Thanks to Dave Marks for posting this. I think it is important for us to
read and analyze this sort of editorial, because our better students
will surely have read it and ask questions about it.
This editorial was published by Canada Free Press
(http://www.canadafreepress.com/), which seems to me to be the Canadian
equivalent of TCS Daily (http://www.tcsdaily.com/), formerly known as
Tech Central Station. These are not unbiased news organizations. Look
for yourself at the background of the people who write for this outfit.
Tom Harris, the author of the editorial, holds a Bachelor of Engineering
(Mechanical) from Carleton University and a Master of Engineering
(Mechanical - thermo-fluids) from McMaster University. Another
contributor on environmental issues to Canada Free Press is Dennis T.
Avery, of the Hudson Institute, which reports that "Avery studied
agricultural economics at Michigan State University and the University
of Wisconsin."
I am not suggested that these folks are "fair and balanced", but, when
it comes to climate change, I myself would not put much weight in an
op-ed piece written by someone without an appropriate scientific
background in this subject, who has apparently interviewed only a small
number of climate changes skeptics without the voices of those who hold
the opposite point of view.
It is not difficult to find someone somewhere who is a skeptic about a
given topic. In my opinion, this is a strength, not a weakness, of the
scientific method. But skepticism itself does not necessarily endow one
with expertise, anymore than does the opposite position. In our own
state of Oregon, the state climatologist, George Taylor, is a climate
change skeptic. Mr. Taylor has a background of thirty years in
meteorology. He was just interviewed by Oregon Public Broadcasting; this
was aired on June 9, 2006 on OPB's "Oregon Territory"
(http://www.opb.org/programs/oregonterritory/). The interviewer allowed
George Taylor to trot out, unchallenged, three hoary myths about global
warming: the urban heat island effect, the Pacific decadal oscillation,
and ice accretion in the interior of Greenland and Antarctica. All three
arguments voiced by Mr. Taylor have been rebutted over and over again by
other climate scientists but apparently George Taylor has not noticed.
To me, this seems to be a pattern among climate change skeptics,
including Mr. Taylor, who is also a consultant to TCS Daily, Patrick J.
Michaels of the Cato Institute, and their co-believers. Sourcewatch
(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Climate_change_skeptics), "a
project of the Center for Media & Democracy", has some useful
information, as long as one reads it cum grano salis. Caveat lector.
It amazes me that there are still people with a Ph.D. in some area of
science who argue that CFCs were not the cause of the stratospheric
ozone hole, just as I am amazed that there are people with a Ph.D. in
some area of science who argue that evolution is nothing more than "a
theory". I wonder where were Messrs Harris, Avery, Carter, Patterson, et
al., when ozone depletion was an issue. After we experience our first
summer with Arctic seas substantially free of ice, we may well be asking
ourselves similar questions about climate change skeptics.
Best wishes,
Jim
--
James J. Diamond, Jr., Ph.D.,
Professor of Chemistry, Chemistry Department,
Linfield College, 900 S.E. Baker St. McMinnville, OR 97128
Voice:503.883.2471 Fax: 503.883.2538 jimd@linfield.edu