WCCO meteorologist: Global warming 'extremism' uses 'squishy science'
PAUL WALSH, Star Tribune

Longtime WCCO-TV meteorologist Mike Fairbourne says that the environmental movement is practicing "squishy science" when it ties human activity to global warming.

Fairbourne's assessment Monday came on the same day that the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine appeared before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and announced that it has the signatures of more than 31,000 scientists -- including Fairbourne's -- who agree that the human impact on global warming is overblown.

Fairbourne, who joined WCCO in 1977 and has been a meteorologist for 40 years, said that while there is no doubt that "there has been some warming" of global temperatures in recent years ... there is still a pretty big question mark" about how much of that warming is from human activity.

"Do we need to be wise stewards [of the Earth]? Absolutely," Fairbourne said. "Do we have to pin everything that happens on global warming? No, we need to have cooler heads." Fairbourne said he signed the institute's petition about five years ago. The group said that hundreds of meteorologists are among the signees.

The petition says:

"We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto ... and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate.

"Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

The institute and its petition have been widely challenged over the years by numerous mainstream scientific voices. For example, the National Academy of Sciences has rejected the petition's contentions, saying that "greenhouse warming poses a potential threat sufficient to merit prompt responses. Investment in mitigation measures acts as insurance protection against the great uncertainties and the possibility of dramatic surprises."

Fairbourne, a University of Utah graduate, said he has talked "to a number of meteorologists who have similar opinions" as his, adding that he is concerned about "the extremism that is attached to the global warming."

He noted that in the 1970s "we were screaming about global cooling. It makes me nervous when we pin a few warm years on squishy science."

As for the melting polar ice caps, Fairbourne said there are "other things going on -- ocean currents, changes in salinity -- other things not related to carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere."

Asked why there has been so much momentum toward connecting human activity and global warming, Fairbourne said, "They're doing it for a lot of reasons; some may be scientific, but most of them are political. We need to be calm and look at scientific evidence and evaluate it."

Apparently, the debate about global warming is not over, as Al Gore and his minions are fond of stating. There is plenty of rational, scientific dissent over the extreme and politically motivated push to beat America back into pre-Industrial Revolution days.