Article Tags: Don Easterbrook, Headline Story
The Geological Society of America (GSA) has declined to endorse an official policy statement of the society which was proposed in October. At the national meeting of GSA in Portland last October, I strongly opposed adoption of the proposed endorsement of IPCC contentions and argued that “for a position statement of a scientific society of professional geologists, this statement is remarkably one sided and lacks the kind of depth and scientific analysis that one would expect from GSA. It totally ignores a wealth of well-documented data contrary to many of the statements made in the text and many of the contentions are not supported by any tangible data at all. This would be a much more credible document if it explored both sides of many of the issues and provided supporting evidence. The section on Rationale is shocking in its lack of scientific logic—it essentially claims that because we have had global warming (which no one denies), that in itself proves it is due to CO2. CO2. That shoddy logic must surely make T.C. Chamberlain and Hoover Mackin turn over in their graves!”
“To contend that glacier retreat proves warming due to CO2 is bad enough, but the authors clearly have very poor knowledge of glacier fluctuations since 1850.During the 1890 to 1915 cool period, glaciers extended almost to their Little Ice Age maximums, retreated during the 1915 to 1945 warm period, advanced again during the 1945 to 1977 cool period, and retreated again during the 1977 to 1999 warm period. None of these climate fluctuations prior to 1945 can be due to increase in CO2 so to contend that retreat of glaciers since 1850 is proof of warming due to CO2 is incredibly amateurish.”
File attachment: DJEResponsetoGSApositionstatement.pdf