Landmark U.N. Climate Report Leaked Online

Economist Baker Echoes Paul Krugman: There Is No Fiscal Cliff

iLost

The Shameful Exploitation of Bradley Manning
By Robert Scheer Wonderland on a Cliff
By Eugene Robinson Homeownership Support Shouldn’t Be a Mansion Subsidy
By David Sirota Why the Fed’s Jobs Program Will Fail
By Robert Reich
Inside Walmart’s Manager Training Court: CIA Tortured Wrongly Detained Terror Suspect Senator Demands Federal Pot Plan, Norquist Makes Insane Prediction, and More Susan Rice Withdraws From Secretary of State Consideration Death Star Petition Meets White House Goal
Economist Baker Echoes Paul Krugman: There Is No Fiscal Cliff NASA Announces World Won’t End Dec. 21, 2012 Sarah Silverman Pro-Choice Video Tells ‘Bros’ to Stand Up for the Ladies Watch: Fox News Contributor Gets Punched in Face During Union Protest
Regulate Dissent in Hong Kong, Jackie Chan Says
Fighting Manifest Destiny
By Jonathan Yardley Glenn Greenwald Condemns ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Torture Porn
Psy Shames Himself With Unqualified Apology (Video)
By Alexander Reed Kelly
The Questions Education Reformers Aren’t Asking
Dig led by Mike Rose

Gore Vidal: His Life and Legacy
Dig led by Truthdig Staff

advertisement

-->
War Is a Force That Gives Us MeaningChris Hedges
$10.20

advertisement

-->
The Great American StickupBy Robert Scheer

advertisement

-->
Fitted T-Shirt$22

  Email    Print    Share

Tweet Posted on Dec 14, 2012 EraPhernalia Vintage . . . (playin' hook-y ;o) (CC BY-SA 2.0)

A little-known U.S.-based climate change denier named Alec Rawls leaked an early draft of a major global warming report, claiming that a single sentence about the influence of cosmic rays on the earth’s climate “completely undercuts the main premise and the main conclusion of the full report.” Other report reviewers say he is wrong.

Rawls, who was one of 800 experts to assess the report by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, uploaded the draft to a website called Stop Green Suicide. The final version was not due to be released until September 2013. Several scientists who helped write the report have confirmed that the draft is genuine.

The leaker and his fellow climate deniers interpret the sentence in question as meaning that cosmic rays could play a bigger role in the planet’s warming than man-made emissions. They herald the sentence as “game-changing.”

But scientists who wrote the report say the discussion of cosmic rays was included to argue against their effect. Moreover, scientists are now 99 percent sure that man’s emissions are responsible for warming—up from the 90 percent certainty found in the panel’s 2007 report.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

The Guardian:

The isolation by climate sceptics of one sentence in the 14-chapter draft report was described as “completely ridiculous” by one of the report’s lead authors. Prof Steve Sherwood, a director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, told ABC Radio in Australia: “You could go and read those paragraphs yourself and the summary of it and see that we conclude exactly the opposite, that this cosmic ray effect that the paragraph is discussing appears to be negligible … It’s a pretty severe case of [cherry-picking], because even the sentence doesn’t say what [climate sceptics] say and certainly if you look at the context, we’re really saying the opposite.”

The leaked draft “summary for policymakers” contains a statement that appears to contradict the climate sceptics’ interpretation.

It says: “There is consistent evidence from observations of a net energy uptake of the earth system due to an imbalance in the energy budget. It is virtually certain that this is caused by human activities, primarily by the increase in CO2 concentrations. There is very high confidence that natural forcing contributes only a small fraction to this imbalance.”

Read more

More Below the Ad

Advertisement

TAGS: alex rawls climate change climate change denier climate change skeptic global warming ipcc stop green suicide united nations



Related Entries A Growing Water Deficit in the West Israel’s Apartheid Deepens, Along With Its Global Isolation Could Climate Change Mean Scarce Christmas Trees? Doha Climate Talks Roundup

Email to a friend

Get truth delivered to
your inbox every week.

Previous item: Court: CIA Tortured Wrongly Detained Terror Suspect

Next item: Inside Walmart’s Manager Training

New and Improved Comments

If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Get Truthdig in your inbox

Newsletter

Become a Fan

Follow Us

Subscribe

     
       #donation_div {display:none;}.popup {background:#FFF; border:1px solid #333; padding:1px;}.popup-header {height:65px; padding: 30px 40px 10px 50px;}.popup-header h2 {margin:0; padding:0; font-size:18px; float:left;}.popup-header .close-link {float:right; font-size:11px;}.popup-body {padding: 20px 70px 20px 50px;}a {color: #990000;}Close

Give the gift of independent journalism.

Support Truthdig by making a donation of at least $25 in someone's name, and we'll send him or her a signed letter of appreciation from our publisher.

With your support, we've been able to pay writers such as Chris Hedges, Col. Ann Wright, Mr. Fish and Nomi Prins.

We've sent reporters around the world, from Afghanistan to Cairo to Cuba.

Thanks to you, our mission to find and publish a range of insightful opinion and analysis from a progressive point of view continues.

Support Truthdig

HOME|Digs|Reports|Arts & Culture|Uncovered|Ear to the Ground|A/V Booth|Cartoons
Tags|Bazaar|Podcast|About Us|Contact Us|User Agreement|Privacy Policy|FAQ: Comments and Moderation | Google+ Google+
A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
© 2012 Truthdig, LLC. All rights reserved. Web site development by Hop Studios 

View the Original article