Ipcc Executive Summaries

Research and Politics

In the late 1990s, Raymond Bradley, a climatologist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, collaborated with two researchers on a pair of studies that altered the dialogue on climate change. The studies, a collaboration between Bradley, a geophysicist named Michael Mann (then finishing up his Ph.D. at Yale University) and University of Arizona climatologist Malcolm Hughes, presented evidence of global climate change over the past millennium and set off a political firestorm. The work was widely cited by those who (like the vast majority of scientists) take climate change seriously, but was doubted by skeptics of climate.

The study that caused the greatest uproar was a comparison of climate change going back to the year 1000. The results were represented by a line graph shaped like a hockey stick , which has become iconic in the debate over global warming -- even as the scholars noted many limitations in their work.

In a new book, Global Warming and Political Intimidation: How Politicians Cracked Down on Scientists as the Earth Heated Up (University of Massachusetts Press), he describes how his work made him a target for conservative politicians. “The hockey stick scientific debate is over,” he writes, “but government interference in science at the state, local, and national levels remains a contentious issue in the United States and must not be ignored."

Bradley responded via e-mail to questions about the book.

Q: What are some of the lessons other scientists could draw from your experience? Do you think they could do more to engage the public, educate politicians, or be politically active?

A: First, scientists should be aware that they are no longer working in an academic bubble. Regrettably, politics intrudes on almost all aspects of our research nowadays. This has been driven by ideologues on the right and the left, and fueled by the easy access to data and records on the Internet. Of course, this is especially true of issues that may have some economic significance ... but few issues are very far from such considerations anymore. Having said that, scientists should not hesitate to respond to attacks on their credentials if the attacks come from politicians or political organizations.

New Report on Global Warming Contradicts U.N.'s IPCC

/ PRAvenueNW / -- The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), already under severe criticism for violating the requirements of academic peer review and relying on secondary sources, comes under attack again in a new report co-produced by three nonprofit research organizations.

According to the new report, “natural causes are very likely to be [the] dominant” cause of climate change that took place in the twentieth and at the start of the twenty-first centuries. “We are not saying anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG) cannot produce some warming or have not in the past. Our conclusion is that the evidence shows they are not playing a substantial role.”

The authors of the new report go on to say “the net effect of continued warming and rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere is most likely to be beneficial to humans, plants, and wildlife.”
Both conclusions contradict the findings of the widely cited reports of the IPCC.

Click here for an executive summary of the book (PDF).
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2011/pdf/FrontMatter.pdf

Click here to review the book chapter-by-chapter.
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2011/2011report.html

The report was produced by The Heartland Institute, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, and Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), three national nonprofit organizations based in Chicago, Illinois; Tempe, Arizona; and Arlington, Virginia; respectively.

The 430-page report was coauthored and edited by three climate science researchers: Craig D. Idso, Ph.D., editor of the online magazine CO2 Science and author of several books and scholarly articles on the effects of carbon dioxide on plant and animal life; Robert M. Carter, Ph.D., a marine geologist and research professor at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia; and S. Fred Singer, Ph.D.

The Effective Executive

Summaries of leading cases on the Constitution

Summaries of leading cases on the Constitution

The unitary executive, presidential power from Washington to Bush

Executive skills in children and adolescents, a practical guide to assessment and intervention