WUWT attempts to debunk William Nordhaus

This post has been much delayed by other stuff but, just over a month ago (on 3 March 2012), on the Wattsupwiththat? website, a fellow Geologist(?) David Middleton attempted to debunk William Nordhaus’ critique of climate change scepticism (as per the New York Review of Books website the previous day). My self-imposed word limit does not allow me to indulge in a lengthy rebuttal, but I would like to respond the remarks of the very first person to comment on Middleton’s post at the time, Kurt in Switzerland, who said “It would be helpful to read a counterpoint from another geoscientist who believes Middleton to be on the wrong track”… Within the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and Geological Society of London (GSL) and just about every reputable geoscience body on the planet, you sure have plenty to choose from. For example, the GSL statement on climate change reads as follows: “The last century has seen a rapidly growing global population and much more intensive use of resources, leading to greatly increased emissions of gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, from the burning of fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal), and from agriculture, cement production and deforestation. Evidence from the geological record is consistent with the physics that shows that adding large amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere warms the world and may lead to: higher sea levels and flooding of low-lying coasts; greatly changed patterns of rainfall; increased acidity of the oceans; and decreased oxygen levels in seawater. There is now widespread concern that the Earth’s climate will warm further, not only because of the lingering effects of the added carbon already in the system, but also because of further additions as human population continues to grow. Life on Earth has survived large climate changes in the past, but extinctions and major redistribution of species have been associated with many of them. When the human population was small and nomadic, a rise in sea level of a few metres would have had very little effect on Homo sapiens. With the current and growing global population, much of which is concentrated in coastal cities, such a rise in sea level would have a drastic effect on our complex society, especially if the climate were to change as suddenly as it has at times in the past. Equally, it seems likely that as warming continues some areas may experience less precipitation leading to drought. With both rising seas and increasing drought, pressure for human migration could result on a large scale.” To dismiss this as part of some spurious global conspiracy to foist environmental “alarmism” on a credulous world is, in my opinion, now both morally and intellectually bankrupt. Furthermore, as politically-conservative Mormon Professor of Geosciences at the Brigham Young University in Utah, Barry Bickmore, says: “When you have to invoke the views of dog astrologers and people who believe in alien abductions… you are trying to hard to avoid the truth about climate change.” [See the last few minutes and/or last two slides of the presentation embedded in this post on Bickmore’s blog]

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