The Other MIT Global Warming Guy
Posted October 26th, 2009 at 10:00am in Energy and Environment 
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President Obama gave a talk at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology today, focusing on energy policy and global warming. While the President’s MIT comments on global warming are important, especially as we head into the Senate debate on the Kerry-Boxer cap and trade bill and the international climate change conference in Copenhagen in December, there’s an MIT professor whose work on the topic may also prove very influential – Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT.
President Obama and Dr. Lindzen could scarcely be further apart on the issue. The President has described global warming as a dire crisis and has stated that combating it will be a high priority in his administration. On the other hand, Lindzen is perhaps the most influential of a growing number of scientists who dissent from such alarmism. Lindzen sees a wide gulf between the not-so-alarming scientific realities of warming and the apocalyptic scenarios that have catapulted it into the headlines. He fears that global warming policies based on such hype would do more harm than good. He has also spoken out against the attempts to intimidate and marginalize dissenters such as himself, something that President Obama unfortunately engaged in during his speech.
Most recently, Dr. Lindzen has coauthored a paper concluding that the impact of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels on the earth’s temperature may be only a fraction as much as some had previously thought. In other words, other factors play a much bigger role in temperature trends than man made emissions from energy use. This would help explain why there has been no global warming for a decade or more even though carbon dioxide emissions have continued to increase. Most importantly, his work raises serious questions whether the multi-trillion dollar price tag of any efforts to try to ratchet down carbon dioxide emissions make sense.
Those interested in a counterpoint to the President’s talk can listen to Dr. Lindzen in Washington DC on October 26th at CEI.
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9 Responses to “The Other MIT Global Warming Guy”
Crazy Politico, Illinois on October 26th, 2009 at 10:00am said:
It’s settled science, and if you don’t believe that why are you asking scientists and not the President or Al Gore, THEY know what’s going on!
Mark, Cincinnati, Ohio on October 26th, 2009 at 10:00am said:
The science is far from settled and it is a very sad state that we’re in when we’ve accepted the equivalent “world is flat” as an unchallenged truth.
Andy, Florida on October 26th, 2009 at 10:00am said:
The first poster probably believes that everything ever spewed from the Government is true; got news for you sport; the hidden agenda IS MORE CONTROL over you and your family; it has nothing to do with global warming (By the way, we’re in an over 10 year cooling trend–look it up). Al Gore has made millions off his flawed science; has been rebuked by UK courts for the outright lies and misrepresentations in his film; but I guess to some he is the Second Coming; mentally challenged, uber-partisan posters should think twice about spewing their foolish gibberish.
David, Chattanooga, TN on October 26th, 2009 at 10:00am said:
“Global Warming” is just a means to an end. The end being funding. Nothing attracts funding like a “dire” threat to all humanity. If you can’t get funding from anyone because you don’t have anything real, invent something and try to scare everyone to death with it.
Besides, if everyone is worried about certain annihilation from global warming (now climate change), they won’t notice all their freedoms being taken away.
Dan Pangburn, Phoenix, AZ on October 26th, 2009 at 10:00am said:
All of the global average temperatures for the entire 20th century and until the present are readily calculated with no consideration whatsoever needed of changes to the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide or any other greenhouse gas. The details are in a new paper at http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=145&linkbox=true . There is no Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) (and therefore no human caused climate change) from added atmospheric carbon dioxide. Invoking Cap and Trade would be an egregious mistake that would have no effect on climate but would further cripple the economy.
Jim Glidden, CA on October 26th, 2009 at 10:00am said:
My entire woking life has been with the U.S. Gov’t. Twenty foue and a half years in the UAF and twenty years in civil service in the Department of Defense. My experience has taught me that the people in charge of our tax dollars are not to be trusted. The Cap & Trade con based on the debnunked Global Warmingb and the false carbon footprints, is a classic example of politics run amock, not even mentioning stimuls spending and oproposed assinine health care reform(????). Al Gore ha perputrated the ulimate con job and scam. My closing remark is PFFFFFFFFT!!!!
Freedom of Speech TX on October 26th, 2009 at 10:00am said:
You gotta give it to Albert Arnold Gore Jr.
He sure cashed in on a populist cause. A left winger who loves capitalism – as long as it works for him.
Now, there is irony.
Carole on October 26th, 2009 at 10:00am said:
In the seventies they called it global cooling and that the polar icecaps would freeze and cause giagantic tsunamis.
Oops! Then they started with the global warming boogeyman.
Now it is simply climate change.
As if in their arrogance they think it is all caused by man. They know darn well that it is a giant hoax upon people who will believe anything they are told to believe. And all for complete power and control over all mankind.
So Stupid. The hubris of these people is beyond belief, just like their ridiculous hoaxes.
Paul, North Carolina on October 26th, 2009 at 10:00am said:
I cannot even understand people who think that Obama and the like actually have any answer to honest scientific questions. What has the man done in his life? What actual job has he had? Name one job, aside from 4 years in the Illinois state senate and then 2 years in the US senate, 2 years campaigning and now more campaigning as President. Aside from his lack of any tangible qualifications for President, what exactly are his qualifications to even comment on “global warming” or any other scientific topic? It is a sad state of the world that we are taking our information from the fast food US media, the UN and 2500 bought an paid for scientists, instead of the 31000 qualified scientist that have more than 20+ years of actual data to support there conclusion that “global warming” is much junk science. As was the “global cooling” propaganda of the 1970s from the same Democratic fear mongers that wanted to scare the US people into more stringent controls on our freedom. If you don’t understand this, just listen to Hil-dog, “We (the United States) tax everything that moves and doesn’t move…”. We fought a revolution against a tyrannical that wanted to tax us into submission. We better start to prepare ourselves for the same.