Richard Muller, who directed a Koch-funded climate change project, has undergone a 'total turnaround' on his stance on global warming, which he now admits is caused by human activity.
By Neela Banerjee, Tribune Washington Bureau (MCT) / July 30, 2012
The verdict is in: Global warming is real and greenhouse-gas emissions from human activity are the main cause.
This, according to Richard A. Muller, professor of physics at the University of California, Berkely, a MacArthur fellow and co-founder of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and hundreds of other climatologists around the world came to such conclusions years ago, but the difference now is the source: Muller is a long-standing, colorful critic of prevailing climate science, and the Berkeley project was heavily funded by the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation, which, along with its libertarian petrochemical billionaire founder Charles G. Koch, has a considerable history of backing groups that deny climate change.
In an opinion piece in Saturdayâs New York Times titled âThe Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic,â Muller writes:
âThree years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. Iâm now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.â
Michael E. Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, said Mullerâs conversion might help shape the thinking of the âreasonable middleâ of the population âwho are genuinely confused and have been honestly taken inâ by attacks on climate science.
On his Facebook page, Mann wrote: âThere is a certain ironic satisfaction in seeing a study funded by the Koch Brothers â the greatest funders of climate change denial and disinformation on the planet â demonstrate what scientists have known with some degree of confidence for nearly two decades: that the globe is indeed warming, and that this warming can only be explained by human-caused increases in greenhouse gas concentrations. I applaud Muller and his colleagues for acting as any good scientists would, following where their analyses led them, without regard for the possible political repercussions.â
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/20...e-change-denier-now-admits-he-was-wrong-video
By Neela Banerjee, Tribune Washington Bureau (MCT) / July 30, 2012
The verdict is in: Global warming is real and greenhouse-gas emissions from human activity are the main cause.
This, according to Richard A. Muller, professor of physics at the University of California, Berkely, a MacArthur fellow and co-founder of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and hundreds of other climatologists around the world came to such conclusions years ago, but the difference now is the source: Muller is a long-standing, colorful critic of prevailing climate science, and the Berkeley project was heavily funded by the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation, which, along with its libertarian petrochemical billionaire founder Charles G. Koch, has a considerable history of backing groups that deny climate change.
In an opinion piece in Saturdayâs New York Times titled âThe Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic,â Muller writes:
âThree years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. Iâm now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.â
Michael E. Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, said Mullerâs conversion might help shape the thinking of the âreasonable middleâ of the population âwho are genuinely confused and have been honestly taken inâ by attacks on climate science.
On his Facebook page, Mann wrote: âThere is a certain ironic satisfaction in seeing a study funded by the Koch Brothers â the greatest funders of climate change denial and disinformation on the planet â demonstrate what scientists have known with some degree of confidence for nearly two decades: that the globe is indeed warming, and that this warming can only be explained by human-caused increases in greenhouse gas concentrations. I applaud Muller and his colleagues for acting as any good scientists would, following where their analyses led them, without regard for the possible political repercussions.â
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/20...e-change-denier-now-admits-he-was-wrong-video
