Year 2, Month 11, Day 5: All Muller, All The Time

The Houston Chronicle, running an AP article on the newest DFH tree-hugging enviro-nazi:

WASHINGTON (AP) — A prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming spent two years trying to find out if mainstream climate scientists were wrong. In the end, he determined they were right: Temperatures really are rising rapidly.

The study of the world’s surface temperatures by Richard Muller was partially bankrolled by a foundation connected to global warming deniers. He pursued long-held skeptic theories in analyzing the data. He was spurred to action because of “Climategate,” a British scandal involving hacked emails of scientists.

Yet he found that the land is 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) warmer than in the 1950s. Those numbers from Muller, who works at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, match those by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.

He said he went even further back, studying readings from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. His ultimate finding of a warming world, to be presented at a conference Monday, is no different from what mainstream climate scientists have been saying for decades.

What’s different, and why everyone from opinion columnists to cable TV ‘s satirical”The Daily Show” is paying attention is who is behind the study.

I’m getting more material out of Muller than I got from the Deepwater Horizon. I wonder what that means. Sent Nov. 1:

It’s a little confusing to hear Richard Muller confirming the data and conclusions of previous researchers in climate science, while simultaneously asserting that there “…was not enough skepticism” shown in their work. What he seems to be saying is that the scientists whose work he previously doubted didn’t doubt their work enough at the time, but now that he’s figured out they were right all along, everything’s okay. Or something like that.

But that’s not what really matters. What really matters is that Muller, whose work was significantly funded by arch-conservative climate-change deniers, applied scientific method and intellectual rigor to the problem — and came to the conclusion that the world’s atmosphere is getting warmer. The Koch brothers must be seething; conservatives don’t like surprises.

For his part, Dr. Muller is going to discover what life is like when the petroleum funding evaporates. Welcome, sir, to the ninety-nine percent!

Warren Senders