Global Warming & Junk Science

Recently, a blog from a fellow Kansan had a piece on Gore's An Inconvenient Truth (http://musementparking.blogspot.com/2007/04/inconvenienttruth.html).
I wrote a comment, remarking that he had dissed folks who seemed to believe what Gore said without actually offering any useful critique of the movie itself or the content therein. Then I asked for his thoughts on global warming - if he had any serious faults with the information provided.

He wrote back, directing me to a site, http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/.

My response is below. I think it's important to start challenging the junk science being passed out by corporate interests in the name of "safe science".

"To quote your post, "...when money's involved, sniff for sincerity."

The site that you sent me to is not a credible source of information.

When I did a Google search for Steven Milloy, who runs junkscience.com, I found several interesting links, including the following two:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Milloy
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Steven_J._Milloy

The concensus seems to be that he's a paid advocate (to quote SourceWatch) for Phillip Morris, ExxonMobil and other similar corporations. He's also been closely affiliated with the Cato Institute.

These affiliations hardly make him an unbiased source of information on global warming or much of any other topic that might endanger corporate profits.

I would suggest that you check out a couple actual scientific sources. For example, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the parent organization for Science magazine. Its Board of Directors issued this statement regarding global warming/climate change in February 2007:
"The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society...."
http://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/climate_change/mtg_200702/aaas_climate_statement.pdf

Their general information on global warming is at http://www.aaas.org/climate.

Another good site is the Union of Concerned Scientists. They have a section about global warming at http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has also released a very interesting report entitled "Smoke, Mirrors and Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science." This is posted at www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf.

One other site you might be interested in visiting is Woods Hole Research Center. They have an online guide to global warming at http://whrc.org/resources/online_publications/warming_earth/index.htm.

Last, but certainly not least, it's instructive to look at the segments of society that are beginning to act on global warming. The insurance industry was one of the first. Now a group of retired admirals and generals has come out with a report that states that global warming is a serious threat to our national security. The CNN article is here...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/15/warming.military.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories.

Hope these help."