EDIT
Cockburn tries to refute the consensus of the world’s leading climate scientists that man-made (anthropogenic) carbon dioxide is responsible for the planet’s current global warming trend. In his first article he does so by relying on the supposed expertise of one man who, it turns out, is no longer active in the field of climate research (ref. 3). Having received no doubt an avalanche of negative reviews, Cockburn begins his second article (ref. 4) by going on the attack: “No response is more predictable than the reflexive squawk of the greenhouse fearmongers that anyone questioning their claims is in the pay of the energy companies.”
Cockburn throws out this sentence as a straw man. Anyone familiar with Cockburn is unlikely to charge him with being in collusion with any interest but his ego. Like any good polemicist Cockburn is drawn further into his subject by the negative reaction to it. This is quite simply what Cockburn does for a living. So we now have three articles – each worse than the previous – with the promise of at least two more to come.
In his third article (ref. 5) Cockburn gets all twisted around on the interpretation of carbon isotope ratios in the atmosphere, in the oceans and in plant life. Aside from his erroneous interpretations, what is most striking is his casual dismissal of scientists and the scientific method. Although a non-scientist, and one who has just demonstrated in three consecutive articles little or no learning of the relevant science of which he writes, Cockburn forges ahead and challenges the scientists in their own fields of expertise, calling them, for example, “misguided,” and operating on a “naïve and scientifically silly assumption” about how plant-based carbon gets into the atmosphere. To suggest that highly educated and respected scientists throughout the world would overlook something as fundamental and basic as this – but the non-scientist Cockburn would catch it – is utterly preposterous. This is about as credible as Cockburn telling us how, in his other job as an operating room janitor, he uncovered the medical malfeasance of a team of neurosurgeons, claiming they were incorrectly reading CAT and MRI brain scans – all this due to a few weekends of self-study in neurosurgery.
Cockburn also attacks at the personal level. Cockburn calls his critics in the scientific community “greenhouse fearmongers.” He implies they have personal agendas, tied to their need for financial support. But the truth is that any scientist who challenges the anthropogenic global warming scenario – either legitimately or illegitimately –would find almost unlimited financial support from the oil, coal and gas industries, all of which seek to burn their fossil fuels with impunity. What we see in these writings is an unqualified intrusion into the very complex interdisciplinary field of climate science, which involves cooperative expertise in atmospheric chemistry and physics, geophysics, meteorology and oceanography. And while the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists is that man-made climate change is real, these same scientists also agree there are many details still under debate, but which will, in due time, be sorted out through the scientific process.
EDIT
http://www.thousandreasons.org/get_article.php?article_id=389
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
