John Christy of the U.N’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (co-recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize) responds to questions by CNN anchor Miles O’Brien in the link below. Taken from the Wall Street Journal under “Notable & Quotable”.
O'BRIEN: I assume you're not happy about sharing this award with Al Gore. You going to renounce it in some way?
CHRISTY: Well, as a scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, I always thought that, and I may sound like the Grinch who stole Christmas here, that prizes were given for performance, and not for promotional activities. And when I look at the world, I see that the carbon dioxide rate is increasing, and energy demand, of course, is increasing. And that's because, without energy, life is brutal and short. So I don't see very much effect in trying to scare people into not using energy when it is the very basis of how we can live in our society.
O'BRIEN: So what about the movie do you take issue with, then, Dr. Christy?
John Christy of the U.N’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(co-recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize) responds to questions
by CNN anchor Miles O’Brien in the link below. Taken from the Wall
Street Journal under “Notable & Quotable”.
O'BRIEN: I assume you're not happy about sharing this award with Al Gore. You going to renounce it in some way?
CHRISTY: Well, as a scientist at the University of Alabama in
Huntsville, I always thought that, and I may sound like the Grinch who
stole Christmas here, that prizes were given for performance, and not
for promotional activities. And when I look at the world, I see that
the carbon dioxide rate is increasing, and energy demand, of course, is
increasing. And that's because, without energy, life is brutal and
short. So I don't see very much effect in trying to scare people into
not using energy when it is the very basis of how we can live in our
society.
O'BRIEN: So what about the movie do you take issue with, then, Dr. Christy?
CHRISTY: Well, there's any number of things. I suppose, fundamentally,
it's the fact that someone is speaking about a science that I've been
very heavily involved in and have labored so hard in, and been
humiliated by, in the sense that the climate is so difficult to
understand, Mother Nature is so complex, and so the uncertainties are
great, and then to hear someone speak with such certainty and such
confidence about what the climate is going to do is, well, I suppose I
could be kind and say, it's annoying to me.
O'BRIEN: But you just got through saying that carbon dioxide levels are
up, temperatures are going up. There is a certain degree of certainty
that goes along with that, right?
CHRISTY: Well, the carbon dioxide is going up. And remember that carbon
dioxide is plant food in the fundamental sense. All of life depends on
the fact carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere. So we're fortunate it's
not a toxic gas. But, on the other hand, what is the climate doing? And
when we build, and I'm one of the few people in the world that actually
builds these climate data sets, we don't see the catastrophic changes
that are being promoted all over the place. For example, I suppose CNN
did not announce two weeks ago when the Antarctic sea ice extent
reached its all-time maximum, even though, in the Arctic in the North
Pole, it reached its all-time minimum.
