World of Education/World of Education.iso/world_e/envfacts.zip/GORE.TXT

Text File | 1993-06-22 | 21KB | 361 lines

                          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).