Playing The Trib's Game

On Climate Change.

The anti-scientific "no global warming" crowd tends to argue their point this way: They produce some sort of "dissent" to undermine any notion of scientific consensus. That way they can turn around and say that since the "consensus" is absent, the conclusions must also be wrong.

But does that work in the opposite direction?

Let's see.

In today's Tribune review, the good folks on DickieCougarMellonScaife's editorial board wrote this:

Speaking of cluckers, global warming alarmists might have a difficult time explaining the conclusions of noted Harvard astrophysicist Willie Soon. The researcher tells The Harvard Crimson that most observed climate data can be explained by fluctuations in solar radiation. That is, sunspot activity, not carbon dioxide, is responsible for the Earth's cyclical warming and cooling. What's Chicken Little to do?

But what of this astrophysicist? And what of his explanations? Any scientific consensus on the validity of his data?

Um, no.

The most recent (remember that phrase) article in the Harvard Crimson says:

Sunspot activity may be a primary factor in climate fluctuations, according to Willie Soon, a researcher affiliated with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Harvard College Observatory, who offered the hypothesis in an interview with TG Daily, an online news source.

This isn't the first time the Harvard Crimson has published a story about Professor Soon. Take a look at this:

A study by two Harvard researchers quietly published last January in a small research journal has set off a political storm that has led to debate on the senate floor and internal wrangling at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The study, co-authored by two scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, concluded that the 20th century has been neither the warmest century of the past millennium nor the one with the most extreme weather.

Disbelievers in global warming—the widely-accepted scientific theory that the earth has grown incrementally hotter over the past century, in large part due to pollution—have used the study to bolster their case.

The date of this article?

September 12, 2003

Nearly 6 years ago. This story is not new.

And what of Soon's background? The Crimson's got something on that, too:

But a large number of scientists have criticized the study’s methods and pointed to ties between the oil industry and the study’s authors, Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas.

Approximately 5 percent of the study’s funding—about $53,000 in all—came from the American Petroleum Institute, the gas and oil industry’s main trade organization.

Both Soon and Baliunas are paid consultants for the George C. Marshall Institute, a Washington non-profit organization that opposes limits on carbon dioxide emissions.

That's not promising. They're tied to the American Petroleum Institute and the George C. Marshall institute? Huh. Who'da guessed? But what about the scientific consensus on Soon's study?

Four editors have resigned from Climate Research, the small journal that initially published the study. According to The New York Times, even the publisher of the journal, Otto Kinne, has criticized the study.

“I have not stood behind the paper by Soon and Baliunas,” Kinne said, according to the Times. “Indeed: the reviewers failed to detect methodological flaws.”

2003 - six years ago. This is not a new story.