Moonsigns  |  Band Guide  |  Blogs  |  In Pictures  |  Adult
Boston  |  Portland  |  Providence
 
Flashbacks  |  Letters  |  Media -- Dont Quote Me  |  News Features  |  Talking Politics  |  The Editorial Page  |  This Just In

Curb your enthusiasm

It's all going to be okay, says MIT prof
By MIKE MILIARD  |  May 31, 2006

060602_lindzen_main1
Richard Lindzen

Richard Lindzen believes the sky is not falling. He believes that the “experts” who claim the current rate of global warming will be disastrous do so only out of fear of losing their funding. In his mind, the question is, who is going to give million-dollar grants to scientists who say everything is going to be okay?

Having studied atmospheric physics, dynamics, and climate at MIT for 24 years (and at Harvard for 11 years before that), Lindzen simply doesn’t buy that a 0.6°C increase (plus or minus 0.2°) in global mean temperature over the past century is anything to be that concerned about.

Two months ago, Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT, maintained in the Wall Street Journal that the present hype over global warming stems from “misunderstanding the science of climate” and is fed by a media maelstrom wherein “ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a vested interest in alarm.” He’s referring to researchers who, he believes, fear the loss of lucrative funding should the threat of climate change be dispelled. Even worse, he charges, “scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks, or worse.” On the latter point, it’s probably a good bet that he speaks from experience. We reached Professor Lindzen at MIT and let him do just that.

On whether global warming is happening. Of course it’s happening. That isn’t even a point of contention. Over the last century, you have six-tenths of a degree, plus or minus about point two. And that ain’t much! Climate is always changing. Temperature is always going up and down. And six-tenths of a degree is still in the [range] of what it always does. So to get the world really excited about a few tenths of a degree is just like getting people really excited about a one-point change in the stock market.

On the polar ice caps. They make good video shots. Good visuals. And that’s how you want the public to respond: to ignore the fact that we’re talking about almost no warmth at all.

On how — and why — global warming “alarmists” intimidate dissenters. Al Gore would run star-chamber hearings and invite the heads of funding agencies while he would try to get scientists [who doubted climate change’s severity] to recant. . . . Everyone in the field knows [that] when the funding went up to $2 billion a year under Bush the elder, that money didn’t come because people thought climate was a wonderful thing. It came because of alarm.

On Ross Gelbspan’s claim, in a 1995 Harper’s article, that Lindzen charged “oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services.” Actually, he misspoke on that. I charged them that for lecture fees the two times I’ve given lectures. And it wasn’t oil. But who lectures for free? And what [else] would they ask me to consult on?. . . To make it sound as if somebody is consulting and a tool of the oil industry when they’ve given a couple lectures? And charged a fee? And a small fee at that, compared to most of the environmentalists who speak for them? What’s that about?

On whether he really feels that cooling is just as likely as warming during the next two decades. Yeah! I think the odds are that Boston will be very little different from today. The odds are that it will be slightly warmer or cooler.
Related:
  Topics: News Features , Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Science and Technology , Sciences ,  More more >
  • Share:
  • RSS feed Rss
  • Email this article to a friend Email
  • Print this article Print
Comments
Curb your enthusiasm
Bravo Richard, for being a voice in the wilderness. The current debate on climate change has taken the same path that several scientific issues have suffered over the past few decades. First there is a flood of new and wonderful data from new sensors which is knit together with new theories and yields new understandings. Some of these new understandings become the fodder for political debates and the discussion is transformed from one on technical issues to one on sociological issues because this transformation is acheived by making people afraid. We poor technoids often do not get this and are still debating technical aspects when in fact the discussion has left us behind. I recall when Gore was VP the impression was that science did not matter - do not confuse me with data - was the word on the street. He had is biases and there was nothing to do about them. Anyhow Bravo again.
By mvhynes on 06/01/2006 at 6:46:36
Curb your enthusiasm
"But when you step into the realm of the skeptics, you find yourself on a parallel Earth. It is a planet where global warming isn't happening -- or, if it is happening, isn't happening because of human beings. Or, if it is happening because of human beings, isn't going to be a big problem. And, even if it is a big problem, we can't realistically do anything about it other than adapt." Joel Achenbach "The Tempest" Washington Post Quotation from John Rennie Scientific American //blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=achenbach_s_tempest_and_the_global_warmi&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 Lately I met Gregory Khosid, a Holocaust survivor from Grodno, Belorus, and he told me: "The Nieman River is not freezing these days like it was before; a few years ago it got freezed, but not like it was freezing in the past."
By Eyal Morag on 06/03/2006 at 10:54:49

Live from St. Paul: real-time updates at thePhoenix.com/Election2008
More: DNC 2008
ARTICLES BY MIKE MILIARD
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   DEATH OF A HOOP DREAM  |  August 28, 2008
    Mario Hornsby Jr. was senselessly gunned down in May. Now his father is trying to make sure his death was not in vain.
  •   SCHMALTZ CONEY ISLAND LAGERS  |  August 13, 2008
    Freaking delicious
  •   MOUND WISDOM  |  August 19, 2008
    Cartoons of pitchers and catchers talking are a New Yorker staple. What is so funny about rubbers?
  •   NOT BY GEORGE  |  August 11, 2008
    Robot Chicken: Star Wars
  •   EIGHT IS ENOUGH  |  August 08, 2008
    Olympians to watch

 See all articles by: MIKE MILIARD

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed 



Featured Articles in News Features:
Sunday, September 07, 2008  |  Sign In  |  Register
 
thePhoenix.com:
Phoenix Media/Communications Group:
TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
Copyright © 2008 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group