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Dubya
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Ustwo, please stop relying on Rush Limbaugh as your greenhouse gas scientist of choice:
Quote:
The Way Things Really Are: Debunking Rush Limbaugh on the Environment
GLOBAL WARMING AND THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT
Global warming is another topic about which Limbaugh attempts to mislead his readers, despite the international scientific consensus on many aspects of this issue. This consensus is reflected in the findings of the top researchers in the field, as published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, and the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the international scientific panel assessing climate change, which consists of a network of 2,500 experts worldwide. The IPCC has issued two reports clearly stating and then reaffirming that the Earth's climate will warm due to the buildup of man-made greenhouse gases. 20 In 1992, the National Academy of Sciences published its own report, concluding that "greenhouse warming poses a potential threat sufficient to merit prompt responses." 21
Instead of taking on the international scientific community directly, however, Limbaugh chooses to attack Vice President Al Gore, and his book Earth in the Balance.
Rush FICTION: "Algore's ( sic ) book is full of calculated disinformation. For instance, he claims that 98 percent of scientists believe global warming is taking place. However a Gallup poll of scientists involved in global climate research shows that 53 percent do not believe that global warming has occurred, 30 percent say they don't know, and only 17 percent are devotees of this dubious theory." 22
Scientific FACT: These numbers, apparently lifted from a George Will syndicated column of September 3, 1992, 23 are supposed to reflect the findings of a Gallup poll taken in late 1991 to ascertain the opinions of research scientists concerning global warming. Even though polling is of doubtful relevance for determining the scientific truth of any proposition, it should be pointed out that nowhere in the actual poll results are there
figures that resemble those cited by Will or Limbaugh.
Instead, the Gallup poll found that a substantial majority of the scientists polled, 66 percent, believed that human-induced global warming was already occurring. Only 10 percent disagreed, and the remainder was undecided.
Moreover, the 98 percent figure appears in the context of Al Gore's book to refer to the percentage of scientists who believe that human-induced global warming is a legitimate threat, not, as Limbaugh frames it, to the number of those who argue that it is already in effect. In fact, the Gallup poll seems to bear out Gore's estimate as well, finding that only 2 percent of the scientists
polled believed that there was no chance that substantial, human-caused warming will occur over the next 50 to 100 years. 24
Rush FICTION: "Algore told the Washington Times on May 19, 1993: 'That increased accumulations of greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, cause global warming, there is no longer any serious debate. There are a few naysayers far outside the consensus who try to dispute that. They are not really taken
seriously by the mainstream scientific community.' Yet we saw in the last chapter that there is nothing resembling a consensus on this issue among scientists who have some expertise in this area. In fact, a majority clearly does not believe global warming has occurred." 25
Scientific FACT: See the preceding item. Furthermore, even the most publicized and vehement of scientific naysayers, such as Pat Michaels of the University of Virginia, agree that increased accumulation of carbon dioxide will eventually cause global warming. What they disagree about is how much warming will occur over what period of time. 26
Rush FICTION: "...back at the time of the first Earth Day, the big concern wasn't global warming, it was global cooling. . . . [This was] the view of most environmentalists for years after." 27
Scientific FACT: Although the Earth has warmed by about one degree Fahrenheit over the past hundred years, this warming has not occurred uniformly. In particular, during the period from 1940 to 1970, the Northern Hemisphere stopped warming and may have even cooled slightly. 28 This hiatus in the long-term trend contributed to concerns that the Earth was
about to cool significantly, possibly due to the increased amount of soot and other particulates in the atmosphere.
However, warming resumed again in the 1970's and the nine warmest years on record have all occurred since 1980. 29 Recent calculations indicate that the greenhouse effect will outrun the effects of particulate cooling in the future, although the accumulation of particulates in the atmosphere may slow the overall rate of warming. 30
Rush FICTION: "A fact you never hear the environmentalist wacko crowd acknowledge is that 96 percent of the so-called 'greenhouse' gases are not created by man, but by nature." 31
Scientific FACT: This is an obvious straw man set up by Limbaugh. It is true that the greenhouse effect is, by and large, a natural phenomenon, produced by gases in the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide and water vapor that have warmed the Earth for eons, making its climate moderate enough to support life as we know it. Without these gases, Earth would be forty to sixty degrees colder, essentially a frigid desert. 32
However, in nature these gases usually remain in balance, leading to a stable climate, while the greenhouse gases added by humans over the last two hundred years have accumulated to the point that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, for example, is now more than 25 percent above what it had been for the previous 10,000 years. (Scientists have direct evidence of this data, from measurements of air bubbles trapped in polar ice cores.) 33 The scientific consensus is that the accumulation of carbon dioxide and other gases due to human activity will alter the climate substantially, warming the globe by three to eight degrees Fahrenheit over the next century. 34
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Here are those endnote references:
Quote:
20. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change: The
IPCC Scientific Assessment, (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press),
1990, p. xi; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change
1992: The Supplementary Report to The IPCC Scientific Assessment, (New
York, NY: Cambridge University Press), 1992, p. 5.
It is worth reproducing the original IPCC statement on this point from
the 1990 report –
The Way Things Really Are: Debunking Rush Limbaugh on the Environment
14
"We are certain of the following:
• there is a natural greenhouse effect which already keeps the Earth
warmer than it would otherwise be.
• emissions resulting from human activities are substantially increasing the
atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide,
methane, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and nitrous oxide. These increases
will enhance the greenhouse effect, resulting on average in an additional
warming of the Earth's surface. The main greenhouse gas, water vapor,
will increase in response to global warming and further enhance it."
These conclusions were reaffirmed in the IPCC's 1992 report.
21. National Academy of Sciences, Policy Implications of Greenhouse
Warming, (Washington, DC; National Academy Press) 1992, p. 68.
22. See, I Told You So, pp. 162-63.
23. Will, G.F, "Al Gore's Green Guilt," The Washington Post, September 3,
1992. Will's erroneous summary of this poll has been quoted so many times
that it has become gospel for the proponents of the environmental backlash.
24. The Gallup Organization, A Gallup Study of Scientists' Opinions and
Understanding of Global Climate Change, November 1991, pp. 5, 8.
Available from the Center for Science, Technology & Media, 6900 Wisconsin
Avenue, Chevy Chase, MD.
25. See, I Told You So, p. 179.
26. Michaels, P.J. and D.E. Stooksbury, "Global Warming: A Reduced
Threat?" Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, vol. 10, October
1992, p. 1563.
27. See, I Told You So, pp. 180-81.
28. IPCC, 1990, p. 213.
29. Wilson, H. and J. Hansen, Update of GISS Global Temperature Analysis
Through 1993, (New York, NY: Goddard Institute for Space Studies) 1994;
Hansen, J. and S. Lebedeff, "Global Surface Air Temperatures: Update
Through 1987," Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 15, April 1988, pp. 323-
26.
The Way Things Really Are: Debunking Rush Limbaugh on the Environment
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30. Kerr, R.A., "Pollutant Haze Cools the Greenhouse," Science, vol. 255,
February 1992, pp. 682-83; Wigley, T.M.L. and S.C.B. Raper, "Implications
for climate and sea level of revised IPCC emissions scenarios," Nature, vol.
357, May 1992, pp. 293-300.
31. See, I Told You So, pp. 179-80.
32. IPCC, 1990, p. xxxvii.
33. Raynaud, D., et al., "The Ice Record of Greenhouse Gases," Science,
vol. 259, February 1993, pp. 926-34.
34. IPCC, 1990, pp. xxii, xxv; IPCC, 1992, p. 18.
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