Global Warming - George Monbiot Exposes the Junk science

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Global Warming - George Monbiot Exposes the Junk science

Wed, 11 May 2005 15:01:20 +0100

 

 

 

 

Junk science

 

David Bellamy's inaccurate and selective figures on glacier shrinkage

are a boon to climate change deniers

 

George Monbiot

Tuesday May 10, 2005

 

Guardian UK

 

For the past three weeks, a set of figures has been working a hole in

my mind. On April 16, New Scientist published a letter from the famous

botanist David Bellamy. Many of the world's glaciers, he claimed, " are

not shrinking but in fact are growing ... 555 of all the 625 glaciers

under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich,

Switzerland, have been growing since 1980 " . His letter was instantly

taken up by climate change deniers. And it began to worry me. What if

Bellamy was right?

 

He is a scientist, formerly a senior lecturer at the University of

Durham. He knows, in other words, that you cannot credibly cite data

unless it is well-sourced. Could it be that one of the main lines of

evidence of the impact of global warming - the retreat of the world's

glaciers - is wrong?

 

The question could scarcely be more important. If man-made climate

change is happening, as the great majority of the world's

climatologists claim, it could destroy the conditions that allow human

beings to remain on the planet. The effort to cut greenhouse gases

must come before everything else. This won't happen unless we can be

confident that the science is right. Because Bellamy is president of

the Conservation Foundation, the Wildlife Trusts, Plantlife

International and the British Naturalists' Association, his statements

carry a great deal of weight. When, for example, I challenged the

Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders over climate change, its

spokesman cited Bellamy's position as a reason for remaining sceptical.

 

So last week I telephoned the World Glacier Monitoring Service and

read out Bellamy's letter. I don't think the response would have been

published in Nature, but it had the scientific virtue of clarity:

" This is complete bullshit. " A few hours later, they sent me an email:

" Despite his scientific reputation, he makes all the mistakes that are

possible. " He had cited data that was simply false, he had failed to

provide references, he had completely misunderstood the scientific

context and neglected current scientific literature. The latest

studies show unequivocally that most of the world's glaciers are

retreating.

 

But I still couldn't put the question out of my mind. The figures that

Bellamy cited must have come from somewhere. I emailed him to ask for

his source. After several requests, he replied to me at the end of

last week. The data, he said, came from a website called

www.iceagenow.com. Iceagenow was constructed by a man called Robert W

Felix to promote his self-published book about " the coming ice age " .

It claims that sea levels are falling, not rising; that the Asian

tsunami was caused by the " ice age cycle " ; and that " underwater

volcanic activity - not human activity - is heating the seas " .

 

Is Felix a climatologist, a volcanologist or an oceanographer? Er,

none of the above. His biography describes him as a " former

architect " . His website is so bonkers that I thought at first it was a

spoof. Sadly, he appears to believe what he says. But there, indeed,

was all the material that Bellamy cited in his letter, including the

figures - or something resembling the figures - he quoted. " Since

1980, there has been an advance of more than 55% of the 625 mountain

glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring group in

Zurich. " The source, which Bellamy also cited in his email to me, was

given as " the latest issue of 21st Century Science and Technology " .

 

21st Century Science and Technology? It sounds impressive, until you

discover that it is published by Lyndon LaRouche. Lyndon LaRouche is

the American demagogue who in 1989 received a 15-year sentence for

conspiracy, mail fraud and tax-code violations. He has claimed that

the British royal family is running an international drugs syndicate,

that Henry Kissinger is a communist agent, that the British government

is controlled by Jewish bankers, and that modern science is a

conspiracy against human potential.

 

It wasn't hard to find out that this is one of his vehicles: LaRouche

is named on the front page of the magazine's website, and the edition

Bellamy cites contains an article beginning: " We in LaRouche's Youth

Movement find ourselves in combat with an old enemy that destroys

human beings ... it is empiricism. "

 

Oh well, at least there is a source for Bellamy's figures. But where

did 21st Century Science and Technology get them from? It doesn't say.

But I think we can make an informed guess, for the same data can be

found all over the internet. They were first published online by

Professor Fred Singer, one of the very few climate change deniers who

has a vaguely relevant qualification (he is, or was, an environmental

scientist). He posted them on his website, www.sepp.org, and they were

then reproduced by the appropriately named junkscience.com, by the

Cooler Heads Coalition, the US National Centre for Public Policy

Research and countless others. They have even found their way into the

Washington Post.

 

They are constantly quoted as evidence that man-made climate change is

not happening. But where did they come from? Singer cites half a

source: " A paper published in Science in 1989. " Well, the paper might

be 16 years old, but at least, and at last, there is one. Surely?

 

I went through every edition of Science published in 1989, both

manually and electronically. Not only did it contain nothing

resembling those figures, throughout that year there was no paper

published in this journal about glacial advance or retreat.

 

So it wasn't looking too good for Bellamy, or Singer, or any of the

deniers who have cited these figures. But there was still one mystery

to clear up. While Bellamy's source claimed that 55% of 625 glaciers

are advancing, Bellamy claimed that 555 of them - or 89% - are

advancing. This figure appears to exist nowhere else. But on the

standard English keyboard, 5 and % occupy the same key. If you try to

hit %, but fail to press shift, you get 555, instead of 55%. This is

the only explanation I can produce for his figure. When I challenged

him, he admitted that there had been " a glitch of the electronics " .

 

So, in Bellamy's poor typing, we have the basis for a whole new front

in the war against climate science. The 555 figure is now being cited

as definitive evidence that global warming is a " fraud " , a " scam " , a

" lie " . I phoned New Scientist to ask if Bellamy had requested a

correction. He had not.

 

It is hard to convey just how selective you have to be to dismiss the

evidence for climate change. You must climb over a mountain of

evidence to pick up a crumb: a crumb which then disintegrates in the

palm of your hand. You must ignore an entire canon of science, the

statements of the world's most eminent scientific institutions, and

thousands of papers published in the foremost scientific journals. You

must, if you are David Bellamy, embrace instead the claims of an

eccentric former architect, which are based on what appears to be a

non-existent data set. And you must do all this while calling yourself

a scientist.

 

www.monbiot.com

 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

 

 

 

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