[ RadSafe ] ...- CO2 consequences

Tue Sep 12 07:55:35 CDT 2006

Hello all - 

I hesitate to post on Radsafe a topic that is
unrelated to radiation safety, but some recent news
has come out on the topic of global warming.

A team of scientists, led by Benjamin Santer and Tom
Wigley, who both have physics, as well as meteorology
credentials, has just published a paper that uses a
number of climate models to link hurricane formation
with CO2-induced increases in sea surface
temperatures.  

Those on the list who are interested might read a blog
post that I titled "Consider the Source...positively":

http://wesupportlee.blogspot.com/2006/09/consider-sourcepositively.html

The reason I say to "consider the source" positively
in the case of this research is that it comes from
Lawrence Livermore Lab.  At that institution, there
might just be an interest in evaluating and comparing
the effects of various fuels and in making decisions
about what fuels to use in the future. 

I have a feeling that some of the 'global warming
skepticism' here on Radsafe may be a bit of a visceral
reaction to the long-standing and very unfortunate
anti-nuclear stance of the 'environmental movement.'  

When I speak of the 'environmental movement,' I use
quotation marks, because these people and
organizations make a claim to be in favor of the
environment, but certain of their long-standing
political stances are highly damaging to the
environment.  

The 'environmental movement,' with a very few
exceptions (a few hunting/fishing and wilderness
conseration organizations), has been blatantly
anti-nuclear energy since at least the late 1960s or
early 1970s.  This is an enormous mistake that the
organizations like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace are
not willing to admit.  The actions of the
'environmental movement' have caused utilities to
increase, rather than decrease use of fossil fuels for
electricity generation over the past 30 years.  

It might seem to be better to oppose whatever the
'environmental movement' may stand for, which now is
for reductions in CO2 emissions, because on nuclear
issues they have done such harm by spreading
misinformation, filing frivolous lawsuits, lobbying
for needless yet extremely expensive regulations, and
other activities.   

I don't believe that the climate change scientists are
all in the hands of the 'environmental movement,'
particularly not when they are sponsored by respected
institutions (Lawrence Livermore) that are _opposed_
by the more extreme members of the 'environmental
movement.'  

Rather than attack the state of the art in
climatology, I believe that science supports another
view:

What is being found out about the effects of fossil
fuel usage implies that mankind needs to change to
non-fossil fuel energy resources.  The vast majority
of people do not want to go back to horse and buggy
days, so we need a large amount of energy.  As
probably everyone on Radsafe knows, nuclear energy is
much more efficient than renewable energy resources.

Rather than criticize global warming researchers and
climatologists because of perceived links or shared
viewpoints (on the global warming issue) with the
'environmental movement,' it would be far wiser to
directly criticize the bogus actions of the
anti-nuclear groups that have become more
reprehensible and anti-environmental in light of the
results of climate research. 

~Ruth Sponsler

..
> 
> 
> 
> Global Warming dupes should review at
> www.oism.org/pproject why 17,000
> of us petition against prosperity crippling CO2
> suppression.
>   
>   Howard Long
> 
>     <snip>
> 
> =========================
> 
> Well, at least Dr. Long writes "17,000 or us" rather
> than the usual and
> false description of the petition as being signed by
> 17,000 scientists.
> I looked it over a few years ago and again this
> morning.  The petition
> index lists only names, some of them followed by
> "Ph.D.", "MD", or
> "DDS".  OISM does provide an index of the names,
> alphabetical by state,
> so I was able to go through the Washington State
> signers of the petition
> and recognize some of the names and some of the
> omissions.  To the best
> of my knowledge, none of the Pacific Northwest
> National Laboratory's
> three dozen or so climate scientists and none of the
> faculty and
> researchers in the University of Washington's
> Atmospheric Sciences
> Department are signers.  All of the local signers
> that I recognize are
> nuclear engineers and health physicists, most of
> them grumpily
> conservative.  One interesting signer is Lou Guzzo,
> the right-wing
> journalist (with no scientific training) who
> co-wrote the strange little
> books that Dixy Lee Ray (one of my heroes) wrote in
> her dotage.
> 
> The petition and the Robinson, Baliunas, Soon, and
> Robinson "paper" are
> projects of the loonier, anti-scientific fringe of
> the right wing.  The
> paper has an interesting history.  Frederick Seitz
> is not a climate
> scientist, but is a prominent scientist, formerly
> President of the
> National Academy of Sciences and at the time of the
> writing of the paper
> the President of Rockefeller University.  He had the
> "paper" formatted
> to look as if it were a Proceedings of the National
> Academy of Sciences
> paper and sent it to several thousand of his dearest
> friends under a
> cover letter extolling the paper and soliciting
> their signature on the
> OISM petition.  The OISM web site has an approximate
> version of that
> cover letter and the current version of the "paper".
>  The draft paper
> that Seitz sent around was ludicrously bad.   The
> current version
> eliminates some of the sillier mistakes and
> cherry-picking of evidence
> in the Seitz draft.  The President and Board of the
> NAS at the time
> vigorously protested the deception implicit in the
> PNAS formatting of
> the draft.  Even after revisions, the paper was
> never published in a
> peer-reviewed journal, but rather in the British
> journal Energy &
> Environment, which is edited by a sociologist Sonja
> Boehmer-Christiansen
> (with no basic understanding of hard science) who
> had openly solicited
> anti-global-warming papers for her journal. Sonja
> has also provided a
> pseudo-peer-review haven for several other trash
> papers from the right
> wing anti-global-warming-consensus project.
> 
> Interestingly, before Seitz signed on with the
> fossil fuel companies to
> help with their disinformation campaign, he filled
> the same role for the
> tobacco companies in their "tobacco science"
> campaign.
> 
> I am not sure when E&E published the Robinson et al.
> "paper", but you
> can probably look at the journal's web site to find
> out. 
> 
> Best regards.
> 
> Jim Dukelow
> Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
> Richland, WA
> Jim.dukelow at pnl.gov
> 
> These comments are mine and have not been reviewed
> and/or approved by my
> management or by the U.S. Department of Energy.
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