🚀 go-pugleaf

This message was sent out yesterday by the UCS, and address the 'reprint' I
asked about a few days ago.

Dear Colleagues,

This message from the Union of Concerned Scientists is to caution you about a
petition effort to reject the Kyoto Protocol that is circulating throughout
colleges, universities, and research institutions nationwide. Nadine Lymn,
Director of Public Affairs for the ESA, has granted permission to post this
message.

Several scientists have recently notified UCS about this petition urging
scientists to undermine the newly negotiated climate change treaty, known
as the
Kyoto Protocol (KP). The KP requires industrialized nations to reduce their
greenhouse gas emissions on average by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels during
the
first "commitment period" between 2008 and 2012.The petition is being
distributed through a mass mailing that includes deceptive materials and
serious
misrepresentations of climate science. The petition has no identified
organizational or institutional sponsor and is known only as the "Petition
Project."

What is the Petition Project exactly? A petition, distributed through a mass
mailing, urging the US government to reject the KP. It consists of a petition
signature card with a brief anti- Kyoto Protocol statement; a short letter
signed by Dr. Frederick Seitz; a reprint of a 12 Apr 97 Wall Street Journal
op-ed entitled "Science Has Spoken: Global Warming is a Myth"; and an
eight-page
article entitled "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon
Dioxide"
-- which mimics the format of a published journal article even though it
has NOT
been peer-reviewed, nor published, nor accepted for publication.

The Petition Project is apparently a deliberate attempt by the Oregon
Institute
of Science and Medicine and the Marshall Institute - identified as the article
authors' affiliations - to deceive the scientific community with
misinformation
on the subject of climate change. The Project's conclusions reflect the
authors'
political ideology, not objective peer-reviewed science. If this petition is
circulating in your department, please consider urging your colleagues NOT to
sign it.

***On the "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide:"

-- The "review article" accompanying the mailing is NOT a peer-reviewed
journal
article, despite its apparently deceptive formatting. Nor is likely that it
could be published in a mainstream science journal due to its extensive use of
selective, false, and misleading material.

-- The "review article" contains all the usual misstatements about global
warming popular with the skeptic community. It contains, for example,

* An oft-quoted but thoroughly rebutted and discredited "comparison" of
satellite data with "an IPCC" climate model (in fact, the model was not an
IPCC
model nor was it appropriate for such a comparison in the first place).

* The short-term satellite data purporting to show a global cooling trend
since
1979. Not only is this time frame far too short to be climatically
relevant, the
data is used without citing the Geophysical Research Letters article showing
that, when corrected for El Nino and volcanic activity, the satellite record
shows the same warming trend as the surface record.  The same GRL paper shows
that longer term radiosonde data (often cited as confirming the accuracy of
the
satellites) shows a warming trend, with or without correction, consistent with
the century long surface temperature record.

* The myth that solar activity can fully account for the observed warming
trend.
Changes in the sun's output can influence the Earth's climate but the sun is
only one component affecting terrestrial climate. Current scientific
understanding suggests that the sun's influence is less than one-fifth of the
human-related climate influences, such as emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG)
and sulfate aerosols, land use changes and ozone depletion.

* The misleading assertion that "as atmospheric CO2 increases, plant growth
rates increase." The plant fertilization effect of elevated CO2  has only been
demonstrated in laboratory conditions when plants have unlimited access to
water
and nutrients. The long-term ecosystem effects are unknown. However,
changes in
precipitation and temperature related to climate change may have adverse
effects
(on soil moisture, disease and insect infestations) that could negate any
gains
from CO2 fertilization.

--The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 1995 Second Assessment
Report
on climate change concluded that the balance of evidence suggested a human
influence in the global climate system. This conclusion was grounded in the
analysis of over 20,000 articles from the relevant literature. Hundreds of
scientific and technical experts were involved in preparing the report, and
literally thousands more were engaged to provide objective peer-review. Where
competing views were present, they were reconciled through peer-review if
possible; when consensus was unachievable, the disagreements were
characterized
and the issues for future clarifying research were identified. Thus, the
Second
Assessment Report should be seen for what it is: a massive, policy-neutral
review of the current state of understanding of climate change science.

-- Contrary to the Petition Project's contention, the Kyoto Protocol is an
important beginning to the decades-long international effort to prevent
serious
global warming. It requires industrialized nations to reduce their greenhouse
gas emissions on average by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels during the first
"commitment period" between 2008 and 2012. It will lead to important
initiatives
promoting clean energy and transportation technology both here in the US and
abroad.

-- This is not the first time that Frederick Seitz has been involved in an
effort to undermine the integrity of the IPCC's conclusions. He was previously
involved in falsely accusing both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change
and a member of the climate science community of intentional deception and
violation of procedure.

*** Scientific resources for accurate information on climate change:

*The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - established in 1988 by the
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) to assess the available scientific, technical, and
socio-economic information in the field of climate change.
[http://www.ipcc.ch/]
The IPCC's "Summary for Policymakers: The Science of Climate Change" is
available direct at http://www.ipcc.ch/cc95/wg1.htm.

*The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) - working with research
institutions to increase the skill of predictions of seasonal-to-interannual
climate fluctuations and long-term climate change. [http://www.usgcrp.gov/]

*The Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research - the Centre provides
up-to-date assessments of both natural and human-induced climate change
[http://www.meto.gov.uk/sec5/sec5pg1.html]

*The Global Hydrology and Climate Center - a joint venture between government
and academia to study the global water cycle and its effect on climate.
[http://wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/]

*The MacKenzie Basin Impact Study - a six-year collaborative research project
sponsored by Environment Canada to investigate a northern high-latitude region
sensitive to climate change. [http://www.tor.ec.gc.ca/earg/mbis/mackenzie.htm]

*The Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center - the primary global-change
data
and information analysis center of the U.S. Department of Energy
[http://cdiac.ESD.ORNL.GOV/about/intro.html]

The Union of Concerned Scientists can be contacted by email message at
ssi@ucsusa.org or by snailmail at 2 Brattle Square, Cambridge, MA 02238-9105
(attn. Katie Mogelgaard).

with friendly regards to all,

Darren Goetze
Staff Scientist
Union of Concerned Scientists