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Paul Perry writes a weekly opinion
column for his local daily paper. Following is a sampling of those
articles. All were originally published in the Waxahachie Daily Light, although some were subsequently published elsewhere, such as in DallasBlog.com.
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Paul D. Perry
Published June 8, 2008
Reservations Accepted on Global Warming
Cong. Joe Barton and I have often disagreed on local and state
Republican Party business; however, I find myself usually agreeing with
him on issues. That is no surprise, since we are members of the same
party. When issue positions actually morph into votes in the House of
Representatives, I find myself in agreement with his vote roughly 90
percent of the time.
Recently, a large circulation metroplex daily published what I will
generously call an unbalanced news piece about Barton's stance on
global warming legislation. There is a trend in journalism not to
clearly distinguish between opinion and factual reporting. To me, this
piece was camouflaged as hard news, but it appeared to be loaded with
the author's opinion.
Congressman Barton, in addition to a Bachelors of Science degree in
industrial engineering from Texas A&M, has a master's in
engineering from Purdue. Joe has serious reservations regarding the
manmade global warming hypothesis. I generally do not write news
articles; I write opinion columns. So this is my opinion. With some
factual support, let's clear the air.
I think Joe Barton is in good company. Richard Lindzen is a skeptic of
manmade global warming. He is a professor who teaches and researches in
climate-related sciences at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. He stated at the National Press Club that alarmist
predictions of more hurricanes, the forecasts of catastrophic rises in
sea levels, the melting of poles and even a speculated plunge into a
new ice age are not supported by the science. The "advocates of
(climate change) want us to be afraid," said Lindzen. "In response to
the fear, they want us to do what they want."
In the recent article in the metroplex daily, pro-manmade climate
change scientists from Joe Barton's alma mater Texas A&M are
invoked to try to make Barton's opinion of the issue look less
informed. One could argue the author of the article was also trying to
embarrass Cong. Barton into changing his opinion. Perhaps you could
even use the word "pressure." I don't think that is appropriate for a
news piece, but I'm just part-time suburban columnist offering an
opinion. As I stated earlier, Barton has company on this issue,
qualified company.
Don Easterbrook is professor emeritus at Western Washington University.
Dr. Easterbrook is currently involved in intensive research on climate
cycles spanning the last 15,000 years, concentrating on the last 500
years. His conclusion is that the Earth has warmed faster than the
current trend at least 10 times in the last 15,000 years. He made this
statement during a recent interview on CNN: "It's disturbing as a
scientist, because there's definitely a move today in the direction
that anybody who doesn't sign on to CO2 as the cause of global warming
is somehow either stupid or has some political reason or just some
financial reason for saying that."
Many who are in favor of letting the manmade climate change hypothesis
drive our governmental policies disparage privately funded research. I
think it is wise to be skeptical of funding sources. It is a human
tendency to want to please those who are providing us with money and a
paycheck. I also think it is dangerous to see government funding as
neutral or necessarily less coercive, especially since the findings
from government/tax dollar-funded research often pave the way for more
government control and taxation. That effect is certainly self-serving
for the bureaucrats who help determine government funding in most
cases.
Barton is skeptical that carbon dioxide, a naturally occurring gas, is
a dire threat to the environment. Even some environmental scientists
have changed their stance on the issue of whether mankind is really
having a great effect on temperatures.
Claude Allegre is an internationally respected environmental scientist,
is a member of both the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the
French National Academy of Science and was an invited participant in
the Apollo program. As reported in The National Post, he did work that
resulted in lowering lead exposure and was an early advocate for
protecting the ozone layer. He also was an early advocate of the
man-caused climate change hypothesis. Dr. Allegre has reversed most of
his views on climate change. In an article entitled "The Snows of Mount
Kilimanjaro," published in the French weekly I'Express, he announced
that he no longer believed that mankind was the primary cause of
climate change. He instead was seeing the retreat of ice and snow on
Kilimanjaro and the increase of ice in the Antarctic as naturally
driven events. He has stated that there is no basis for saying "the
science is settled."
An Australian paleoclimatologist, Bob Carter, Ph.D., has stated his
finding that no global warming has occurred since 1998 in spite of an
increase in CO2 gases. In a recent article, Roy Spencer, Ph.D.,
suggests that climate change science has become corrupted because of an
"extreme reluctance" for many scientists to even entertain that a
portion of climate change might be natural in origin. Dr. Spencer is
formerly of NASA but now hangs his hat and is a principal research
scientist at The University of Alabama at Huntsville.
Some have tried to demonize Barton's skepticism of the manmade climate
change hypothesis, but he is in good company. Joe Barton has that
technical degree I mentioned earlier, a master's degree in engineering
from Purdue. He has come to the same conclusion as many scientists with
more advanced credentials. Nevertheless, an engineer should understand
that all mathematical models can have their weaknesses, including the
climate change models. Factoring in the effect of clouds is just one.
There simply is not enough computing power to do that, according to a
number of the mathematically trained. Hundreds of scientists with
training in climate-science-related disciplines are on record as
disagreeing in whole or in part with the climate change hypothesis. Joe
is one of them; many of his mostly law school-trained colleagues are
not. On this issue, I'm with the engineer.
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