Finding facts in a tangled web
John Naughton writes in The Observer:
On 16 April, the celebrated media scientist, David Bellamy, published a letter in New Scientist magazine. Many of the world's glaciers, he claimed, 'are not shrinking but in fact are growing ... 555 of all the 625 glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich, Switzerland, have been growing since 1980'.
Bellamy's letter was instantly taken up by climate change deniers (including lobbyists for the automobile industry). And it began to worry Guardian columnist, George Monbiot, who is a prominent environmental campaigner. What, he wondered, if Bellamy was right?
In a fascinating column, Monbiot recounts how he telephoned the World Glacier Monitoring Service and read Bellamy's letter to them. 'This is complete bullshit,' they told him, succinctly. They followed up with an email: 'Despite his scientific reputation,' it read, '[Bellamy] makes all the mistakes that are possible.' He had cited data that were simply false, failed to provide references, misunderstood the scientific context and neglected current scientific literature. The latest studies, the email went on, show unequivocally that most of the world's glaciers are retreating.
Read the remainder of Naughton's article.
posted by Fergie @ 5/23/2005 07:25:00 AM
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