From his latest piece one can only conclude that either Lindzen has descended into the epistemic closure of paranoia and conspiracy theories that has become far too prevalent among some Americans lately or, worse, that he is consciously participating in the malicious disinformation campaign on climate that has recently been extensively documented by Greenpeace and elsewhere
Smith gives a detailed analysis of how he came to this conclusion.
Marc Ambinder also weighs in:
“Climate Science In Denial,” reads a Wall Street Journal op-ed headline. “Global warming alarmists have been discredited, but you wouldn’t know it from the rhetoric this Earth Day.”
Actually, the subhead should be revised: “Global warming denialists have been re-discredited, but you wouldn’t know it from the rhetoric in today’s Wall Street Journal.” Far be it from me, a non-scientist, to dispute the scientific expertise of an MIT professor of meterology, Richard Lindzen, but then again, Lindzen’s selective recitation of the litany of arguments against global warming practically begs a rebuttal.
There’s so much that is wrong with Lindzen’s piece that there’s plenty left for me. Lindzen writes:
In addition, numerous professional societies, including the American Society of Agronomy, the American Society of Plant Biologists and the Natural Science Collections Alliance, most of which have no expertise in climate, endorse essentially the following opinion: that the climate is warming; the warming is due to man’s emissions of carbon dioxide; and continued emissions will lead to catastrophe.
We may reasonably wonder why they feel compelled to endorse this view. The IPCC’s position in its Summary for Policymakers from its Fourth Assessment (2007) is weaker, and simply points out that most warming of the past 50 years or so is due to man’s emissions.
Let us check to see what they actually endorsed:
Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is
occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the
greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver.
These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence,
and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of
the vast body of peer-reviewed science. Moreover, there is strong
evidence that ongoing climate change will have broad impacts on
society, including the global economy and on the environment. For the
United States, climate change impacts include sea level rise for coastal
states, greater threats of extreme weather events, and increased risk of
regional water scarcity, urban heat waves, western wildfires, and the
disturbance of biological systems throughout the country. The severity
of climate change impacts is expected to increase substantially in the
That is what the IPCC report says, and Lindzen surely knows it. It seems that Lindzen simply does not care whether what he writes is true or not.
Lindzen’s not all bad — it was another one of his opinion pieces that started my blogging about climate change. My conclusion, way back in 2004:
I find Lindzen’s systematic misrepresentation of the report that he helped author completely inexcusable.