Muller: "...Global Warming....Why you Should not be a Skeptic"
On October 21, Dr. Richard Muller published an article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) presenting the results of a two-year exhaustive study of the world temperature records using multiple methods to verify the data. The verdict, global warming is real and the skeptics are wrong.
This was news because Dr. Muller, a physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has been one of the 'legitimate scientists' that skeptics have relied on to support their position that global warming is a myth. This startling announcement was largely ignored by the news media until Jon Stewart had a field day with the announcement on his October 26 episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Since airing, several other news media outlets have picked up the story, including MSNBC and The Huffington Post.
Muller says it's real
Image courtesy of AP/Paul Sakuma)
Part of the lack of awareness may be partially due to Dr. Muller spending the first half (516 out of 1009 total words) of his Op Ed piece restating why he thinks people should be skeptical of global warming. Since most people don't read past the first few paragraphs it was easy for the heart of his announcement to remain buried in the last half of the article where he finally states:
"But now let me explain why you should not be a skeptic, at least not any longer."
Muller's analysis is part of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study and is a review of the scientific data used to determine whether the average surface temperatures (historical and present day) are reliable. The study received $150,000 from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, which is associated with the Koch brothers who made their money in the oil industry. The study also received $100,000 from both the William K. Bowes Foundation and a foundation established by Bill Gates.
In the WSJ article Muller explains:
"When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues, and we didn't know what we'd find. Our results turned out to be close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been very careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that."
Follow Technorati