Scientist to CEI: You Used My Research To "Confuse and Mislead"
The Competitive Enterprise Institute runs ads saying "The Antarctic ice
sheet is getting thicker." A professor objects, saying CEI deliberately
misrepresents his research.
May 26, 2006
Modified:May 26, 2006
Summary
The business-backed Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released two
ads last week to "counter global warming alarmism."
One of the ads says research shows "The Antarctic ice sheet is getting
thicker, not thinner. . . Why are they trying to scare us?" Actually,
scientists say increased snowfall in Antarctica's interior is evidence
that global warming is taking place. Scientists also say that the ice
sheet is melting at the ocean's edge and a recent report says it is
shrinking overall.
The ads drew a protest from a University of Missouri professor who says
they are "a deliberate effort to confuse and mislead the public about
the global warming debate." He said one of them misuses a study he
published in Science magazine last year on the Antarctic ice sheet. An
editor of Science also said the ads misrepresent the findings of that
study as well as a second study on Greenland's glaciers.
The second CEI ad notes that carbon dioxide (CO2) is "essential to
life," and says, "they call it pollution. We call it life." That ad
fails to mention that too much CO2 can cause global temperatures to rise
or that there is more of it in the atmosphere than any time during the
last 420,000 years.
CEI, which gets just over 9 per cent of its budget from Exxon Mobil
Corporation, said it was only trying to make sure the public hears "both
sides of the story."
Analysis
CEI released two ads last week as part of a $50,000 ad buy in 14 cities
scheduled to take place from May 18th to May 28th.
CEI Ad: "Glaciers"
Announcer: You've seen those headlines about Global Warming. The
glaciers are melting. We’re doomed! That's what several studies
supposedly found.
(The Cover of Science Magazine is shown opening up)
Announcer: But other scientific studies found exactly the opposite:
Greenland ’s glaciers are growing, not melting; The Antarctic ice sheet
is getting thicker, not thinner. Did you see any big headlines about
that? Why are they trying to scare us? Global warming alarmists claim
the glaciers are melting because of carbon dioxide from the fuels we
use. Let’s force people to cut back, they say.
But we depend on those fuels to grow our food, move our children, light
up our lives. And as for carbon dioxide, it isn't smog or smoke. It’s
what we breathe out and plants breathe in. Carbon dioxide. They call it
pollution. We call it life.
Misrepresenting Conclusions
The CEI ad "Glacier" quotes two studies in Science magazine, one as
saying " Greenland’s glaciers are growing, not melting" and the other as
saying "The Antarctic ice sheet is getting thicker, not thinner." That
drew quick objection from an editor of Science and from the author of
the Antarctica study.
Brooks Hanson, a deputy editor at Science, complained in a May 19 news
release that CEI was misrepresenting both the studies and also the
general state of scientific knowledge:
Hanson: The text of the CEI ad misrepresents the conclusions of the
two cited Science papers and our current state of knowledge by selective
referencing.
The lead author of the Antarctica study, University of Missouri
professor Curt Davis, said in the same release that CEI was twisting his
findings deliberately to mislead the public:
Davis: "These television ads are a deliberate effort to confuse and
mislead the public about the global warming debate. They are selectively
using only parts of my previous research to support their claims. They
are not telling the entire story to the public.
For one thing, the release said, Davis' study only reported growth for
the East Antarctic ice sheet, not the entire Antarctic ice sheet. More
importantly, it said that growth of the interior ice sheet is just what
scientists had predicted would happen as a consequence of global climate
warming, bringing about more snowfall in previously arid regions of the
continent.
Davis's study indicated the increased ice accumulation in the interior
might be offsetting the loss of ice at the coastal regions, or might
not. It said that whether the entire ice sheet is shrinking "will depend
on the balance between mass changes on the interior and those in coastal
areas."
What CEI Says
CEI posted a rejoinder to this criticism on their website. In it, they say:
CEI: Professor Davis admits that he doesn't know whether the
coastal losses offset or outweigh the gains in the interior. This is
precisely our point - the public needs to hear both sides of the story
not just the coastal loss, if they are to judge whether we face an
imminent catastrophe justifying policies that would drastically affect
our way of life.
Actually, a more recent study (also published in Science magazine) says
satellite measurements show that the ice sheet as a whole is in fact
shrinking "significantly," and that most of the loss is taking place in
the smaller West Antarctic ice sheet.
That study, by Isabella Velicogna of the University of Colorado and John
Wahr of the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, used satellite measures of gravity to estimate the mass of
the Antarctic ice sheet during 2002–2005. "We found that the mass of the
ice sheet decreased significantly," the study said. It estimated the
rate of loss at between 80 and 152 cubic kilometers of ice per year.
Greenland, too
As for Greenland, the CEI ad says its glaciers "are growing, not
melting." That's a misrepresentation of a study by five scientists from
Norway, Russia and the US published by Science magazine in November
2005. That study did report that the ice sheet in the interior of
Greenland had grown thicker over the 11 years ending in 2003. But it
reached no conclusion about whether "Greenland's glaciers" were growing
or melting overall. The study said it is conceivable that melting at the
coast more than offset the growth in the interior, and that the "the
11-year-long data set developed here remains too brief to establish
long-term trends." It called for more measurement by newer, better
satellite sensors to calculate what is going on with Greenland's
glaciers overall.
A more recent study in Science, published in February, reports that
Greenland's glaciers accelerated their movement to the sea between 1996
and 2000. It concluded, "As more glaciers accelerate farther north, the
contribution of Greenland to sea-level rise will continue to increase. "
CO2: Too Much of a Good thing
A second ad, "Energy," downplays the adverse effects of Carbon Dioxide
(CO2) in the atmosphere by identifying it as a natural biological
occurrence.
CEI Ad: "Energy"
Announcer: There’s something in these pictures you can’t see. It’s
essential to life. We breathe it out.Plants breathe it in. It comes from
animal life, the oceans, the earth, and the fuels we find in it. It’s
called carbon dioxide---CO2. The fuels that produce C02 have freed us
from a world of back-breaking labor, lighting up our lives, allowing us
to create and move the things we need, the people we love. Now some
politicians want to label carbon dioxide a pollutant. Imagine if they
succeed. What would our lives be like then? Carbon dioxide.
They call it pollution. We call it life.
The ad correctly asserts, "we breathe it out, plants breathe it in." As
many of us learned in high school biology classes, humans and animals
breathe in oxygen and out carbon dioxide, and plants take in the carbon
dioxide and release oxygen.
The ad goes on to say, "they call it pollution, we call it life." It is
true that some politicians and environmental groups want to label CO2 as
a "pollutant." Several environmental groups, states and municipalities
are currently suing the EPA to do so.
But they are doing so for regulatory purposes so that CO2 emissions can
be brought under the Clean Air Act. Nobody is claiming CO2 poses the
immediate health threat that smog, smoke, and other conventional
pollutants do. But in June 2005, the science academies of 11 leading
industrial nations (including the National Academies of Sciences from
the US) released a statement listing CO2 as a greenhouse gas and saying :
Joint Statement: Carbon Dioxide levels have increased from 280 ppm
in 1750 to over 375 ppm today - higher than any previous levels that can
be reliably measured (i.e. in the last 420,000 years). Increasing
greenhouse gases are causing temperatures to rise .
Heeding his own advice
Even though CEI minimizes the impact of carbon dioxide, they still take
Al Gore to task for his carbon footprint as a result of his travel
surrounding his "Inconvenient Truth" presentation and documentary.
They posted a video with their TV ads as a "special web only bonus ."
It includes quotes from Gore's film about personal accountability for
global warming by taking such actions as telecommuting, and limiting air
travel. The video then shows Gore's lengthy air travel schedule and
displays a rolling meter of carbon dioxide output and challenging Gore
to start "walking the walk."
He says he is. According to NativeEnergy, Paramount Classics and
Participant Productions plan to announce that they offset 100% of the
global warming impact from production activities. In addition,
NativeEnergy is offsetting all CO2 from Mr. Gore’s travel to discuss and
promote the film and book. This is achieved by calculating how much CO2
your activities produce and purchasing the corresponding amount of
credits to generate renewable energy.
Who funds CEI
CEI is supported, in part, by several major corporations and corporate
foundations, including oil companies, according to the liberal
organization SourceWatch. In 2004 CEI declared revenues of $2,919,537
with the IRS, according to their Form 990. Just over 9 per cent of that
total, $270,000, came from donations from ExxonMobil, according to the
oil company's 2004 Worldwide Contributions and Community Investments
Report. Exxon said two-thirds of their donation was earmarked for
"Global Climate Change and Global Climate Change Outreach."
by Justin Bank
Sources
Davis, Curt H.; Yonghang, Li; McConnell, Joseph R.; Frey, Markus M.;
Hanna, Edward, "Snowfall-Driven Growth in East Antarctic Ice Sheet
Mitigates Recent Sea-Level Rise."
Eilperin, Juliet, "Antarctic Ice Sheet is Melting," Washington Post . 3
March 2005.
Johannessen, Ola M.; Khvorostovsky, Kirill; Miles, Martin W.; Bobylev,
Leonid P., "Recent Ice Sheet Growth in the Interior of Greenland,"
Science . 11 Nov 2005.
Rignot, Eric and Kanagaratnam, "Changes in the Velocity Structure of the
Greenland Ice Sheet," Science. 17 Feb 2006.
Vedantam, Shankar, "Glacier Melt Could Signal Faster Rise in Ocean
Level," Washington Post. 17 Feb 2006.
Velicogna, Isabella and Wahr, John, "Measurements of Time-Variable
Gravity Show Mass Loss in Antarctica," Science. 24 March 2006.
Vergano, Dan, "Greenland Glacier Runoff Doubles over Past Decade," USA
Today . 17 Feb 2006.
Press Release, "MU Professor Refutes National Television Ads Downplaying
Global Warming," University of Missouri. 19 May 2006.
Press Release, "CEI Launches Ad Campaign to Counter Global Warming
Alarmism," CEI, 17 May 2005.
Joint Statement of Science Academies: Global Response to Climate Change,
2005.
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