Will we ever know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

It’s a week since the start of The United Nations Climate Change Conference – Copenhagen, 2009 and it’s clearly been a media success if nothing else.

My instinct has, for many years, been the assumption that mankind behaves in many ways that harm our environment and that, ultimately, harming the very planet upon which our survival depends could happen.  Stupid, yes!  But in line with some of the more strange behaviours of homo sapiens.

But like millions of people, I do not have either the scientific background or the time available to test the statements made by so many governments and other ‘wise’ bodies as to whether the science of climate change, global warming or whatever, is real and irrefutable.  One thinks that would be relatively easy to do and that after all the years and millions of dollars spent on climate research, the proof would be there.  Cause and effect were perfectly understood.

But no!  Almost weekly now, reports are surfacing that are saying the science is suspect.

Here’s one that a colleague sent to me (thanks Dan) about an interview given to Fortune Magazine by John R Christy.  The title of the article is What if global-warming fears are overblown? My reference is here.

Now Professor Christy is no two-bit scientist.  Here’s an extract from his WikiPedia entry:

He is a distinguished professor of atmospheric science, and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He was appointed Alabama‘s state climatologist in 2000. For his development of a global temperature data set from satellites he was awarded NASA‘s Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, and the American Meteorological Society‘s “Special Award.”^[2] In 2002, Christy was elected Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.^[3]

Back to the Christy interview:

A veteran climatologist who refuses to accept any research funding from the oil or auto industries, Christy was a lead author of the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report as well as one of the three authors of the American Geophysical Union’s landmark 2003 statement on climate change.

Yet despite those green-sounding credentials, Christy is not calling for draconian cuts in carbon emissions. Quite the contrary. Christy is actually the environmental lobby’s worst nightmare – an accomplished climate scientist with no ties to Big Oil who has produced reams and reams of data that undermine arguments that the earth’s atmosphere is warming at an unusual rate and question whether the remedies being talked about in Congress will actually do any good.

Christy’s critics in the blogosphere assume his research is funded by the oil industry. But Christy has testified in federal court that his research is funded by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration and that the only money he has ever received from corporate interests – $2,000 from the Competitive Enterprise Institute for penning a chapter of a global warming book in 2002 – he gave away to a charity, the Christian Women’s Job Corps.

His most controversial argument is that the surface temperature readings upon which global warming theory is built have been distorted by urbanization. Due to the solar heat captured by bricks and pavement and due to the changing wind patterns caused by large buildings, a weather station placed in a rural village in 1900 will inevitably show higher temperature readings if that village has, over time, been transformed into small city or a suburban shopping district, Christy says.

Then we have the UK Met Office, a very august body,teaming up with the WMO and releasing, this week, a report saying:

Burgeoning El Nino conditions, adding to man-made greenhouse warming, have pushed 2009 into the “top 10” years.

The US space agency Nasa suggests that a new global temperature record will be set “in the next one or two years”.

World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and Met Office scientists have been giving details of the new analysis at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.

The WMO said global temperatures were 0.44C (0.79F) above the long-term average.

“We’ve seen above average temperatures in most continents, and only in North America were there conditions that were cooler than average,” said WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud.

“We are in a warming trend – we have no doubt about it.”

So here’s a proposition.

Why don’t the leading countries of the world support the funding by the UN of a panel of leading climate scientists, both for and against the notion of man-made climate change, whose objective would be to come up with an agreed programme that, within 5 years, will ascertain, beyond reasonable doubt whether or not climate change, as caused by man’s activities, represents a risk to mankind?

We must have consensus on this critically important issue!

In the interim, we should, as suggested here assume the worst and endeavour to reduce harm to the atmosphere.

Other relevant articles published on this Blog are accessible via the home page.

By Paul Handover

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