The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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September 1, 2007

Your View -- Global warming consensus more politics than science

Fred Slocum has an opinion on global warming based on his readings. I also have an opinion on the subject based on my readings.

Of the approximate 2,000 scientists who contributed articles for the IPCC summary report Slocum references, only about 100 are climate scientists. The IPCC summary report was written by a different group of scientists, a handful of government scientists with a political agenda.

We do not know how many of the 100 contributing climate scientists agree with the summary report because no poll was taken. A new survey to be published by the journal “Energy and Environment” includes some interesting statistics. Of the total 528 scientific papers written about global warming from 2004 through February 2007 only 7 percent of those scientists gave an explicit endorsement of any so-called “consensus” cause, and only one of those makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.

The so-called “consensus” cause was rejected outright by 6 percent of those scientists, while 48 percent of the scientists refused to accept or reject the hypothesis. This is hardly the “overwhelming” supporting evidence Slocum suggests. It is not even a consensus of evidence that would support Slocum’s position, which I suggest might be more political than scientific.

S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus, Environmental Science University of Virginia; atmospheric physicist, George Mason University, and founder and president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project has an informative article at http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp.

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