OOPS!!!

Climate scientists: Alarm over global warming ‘based on nonsense’ and ‘irrational at best’

by Personal Liberty News Desk

Scientists from MIT and Princeton sharply criticized the political left’s appropriation of climate data recently, noting that emotional assumptions and moral judgments about “mostly beneficial” natural phenomena are “Orwellian” and “irrational.”

At a climate summit in Austin, Texas this week, MIT climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen questioned the politicization of climate data that, he said, offers no evidence that should invite panic in rational people.

“Demonization of [increasing levels of atmospheric] CO2 is irrational at best, and even modest warming is mostly beneficial,” Lindzen said. “When someone says this is the warmest temperature on record – What are they talking about? It’s just nonsense. This is a very tiny ‘change’ period.”

Lindzen wasn’t alone in calling out the left’s alarmism. Princeton physicist Dr. Will Harper said policies that upbraid the energy sector to achieve the stated goal of reducing CO2 levels are simply “nonsense.”

“Policies to slow CO2 emissions are really based on nonsense. We are being led down a false path,” said Harper. “To call carbon dioxide a ‘pollutant’ is really Orwellian. You are calling something a pollutant that we all produce. Where does that lead us eventually?

For a scientist, that’s a pretty insightful and nuanced observation of a very human tendency.

“Coal, formed from ancient CO2, is a benefit to the world,” he continued. “Coal is CO2 from ancient atmospheres. We are simply returning CO2 to the atmosphere from which it came when you burn coal. And it’s a good thing, since it is at very low levels in the atmosphere. We are in a CO2 famine. It is very, very low.”

Lindzen echoed Harper’s “nonsense” callout, noting that data pointing to a slight increase in global temperature is both uncertain and, interpreted as the left interprets it, misleading.

“…[T]hey are arguing over hundredths of a degree when it is uncertain in tenths of a degree,” he said.

“And the proof that the ‘uncertainty’ is tenths of a degree are the adjustments that are being made. If you can adjust temperatures to .2 of a degree, it means it wasn’t certain to .2 of a degree.”

In case there’s any doubt about which side of the political spectrum these scientists are taking issue with, here’s Lindzen’s take on Secretary of State John Kerry:

“John Kerry stands alone…Kerry expresses his ignorance of what science is.”

Ouch.

For more quotes from this week’s “At the Crossroads” Energy and Climate Policy Summit, check out Climate Depot, which has thorough coverage of the event.

Link:
http://personalliberty.com/climate-scientists-alarm-global-warming-based-nonsense-irrational-best/