Who Believes in Global Warming?

[Rocky Raab]

This is long, but I suppose I'm forced to do it. Spend an hour on Google, and here's what you can dig up...

Global warming is mostly due to natural processes

Scientists in this section conclude that natural causes are likely more to blame than
human activities for the observed rising temperatures.

Khabibullo Ismailovich Abdusamatov, at Pulkovskaya Observatory of the Russian Academy of
Sciences and the supervisor of the Astrometria project of the Russian section of the
International Space Station: "Global warming results not from the emission of greenhouse gases
into the atmosphere, but from an unusually high level of solar radiation and a lengthy - almost
throughout the last century - growth in its intensity." (Russian News & Information Agency,
Jan. 15, 2007 [11]) (See also [12], [13], [14])

Sallie Baliunas, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: "[T]he recent warming trend in
the surface temperature record cannot be caused by the increase of human-made greenhouse gases
in the air." [15] In 2003 Baliunas and Soon wrote that "there is no reliable evidence for
increased severity or frequency of storms, droughts, or floods that can be related to the air’s
increased greenhouse gas content." [16]

Robert M. Carter, researcher at the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in
Australia: "The essence of the issue is this. Climate changes naturally all the time, partly in
predictable cycles, and partly in unpredictable shorter rhythms and rapid episodic shifts, some
of the causes of which remain unknown." (Telegraph, April 9, 2006 [17])

George V. Chilingar, professor of civil and petroleum engineering at the University of Southern
California, and Leonid F. Khilyuk: "The authors identify and describe the following global
forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate: (1) solar radiation ..., (2) outgassing as a major
supplier of gases to the World Ocean and the atmosphere, and, possibly, (3) microbial
activities ... . The writers provide quantitative estimates of the scope and extent of their
corresponding effects on the Earth’s climate [and] show that the human-induced climatic changes
are negligible." (Environmental Geology, vol. 50 no. 6, August 2006 [18])

William M. Gray, professor of atmospheric science and meteorologist, Colorado State
University: "This small warming is likely a result of the natural alterations in global ocean
currents which are driven by ocean salinity variations. Ocean circulation variations are as yet
little understood. Human kind has little or nothing to do with the recent temperature changes.
We are not that influential." (BBC News, 16 Nov 2000 [19]) "I am of the opinion that [global
warming] is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people." (Washington
Post, May 28, 2006 [20])

"So many people have a vested interest in this global-warming thing—all these big labs and
research and stuff. The idea is to frighten the public, to get money to study it more."
(Discover, vol. 26 no. 9, September 2005 [21])

Zbigniew Jaworowski, chair of the Scientific Council at the Central Laboratory for Radiological
Protection in Warsaw: "The atmospheric temperature variations do not follow the changes in the
concentrations of CO2 ... climate change fluctuations comes ... from cosmic radiation
(21st Century Science & Technology, Winter 2003-2004, p. 52-65 [22])

David Legates, associate professor of geography and director of the Center for Climatic Research,
University of Delaware: "About half of the warming during the 20th century occurred prior to
the 1940s, and natural variability accounts for all or nearly all of the warming."
(May 15, 2006 [23])

Marcel Leroux, former Professor of Climatology, Université Jean Moulin: "The possible causes,
then, of climate change are: well-established orbital parameters on the palaeoclimatic scale,
... solar activity, ...; volcanism ...; and far at the rear, the greenhouse effect, and in
particular that caused by water vapor, the extent of its influence being unknown. These factors
are working together all the time, and it seems difficult to unravel the relative importance of
their respective influences upon climatic evolution. Equally, it is tendentious to highlight the
anthropic factor, which is, clearly, the least credible among all those previously mentioned."
(M. Leroux, Global Warming - Myth or Reality?, 2005, p. 120 [24])

Tim Patterson [25], paleoclimatologist and Professor of Geology at Carleton University in Canada:
"There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this
[geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now,
about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the
last half billion years. On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the
recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's
modest warming?" [26]

Frederick Seitz, retired, former solid-state physicist, former president of the National Academy
of Sciences: "So we see that the scientific facts indicate that all the temperature changes
observed in the last 100 years were largely natural changes and were not caused by carbon
dioxide produced in human activities.", Environment News, 2001 [27]

Nir Shaviv, astrophysicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: "[T]he truth is probably
somewhere in between [the common view and that of skeptics], with natural causes probably being
more important over the past century, whereas anthropogenic causes will probably be more
dominant over the next century. ... [A]bout 2/3's (give or take a third or so) of the warming
[over the past century] should be attributed to increased solar activity and the remaining to
anthropogenic causes." His opinion is based on some proxies of solar activity over the past few
centuries. [28]

Fred Singer, Professor emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia:
"The greenhouse effect is real. However, the effect is minute, insignificant, and very difficult
to detect." (Christian Science Monitor, April 22, 2005) [29]

"The Earth currently is experiencing a warming trend, but there is scientific evidence that
human activities have little to do with it.", NCPA Study No. 279, Sep. 2005 [30].

“It’s not automatically true that warming is bad, I happen to believe that warming is good, and
so do many economists.” (CBC's Denial machine @ 19:23 - Google Video Link)

Willie Soon, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: "[T]here's increasingly strong
evidence that previous research conclusions, including those of the United Nations and the
United States government concerning 20th century warming, may have been biased by underestimation
of natural climate variations. The bottom line is that if these variations are indeed proven
true, then, yes, natural climate fluctuations could be a dominant factor in the recent warming.
In other words, natural factors could be more important than previously assumed."
(Harvard University Gazette, 24 April 2003 [31])

Henrik Svensmark, Danish National Space Center: "Our team ... has discovered that the relatively
few cosmic rays that reach sea-level play a big part in the everyday weather. They help to make
low-level clouds, which largely regulate the Earth’s surface temperature. During the 20th
Century the influx of cosmic rays decreased and the resulting reduction of cloudiness allowed
the world to warm up. ... most of the warming during the 20th Century can be explained by a
reduction in low cloud cover." [32]

Jan Veizer, environmental geochemist, Professor Emeritus from University of Ottawa: "At this
stage, two scenarios of potential human impact on climate appear feasible: (1) the standard
IPCC model ..., and (2) the alternative model that argues for celestial phenomena as the
principal climate driver. ... Models and empirical observations are both indispensable tools
of science, yet when discrepancies arise, observations should carry greater weight than theory.
If so, the multitude of empirical observations favours celestial phenomena as the most important
driver of terrestrial climate on most time scales, but time will be the final judge."
(In J. Veizer, "Celestial climate driver: a perspective from four billion years of the carbon
cycle", Geoscience Canada, March, 2005. [33], [34])