Syun-Ichi Akasofu
Al Gore’s climate film “An Inconvenient Truth” is “science fiction.”
Polar bears can live on land and eat grass.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has gone way past the data about the role of greenhouse gases while ignoring natural factors.
And some scientists, perhaps the “silent” majority, need to be careful. Or they could be “assassinated.”
These are some of the startling if not bizarre comments attributed to Alaska geophysicist Syun-Ichi Akasofu in an interview published this week by the Executive Intelligence Review, an on-line journal founded by right-wing political leader and conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche.
Arctic Climate Expert: Gore’s Film Is ‘Science Fiction’ contains what appears to be a conversational Q&A between Akasofu and LaRouche Youth Movement member Ian Overton.
Akasofu is one of Alaska’s most distinguished scientists — a pioneer in aurora research, former director of the Geophysical Institute and founding director of the International Arctic Research Center.
The 76-year-old scientist, who has the ear of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, has long criticized the notion that human greenhouse gas emissions have driven recent global warming. He has recently argued that a much better explanation lies in the Little Ice Age, a frigid-snap that lasted from about 1400 to 1800.
In the LaRouche publication interview, Akasofu again cited this theory as a more likely explanation for recent observed warming. For more details, check out Akasofu’s paper on the theory: Is the Earth still recovering from the “Little Ice Age?” A possible cause of global warming.
… there is a possibility that only a fraction of the present warming trend may be attributed to the greenhouse effect resulting from human activities. This conclusion is contrary to the IPCC (2007) Report, which states that “most” of the present warming is due to the greenhouse effect. One possible cause of the linear increase may be that the Earth is still recovering from the Little Ice Age. It is urgent that natural changes be correctly identified and removed accurately from the presently on-going changes in order to find the contribution of the greenhouse effect.
In other places, Akasofu takes on some global warming misconceptions — the irritating habit by some publications to show video or photos of calving tidewater glaciers (which really don’t illustrate climate warming). Or the often garbled notion that widespread melting of permafrost has already begun (it hasn’t.)
But intermixed with such sensible observations and Akasofu’s scientific critique of the IPCC are some downright weird statements. Were they taken out of context? Spoken ironically? Flat made up?
Dr. Akasofu: Now, I don’t know if you know this, but people are trying to say that now Polar bears will be in trouble. So now they are trying to put polar bears up as an endangered species?
INTERVIEWER: Yeah. (laughs) I read the letter by Mitchell Taylor [Director of Natural Resources; Nunavut, Canada], where he essentially said that all Polar bear groups are thriving except for one, and that has nothing to do with global warming at all.
Dr. Akasofu: And they don’t have to live on the ice, you know?
INTERVIEWER: Yeah!
Dr. Akasofu: We have a report that they’re living on land, they’re eating grasses. I mean, you know, here maybe a tenderloin, but they don’t have to eat tenderloin all the time! [laughs]
I mean, I don’t know, this whole thing is very strange. I can’t stop it. Everybody’s believing Al Gore’s movie, which is nothing but science fiction. But people think that that’s right though. But we’ll see.
In another location, Akasofu appears to suggest that dissenting scientists fear for their lives, that they could be killed. Here is the excerpt:
Akasofu: My criticism of the IPCC’s report is simply that I do not know how 2,500 scientists can agree that the present 100 years is almost entirely due to the greenhouse effect. There is no evidence for that! There is no paper that studies the natural components of the retraction of the present ice. No paper! So they have no basis to say “most”; it’s an assumption!
INTERVIEWER: So why, do you think, then, is there all this talk in political circles about “consensus” regarding man-made global warming when there is clearly a large number of scientists who, in this country, with the 17,800 signers of the Global Warming Petition Project, also within the IPCC organization itself, and around the planet, are arguing against that premise?
Dr. Akasofu: Okay, you have not read my article then, so I’ll send it to you. I went back, all the way back to the establishment of the IPCC, and what’s happened since then. I’ll send that to you. Also, the top level, the very top-level climatologists or meteorologists, they don’t join the IPCC, because the IPCC is too political. They stay away. So there’s lots of — I don’t know if it’s the majority or not — but there’s lots of silent people there. What I told you, that I wrote something on that, people have to be careful, you could be assassinated. That’s where we are now.