Than 1000 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global ...

future polar bear extinctions. "I think it's naive and presumptuous," Taylor said, referring
to a recent report by the U.S. government warning that computer models predict a dire
future for the bears due to projected ice loss. Taylor also debunked the notion that less sea
ice means less polar bears by pointing out that southern regions of the bears' home with low
levels of ice are seeing booming bear populations. He noted that in the warmer southern
Canadian region of the Davis Strait with lower levels of ice, a new survey will reveal that
bear populations have grown from an estimated 850 bears to an estimated 3000 bears. And,
despite the lower levels of ice, some of the bears measured in this region are among the
biggest ever on record. "Davis Strait is crawling with polar bears. It's not safe to camp
there. They're fat. The mothers have cubs. The cubs are in good shape," he said, according
to a September 14, 2007 article. He added, "That's not theory. That's not based on a model.
That's observation of reality." [Note: The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates that the
polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-
10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the
Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations ‗may now be near
historic highs.'] (LINK)
Bryan Leyland, head of the International Climate Science Coalition and an engineer,
disputed man-made global warming fears in 2007. "Let us start with a simple question: ‗Is
the world warming?' The surface temperature records used by the IPCC show that it has
warmed by 0.7 deg C since 1900. The world has not warmed since 1998 and temperatures
have been steady since 2002. So the only answer can be: ‗It warmed between 1900 and
1998. Nobody knows if the current slight cooling trend will soon end or continue,'"
Leyland wrote in a November 2007 commentary. Leyland also disputed any link between
man-made CO2 and temperature. "Computer models of the climate show that if it did, the
largest increase in temperature would be 10 km above the tropics. Radiosonde
observations published in 2006 show NO sign of faster warming. Therefore, we can be sure
that man-made carbon dioxide is not causing global warming," Leyland wrote.
Aerospace engineer and physicist Dr. Michael Griffin, the top administrator of NASA
and former head of the Space Department at Johns Hopkins University's Applied
Physics Laboratory, expressed man-made global warming skepticism in 2007. "To
assume that [global warming] is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate
today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that
we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change," Griffin said in a May 31, 2007
interview on National Public Radio's (NPR) "Morning Edition." "I guess I would ask which
human beings - where and when - are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this
particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other
human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take," Griffin explained.
"I have no doubt that a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say
that it is a problem we must wrestle with," he added. (LINK)
Research physicist Dr. Tom Quirk, a former University lecturer, fellow of three
Oxford Colleges, and a board member of the Australian based Institute of Public
Affairs, authored a June 7, 2007 paper questioning carbon dioxide measurements in the
atmosphere titled "Everyone is Entitled to Their Own Opinion But Not Their Own Facts."
Quirk's paper found that "it is not possible to compare peaks and valleys in CO2
measurements from VOSTOK or EPICA with contemporary atmospheric time series.
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