Talking to some people about Dyson, I was told to take a look at this open letter in the National Post (the conservative national newspaper in Canada): Open Kyoto to debate
Sixty scientists call on Harper to revisit the science of global warming.
From the article:
As accredited experts in climate and related scientific disciplines, we are writing to propose that balanced, comprehensive public-consultation sessions be held so as to examine the scientific foundation of the federal government's climate-change plans. This would be entirely consistent with your recent commitment to conduct a review of the Kyoto Protocol. Although many of us made the same suggestion to then-prime ministers Martin and Chretien, neither responded, and, to date, no formal, independent climate-science review has been conducted in Canada. Much of the billions of dollars earmarked for implementation of the protocol in Canada will be squandered without a proper assessment of recent developments in climate science.
...
"Climate change is real" is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural "noise." The new Canadian government's commitment to reducing air, land and water pollution is commendable, but allocating funds to "stopping climate change" would be irrational. We need to continue intensive research into the real causes of climate change and help our most vulnerable citizens adapt to whatever nature throws at us next.
We believe the Canadian public and government decision-makers need and deserve to hear the whole story concerning this very complex issue. It was only 30 years ago that many of today's global-warming alarmists were telling us that the world was in the midst of a global-cooling catastrophe. But the science continued to evolve, and still does, even though so many choose to ignore it when it does not fit with predetermined political agendas.
We hope that you will examine our proposal carefully and we stand willing and able to furnish you with more information on this crucially important topic.
I'm not an expert on Climate Change, so I'm not sure what is the reputation of the 60 co-signers besides Dyson ...
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A couple comments for background for your readers:
The National Post is not "the conservative national paper". By any US standards it would be called center or slightly left leaning. Canada has very few true "red state conservatives", you might be surprised to know that our "conservatives" look a lot like your democrats. There are certainly not enough to support a "conservative national paper". There are however, a few news magazines for the true conservatives.
As for the scientists a couple names that jumped out at me: McKitrick and Essex. They wrote Taken By Storm an anti-global warming book that is all the rage up here (look it up on Amazon).
As a backgrounder, in Canada the debate is less about the presence of global warming and more about the plan (read cost) to address the issue (Kyoto). The Canadian Government of the era made an unrealistic pledge that as a northern country that produces a lot of heavy oil (the production of which releases huge quantities of CO2) we simply cant meet without shutting down our oil industry or eliminating the use of the personal automobile (did I mention that the Govt made an unrealistic pledge). Given that the major new players (China and India in particular) are not included in Kyoto it is hard to justify the huge costs to our industry for such a marginal global change in volumes. As a result naysayers are having a field day, now that we have a new more conservative (read "Canadian Conservative" govt) the lobby groups are trying hard again to back us out of Kyoto....thus the letter.
"The National Post is not "the conservative national paper". "
That is correct, so far as it goes. The Post is the a neo-conservative paper. Its major competitor, the Globe and Mail, is fiscally conservative but socially (relatively) liberal. For decades, it supported the federal Conservative Party. Canadians are in many ways more conservative than Americans; that is, historically, we tend to be more comfortable with what is established or shown to work and are less interested in trying things just because they are new.
Kyoto and other efforts to reduce global warming are broadly supported by Canadians. The recently elected minority government has no mandate to alter Canada's committment to Kyoto. Should that become a campaign issue, the government would pay a price in the next election. All it would take would be a few photos of the impact of melting permafrost.
Another relevant point is that with a new government (and a minority one at that) there's still a lot of "positioning" going on - government, opposition parties, interest groups - in order to see just which issues get worthwhile attention.
It's interesting to note that various Conservatives were boldy saying before the election that they'd "kill Kyoto," but they quietly repositioned themselves once in power to saying they would "work within the Kyoto framework."
OK folks ... I'm Canadian and I've lived in the US for 9 years ... so don't pull this "there are no conservatives in Canada crap"
The National Post IS conservative, and if you don't think so, it's because you either don't read the Editorials or you don't read some American papers such as the NY Times.
National Post
-Supported the Iraq War
-Supported the US missle sheild
-Thought Harper was too liberal in dealing with healthcare
-And they call THEMSELVES conservative
So please.
I blogged about the letter at some length here.
Why would 60 scientists subscribe to the following idiotic statement:
"It was only 30 years ago that many of today's global-warming alarmists were telling us that the world was in the midst of a global-cooling catastrophe."
OK - because an error was made 30 years ago, that means we therefore currently have little understanding of Climate Change? If a perfectly stupid statement employing terrible logic could make it into that statement, it increases the doubts that I have regarding the other things they are saying.
By the way, I've read the 1974 Time article and a recent comment by the author in Discover. The data was not wrong. World temps were dropping due to increased aerosols (pollution) reflecting sunlight. The formula was incorrect, which led to a wildly incorrect conclusion. Within 3 years they had caught their error.