There is an article in the Calgary Sun today by Tom Harris who is, "a mechanical engineer and Ottawa director of a public affairs and public policy company" called "PUBLIC WARMING TO KYOTO DEBATE" about this very issue. I cannot find a link but will provide some quotes.
The first quote is
"Scientists--those men and women whose work is supporte to be the basis for all pro-Kyoto olicey...continue to speak out more and more against the establishment view on climate change"
Further, Tom Ball, a Victoria based climatologist delivered a lecture in Ottawa last week titled "Climate Change in an Age of Misinformation" is quoted as saying:
"Over the past 10 years, the public has been hoodwinked into thinking our emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are leading to a climate catastrophe. In reality, CO2 is essential for photosynthesis and its rise and fall has never been closely correlated with the warming and colling of the planet"
Dr, Madhay Kanheiar, an ex environment Canada research scientist, says that much of the climate science accepted by the public as being settled is, at best, seriously in doubt. He also concluded that land use change due to urbanization and variations in the sun's brightness are primary drivers of the past century's modest warming. He also demonstrated in a lecture entitled "Global Warming Science: A Need for Reassessment", that there have been no increase in extreme weather events in Canada. He further states:
"The link between warming and extreme weather events is tenuous at best--it is really more perception than reality and is due primarily to today's nearly instantaneous media coverage of disasters worldwide, a capabilty we did not have until very recently."
Carleton University Earth Sciences Professor Tim Patterson also had a few messages, notably:
"....we now feel that climate is driven by changes in the sun"
and:
"Five million people a year die in Africa because they do not have clean drinking water resources. The money allocated towards Kyoto in one year would provide clean drinking water to Africa in perpetuity"
Finally, Dr Ian Clark, Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Ottawa summed up:
"The science has progressed dramatically in this field. In particular, we are seeing new evidence--new hard evidence--showing that solar forces, not CO2, is really the main driver of climate. There's actually been no evidence that CO2, which is a benign gas, a nutrient for plants, has ever had a measurable impact on our climate."
As one of them stated, he bases his conclusions on what the data is really telling us, not on computer models of hypothetical futures. We need a reality check, using observed data about how the climate is changing.
So, after reading this article, I assume that the ones who called Harper an idiot are also going to call these learned professors, all but one from Eastern Canada, idiots as well?
Radical and extreme rhetoric about Kyoto has, and will continue, to get us nowhere. When there as many learned people arguing against Kyoto as there are for it, surely there needs to be a step back approach and really take a look. But to blame CO2, the subject of this thread, would seem to be a bit foolhardy. It would appear the Harper has the knowledge and information to make informed decisions, and if one of those decisions is to take a look at all this due to differing thoughts, then that can only be applauded. To call him an idiot is simply to reflect the thought process of the person doing the name calling.
