Dr. Martin Hertzberg's response to NYT's Paul Krugman: 'Hysteria is based on half-baked computer models'
(Dr. Martin Hertzberg, a retired Navy meteorologist with a PhD in physical chemistry, is one of the more than 500 scientists featured in the U.S. Senate’s report of scientists dissenting from man-made global warming fears.
See this U.S. Senate report.)
Hertzberg Excerpt: I am a lifelong liberal Democrat, but I am also a scientist. […] In this morning's article "Can This Planet Be Saved", you simply regurgitated the typical fear-mongering hysteria that the Gore-IPCC-Hansen clique promulgate without any serious consideration of the fact that that hysteria is based on half-baked computer models that have never been verified and that are totally our of touch with reality.”
End Excerpt.
Hertzberg’s Full Letter is below. Permission granted to reprint: Forwarded for your interest is a copy of my e-mail to Paul Krugman. I hope it does some good; that is, if he bothers to read it.
Marty Hertzberg
Dear Prof Krugman:
I have generally found myself in strong agreement with most of the opinions expressed in your columns dealing with politics and the economy. I am a lifelong liberal Democrat, but I am also a scientist. In your interview with Keith Obermann last night, there was an implication that somehow those of us who are human-caused global warming skeptics were all supported by big-oil money. In the 20 years that I have been studying this issue and expressing my skepticism, I have never received a cent from either big-oil or the government to study the problem. You failed to mention the 50 billion being spent by governments to finance research that supports the human-caused global warming theory. In this morning's article "Can This Planet Be Saved", you simply regurgitated the typical fear-mongering hysteria that the Gore-IPCC-Hansen clique promulgate without any serious consideration of the fact that that hysteria is based on half-baked computer models that have never been verified and that are totally our of touch with reality. I am sure that as an Economist you have seen similar econometric models that are similarly out of touch with reality coming from the likes of "the Chicago boys" or the Heritage Foundation.
I have taken the liberty of attaching copies of Alexander Cockburn's articles that appeared in the Nation Magazine last year. They are based, in part, on my studies of the issue. Also attached is a recent talk I gave on the subject. It has been published in the Australian web-site: [url=http://www.carbon-sense.com]http://www.carbon-sense.com[/url]. Also attached is a list of web-sites of global warming skeptics.
I can only hope that you will read the attachments with an open mind and consider the possibility that you might need an informed and objective science adviser before making any further pronouncements on the subject. I will also forward under separate cover, a letter I sent to the President of the American Physical Society about their treatment of a well known global warming sceptic, Lord Monckton. If you might recall, he had routinely advertized in the N. Y. Times, challenging Gore to a debate on the issue, which Gore ignored. You can always tell the difference between a propagandist and a scientist. If a scientist has a theory, he looks diligently for facts that might contradict his theory so that he can test its validity or refine it. The propagandist on the other hand selects only those facts that agree with his theory and dutifully ignores those facts that contradict it.
Sincerely,
Dr. Martin Hertzberg
P. O. Box 3012
Copper Mountain, CO 80443
ruthhertzberg@msn.com
End reprint of Hertzberg’s letter.
Hertzberg’s entry into U.S. Senate Report reprinted below.
Dr. Martin Hertzberg, a retired Navy meteorologist with a PhD in physical chemistry, distrusts climate computer models and believes the models do not adequately account for water in the atmosphere. According to the May 14, 2007 issue of The Nation magazine, Hertzberg said water in the form of oceans, snow, ice cover, clouds and vapor "is overwhelming in the radiative and energy balance between the Earth and the sun.... Carbon dioxide and the greenhouse gases are, by comparison, the equivalent of a few farts in a hurricane." The article explained Hertzberg's views: "Water covers 71 percent of Earth's surface. Compared with the atmosphere, there's 100 times more CO2 in the oceans, dissolved as carbonate. As the post-glacial thaw progresses the oceans warm up, and some of the dissolved carbon emits into the atmosphere, like fizz from soda." Hertzberg is quoted saying, "The greenhouse global warming theory has it # backwards. It is the warming of the Earth that is causing the increase of carbon dioxide and not the reverse." The article noted, "In vivid confirmation of that conclusion, several new papers show that for the last 750,000 years, CO2 changes have always lagged behind global temperatures by 800 to 2,600 years." (
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NYT's Paul Krugman Aug 1, 2008:
Krugman Excerpt: The only way we’re going to get action, I’d suggest, is if those who stand in the way of action come to be perceived as not just wrong but immoral. […] Martin Weitzman, a Harvard economist who has been driving much of the recent high-level debate, offers some sobering numbers. Surveying a wide range of climate models, he argues that, over all, they suggest about a 5 percent chance that world temperatures will eventually rise by more than 10 degrees Celsius (that is, world temperatures will rise by 18 degrees Fahrenheit). As Mr. Weitzman points out, that’s enough to “effectively destroy planet Earth as we know it.” It’s sheer irresponsibility not to do whatever we can to eliminate that threat.
Other Scientists Smack Down Krugman:
Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee.
Excerpt: Krugman advocates: painting those who do not agree with him as not just wrong but immoral. That is to say, not just wrong, but evil. Krugman, limited in imagination as he is, cannot conceive that anybody could possibly disagree with him, nor look at the same data and come to a different conclusion. People that fail to accord with him are not just making a mistake, they are being mischievous. Krugman is not the first to suffer from this kind of delusion. La Shawn Barber has written an article called Is Climate Change… Racist? He looks at liberal Congressman James Clyburn, who has written a report echoing the old joke: “World Ends Due to Global Warming: Poor Blacks Hardest Hit.” The gist is that those who disagree with the end-time visions risk being called a racist, a frightening term in today’s USA. University of Amsterdam “philosopher” Marc Davidson has even written a peer-reviewed paper in a prominent journal alluding that those who disagree with Weitzman-like claims are no better than slave holders (no, I’m not kidding).
[url=http://wmbriggs.com/blog/2008/08/04/wrong-immoral-illegal/]http://wmbriggs.com/blog/2008/08/04/wrong-immoral-illegal/[/url]
Roger Pielke Jr.’s rebuttal of Krugman -
– August 1, 2008
Excerpt: “The deepest pathologies in the climate policy debate can been seen in this comment in today’s NYT column by Paul Krugman: The only way we’re going to get action [on climate change], I’d suggest, is if those who stand in the way of action come to be perceived as not just wrong but immoral. […]In the climate debate the litmus test for having the proper morality (i.e., defined as not “standing in the way of action,” by being a “denier” or “delayer” or [insert derisive moral judgment here]) is by holding and expressing (and not questioning) certain acceptable beliefs, such as:
*Not questioning any consensus views of the IPCC (in any working group)
*Not supporting adaptation
*Not emphasizing the importance of significant technological innovation
*Not pointing out that policies to create higher priced energy are a certain losing strategy
Deviation for these beliefs is, blasphemy — heresy! Or as Paul Krugman recommends . . . immoral.
Climate change is the new locus of the U.S. culture wars. Unlike the abortion issue which was turned into a referendum on morality by the political right, the climate issue is fast becoming a referendum on morality by the political left. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
