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A formerly sceptical climate scientist says human activity is causing the Earth to warm, as a new study confirms earlier results on rising temperatures.

In a US newspaper opinion piece, Prof Richard Muller says: "Call me a converted sceptic."

Muller leads the Berkeley Earth Project, which is using new methods and some new data to investigate the claims made by other climate researchers.

Their latest study confirms the warming trend seen by other groups.

The project received funds from sources that back organisations lobbying against action on climate change.

Their latest study, released early on Monday (GMT), concludes that the average temperature of the Earth's land has risen by 1.5C (2.7F) over the past 250 years.

The team argues that the good correspondence between the new temperature record and historical data on CO2 emissions suggests human activity is "the most straightforward explanation" for the warming.

The paper reiterates the finding that the land surface temperature has risen 0.9C just in the last 50 years.

In a piece authored for the New York Times, Prof Muller, from the University of California, Berkeley, said: "Three 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. I'm now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause."

When establishing the project, Prof Muller had been concerned by claims that established teams of climate researchers had not been entirely open with their data.

He gathered a team of 10 scientists, mostly physicists, including such luminaries as Saul Perlmutter, winner of this year's Nobel Physics Prize for research showing the Universe's expansion is accelerating.

Funding came from a number of sources, including charitable foundations maintained by the Koch brothers, billionaire US industrialists who have also donated large sums to organisations lobbying against acceptance of man-made global warming.

On a different page

However, one collaborator on the previous tranche of Berkeley Earth project papers, Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, declined to be included as an author on the latest one.

Commenting on the paper, Prof Curry said: "Their latest paper on the 250-year record concludes that the best explanation for the observed warming is greenhouse gas emissions. Their analysis is way oversimplistic and not at all convincing in my opinion."

She also told the New York Times: "I was invited to be a co-author on the new paper. I declined. I gave them my review of the paper, which was highly critical. I don't think this new paper adds anything to our understanding of attribution of the warming."

Prof Michael Mann, director of the Earth Science System Center at Penn State University, said that there was "a certain ironic satisfaction" in seeing a study funded by the Koch Brothers "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".

Prof Muller, meanwhile, describes his own change in standpoint as "a total turnaround".

He explained: "These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], the United Nations group that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming."

The University of California physics professor added: "I hope that the Berkeley Earth analysis will help settle the scientific debate regarding global warming and its human causes.

"Then comes the difficult part: agreeing across the political and diplomatic spectrum about what can and should be done."

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just ask your own kids how they'd feel about "going green" if it meant no more video games or streaming movies or text messages....

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There is ZERO you, or I or anyone else can do about it.

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Originally posted by kpo:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19047501

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"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. I'm now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause."

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I totally agree that our next global catastrophe is man-made.

It is what it is.

There is ZERO you, or I or anyone else can do about it.

Short of us all agreeing to live the lives of the Amish, we're doomed.

Sorry to be the bad guy here, but the truth hurts.

Seeing as how I've never sent a text message in my life on a cell phone, and I don't have any kids, just ask your own kids how they'd feel about "going green" if it meant no more video games or streaming movies or text messages....

I'm one generation behind the new problem now....

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book

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Originally posted by Kwicko:

Suppose I took a similar view of our spending. Since it's so high now, let's not ever even think about trying to slow it down. After all, getting out of the red would mean your kids have to learn to go without, right?

So let's just keep on doing what we're doing, keep on spending, and hopefully we'll all be dead before the bills really come due, since we'll all be dead shortly after they come due anyway.

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Originally posted by Storymark:
Really, if one takes the "we're doomed, why bother" attitude - why should they care about spending in the least? Wouldn't the logical progression be to say "keep spending, since we'll die before the bill comes due" anyway?

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

Current skeptic still a skeptic.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Short of us all agreeing to live the lives of the Amish, we're doomed.

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Originally posted by kpo:
What do you know that Prof. Muller doesn't? (and virtually every other climate scientist)

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Originally posted by kpo:

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

Current skeptic still a skeptic.

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What do you know that Prof. Muller doesn't? (and virtually every other climate scientist)

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Originally posted by Niki2:
Man, you and your ilk are truly feeble, Hero! Aything, ANYTHING as an excuse not to face the issue. Wretched effort.

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
97% of real scientists say Rappy is wrong.

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I know what hundreds if not thousands of actual scientists know, that there is no credible evidence to the myth that is man made global warming.

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He leads the Berkeley Earth Project...do you think that job and the associated grant money would go to someone who is or was a real skeptic?

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Funding came from a number of sources, including charitable foundations maintained by the Koch brothers, billionaire US industrialists who have also donated large sums to organisations lobbying against acceptance of man-made global warming.

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Originally posted by Hero:

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Originally posted by Niki2:
Man, you and your ilk are truly feeble, Hero! Aything, ANYTHING as an excuse not to face the issue. Wretched effort.

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He leads the Berkeley Earth Project...do you think that job and the associated grant money would go to someone who is or was a real skeptic?

Global warming science is about picking a conclusion, then explaining away the contrary evidence. If you can do that you get money to study the environment.

H

Hero...must be right on all of this. ALL of the rest of us are wrong. Chrisisall, 2012

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

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Originally posted by kpo:

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

Current skeptic still a skeptic.

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What do you know that Prof. Muller doesn't? (and virtually every other climate scientist)

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I know what hundreds if not thousands of actual scientists know, that there is no credible evidence to the myth that is man made global warming.

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Last Friday, the Guardian reported that AEI had offered a $10,000 open-letter bribe to the scientific and economic communities to cook up some evidence, any evidence, that would debunk global warming and undermine the report issued last week by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC report, considered the most comprehensive analysis of climate change to date, said there is a 90 percent probability that human activity has caused global warming.

IPCC dropped the report as multiple congressional committees have been holding hearings about the Bush administration tampering with or suppressing climate change research by government scientists. In a survey carried out by the Union of Concerned Scientists and presented before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last Tuesday, scores of scientists claimed to have been muzzled by government honchos.

That doesn’t look good for the administration, especially on the heels of a State of the Union address in which the president tried to position himself as more environmentally friendly than ever. Remember, one of the first things Bush did in office was scuttle the Kyoto treaty, a move AEI lobbied heavily for. The neo-con think tank, which has received more than $1.5 million from ExxonMobil over the last decade, has long advocated for environmentally unsound policy. The AEI website is littered with articles penned by in-house scholars that carry restrained titles such as "The Kyoto Treaty Deserved to Die," and "The Global Warming Joke."

So AEI’s $10,000 bribe should come as no surprise. Nor should the notion that the think tank could be carrying water for an administration known to outsource nasty jobs. ExxonMobil is not only AEI’s sugardaddy but also one of Bush’s major backers and the same company that a separate UCS report last month claimed had adopted Big Tobacco’s disinformation tactics and "funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science."

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Last week the University of Texas provost announced he would re-examine a report by a UT professor that said fracking was safe for groundwater after the revelation that the professor pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Texas natural gas developer. It’s the latest fusillade in the ongoing battle over the basic facts of fracking in America.

climate_desk_bugTexans aren’t the only ones having their fracking conversations shaped by industry-funded research. Ohioans got their first taste last week of the latest public-relations campaign by the energy policy wing of the US Chamber of Commerce. It’s called “Shale Works for US,” and it aims to spend millions on advertising and public events to sell Ohioans on the idea that fracking is a surefire way to yank the state out of recession.

The campaign is loaded with rosy employment statistics, which trace to an April report authored by professors at three major Ohio universities and funded by, you guessed it, the natural gas industry. The report paints a bright future for fracking in Ohio as a job-creator.

One co-author of the study, Robert Chase, is poised at such a high-traffic crossroads of that state’s natural gas universe that his case was recently taken up by the Ohio Ethics Commission, whose chairman called him “more than a passing participant in the operations of the Ohio oil and gas industry,” and questioned his potential conflicts of interest. As landowners in a suite of natural gas-rich states like Texas and Ohio struggle to to decipher conflicting reports about the safety of fracking, Chase is a piece in what environmental and academic watchdogs call a growing puzzle of industry-funded fracking research with poor disclosure and dubious objectivity.

“It’s hard to find someone who’s truly independant and doesn’t have at least one iron in the fire,” said Ohio oil and gas lease attorney Mark F. Okey. “It’s a good ol’ boys network and they like to take care of their own.”

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Why for chrissake is anyone even bothering to respond to rappy?

I've almost broken the addiction... you can too. Just ask me how!

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