing the science supports AGW theory but only 23% of Republicans believing this.

Since the issue came to the fore in 1989, neither president - Clinton or Bush - has sent the global warming treaty to the Senate for ratification. A bipartisan Senate resolution disapproved the notion of joining the treaty 93-0.

International Politics

The UN climate panel (IPCC) has issued a series of reports endorsing the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Supporters of this theory call the IPCC assessments authoritative, and use this as the basis to justify ratification of the global warming treaty (see Kyoto Protocol).

Loss of objectivity amoung scientists

Hans von Storch and Nico Stehr wrote:

In an article we published in the professional journal Science in October 2004, we were able to demonstrate that the underlying methodology that led to this hockey stick curve is flawed. Our intention was to turn back the spiral of exaggerations somewhat, but without calling the core statement into question, which is that human-induced climate change does exist. Prominent members of the climate research community did not respond to the article by engaging use in a dispute over the facts. Instead, they were concerned that the worthy cause of climate protection had been harmed. [1]

Distortion of the facts

The pro-Kyoto side of the equation has famously asserted that temperatures in 1998-2007 are the highest in 1,000 years. However, peer-reviewed research published in scientific journals contradicts this claim.

In 2003, the "hockey stick graph" of Michael Mann was examined by McIntyre and McKitrick in Energy & Enviornment. They found that:

the estimation of temperatures from 1400 to 1980 contains collation errors, unjustifiable truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, geographical location errors, incorrect calculation of principal components and other quality control defects. [2]

External links

• How Global Warming Research is Creating a Climate of Fear - By Hans von Storch and Nico Stehr