There was much of interest at yesterday's Washington Policy Organization conference on the environment. But the unquestioned hit was the keynote speech from climatologist Pat Michaels. I was told that the speech will be shown on TVW some time in the near future. (For those not in this area: TVW is like a Washington state C-SPAN, though with a much smaller budget.) I believe, though I haven't verified this, that it will be watchable on line.
You should definitely take the time to watch it — especially if you generally agree with Al Gore on the threat of climate change. Michaels took on Gore directly on a number of points, and showed that the former vice president has been exaggerating just a trifle.
Michaels was very informative, and quite entertaining. If you had listened to the speech, you would have understood, in just a few minutes, why Gore is unwilling to debate Michaels. It wouldn't be much of a contest. Michaels knows what he is talking about, and is often quite funny.
For some I should add this clarification, because news stories almost always get this wrong: Michaels is not a global warming skeptic, much less a "denier". He believes that the earth has warmed in the last century, and that humans have caused part of that warming. But he does not believe that current climate models are gospel (and I am using a religious term deliberately), nor does he think that a couple degrees warming (Celsius) will have, net, disastrous consequences.
Can't watch the speech, for some reason or another? Then you should order his book, Climate of Extremes. (And if you watch the speech, you'll probably want to order it to learn more about his ideas, and to see some of the data that he uses to support his arguments.)
Cross posted at Sound Politics.
Note to commenters: As soon as the speech is available, I 'll put up a post so that you can discuss it, but it seems pointless to have that discussion before then.
Posted by Jim Miller at July 24, 2009 12:22 PM | Email This