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Al Gore Leads a Purge
By Holman Jenkins Jr.
[Mr. Jenkins is a writer on the Journal's editorial page.]
[From The Wall Street Journal [Eastern Edition], 1993 May 25, p. A14:4.]
As the Department of Energy's top scientist, William Happer Jr. was
popular on Capitol Hill and well regarded among his peers. Senate
Democrats even urged the Clinton folks to keep him on, but the Bush
appointee got the ax anyway. In the words of a top Democratic staffer,
Mr. Happer is "philosophically out of tune" with the new administration.
Translation: He doesn't share Vice President Al Gore's belief in an
impending environmental cataclysm.
Nobody in politics has a bigger investment in ecological pessimism than
Mr. Gore. It was the avowed basis of his presidential bid, the theme of
his best-selling manifesto, "Earth in the Balance." He may come across
as a sodden lump on television, but you don't get to the big leagues
without playing hardball.
Every administration has the right to pick its own appointments, and Mr.
Gore has gone to town. Carol Browner at the Environmental Protection
Agency helped write his book. The "green" spot on the National Security
Council has gone to Eileen Claussen, EPA's former top air-quality guru.
Bob Watson was NASA's chief of ozone hysterics; now he's been plucked
out for a job in the White House. The policy results are already showing
up. Mr. Gore and his crowd are crusading for limits on greenhouse gases
over the objections of grown-ups at Treasury and DOE.
Attack on Heterodoxy
You can't make sound environmental policy without sound science, which
makes Mr. Gore's intolerance of scientific heterodoxy troubling. Mr.
Happer is agnostic on the inner workings of his dismissal as DOE's
director of research, but he's been impolitic about Mr. Gore's pet
causes, especially global warming and the dreaded ozone hole.
He says that while global warming makes an interesting hypothesis, "I
don't see the data that say its the end of the world." Lately he's been
sticking studies under congressional noses that show a slight decline in
the ultraviolet radiation hitting the Earth's surface, the opposite of
what the ozone alarmists predict. And he may have annoyed Gore staffers
in a recent meeting by questioning whether spy satellites really have a
useful role to play in ecological monitoring.
While the Clinton administration is swinging one way, scientific opinion
is swinging the other. There has been a great sobering up since the
climate hysteria of the late 1980s. Many scientists now realize that
they were taken in by media hype and computer simulations whose
deficiencies they didn't really understand. "We can loose our
objectivity as easily as anybody else," says NASA's John Christy.
The now-fading outbreak of climatic doomsterism just shows that not even
scientists are immune to the suggestive power of the media drumbeat. And
Mr. Gore has been an adept drummer. Four years ago, he declared that
there is "no longer any dispute worthy of recognition" about the
planet's imminent destruction, and called on the country to assume mind-
boggling costs to ward off the apocalypse. In a series of "roundtables"
ending last year, he used his chairmanship of a key Senate subcommittee
to intimidate skeptical researchers and promote a phony image of
scientific unanimity behind his scary talk.
The research community still buzzes over his flaying of Sherwood Idso,
an Agriculture Department research physicist who argues that rising
levels of carbon dioxide (the main green house gas) would spur Earth's
vegetation to greater feats of growth and reproduction; the planet would
become greener and reabsorb the carbon dioxide that might otherwise
cause global warming. Mr. Idso is regarded as a bit of a zealot by some
fellow scientists, but he has written hundreds of peer-reviewed papers
and nobody questions his methodology.
Two years ago, he was dragged before Mr. Gore's subcommittee and
accused, in effect, of being a scientific shill for earth-raping coal
companies. "A Gore staffer told me that the hearing was going to be an
`exploration of views,'" says another scientist who testified that day.
"But actually the whole purpose of the hearing as far as I could see was
to hammer Idso." Adds a career scientist from DOE who was also present:
"It was a setup."
Mr. Idso got the message, says his fellow researcher, Robert Balling of
the Office of Climatology at Arizona State University. "He came back and
said, `I'm going to cool it'" on pursuing controversial research. "It
sure as hell had a chilling effect on me," says one scientist. "I would
be very reluctant to cross Gore."
Richard Lindzen, an MIT meteorologist and a scathing critic of the
computer models that predict climatic disaster, was another target. In
one hearing [held 7 Oct 1991], Mr. Lindzen withdrew one of several
technical objections to the models. Mr. Gore insisted on the record that
Mr. Lindzen had recanted his opposition to global warming, then fired
off the unpublished transcript to columnist Tom Wicker [Gore sent the
transcript to Philip Shabecoff of The New York Times; Wicker picked up
on Shabecoff's scoop], who repeated the canard in ["A Call for Action"]
The New York Times [24 Oct 1991].
Mr. Gore has had an easy time recruiting playmates for these agitprop
games from the scientific community, notably at NASA, and agency forever
in search of funding and a mission.
It was NASA's James Hansen [Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for
Space Studies] who showed up before Mr. Gore's subcommittee with a
trumped-up story about how the Bush White House tried to "censor"
scientific testimony. It was Mr. Hansen who declared, in the hot summer
of 1988, that Mr. Gore's greenhouse had arrived. And just last year,
NASA produced a dire new ozone warning, prompting Mr. Gore to make his
famous grandstand play about an "ozone hole over Kennebunkport." The
study had been rushed out without proper vetting, and the predicted hole
never appeared.
Mr Gore may genuinely believe the world is coming to an end, but his
resort to show trials and other propaganda stunts reflects a long
pattern of tactical cynicism. When the Reagan folks were proposing to
charge market prices for Tennessee Valley Authority electricity, Mr.
Gore invited White House economist Bill Niskanen up for a "private" chat
that turned out to be an impromptu hearing in front of TV crews from
communities around the country. Later Mr. Gore helped pass a law making
it illegal for federal employees even to discuss market pricing.
Besotted With Metaphors
When it comes to environmental matters, shutting out contending voices
is raised to high principle. Mr. Gore, who is besotted with metaphors,
sees an ecological "holocaust" coming and implies that the media ought
to play down scientific "uncertainties" lest they "undermine the effort
to build a solid base of support for the difficult actions we must soon
take." He told the Atlanta Constitution last year that "only a few odd
scientists" doubt that an environmental crisis is at hand.
In fact, pretty nearly the opposite is true. Even Michael Oppenheimer of
the frequently alarmist Environmental Defense Fund concedes that there's
no ozone catastrophe in the offing. And as climatologists begin gazing
up from their computer models at the real world, global warming looks
like a flash in the pan too.
It's worth remembering that Al Gore wasn't interested in letting us even
get to this more reasoned assessment, that he had already moved on and
was shrilly demanding that society be turned upside-down over
hypothetical disaster scenarios. Now this same Al Gore is a heartbeat
from the Oval Office.
[The following is not part of the original article.]
Replies from Dr Kevin T. Kilty (supporting), Michael B. McElroy
(dismissive), and George J. Canett (supporting), in WSJ 1993 Jun 17, p.
A11.
[Letters to the Editor, The Wall Street Journal [Eastern Ed.], 1993 Jun
17, p. A11]
When Holman Jenkins Jr. labels Al Gore as tactically cynical
("Al Gore leads a Purge", editorial page, May 25), he drives
the nail only halfway into the wood. Vice President Gore and
other environmental celebrities also exhibit pure contempt
for the intelligence of the public at large.
A more complete account of the exchange between Mr. Gore and
Richard Lindzen, an MIT meteorologist who is a critic of the
computer models that predict climatic disaster, is
illuminating. At a round-table discussion organized by Mr.
Gore in [7] October 1991, Mr. Lindzen, who remains a vocal
critic of global warming hypotheses, made a concession about
his objections to the way climate models deal with water
vapor. Mr. Gore had the transcript of that exchange read
that Mr. Lindzen had recanted his hypothesis of climate
regulation. He then sent the transcript to Tom Wicker, who
published Mr. Gore's version in the New York Times. [After
Dr Lindzen's concession, Mr Gore subsequently stated several
times that Dr Linzen had recanted. Mr Gore then sent a
transcript with these remarks to Philip Shabecoff of The New
York Times. Mr Wicker picked up on Shabecoff's scoop, and
repeated the misinformation in "A Call for Action" in The
New York Times of 24 Oct 1991].
Subsequently, Mr Gore wrote in his best-selling "Earth in
the Balance" that Mr. Lindzen publicly withdrew his
hypothesis about how water vapor might regulate temperature
in 1991. He purposely or mistakenly confuses water vapor
with clouds in this entire discussion (they are not the same
thing), but more importantly he cites the New York Times
article as a reference. Thus Mr. Gore manages to fabricate a
supporting reference for his book that he could not have
found otherwise, and simultaneously wipes his fingerprints
from the whole affair.
Like most contemptuous people, Al Gore's careful
choreography of evidence and events sometimes leaves him. In
chapter 3 of "Earth in the Balance," he states that mankind
depends critically on the "stable climate we have enjoyed
for the last 10,000 years." He proceeds to lift material
directly out of Hubert Lamb's works that shows exactly the
opposite -- the variablility of climate over this time
period, and how it caused human migration and suffering.
Moreover, Mr. Gore's constant focus is the danger of global
warming, but every example he presents of disastrous climate
in Chapter 3 is of a climate too cold. No opponent could
have more neatly punctured his thesis. Apparently Mr. Gore
thinks that evidence has no meaning beyond what he intends
it to mean.
Dr. Kevin T. Kilty
LaGrange, Wyo.
* * *
Mr. Jenkins repeats an error of fact commonly spread by the
"Earth in the Balance" crowd when he describes carbon
dioxide parenthetically as "the main greenhouse gas."
In fact, the main greenhouse gas from the point of view of
the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in question and
the biggest driving factor in any of the computer models, is
not carbon dioxide but the far more common oxide of
hydrogen, in the form of water vapor.
The fact that water covers most of the earth's surface, and
is also present in various forms in clouds, is what helps
give the numerical model builders their lifetime job
security.
George J. Canett
Acton, Mass.
* * *
The six-paragraph letter from Michael B. McElroy, Chairman, Department
of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University is not reproduced
for reasons of space. The letter is insulting and dismissive. The
following table addresses some of the points made by Mr McElroy. Par is
the number of the paragraph in Mr McElroy's letter which contains the
item being replied to.
Par McElroy Reply
2 "carbon dioxide ... is the Carbon dioxide is essential for
largest, and least appreciated, the growth of plants. `One
waste product we produce as an species' poison is another
industrial society" species' meat'.
2 "Without question, [man- The question is one of degree
released CO2] has the potential and kind. The major greenhouse
to alter climate and weather gas is water vapor; CO2
patterns over large regions of contributes only 3% to the
the planet." greenhouse effect. Water vapor
magnifies the effects in
changes in the CO2 level but
also provides a negative
feedback by increasing the
earth's albedo (due to
increased average global cloud
cover). A roughly 4% increase
in average cloud cover would
offset the warming due to a
doubling of CO2 (Michaels 1992,
p. 95).
3 "[S]everal hundred experts The IPCC is sponsored by the
drawn from 25 countries under UN, which is vigorously
the aegis of the promoting eco-hysteria. In
Intergovernmental Panel on 1990, the IPCC released its
Climate Change concluded that Scientific Assessment of
..." [see also the following Climate Change. Approximately
block] two hundred scientists,
bureaucrats, and administrators
contributed to the report, but
the document itself was written
by a small number of lead
authors. The document "is much
more the consensus of a very
carefully chosen group of lead
authors" (Michaels 1992, p.
25).
3 ""under business as usual ... a "In a Greenpeace survey of IPCC
rate of increase of global mean scientists and researchers who
temperature during the next had published on issues
century of about 0.3 C per relevant to climate change in
decade" is to be expected ..." Science or Nature during 1991
... 47 percent believed that
business as usual would
"probably not" induce a runaway
greenhouse effect." (Michaels
1992, p. 182)
4 "[The] hole in the ozone ... This is a highly contentious
appeared first in the mid- assertion, and Mr McElroy's
1970s, the result of reactions dogmatic belligerence is
triggered by industrial worrisome, particularly as it
chlorinated and brominated is coming from a Departmental
chemicals." Chairman.
4 "William Happer's claim for a From 1974 to 1985, the National
"decline in the ultraviolet Cancer Institute (NCI) operated
radiation hitting the Earth's a UVB monitoring network of
surface" is controversial and Robertson-Berger (R-B) meters.
given little weight by the A summary of the results, by
knowledgeable scientific members of the NCI's
community." Biostatistics Branch is in:
Scotto et al. ("For all the
stations the R-B counts dropped
an average of 0.7 percent per
year since 1974 ...") See also
Stuart A. Penkett, "Ultraviolet
Levels Down Not Up", Nature
341:283-284 (1989 Sep 28). A
more recent item, which I've
not examined, is S. Liu et al.
"UV Radiation Decreases
Observed in Industrialized
Nations", Amer. Geophysical
News, 1991 Dec 24.
5 "[I]t is true that Jame's James Hansen was asked to state
Hansen's testimony was censored that his conclusions "should be
by the Bush administration." viewed as estimates from
evolving computer models and
not as reliable predictions" by
OMB reviewers.
5 "Sherwood Idso's thesis that `Hocus-pocus, alakazam! Idso be
"the planet would become refuted!' Mr McElroy's magic
greener and re-absorb the words ("based on faulty
carbon dioxide that might reasoning ...") do not provide
otherwise cause global warming" a basis for rebuttal. For an
is based on faulty reasoning answer to Idso's critics, see
and contradicted by Sherwood B. Idso, "Reply to
indisputable facts" Critics", Bulletin American
Meteorological Society
72(12):1910-1913 (1991 Dec).
6 "Mr. Gore's book was written as Jenkins/Par.4: "Carol Browner
indicated, not by Carol at the Environmental Protection
Browner" Agency helped write his book."
MORE
Davis, Bob and Wessel, Adam. "NASA Aide Says White House Made Him
Dilute Testimony on Greenhouse Effect" [James Hansen asked to state
that his conclusions "should be viewed as estimates from evolving
computer models and not as reliable predictions" by OMB]. The Wall
Street Journal [Eastern Edition], 1989 May 9, p. A10:1.
"Mr. Gore said that if there was any retribution against Dr. Hansen,
the Bush Administration would face "the equivalent of World War III"
with Congress."
Gore Jr., Albert. "An Ecological Kristallnacht. Listen." The New York
Times, 1989 March 19, Sec. 4, p. 27:1.
Idso, Sherwood B. Carbon Dioxide and Global Change: Earth in Transition.
Tempe, AZ: Institute for Biospheric Research Press, 1989. Available
for $19.95 + $2.00 s/h from Institute for Biospheric Research, 631
E. Laguna Dr., Tempe, AZ 85282.
Michaels, Patrick J. Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global
Warming. Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1992.
Scotto, Joseph; Cotton, Gerald; Urbach, Frederic; Berger, D. and Fears,
T. "Biologically Effective Ultraviolet Radiation: Surface
Measurements in the United States, 1974-1985", Science 239:762-764
(1988 Feb 12). See also J. Scotto, Letters, Science 239:1111-1112
(1988 Nov 25).