Climate 'skeptics' who have swapped sides.

I usually hate focusing any attention on the decisively settled question of the reality of climate change, preferring to deal with policies, technologies and campaigning. I`m making an exception in this case just to highlight a significant change in the last year...nay sayers dropping there arguments against climate change. Virtually all of these people where not skeptical but ideologically against climate change, what I mean is that it went against there agenda in varied ways and there is nothing like denial for an awkward problem. These changes therefore explicitly do not represent an accumulation of evidence but rather an accumulation of social/political will to deal with what promises to be a challenge of the greatest magnitude.
Gregg Easterbrook of the Brookings Institution and senior editor of The New Republic:

"Yes: the science has changed from ambiguous to near-unanimous. As an environmental commentator, I have a long record of opposing alarmism. But based on the data I'm now switching sides regarding global warming, from skeptic to convert."

-5/24/06 The New York Times, "Finally Feeling the Heat" by Gregg Easterbrook

Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC):

"Representative Bob Inglis, a South Carolina Republican, says he 'pooh-poohed' global warming until he trekked to the South Pole in January. 'Now, I think we should be concerned,' says Inglis, who heads the U.S. House Science Research subcommittee. 'There are more and more Republicans willing to stop laughing at climate change who are ready to get serious about reclaiming their heritage as conservationists.'"

-4/24/06 Bloomberg News, "Bush Faces Growing Dissent From Republicans on Climate Change" by Kim Chapman


University of Washington climate researcher John Wallace:

"Like many of his peers, Wallace wasn't convinced greenhouse gases were altering the world's climate, and he thought Gore was straining scientific credibility to score political points. More than a decade later, Wallace still won't blame global warming for any specific heat wave, drought or flood - including the recent devastating hurricanes. But he no longer doubts the problem is real and the risks profound."

- 10/11/05 The Seattle Times, "The Truth About Global Warming" by Sandi Doughton


Rev. Pat Robertson, founder and chairman of Christian Broadcasting Network:

"The Reverend Pat Robertson says he hasn't been a believer in global warming in the past, but this summer's record-breaking heat is -- quote -- 'making a convert out of me.' On his '700 Club' broadcast, Robertson said, 'It is getting hotter, and the icecaps are melting and there is a buildup of carbon dioxide in the air.' Switching sides on an issue that divides evangelical Christians, Robertson said, 'We really need to address the burning of fossil fuels.' The religious broadcaster told viewers, 'If we are contributing to the destruction of this planet, we need to do something about it.'"

- 8/3/06 The Christian Post, "Heat Wave Makes Pat Robertson a Global Warming 'Convert'" by The Associated Press


Stu Ostro, senior meteorologist and director of weather communications for The Weather Channel:

"There was a time at which reading anything more into that would have been the last thing you'd ever hear from me. I was a certified Global Warming Skeptic. As most climate scientists came to conclude that humans were changing the climate and those changes were significant, I, priding myself on also being an Objective Meteorologist, vehemently resisted as a result of what I felt was insufficient evidence.

"I eventually came to the judgment that I was wrong and global warming was real, largely caused by human activities, and profoundly changing the planet on which we live."

-9/24/05 The Weather Channel Blog, "If this isn't Global Warming, I don't know what is (Confessions of an Ex-Skeptic)" by Stu Ostro


Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society ( http://www.skeptic.com/ ) and editor of its magazine Skeptic:

"Nevertheless, data trump politics, and a convergence of evidence from numerous sources has led me to make a cognitive switch on the subject of anthropogenic global warming. [.] Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism."

-June 2006 issue Scientific American, "The Flipping Point:
How the evidence for anthropogenic global warming has converged to cause this environmental skeptic to make a cognitive flip" by Michael Shermer



Richard Branson, founder of The Virgin Group, including Virgin Atlantic Airways:

"I used to be skeptical of global warming, but now I'm absolutely convinced that the world is spiraling out of control. CO2 is like a bushfire that gets bigger and bigger every year. All of us who are in a position to do something about it must do something about it. Because Virgin is involved with planes and trains, we have even more responsibility."

-7/27/06 Business 2.0 Magazine, "Branson's next big bet" by Carleen Hawn


Frank Luntz, conservative pollster:
NARRATOR: Today, Frank Luntz says the advice he offered the administration on global warming was fair when he gave it. But, he's distanced himself from their policies since.
LUNTZ: It's now 2006. Now I think most people would conclude that there is global warming taking place, and that the behavior of humans are affecting the climate.
QUESTION: But the administration has continued to follow your advice. They're still questioning the science.
LUNTZ: That's up to the administration. I'm not the administration. What they want to do is their business. And it's nothing to do with what I write. And it's nothing to do with what I believe.
- "Global Warming: Bush's Climate of Fear," aired 6/26/06 at10pm ET/PT on CBC Newsworld (BBC)

Home del.icio.us Digg This!