Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The New York Times exposes an internal document (PDF) from the Global Climate Coalition, a group funded by the oil and auto industries, that shows that their own scientists were confirming the reality of human-caused global warming and the effects of greenhouse gasses as early as 15 years ago even while publicly trying to dispute that reality.
The document is from 1995 and it was a "primer" on the various issues being sent around to the auto companies for approval. It essentially admits that global warming is real and human-caused, that many of the counter-arguments are false and that we don't yet have good enough predictive technology to know the full effects, especially in local areas. It begins by saying:
The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied.
It further says:
Are there alternate explanations for the climate change which has occurred over the last 120 years?Explanations based on solar variability, anomalies in the temperature record, etc. are valid to the extent they are used to argue against a conclusion that we understand current climate or can detect a human component in the change in climate that has occurred over the past 120 years. However, these alternative hypotheses do not address what would happen if concentrations of greenhouse gases continue to rise at projected rates.
The section of the document on what it calls "contrarian theories" to explain the rise in global temperatures as resulting from something other than human activity is particularly interesting. For example, in considering the argument that sunspots is the real cause, the document says:
Direct measures of the intensity of solar radiation over the past 15 years indicate a maximum variability of less than 0.1%, sufficient to account for no more than 0.1DC temperature change. This period of direct measurement included one complete 11 year sun spot cycle, which allowed the development of a correlation between solar intensity and the fraction of the Sun's surface covered by sun spots. Applying this correlation to sun spot data for the past 120 years indicates a maximum variability on solar intensity of 0.1%, corresponding to a maximum temperature change of0.1DC, one-fifth of the temperature change observed during that period.If solar variability has accounted for 0.1DC temperature increase in the last 120 years, it
is an interesting finding, but it does not allay concerns about future warming which could
result from greenhouse gas emissions. Whatever contribution solar variability makes to climate change should be additive to the effect of greenhouse gas emissions.
The conclusion of the section on such alternative explanations:
The contrarian theories raise interesting questions about our total understanding of climate processes, but they do not offer convincing arguments against the conventional model of greenhouse gas emission-induced climate change. Jastrow's hypothesis about the role of solar variability and Michaels' questions about the temperature record are not convincing arguments against any conclusion that we are currently experiencing warming as the result of greenhouse gas emissions.
Sounds a lot like the tobacco industry's claims for decades that smoking doesn't cause lung cancer.
Politics
Comments
Ed stated:
That is no coincidence. Chris Mooney's book from a couple of years back, "The Republican War on Science", documented the overlap of people who lobbied for the cigarette industry who transferred their services over to defend industries that perceived a threat to their business if Americans supported policies to mitigate the AGW threat.
As soon as the Times article Ed links to was published, I was most interested in understanding what Mooney's take on it was. He does not disappoint, read here. In the linked Mooney article, Chris also discusses the "doubt is our motto" strategy used by both the tobacco industry and those opposed to public policy in light of AGW.
All of this thus begs the question, which Mooney asks in his article:
I would argue it will, probably when the Himalayan glaciers start to melt*, which will force the displacement of two billion people.
*To avoid moderation I didn't link to a source for the Himalayan glaciers melting. If you google the words "himalayan glaciers melting" one of your top hits will be a 2007 ScienceDaily.com article with those findings.
Posted by: Michael Heath | May 3, 2009 9:47 AM
This is very very surprising and shocking.
Other news: dog bites man, sun rises easterly...
Posted by: 386sx | May 3, 2009 9:57 AM
Re Michael Heath
One need only look at the comment from a lying piece of filth calling himself Robert on the Mooney article to understand what we are up against.
Posted by: SLC | May 3, 2009 10:13 AM
There ought to be a wiki in the vein of "Arguments
creationistsAGW skeptics should not use" written by an AGW skeptic who recognizes that volcanoes and sunspots (and ...) are dead horses, no more to be whipped.Posted by: Michael E. | May 3, 2009 10:20 AM
perhaps now the auto companies have to bless the electric motor and development that will lead to changing the development model.
(for me, sun and ocean inertia module climate, planets module sun)
Posted by: ricardo | May 3, 2009 10:20 AM
You need to see "The Great Global Warming Swindle" seen at google video and here is the link http://video.google.ca/videosearch?q=%22The+Great+Global+Warming+Swindle%22+&hl=en&emb=0&aq=-1&oq=#
Then make up your mind
Posted by: ed | May 3, 2009 10:20 AM
Re ed
Attached is a link to one of the scientists interviewed by the makers of this "documentary". Based on the information in the article, it appears that the folks at WAGTV took a page out of the Expelled playbook and gave him a false impression of the proposed contents of the video. Sounds very much how Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers were flummoxed by the Expelled producers. This is just another example of how the global warming deniers spread their big lies, which would warm the cockles of Josef Goebbels' heart, if he were still alive. These videos have no more credibility then the crap printed in Pravda and Isvestia during the former Soviet Union.
http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/papersonline/channel4response
Posted by: SLC | May 3, 2009 10:38 AM
I'm shocked, I tell you! Shocked!
Posted by: Equisetum | May 3, 2009 10:40 AM
Isn't there a concept of legal responsibility that has to do with willful negligence? That to deliberately leave a loaded pistol on a public street is tantamount to murder if that gun is then used in an opportunistic shooting?
The people and institutions behind the whole GW denial industry should be held not only responsible for financial damages, but should, IMO, be held criminally responsible for the needless loss of life and property that their despicable acts against humanity will have helped to cause.
A hundred years from now, if things turn out as gloomily as projection predict they shall, people will look back at these present days and wonder "Why didn't they round them all up, put them against a wall, and shoot them in the public square?"
Posted by: Gingerbaker | May 3, 2009 11:39 AM
"Attached is a link to one of the scientists interviewed by the makers of this "documentary"."
What about the others?
Posted by: King of Ireland | May 3, 2009 5:23 PM
The other scientists in tGGWS are the usual suspects. The likes of Fred Singer, Tim Ball, John Christy, Pat Michaels, Roy Spencer, Dick Lindzen etc etc.
Same old.
Posted by: melatonin | May 3, 2009 11:09 PM
Man made global warming is a hoax. Carbon offsets are a scam. Get all the free carbon offsets you want:
http://www.freecarbonoffsets.com
.
Posted by: Karbon Kenny | May 3, 2009 11:47 PM
Re Karbon Kenny
Mr. Kenny is a hoax.
Posted by: SLC | May 4, 2009 6:16 AM
I notice that ed didn't deign to mention the troubles that "The Great Global Warming Swindle" and it's creator, Martin Durkin, have encountered because of questions about their accuracy nor that Durkin had previously made a "documentary" claiming that environmentalists are the modern decent of Nazis and the whole thing is a scam to stick it to the developing world.
Durkin's "documentary" on AGW was thoroughly debunked when it was first released.
Posted by: tincture | May 4, 2009 7:21 AM
NYT and Reporter Revkin Issue 'Correction' – Admit 'Error' in Front Page Global Warming Article Touted By Gore!
Saturday, May 02, 2009By Marc Morano
Washington, DC – The New York Times has issued a “climate correction” for an “error” in its April 24, 2009 (posted online April 23) high profile front page global warming article that was touted by former Vice President Al Gore during his Congressional testimony as evidence that industry was clouding the science of climate change. [ See: Gore Mouthing-Off About Make-Believe Madoffs & NYT Corrects Article Gore Cited in Congressional Testimony]
But just little more than a week after publishing the front page article, The New York Times and reporter Andrew Revkin have now admitted the article “erred” on a key point. Revkin wrote about the now defunct Global Climate Coalition and documents that suggest the group had scientists on board in the 1990's who claimed “the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.” As Climate Depot exclusively reported, Revkin's article came under immediate fire from scientists and others who called into question the central claims and the accuracy of the story.
In a May 2, 2009 post titled “A Climate Correction”, Revkin and the New York Times wrote: “The article cited a 'backgrounder' that laid out the coalition's public stance, published in the early 1990s and distributed widely to lawmakers and journalists. However, the article failed to note a later version of the backgrounder that included language that conformed to the scientific advisory committee's conclusion. The amended version, which was brought to the attention of The Times by a reader, acknowledged the consensus that greenhouse gases could contribute to warming. What scientists disagreed about, it said, was 'the rate and magnitude of the 'enhanced greenhouse effect' (warming) that will result.'"
The New York Times also posted an “Editors' Note” on May 2 with the same correction.
Posted by: Mike | May 4, 2009 3:11 PM
I think we need to contact our legislators and pass two very important future laws to help fight Global Warming:
1. We need a bill to remove summer from the list of official seasons of the year so that its not as hot.
2. We need to make it illegal to breathe out so we don’t contribute Carbon Dioxide into the air.
Please contact your legislators TODAY to support these above two actions in our fight against Global Warming!
Posted by: High Anxiety | May 5, 2009 10:41 PM
Hey, Mike, you inadvertanetly omitted the last paragraph of the Times' correction:
The coalition did, however, as the article reported, remove from an internal report by the scientific advisory committee a section that said that “contrarian” theories of why global temperatures appeared to be rising “do not offer convincing arguments against the conventional model of greenhouse gas emission-induced climate change.” After the later, amended version of the backgrounder was published, the coalition continued to question the scientific evidence that greenhouse gas emissions could heat the planet enough to justify sharp cuts in emissions. In the 1995 report, the advisory committee had concluded that “substantially higher atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases” constituted a “potential threat.”
Posted by: pianoguy | May 9, 2009 3:50 PM