Thread: Scientist Dr. Daniel Botkin Tells Congress why he reversed belief in global warming

CFACT

Scientist Dr. Daniel Botkin Tells Congress why he reversed his belief in global warming to become a skeptic: ‘There are several lines of evidence suggesting that it (AGW) is a weaker case today, not a stronger case’ — Rips Obama climate report as ‘filled with misstatements contradicted by well-established and well-known scientific papers’

When will politicians heed the scientific evidence and stop hyping global warming?
Share the facts at Climate Depot: http://www.climatedep...
See More



Scientist Dr. Daniel Botkin Tells Congress why he reversed his belief in global warming to...

Full Committee Hearing - Examining the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate...
climatedepot.com


Scientist Dr. Daniel Botkin Tells Congress why he reversed his belief in global warming to become a skeptic: ‘There are several lines of evidence suggesting that it (AGW) is a weaker case today, not a stronger case’ — Rips Obama climate report as ‘filled with misstatements contradicted by well-established and well-known scientific papers’

Prominent Scientist Dr. Botkin, who has studied climate change for 45 years, told the Committee in Q&A: 'I have been concerned about global warming since 1968 and in the 1980s, it looked like the weight of evidence lent towards human induced climate change, to a significant extant, and since then it's moved against it.'
Later in the hearing, Botkin elaborated: 'I was concerned that there was a human induced climate warning and I gave talks and TV interviews that said that, but since the middle of the 1990s, there is evidence that is running against that.
For example the temperature change is not tracking carbon dioxide very well. Then there is the information from the long term antarctic ice core and some from recent paper in the arctic, that suggest that carbon dioxide does not lead temperature change, it may actually lag it significantly or may not lead it at all, and if that is the case that is still an open but important scientific evidence.
So there are several lines of evidence that are suggesting that it (AGW) is a weaker case today, not a stronger case.'


By: Marc Morano - Climate DepotMay 29, 2014 10:47 PM with 0 comments

Full Committee Hearing – Examining the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Process
2318 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 | May 29, 2014 11:00am
Examining the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Process
WRITTEN TESTIMONY TO THE HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY.

MAY 29, 2014
Dr. Daniel Botkin, Professor Emeritus, Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara (Full Bio here)
Selected Excerpts: (Full Testimony here)
Since 1968 I have published research on theoretical global warming, its potential ecological effects, and the implications for people and biodiversity. I have spent my career trying to help conserve our environment and its great diversity of species. In doing so I have always attempted to maintain an objective, intellectually honest, scientific approach in the best tradition of scientific endeavor. I have, accordingly, been dismayed and disappointed in recent years that this subject has been converted into a political and ideological debate.
…
I want to state up front that we have been living through a warming trend driven by a variety of influences. However, it is my view that this is not unusual, and contrary to the characterizations by the IPCC and the National Climate Assessment, these environmental changes are not apocalyptic nor irreversible.
2. My biggest concern is that both the reports present a number of speculative, and sometimes incomplete, conclusions embedded in language that gives them more scientific heft than they deserve. The reports are “scientific-sounding” rather than based on clearly settled facts or admitting their lack. Established facts about the global environment exist less often in science than laymen usually think.
3. HAS IT BEEN WARMING? Yes, we have been living through a warming trend, no doubt about that. The rate of change we are experiencing is also not unprecedented, and the “mystery” of the warming “plateau” simply indicates the inherent complexity of our global biosphere. Change is normal, life on Earth is inherently risky; it always has been. The two reports, however, makes it seem that environmental change is apocalyptic and irreversible. It is not.
…
The extreme overemphasis on human-induced global warming has taken our attention away from many environmental issues that used to be front and center but have been pretty much ignored in the 21st century.
Nine Environmental Issues that need our attention now
Energy
Fresh water
Phosphorus and other essential minerals
Habitat destruction
Invasive-species control
Endangered species
Pollution by directly toxic substances
Fisheries
Forests
End Excerpt of Botkin
#
Related Links:
UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Rips IPCC at Congressional Hearing: ‘The IPCC leadership has in the past been very adept at putting troublesome authors in positions where they cannot harm the cause. That practice must end’
Congressional hearing: Scientists say UN IPCC puts politics before science, needs reform – IPCC Lead Author Tol: ‘Competent people are excluded because their views do not match those of their government’
UN Lead Author Michael Oppenheimer Admits to Congress Climate Science Not ‘Settled’: ‘The question of exactly how warm the Earth will become as a result (of rising CO2), that’s not’ settled
Climate Depot Note: Dr. Botkin joins many other scientists who recently publicly dissented from man-made climate fears.
The global warming movement continues to lose scientists, many formerly with the UN IPCC.
Another Prominent Scientist Dissents: Environmental physicist Dr. Jean-Louis Pinault: ‘This is a very uneven debate, skeptics cannot enforce their arguments in scientific journals that are subject to censorship’ – Declares AGW has produced an ‘economic and political media frenzy unprecedented in the history of science’
Another Dissenter: Geoscientst & former UN Consultant Dr. David Kear declares warming fears ‘based on unfounded unscientific beliefs’ – An ‘innocent gas, CO2, has been demonized and criminalized’
Another Prominent Scientist Dissents! Fmr. NASA Scientist Dr. Les Woodcock ‘Laughs’ at Global Warming – ‘Global warming is nonsense’ Top Prof. Declares
Flashback: UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol admits no global warming for 17 years – Rips bias in IPCC – UN’s ‘inbuilt alarmism made me step down’ – ‘By the time the report was finished, however, it hadn’t warmed for 17 years’

Green Guru James Lovelock on Climate Change: ‘I don’t think anybody really knows what’s happening. They just guess’ – Lovelock Reverses Himself on Global Warming
More Than 1000 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims – Challenge UN IPCC & Gore
Top Swedish Climate Scientist Says Warming Not Noticeable: ‘The warming we have had last a 100 years is so small that if we didn’t have climatologists to measure it we wouldn’t have noticed it at all’ – Award-Winning Dr. Lennart Bengtsson, formerly of UN IPCC: ‘We Are Creating Great Anxiety Without It Being Justified’
‘High Priestess of Global Warming’ No More! Former Warmist Climate Scientist Judith Curry Admits To Being ‘Duped Into Supporting IPCC’ – ‘If the IPCC is dogma, then count me in as a heretic’
German Meteorologist reverses belief in man-made global warming: Now calls idea that CO2 Can Regulate Climate ‘Sheer Absurdity’ — ‘Ten years ago I simply parroted what the IPCC told us’
UN Scientists Who Have Turned on the UN IPCC & Man-Made Climate Fears — A Climate Depot Flashback Report - Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” – UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.
‘Some of the most formidable opponents of climate hysteria include politically liberal physics Nobel laureate, Ivar Giaever; Freeman Dyson; father of the Gaia Hypothesis, James Lovelock — ‘Left-center chemist, Fritz Vahrenholt, one of the fathers of the German environmental movement’
Flashback: Left-wing Env. Scientist Bails Out Of Global Warming Movement: Declares it a ‘corrupt social phenomenon…strictly an imaginary problem of the 1st World middleclass’



http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/05/...ase-today-not/

• NEW! Energy Depot
• A project of CFACT
• Support Climate Depot

• WSJ: The Myth of the Climate Change ’97%’ – What is the origin of the false belief that almost all scientists agree about global warming?
• Watch Now: Hostile 8 min. Climate Debate Between Morano & TV Anchor on CCTV: Morano: ‘You used the word ‘facts’ earlier, I hope you are not using that now. Every bad weather event is now proof of global warming?’
• Global Temperature Update: No global warming at all for 17 years 9 months

Scientist Dr. Daniel Botkin Tells Congress why he reversed his belief in global warming to become a skeptic: ‘There are several lines of evidence suggesting that it (AGW) is a weaker case today, not a stronger case’ — Rips Obama climate report as ‘filled with misstatements contradicted by well-established and well-known scientific papers’



http://www.climatedepot.com/

• Witnesses All Agree at Congressional Hearing: Climate Science ‘Not Settled’ Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith: 'The President and others often claim that 97 percent of scientists believe that global warming is primarily driven by human activity. However, the study they cite has been debunked. When asked today whether the science of climate change is settled or if uncertainties remain, witnesses unanimously said that the science is not settled. They also discussed concerns with the IPCC process, including lack of transparency in author and study selection, and inconsistent approaches to data quality, peer review, publication cut-off dates, and the cherry-picking of results.'
  
  
• UN Lead Author Michael Oppenheimer Admits to Congress Climate Science Not ‘Settled’: ‘The question of exactly how warm the Earth will become as a result (of rising CO2), that’s not’ settled Another IPCC Lead Author Trashes 97% Consensus claims:
  UN IPCC Lead Author & University of Sussex economist Dr. Richard Tol: 'Science is, of course, never settled.'
  'The 97% estimate is bandied about by basically everybody. I had a close look at what this study really did. as far as I can see, The estimate just crumbles when you touch it. None of the statements in the papers are supported by the data that's in the paper. The 97% is essentially pulled from thin air, it is not based on any credible research whatsoever.'
  
  
• John Holdren burned again: Piling On: More New Research Shows No Link Between ‘Polar Vortex’ and Global Warming 'What it will take for the White House to publicly admit that it was grossly wrong. At the very least, it needs to disavow a widely-disseminated YouTube video featuring Holdren explaining the link between last winter’s polar vortex and human-caused climate change. There is no such link.'
  'A brand new study, led by Thomas Ballinger of Kent State University, which directly examined the size and magnitude of the 2014 “polar vortex” event and found it to be not particularly unusual...In fact, Ballinger’s team, found, in examining polar vortex behavior across North America since 1948, that the 2014 polar vortex excursion into the lower 48 ranked 6th in southerly extent and 7th in total area. The authors concluded that their analysis “revealed that the spatial features of the January 2014 [polar vortex over the U.S.] were not extreme relative to certain 1948-2013 Januaries.”
  
• Former UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol: ‘One of the startling facts about climate change is that there are very few facts about climate change. Climate change is mainly something of the future so we are really talking about model projections’

• IPCC co-chairman Prof Thomas Stocker says scientists being intimidated by climate change deniers – Environmental News | The Irish Times – Thu, May 29, 2014
• Mankind Not Causing West Antarctic Glaciers To Collapse: ‘The warming and cooling in the South Pole is well in line with historical trends dating back thousands of years’ 'Study from British Antarctic Survey released last year found that the current melt in the western Antarctic is within the “natural range of climate variability” of the last 300 years.'
  
• Global warming: the 97% fallacy
• New paper finds Antarctic temperatures were warmer in 1800′s and 1940′s – Published in the Annals of Glaciology
• New paper finds Ross Sea ice in Antarctica has increased 5% since 1993 – Published in Geophysical Research Letters
• ‘Climate Forecasts’ Full of ‘Pseudo-Science,’ Respected Scientist Claims
• Greatest ice cover on Great Lakes since satellite records began
• AGW link ‘is pretty tenuous’: Researcher ‘has a problem’ with attributing West Antarctic Ice Sheet ‘collapse’ to human activity “I have a problem with the widespread implication (in the popular press) that the West Antarctic collapse can be attributed to anthropogenic climate change,” said Mike Wolovik, a graduate researcher at Lamont-Doherty who studies ice sheet dynamics. “The marine ice sheet instability is an inherent part of ice sheet dynamics that doesn’t require any human forcing to operate. When the papers say that collapse is underway, and likely to last for several hundred years, that’s a reasonable and plausible conclusion.”
  But, he said, the link between CO2 levels and the loss of ice in West Antarctica “is pretty tenuous.”
  The upwelling of warmer waters that melt the ice has been tied to stronger westerly winds around Antarctica, which have been linked to a stronger air pressure difference between the polar latitudes and the mid-latitudes, which have in turn been linked to global warming.
  “I’m not an atmospheric scientist, so I can’t evaluate the strength of all of those linkages,” Wolovik said. “However, it’s a lot of linkages.” And that leaves a lot of room for uncertainty about what’s actually causing the collapse of the glaciers, he said.
  
• Antarctica: No Warming Since 1979
  Sea Surface Temperatures (SST) cooling in Southern Ocean:
  
  
• Antarctic Sea Ice Area Above Normal Every Day For The Past 30 Months
  
• Why a Leading Climatologist Changed Her Mind About Climate Change

• UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Rips 97% consensus claim: ‘The 97% is essentially pulled from thin air, it is not based on any credible research whatsoever’ IPCC Lead Author Trashes 97% Consensus claims: UN IPCC Lead Author & University of Sussex economist Dr. Richard Tol: 'Science is, of course, never settled.'
  Tol: 'The 97% estimate is bandied about by basically everybody. I had a close look at what this study really did. as far as I can see, The estimate just crumbles when you touch it. None of the statements in the papers are supported by the data that's in the paper. The 97% is essentially pulled from thin air, it is not based on any credible research whatsoever.
  
  
• Unsettling: House panel hears debate on climate change science
• UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Rips IPCC at Congressional Hearing: ‘The IPCC leadership has in the past been very adept at putting troublesome authors in positions where they cannot harm the cause. That practice must end’ Dr. Tol is 'among the 25 most cited climate researchers according to Google Scholar'.
  
• Hey Mr. President, Even The UN Says Extreme Weather Isn’t Caused By Global Warming
• Watch Live: Congressional Global Warming Hearing on UN IPCC
• CO2-induced global starvation update: ‘Almost a third of the world is now fat’
• Global warming vs climate change: ‘The most important ‘technical’ difference between global warming and climate change is that the former (global warming) isn’t happening while the latter (climate change) is always happening’
• WaPo: The left is to blame for the distorted global warming debate 'I pass all writings related to global warming through my filter of asking whether the author states what his plans to reduce global warming will cost, who will pay and what result will be achieved.'
  
• Obama: US can’t ‘exempt’ itself from global climate rules – ‘We can’t call on others to make commitments to combat climate change if so many of our political leaders deny that it is taking place’ 'That's why, next year, I intend to make sure America is out front in a global framework to preserve our planet.'
  
• Obama’s West Point speech: Calls climate change ‘a creeping national security crisis that will help shape your time in uniform, as we’re called on to respond to refugee flows, natural disasters, and conflicts over water and food’
• ‘America’s Highest Ranked Climate Charlatans: Obama and Kerry’
• Another Prominent Scientist Dissents: Environmental physicist Dr. Jean-Louis Pinault: ‘This is a very uneven debate, skeptics cannot enforce their arguments in scientific journals that are subject to censorship’ – Declares AGW has produced an ‘economic and political media frenzy unprecedented in the history of science’
  Pinault rips current peer-review process: 'I resigned myself to suspend submitting my work in peer-reviewed scientific journals, giving priority to dissemination of results.'
  Dr. Pinault's research finds solar variations impact climate: He has developed a model, which he supports with extensive statistical analyses of global spatio-temporal data, whereby relatively small solar variations (relative to the large variations occurring on the lifetime of the Sun) acquire leverage on global climate via an oceanic resonance tuning that operates on the global ocean oscillations on Earth.
  Writes new book: "From the melody of the oceans to climate change: a fight against ostracism", and was just released on May 10, 2014. 'Gyral wave resonance should reconcile the community of oceanographers and climatologists, skeptical or not. But subjected to the ubiquitous ostracism in 'official' scientific circles, I resigned myself to suspend submitting my work in peer-reviewed scientific journals, giving priority to dissemination of results.'
  Physicist Dr. Denis Rancourt praises Pinault: 'If Pinault is correct, then it will be even more reason to conclude that modern CO2 increases don't matter and never mattered, regarding modern climate change.'
• Prince Charles: ‘Fundamental transformation’ of capitalism needed to tackle ‘climate change’ Flashback 2012: UN climate chief Christiana Figueres seeks ‘centralized transformation’ that is ‘going to make the life of everyone on the planet very different’
  
• What’s in a Name? Global Warming vs. Climate Change in the Eyes of the American Public

• The authors found that the term “global warming” is associated with greater public understanding, emotional engagement and support for personal and national action than the term “climate change,” which is often favored by scientists...
  Americans care deeply about 'global warming' – but not 'climate change' - Yale researchers have found that the two terms, often used interchangeably, generate very different responses
  
• UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol, who stepped down from IPCC, to testify to U.S. Congress on Thurs.! To Testify on UN IPCC Process Tol and Climatologist Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. Will Testify against UN IPCC warmist Michael Oppenhiemer & Daniel Botkin - Thurs. at 11am
  Full Committee Hearing - Examining the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Process
  
  2318 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 | May 29, 2014 11:00am
  Witnesses
  Dr. Richard S.J. Tol, Professor of Economics, University of Sussex
  Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs, Department of Geosciences, Princeton University
  Dr. Daniel Botkin, Professor Emeritus, Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara
  Dr. Roger Pielke Sr., Senior Research Scientist, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, and Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University
  
  Flashback: UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol admits no global warming for 17 years – Rips bias in IPCC – UN’s ‘inbuilt alarmism made me step down’ – ‘By the time the report was finished, however, it hadn’t warmed for 17 years’
  

• EPA: The Obama administration’s new legislative branch
  
• Obama to Act Without Congress on Climate Change — and It Will Likely Drive Up Your Electricity Prices
• Obama to unveil historic climate change plan to cut US CO2 emissions: ‘The most significant action on climate change in American history’

Congressional hearing: Scientists say UN IPCC puts politics before science, needs reform – IPCC Lead Author Tol: ‘Competent people are excluded because their views do not match those of their government’ “Academics who research climate change out of curiosity but find less than alarming things are ignored, unless they rise to prominence in which case they are harassed and smeared,” said Richard Tol. - “Other eminent meteorologists have been treated like Bengtsson was… merely for sticking to the academic literature, as reflected by the IPCC, that there is no statistical evidence that the impact of natural disaster has increased because of climate change,” Tol said.

• Tol gained notoriety when reports came out that he removed his name from the IPCC’s fifth climate assessment because it had become too “alarmist”. Since then Tol says he has been attacked by environmentalists and left-leaning media for not agreeing that global warming would bring catastrophe.
  “Governments nominate academics to the IPCC – but we should be clear that it is often the environment agencies that do the nominating,” Tol said in his written testimony, adding that it’s “rare that a government agency with a purely scientific agenda takes the lead on IPCC matters.”
  “As a result, certain researchers are promoted at the expense of more qualified colleagues,” Tol said. “Other competent people are excluded because their views do not match those of their government. Some authors do not have the right skills or expertise, and are nominated on the strength of their connections only.”
• Analysis: Defending the Indefensible: The National Climate Assessment Cherry Picks to Validate Models
• Warmist claim: ‘The waves of extreme heat the country is likely to experience could bend and buckle rails’ Reality Check: 'The frequency of hot afternoons has plummeted in the US over the last 80 years. There is not one shred of real world data to support any of their claims.'
• Study: Global Warming Makes Couples Cheat – ‘New report blames global warming for rising rates of infidelity’ Miami New Times: Dating website 'surveyed 5,000 of its members, both men and women. A shocking 72% of them responded that yes, their own Al Gore-esque stress about unpredictable weather is the cause of their extra-marital dalliances. Guess the fact of their existing committed relationships was just an inconvenient truth. Survey respondents also reported that they're more likely to sneak a little on the side in hot weather than in cold.'
• Sajak vs. Trebek – Climate Battle of Game Show Hosts! Jeopardy’s Alex Trebek: ‘I believe that climate change exists, and is contributed to by human activity’ – Cites Antarctica and Mt. Kilimanjaro as evidence Trebek:'I believe that climate change exists, and is contributed to by human activity. I have seen firsthand the effects of climate change, in trips to Antarctica and Mt. Kilimanjaro, both of which are showing huge changes due to global warming.'
• Yale says ‘Global Warming’ is better distorted phrase for propaganda — dump ‘climate change’ Yale Project on Climate Change Communication has assigned 5 PhD’s and a guy called Feinberg to spend days, weeks and months analyzing surveys to find out which propaganda term is more “effective”. The simple answer is “global warming” eeks out more fear and pain among democrats than “climate change” therefore expect to see its use rocket.
• EPA To Unilaterally Push Cap And Trade On Carbon Emissions
• U. S. Biggest funder of UN IPCC at ‘over $43 million since the beginning’ – House panel takes hard look at UN climate change process “The United States is by far the IPCC's largest funder - over $43 million since the beginning (over four times more than second-place Germany), and that's just for the basic UN bureaucracy, not including many more millions for technical support, experts, meetings, and translations. But it's true that the U.S. administration makes its wishes known to the IPCC through State Department delegations of political appointees.”
• U.S. Chamber of Commerce Study: Obama Climate Rule Will Kill Jobs – Could cost economy $50 billion a year – ‘Could force more than a third of the coal-fired power capacity to close by 2030′
• Feds Paid $4.9 Million to Create Hypothetical Utopian Climate Change Future The National Science Foundation (NSF) gave nearly $5 million to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to create scenarios based on America’s actions on climate change, including a utopian future where everyone rides a bike and courts forcibly take property from the wealthy.
  The government has awarded $4,911,961 for the project, which is slated to run until March 2016 and for which the school has created a website suggesting different possibilities of what Yahara, a Wisconsin watershed, will be like in 2070.
  In the scenario where Americans “shift our values,” people live in hippie-like communes after “youth culture” convinces the world to give up their cars and eat vegetarian.
• ‘Everyone Panic!’ WashPost Humorist Mocks ‘Ice Melt of Doom’ Forecast
• Warmist Dem Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse: ‘Climate change denial is a castle built on sand. Its collapse is inevitable.’ Whitehouse: 'The denier apparatus is a phony: front organizations designed to look like they’re real; bogus messages designed to sound like they’re truthful; a whole big charade connected to and funded by polluters. Phonies don’t last. Most important, the climate deniers have lost the public.'