Response from Professor Rob Dunbar, Stanford Expert in Climate Change

My own opinion is that there is now a great deal of consensus among climate scientists that man-made global warming exists. My views on this are identical with a recent letter published in the New York Times by Jim McCarthy at Harvard (see below).........

The fact is, that in the peer-reviewed literature there are almost no papers that dispute this view. The few that are there are mainly taking issue with methodologies rather than results (although the credibility of the latter depends on the former....but this is a different kind of criticism than providing evidence that global warming does not exist or that it cannot be tied to anthropogenic forcing......

I did have a look at "swindle" movie you refer to below. My view? Almost entirely recycled and discredited opinions provided mostly by well-known skeptics that do not publish their ideas in the peer-reviewed literature. There are a few folks in the "documentary" that have credibility and in at least one case (Wunsch) there is a claim that his comments were taken out of context or were edited to promote the notion that he supports a view that he says he doesn't......The long and short of it is that in my view there is no comparison between the backgroun research and credibility of the Gore film and the "swindle". The "swindle" is junk as far as being a reasonable and balanced view of the science......

The Gore film may also appear to some to lack balance but in fact is a reasonable representation of the near consensus views held by most climate scientists. I think he overstated a few things but it is, for the most part, on target.

Cheers,

Rob

Letter published on March 17 by the NYT.To the Editor:The <http://www.webmail.ucl.ac.uk/horde/services/go.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftopics.nytimes.com%2Ftop%2Freference%2Ftimestopics%2Forganizations%2Fn%2Fnational_academy_of_sciences%2Findex.html%3Finline%3Dnyt-org%3ENational Academy of Sciences, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorology Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have all issued statements stating that <http://www.webmail.ucl.ac.uk/horde/services/go.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftopics.nytimes.com%2Ftop%2Fnews%2Fscience%2Ftopics%2Fglobalwarming%2Findex.html%3Finline%3Dnyt-classifier%3Eclimate change is: a) occurring, b) largely caused by humans and c) likely to continue with large negative consequences for natural and human socioeconomic systems unless we rapidly decarbonize our global energy systems.

People who have evidence that contradicts these statements can publish their findings in scientific journals, after which the public might expect to see this work discussed in Science Times. In the meantime, if you feel obligated to publish what are simply opinions, please use the opinion pages rather than the science section.James J. McCarthyCambridge, Mass.The writer is the president-elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.