Sarah Palin puts polar bears on thin ice

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The United States is drawing closer and closer to one of the most important presidential elections in manyย years.

In particular, the scientific community is anxiously anticipating the outcome on November 4. One of the reasons can be summed up by a December 12, 2007 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reformย Report.

In summary:

This report presents the findings of the Committeeโ€™s investigation. The evidence before the Committee leads to one inescapable conclusion: the Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming.

As their habitats are threatened by climate change, polar bears have become a primary symbol of the impending effects climate change will have on the entire planet. Predictably, the global warming deniers are attempting to muddle the science proving that polar bears are in peril. Guess which side Sarah Palin isย on.

In the context of the proposed federal listing of the polar bear as threatened, late last year, a story came out regarding Exxon-funded polar bearย โ€œresearchโ€:

While recognizing the possible impact of climate change on the polar bear, the authors concluded โ€œit is simply not prudent to overstate the certaintyโ€ that climate change, or any other single factor, is responsible for โ€œobserved patterns in polar bear population ecology.โ€ The article, which was labeled a โ€œViewpointโ€ essay because it contained no new research, was published in the September issue of the Journal of Ecological Complexity.

In their conclusion, the article’s authors thanked ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute for their financial backing. They noted that the paper’s views were โ€œindependent of sources providingย support.โ€

Many of the articles referenced by the paper were by the same authors and other global warming deniers, all of whom have been prominent mouthpieces for a variety of Exxon-funded thinkย tanks.

Fast forward to Mayย 2008.ย 

It turns out that Sarah Palin has played a starring role in the science fiction drama about how โ€œthe polar bears are really quite happyโ€. The UK Guardian tells us about theirย findings:

The Republican Sarah Palin and her officials in the Alaskan state government drew on the work of at least six scientists known to be sceptical about the dangers and causes of global warming, to back efforts to stop polar bears being protected as an endangered species, the Guardian can disclose. Some of the scientists were funded by the oil industry.

In official submissions to the US government’s consultation on the status of the polar bear, Palin and her team referred to at least six scientists who have questioned either the existence of warming as a largely man-made phenomenon or its severity. One paper was partly funded by the US oil companyย ExxonMobil.

[โ€ฆ]

[Palin’s] own Alaskan review of the science drew on a joint paper by seven authors, four of whom were well-known climate- change contrarians. Her paper argued that it was โ€œcertainly premature, if not impossibleโ€ to link temperature rise in Alaska with human CO2ย emissions.

The โ€œjoint paperโ€ to which the article refers is the โ€œViewpointโ€ essay mentioned above. The Guardian article quotes Walt Meier, who is an international authority on sea ice, saying that the โ€œViewpointโ€ essay โ€œdoesn’t measure upย scientificallyโ€.

More from the Guardian:

The citation by Palin and her officials prompted complaints from Congress. One member, Brad Miller, dubbed the polar bear study phony science.

Palin told Miller: โ€œAttempts to discredit scientistsโ€ฆsimply because their analyses do not agree with your views, would be a disservice to this country.โ€ Miller now says that Palin’s use of the paper shows she differs greatly from John McCain, the Republican presidential contender, who has pressed for scientific integrity. โ€œTurning to the cottage industry of scientists who are funded because they spread doubt about global warming is not integrity,โ€ Millerย said.

According to the article, the global warming deniers and/or skeptics cited by Palin’s paperย included:

  • Willie Soon: Soon is one of the most prominent climate science skeptics. The Guardian article sums him up as:
    โ€ฆ a former senior scientist with the George C Marshall Institute, which acts as an incubator for climate-change scepticism. The institute has received $715,000 in funding from ExxonMobil since 1998.

    (More on Soon here.)

  • Sallie Baliunas: The Guardian notes that:
    [In] 2003 she and Soon were criticised when it was revealed that a joint paper had been partially funded by the American Petroleum Institute. Thirteen scientists whom they cited issued a rebuttal and several editors of the journal Climate Research resigned because of the โ€œflawed peer reviewโ€. A third co-author of the polar bear study, David Legates, a professor at Delaware University, is also associated with the Marshall Institute.

    (More on Baliunas herehere. The Marshall Institute is described here.)

  • Timothy Ball: From the Guardian article:
    Timothy Ball, a retired professor from Winnipeg, is cited for his climate and polar bear research. He has called human-made global warming โ€œthe greatest deception in the history of scienceโ€. He has worked with both Friends of Science, and the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, which each had funding from energy firms.

    (More on Ball here.)

  • J. Scott Armstrong: Armstrong, as quoted by the Guardian has called global warming โ€œpublic hysteriaโ€. He’s a forecasting expert and marketing professor, and was one of the global warming deniers contacted by the state of Alaska as an โ€œexpertโ€ to help prove that the polar bears aren’tย endangered.
  • Syun-Ichi Akasofu: Akasofu‘s view regarding climate change can be summed up with:
    Akasofu said there is no data showing that โ€œmostโ€ of the present warming is due to the man-made greenhouse effect, as the members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wrote in February.

The Guardian’s findings show without a doubt where Sarah Palin stands on global warming, regardless of what she has said in recentย interviews.

It also presents a disturbing view of what a potential McCain-Palin administration would look like. It would simply be a continuation of the Bush administration’s scienceย policies.

The only difference is that Bush admits global warming isย real.

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