[LINK] The Miniscule Scientific Lunatic Fringe Petition..... Was - Weekend Magazine

[David Lochrin]

On 2012-06-26 TKoltai  wrote:

> Ahhh.. The lunatic Fringe:
> 
> That must surely be the following 31k+ odd :
> 
> Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM)
> Who: Dr. Arthur Robinson of the OISM
> What: release of names in OISM "Petition Project"
> When:10 AM, Monday May 19 2008
> Where: Holeman Lounge at the National Press Club, 529 14th St., NW,
> Washington, DC
> 
> Why: the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) will announce that more than 31,000 scientists have signed a petition rejecting claims of human-caused global warming.  [...]

>From the Wikipedia article on the Oregon Petition at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition

/quote

The Global Warming Petition Project, usually referred to as the Oregon Petition, is a petition opposing the Kyoto Protocol and similar efforts to mitigate climate change. It was organized by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM), a non-profit organisation run by Arthur B. Robinson, Ph.D., between 1999 and 2001 and was circulated again from late 2007 to early 2008.

[...]

The petition had a covering letter from Frederick Seitz, and made reference to his former position as president of the US National Academy of Sciences, accompanied by an attached article supporting the petition.  The current version of Seitz's letter describes the article as "a twelve page review of information on the subject of 'global warming'."[9]  The article is titled "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide" by Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon.[10][11][12]  One of these earlier petitions and presentation was discussed by Lahsen (2005).[13]

The 1997 version of the article states that "over the past two decades, when CO2 levels have been at their highest, global average temperatures have actually cooled slightly" and says that this was based on comparison of satellite data (for 1979–1997) and balloon data from 1979-96.  At the time the petition was written, this was unclear.  Since then the satellite record has been revised, and shows warming. (See historical temperature record and satellite temperature measurements.)

The article followed a similar style and format of a contribution to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a scientific journal,[6] but was not actually a publication of the National Academy.  Raymond Pierrehumbert, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Chicago, said that the article was "designed to be deceptive by giving people the impression that the article...is a reprint and has passed peer review."  Pierrehumbert also said the article was full of "half-truths".[14]  F. Sherwood Rowland, who was at the time foreign secretary of the National Academy of Sciences, said that the Academy received numerous inquiries from researchers who "are wondering if someone is trying to hoodwink them."[14]

After the petition appeared, the National Academy of Sciences said in a 1998 news release that "The NAS Council would like to make it clear that this petition has nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences and that the manuscript was not published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or in any other peer-reviewed journal."[15]  It also said "The petition does not reflect the conclusions of expert reports of the Academy."  The NAS further noted that its own prior published study had shown that "even given the considerable uncertainties in our knowledge of the relevant phenomena, greenhouse warming poses a potential threat sufficient to merit prompt responses.  Investment in mitigation measures acts as insurance protection against the great uncertainties and the possibility of dramatic surprises."[15]

Robinson rejected these allegations in a 1998 article in Science, "I used the Proceedings as a model, but only to put the information in a format that scientists like to read, not to fool people into thinking it is from a journal."[16]  [...]

/unquote

David L.