Stanley B. Goldenberg Sticks With Heartland

A bit of a tome from AOML/NOAA meteorologist Stanley B. Goldenberg, but I figure its only fair to post in full the responses of anyone on the Heartland Institute expert list who answered my query.  I've bolded the most relevant parts; the rest is mostly your standard denialist bullshit.

M.J.Murphy,

Thanks for writing to express your concerns.

I apologize for taking so long to respond. Your letter caught me at a very busy time.  And you would have permission to publish my response if it is done in its entirety.

1) Have I met you somewhere or did you just dig my name up from a list?

2) I do not work for Heartland Institute. They simply list me as an Expert since I have attended and spoken at some of their conferences and am in contact with some of their people --- just as I have attended and also spoken at numerous conferences, both scientific, insurance, preparedness, etc.  I do not agree with everything everyone says and does who are involved with these other meetings.  Just because for the U.S. Govt. does not mean agree with everything the gvt. does.

3) However, I do agree with most of the statements and information at the conferences and from Heartland regarding AGW (anthropogenic global warming), and ACC (anthropogenic climate change).  Realize that the debate is about MAN-MADE global warming or climate change.  That is a VERY DIFFERENT issue than simply global warming or climate change.  I hope that you understand this key point. Drastic climate change can happen just fine without man-made causes.  That has been happening for thousands of years.

4) It's possible that you do not know what Heartland's point was with the posters -- that was that the people they showed had essentially the same belief about AGW that Al Gore has. Keep in mind Heartland had the posters up for (to my understanding) all of 24 hours. It was very unusual for Heartland to do something like that, and I would have preferred that they would have just relied on their fine work of bringing out the facts in this debate (see my pt. #5).  But using an emotive method (the posters) is something the other side does frequently (such as in An Inconvenient Truth). I suggest contacting Heartland directly and asking what their purpose was in doing the posters.  I certainly was not involved with it in any way.

5) The REAL issue here is not what Heartland put on their posters.  They are being attacked because they are promoting climate realism rather than climate alarmism.  There are people that like to attack and censor anyone who dares to disagree with catastrophic man-made global warming.  AS A SCIENTIST I approach this primarily as a scientific issue.  Please note that Heartland just had its 7th International Conference on Climate Change, with distinguished scientists (most of them world-recognized in their fields), politicians, policy makers, economists, energy experts, etc.    Most of these talks are now archived online so you can listen to them, for yourself. I gave a talk which is also included. (What I presented was based on numerous research papers, from my work and that of others.) My session had three world-recognized research meteorologists, ALL of whom disagree with the climate alarmism put forth by many of those in the media  I encourage you to listen to as many of the talks as possible from this conference and from the previosu ones.  Go to: http://climateconferences.heartland.org/

Click on the speaker's name to see their Bio as well.  You can access talks from all 7 conferences.

6) As for actions I am upset about, the fact that the climate change alarmists frequently use the term "deniers" to describe those of us who would disagree (I don't mind "skeptics" since all good scientists are skeptics) is very offensive to me.  (In a letter someone else sent about this, it used the phrase (when describing Heartland) --  "a main climate-denial front group ".  CLIMATE -DENIAL group!  Really!  We are denying the climate.  We are not even denying that climate change exists.  We are challenging the notion that a sizable amount of climate change is man-made.  It is as simple as that.   And that term (deniers) has been used in numerous letters and articles.  The term DENIERS is specifically designed to compare us with those who would stare into the face of recent history and DENY that the Holocaust happened -- i.e. "Holocaust deniers".  As a Jew I find that extremely distasteful and distorted.  We are not "deniers" -- we are scientists (and other thinking individuals) who have a different interpretation of the data and we have justifiable reasons for doing such.

Well, my response is probably more than you expected.  I do hope you watch some of the excellent talks from the 7th ICCC.  Some are very technical and some are at lay level.

Let me know if you have further questions.


So there you have it.