By John McLean

For some odd reason the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is seen as an impartial organization - it’s not - whose reports are accurate - very doubtful -, written by experts - not all authors - and the predictions credible - impossible because the IPCC knows the models are incomplete. These reports are claimed to be examined by 2,500 reviewers - only in total - who are impartial - far from it - and these reviewers are unanimous in their agreement with the IPCC - only 5, none very credible, agreed with the major claim.

It’s high time people took a hard look at the organization whose charter requires it to “assess ... the risk of human-induced climate change”. That’s right. If the IPCC declared there was no risk then its reason for its existence would disappear. Shouldn’t that make you suspicious from the outset?

See the recent papers and stories calling into question the IPCC, its methods and motivations here.

By Andrew Revkin, NY Times

The left says global warming is a real-time crisis requiring swift curbs on smokestack and tailpipe gases that trap heat, and that big oil, big coal and antiregulatory conservatives are trashing the planet.  The right says global warming is somewhere between a hoax and a minor irritant, and argues that liberals’ thirst for top-down regulations will drive American wealth to developing countries and turn off the fossil-fueled engine powering the economy.

But in three recent books, there seems to be a bit of a warming trend between the two camps. Instead of bashing old foes, the authors, all influential voices in the climate debate with roots on the left or the right, tend to chide their own political brethren and urge a move to the pragmatic center on climate and energy. Read more here.

By H. Michael Mogil, Special to the Naples Daily News

As a certified consulting meteorologist who has written extensively about weather, I am compelled to address the spate of stories that appear almost daily in the Daily News. Almost without fail, weather and climate events are based on “global warming.” The offerings in the Oct. 21 paper were “Rising Seas, Sinking Land” (about Thailand) and “New England’s fading fall foliage colors blamed on climate change.” I was shocked not to find that the article on Georgia’s drought or the one on Cleveland’s Game 6 playoff loss weren’t linked to global warming as well.

Long-term climate studies show that the Earth goes through large- and small-scale weather and climate patterns. These are based on solar energy output and solar flare activity, wobbles of the Earth’s rotation, changes in land locations (plate tectonics or continental drift, depending upon your age when the subject was taught), periodic melting and reformation of glaciers and much more. Humans are clearly affecting some of these typical variations, but we are not their cause.
While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore claim that humans are almost certainly the cause of the changes, I disagree.

Regardless of global warming, there are many other reasons that we should be reducing dependence on oil and other fossil fuels, better managing Earth’s resources (including water supplies) and otherwise tending to our special place in the solar system. Read more here.

H. Michael Mogil is a certified consulting meteorologist with B.S. and M.S. degrees in meteorology from Florida State University. Mike has earned the American Meteorological Society’s Television Seal of Approval and was recognized by the National Weather Association in 1988 for his “...outstanding efforts in weather education.”