Wall Street Journal Slammed for Giving Platform to Climate Change Deniers

Wednesday, February 1, 2012 by Common Dreams

In response to an op-ed printed late last week in the Wall Street Journal, signed by sixteen 'scientists' and entitled, 'No Need to Panic About Global Warming,' forty climate scientists have penned a letter, printed in today's WSJ, arguing that taking advice on climate change from scientists who have either "no expertise in climate science" or "extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert" is akin to allowing dentists perform heart surgery.

A letter from some 40 leading scientists, which the Wall Street Journal published, noted that 97% of researchers who publish on climate change agree the phenomenon is real and caused by humans.

Suzanne Goldenberg reports for The Guardian:

The Wall Street Journal  has received a dressing down from a large group of leading scientists for promoting retrograde and out-of-date views on climate change. 

In an opinion piece run by the Journal on Wednesday, nearly 40 scientists, including acknowledged climate change experts, take on the paper for publishing an article disputing the evidence on global warming. 

The offending article, No Need to Panic About Global Warming, which appeared last week, argued that climate change was a cunning ploy deployed by governments to raise taxes and by non-profit organisations to solicit donations to save the planet. 

It was signed by 16 scientists who don't subscribe to the conventional wisdom that climate change is happening and is largely man-made - but as Wednesday's letter points out, many of those who signed don't actually work on climate science.

Here's the full letter, along with the signatories:

Do you consult your dentist about your heart condition? In science, as in any area, reputations are based on knowledge and expertise in a field and on published, peer-reviewed work. If you need surgery, you want a highly experienced expert in the field who has done a large number of the proposed operations. 

You published "No Need to Panic About Global Warming" (op-ed, Jan. 27) on climate change by the climate-science equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology. While accomplished in their own fields, most of these authors have no expertise in climate science. The few authors who have such expertise are known to have extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert. This happens in nearly every field of science. For example, there is a retrovirus expert who does not accept that HIV causes AIDS. And it is instructive to recall that a few scientists continued to state that smoking did not cause cancer, long after that was settled science. 

Climate experts know that the long-term warming trend has not abated in the past decade. In fact, it was the warmest decade on record. Observations show unequivocally that our planet is getting hotter. And computer models have recently shown that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean. Such periods are a relatively common climate phenomenon, are consistent with our physical understanding of how the climate system works, and certainly do not invalidate our understanding of human-induced warming or the models used to simulate that warming. 

Thus, climate experts also know what one of us, Kevin Trenberth, actually meant by the out-of-context, misrepresented quote used in the op-ed. Mr. Trenberth was lamenting the inadequacy of observing systems to fully monitor warming trends in the deep ocean and other aspects of the short-term variations that always occur, together with the long-term human-induced warming trend. 

The National Academy of Sciences of the U.S. (set up by President Abraham Lincoln to advise on scientific issues), as well as major national academies of science around the world and every other authoritative body of scientists active in climate research have stated that the science is clear: The world is heating up and humans are primarily responsible. Impacts are already apparent and will increase. Reducing future impacts will require significant reductions in emissions of heat-trapping gases. 

Research shows that more than 97% of scientists actively publishing in the field agree that climate change is real and human caused. It would be an act of recklessness for any political leader to disregard the weight of evidence and ignore the enormous risks that climate change clearly poses. In addition, there is very clear evidence that investing in the transition to a low-carbon economy will not only allow the world to avoid the worst risks of climate change, but could also drive decades of economic growth. Just what the doctor ordered.

• Kevin Trenberth, Sc.D, Distinguished Senior Scientist, Climate Analysis Section, National Center for Atmospheric Research

• Richard Somerville, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego

• Katharine Hayhoe, Ph.D., Director, Climate Science Center, Texas Tech University

• Rasmus Benestad, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, The Norwegian Meteorological Institute

• Gerald Meehl, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Climate and Global Dynamics Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research

• Michael Oppenheimer, Ph.D., Professor of Geosciences; Director, Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy, Princeton University

• Peter Gleick, Ph.D., co-founder and president, Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security

• Michael C. MacCracken, Ph.D., Chief Scientist, Climate Institute, Washington

• Michael Mann, Ph.D., Director, Earth System Science Center, Pennsylvania State University

• Steven Running, Ph.D., Professor, Director, Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group, University of Montana

• Robert Corell, Ph.D., Chair, Arctic Climate Impact Assessment; Principal, Global Environment Technology Foundation

• Dennis Ojima, Ph.D., Professor, Senior Research Scientist, and Head of the Dept. of Interior's Climate Science Center at Colorado State University

• Josh Willis, Ph.D., Climate Scientist, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

• Matthew England, Ph.D., Professor, Joint Director of the Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Australia

• Ken Caldeira, Ph.D., Atmospheric Scientist, Dept. of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution

• Warren Washington, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research

• Terry L. Root, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University

• David Karoly, Ph.D., ARC Federation Fellow and Professor, University of Melbourne, Australia

• Jeffrey Kiehl, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Climate and Global Dynamics Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research

• Donald Wuebbles, Ph.D., Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Illinois

• Camille Parmesan, Ph.D., Professor of Biology, University of Texas; Professor of Global Change Biology, Marine Institute, University of Plymouth, UK

• Simon Donner, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Canada

• Barrett N. Rock, Ph.D., Professor, Complex Systems Research Center and Department of Natural Resources, University of New Hampshire

• David Griggs, Ph.D., Professor and Director, Monash Sustainability Institute, Monash University, Australia

• Roger N. Jones, Ph.D., Professor, Professorial Research Fellow, Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University, Australia

• William L. Chameides, Ph.D., Dean and Professor, School of the Environment, Duke University

• Gary Yohe, Ph.D., Professor, Economics and Environmental Studies, Wesleyan University, CT

• Robert Watson, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Chair of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia

• Steven Sherwood, Ph.D., Director, Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

• Chris Rapley, Ph.D., Professor of Climate Science, University College London, UK

• Joan Kleypas, Ph.D., Scientist, Climate and Global Dynamics Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research

• James J. McCarthy, Ph.D., Professor of Biological Oceanography, Harvard University

• Stefan Rahmstorf, Ph.D., Professor of Physics of the Oceans, Potsdam University, Germany

• Julia Cole, Ph.D., Professor, Geosciences and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona

• William H. Schlesinger, Ph.D., President, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

• Jonathan Overpeck, Ph.D., Professor of Geosciences and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona

• Eric Rignot, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Professor of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine

• Wolfgang Cramer, Professor of Global Ecology, Mediterranean Institute for Biodiversity and Ecology, CNRS, Aix-en-Provence, France