Relax, right-wingers: George Taylor isn’t being fired

When the person who calls himself the Oregon state climatologist is compared to Galileo, it’s obvious that right-wing paranoia has gone over the edge.

The headline of today’s Oregonian story (“To governor, Oregon has no ‘climatologist’”) might lead conservative conspiracy theorists to believe that Gov. Kulongoski has ordered George Taylor to disappear into the dungeon where he keeps state employees who disagree with his policy on global warming.

Actually, the truth is much milder. Kulongoski wants Taylor to stop using the title of “state climatologist” because there is no such position in state government. That’s a fact.

George Taylor isn’t going to be fired from his job as head of the Oregon Climate Service. If the governor gets his way, Taylor just won’t be able to claim (or strongly imply) that he speaks for state government on climate matters.

Today state Senator Brad Avakian phoned me after I’d emailed him some questions about the Oregonian story. Avakian has been working on legislation that would allow the governor to appoint an official state climatologist. He said that the bill probably won’t be introduced now, since the governor and Oregon State University seem to have reached an understanding about Taylor’s role.

However, I told Sen. Avakian that the story said OSU officials weren’t rushing to correct Taylor’s title, which is disturbing. I don’t understand why, now that it’s been pointed out to them that Taylor is claiming to occupy a non-existent position, OSU doesn’t stop spreading the falsity that he is the state climatologist.

Ideally, Taylor would keep doing what he seemingly does well: maintain and analyze Oregon weather data. But his training is in meteorology, not climatology. He isn’t competent to be speaking for anyone other than himself on climate change issues. Amazingly, Taylor doesn’t even know that carbon dioxide causes atmospheric warming.

Hopefully money will be found to establish the Oregon Climate Center that Kulongoski wants. A genuine climate expert can be recruited to run the Center and serve as the state climatologist.

Global climate change is going to affect Oregon in many ways. It’s important to have someone on board in state government who understands both why the world’s weather is changing because of human influences and what can be done about it. George Taylor clearly isn’t that person.

Recently I heard from Peter Bock. He shared with me a message that he’d sent to the president of Oregon State University and the dean of the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, where Taylor works. Bock shows why Taylor’s unscientific position on global climate change is more than wrong; it’s dangerous.

To those, like Mr. George Taylor, who doubt the urgency of addressing the problem of global warming and the need to reduce atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, I ask the question... Suppose you are right. What does proactive action cost us?

It costs us an investment in renewable energy technology such as solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, etc... an investment that reduces our dependence on foreign petroleum... an investment that reduces our need to station our troops around the world to defend that petroleum and the despotic regimes that sell it to us... an investment that reduces our risk of asthma, cancer, stroke, heart disease, emphysema and other diseases caused by breathing auto exhaust and petroleum and coal pollutants.

But... suppose Mr. Taylor is wrong? What is the cost then? What will the Earth that we leave to our grandchildren look like? Is it an earth with ocean levels forty feet higher, with no polar ice caps, with no Amazon rain forests, with most coastal cities under water, with a desert in the American Midwest, with permanent global El Nino conditions?

Is it an Earth with a population of 2 billion rather than 6 billion? And thirty years from now, if we are wrong, are we prepared to look into the faces of our grandchildren and answer their question... "Why didn't you take action when you still had the chance?"

Comments

[Ken Shull]

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v429/n6989/abs/nature02567.html

The Earth's climate has undergone a global transition over the past four million years, from warm conditions with global surface temperatures about 3 °C warmer than today, smaller ice sheets and higher sea levels to the current cooler conditions. Tectonic changes and their influence on ocean heat transport have been suggested as forcing factors for that transition, including the onset of significant Northern Hemisphere glaciation approx2.75 million years ago, but the ultimate causes for the climatic changes are still under debate. Here we compare climate records from high latitudes, subtropical regions and the tropics, indicating that the onset of large glacial/interglacial cycles did not coincide with a specific climate reorganization event at lower latitudes. The regional differences in the timing of cooling imply that global cooling was a gradual process, rather than the response to a single threshold or episodic event as previously suggested. We also find that high-latitude climate sensitivity to variations in solar heating increased gradually, culminating after cool tropical and subtropical upwelling conditions were established two million years ago. Our results suggest that mean low-latitude climate conditions can significantly influence global climate feedbacks.

[Luke]

First Point: Climatology is a sub-branch of Meteorology, just as Archeology is a sub-branch of Anthropology. I do suppose it would take someone who works in the scientific community to understand that. Next time you criticize someone's educational credentials it would be good to actually learn something about said credentials.

Point 2: The people that spoke at ICCC (International Counsel on Climate Change) were trying to address issues that the IPCC seemed to avoid. Some of the scientists there were actually a part of the IPCC and were dissatisfied with the work (or lack thereof) done by said panel. None of them deny that there is some effect from CO2. Taylor's talk was about the effects of the el-nino/la-nina cycle on the left-coast. Taylor's position is backed back science (but since you have not listened to said speech you would not know that). You can listen to the speech by downloading the mp3 at
http://www.heartland.org/newyork08/audio/Monday/GeorgeTaylor.mp3

Almost all the speeches and Q/A sessions can be downloaded at
http://www.heartland.org/NewYork08/audio.cfm

Any scientist that is worth anything will first listen to the content before judging it. These people are being more scientific than many out there by being skeptics. Because skepticism, according to T.H. Huxley, "is the highest calling of a true scientist."

Point 3: Mark Floyd is not the person that would know everything about Oregon State and Oregon State University. He is only the director of new and communication at OSU.

Point 4: I have seen nothing in any of your post that suggests you have any "real" knowledge of the many factors other than CO2 that are leading to global warming on Earth, and even on Mars and Neptune. There are many more factors besides those of the CO2 emissions. In Europe they are now dealing with the Forest Albedo effect (trees increasing the temp of the area by absorbing solar energy). The correlation to the global temps of Earth, Mars, and Neptune when compared with the number of sunspots. Due to the increase of solar radiation Mars' southern icecaps have been disappearing. There are many more which you should try to find.

Final point: when one posts something based more upon their feelings on the matter but with no "real" collaborating evidence, it just leaves people like me who demand empirical data and relevant sources believing that you do not know much about what you are saying. By "real" I do not mean a news article (as most journalists do not know enough about science be able to critique the information). Usually I would prefer data from a peer-reviewed journal (which has to pass many other scientists before it will be published). Add some sources other than the Oregonian (a poor publication when it comes to science).