A Candle in the Dark - The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars - page 65

no paradigm shift on that day.
Climate change contrarians frequently present themselves as the “plucky iconoclast” repressed
by the scientific establishment. 46 Patrick Michaels, as previously noted, claimed to have overturned
conventional wisdom of a human role in the warming of the globe with a single (rather flawed) study.
Assessing the quality of Michaels's overall scientific work, John Holdren, Harvard professor and
presidential science adviser under Barack Obama, provided this blunt characterization: “He has
published little if anything of distinction in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill
op-ed pieces and indiscriminate denunciations of virtually every finding of mainstream climate
science.” 47
Tim Ball is perhaps the most prominent climate change denier in Canada and the public face of a
group that is called (no joke) Friends of Science. 48 Ball likes to repeat the standard contrarian talking
points, for example, that it is impossible to predict a human impact on climate because we cannot
predict the weather a week in advance 49 —a claim that confuses weather (e.g., will it rain a week
from today?) with climate (e.g., will it be cold next winter and warm next summer?). In an unabashed
play of the gambit, Ball (along with a number of other climate change contrarians we've
encountered 50 ) serves as an adviser to a group that actually bills itself the “Galileo Movement.” The
group's Web site offers this raison d'être for its founders: “At first they simply accepted politicians'
claims of global warming blamed on human production of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). When things didn't
add up, they each separately investigated. Stunned, they discovered what many people are now
discovering: climate claims by some scientists and politicians contradict observed facts.” 51
Back to Ball: In an opinion piece in the Calgary Herald , he claimed, among other things, to have
been the “first climatology Ph.D. in Canada.” When University of Lethbridge environmental science
professor Dan Johnson pointed out in a letter to the editor in the Herald that not only is that claim
untrue, but that Ball's record “does not show any evidence of research regarding climate and
atmosphere,” 52 Ball sued for defamation, claiming that Johnson had impugned his reputation. The
contrarian-leaning Herald , in a statement of defense, asserted that Ball “never had a reputation in the
scientific community as a noted climatologist and authority on global warming” and “is viewed as a
paid promoter of the agenda of the oil and gas industry, rather than a practicing scientist.” Ball quietly
dropped the lawsuit. 53
Other contrarians, like Christopher Monckton and Stephen McIntyre, are amateurs with no
formal background or training in the key scientific areas (climate science, geophysical fluid
dynamics, atmospheric physics, oceanography, and geosciences). With rare exception, they do not
publish their claims and assertions in peer reviewed journals or attend and participate in panels,
workshops, or scientific conferences. In short, they operate almost exclusively outside the normal
scientific process.