Jennifer Marohasy

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The ‘NIPCC’ Report 2008: Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate

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Fred Singer is editor of the ‘Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change’ (NIPCC) summary for policymakers report, released on 3rd March at the NY Climate Conference, entitled: ‘Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate.’

It can be downloaded here from the Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) website.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  5. Paul Biggs says

    Speaking as a life-long non-smoker, avoider of passive smoking, and someone involved in cancer research for nearly 30 years, I can tell you that Singer was correct about passive smoking at the time – and still is unless there are new studies that conclusively show otherwise.

    “In 1998 and 2003 came the results of by far the biggest studies of passive smoking ever carried out. One was conducted by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organisation. The other, run by Prof James Enstrom and Geoffrey Kabat for the American Cancer Society, was a mammoth 40-year-long study of 35,000 non-smokers living with smokers. In each case, when the sponsors saw the results they were horrified. The evidence inescapably showed that passive smoking posed no significant risk. This confirmed Sir Richard Doll’s own comment in 2001: “The effects of other people’s smoking in my presence is so small it doesn’t worry me”.

    In each case, the sponsors tried to suppress the results, which were only with difficulty made public (the fact that Enstrom and Kabat, both non-smokers, could only get their results published with help from the tobacco industry was inevitably used to discredit them, even though all their research had been financed by the anti-tobacco cancer charity).”

  8. Eyrie says

    Kuwait Oil fires debate

    I love the way the article on Wikipedia manages to avoid saying that Sagan was dead wrong and Singer was far, far closer to what actually happened. It seems there was a regional effect from the smoke (wow, it got smoky in places close to the smoke source.) As far as dominating the weather during all of 1991, that’s the first I’ve heard of it. There doesn’t seem to have been much lofting into the upper atmosphere either.
    GW1 was in February. Smoke isn’t going to be around all year. According to a friend of mine who was a flight instructor in Saudi for years there is always a noticeable haze layer to around 15000 feet in the area.
    The passive smoking thing seems to be another perversion of science. Luke, care to come up with a link with credible stats that shows it does cause increased risk of cancer? I’m no fan of second hand smoke either but the data is what counts. Interesting how sponsors suppress results they don’t like.
    The link mentions Singer on the GFC ozone hole theory. Recently the reaction rates of intermediate products in the chain were measured under applicable conditions. Seems one critical reaction runs an order of magnitude slower than required for the theory. This ties in fairly well with a JPL experiment whose results were likewise suppressed.

  11. Luke says

    Well you seem to have latched onto one paper as some “evidence” that the ozone story is “all wrong”. As for suppression of results – what utter bulldust – went straight into Nature and awaits confirmation.

    I find it interesting that most western medical associations have made their conclusions on the matter. And after the ongoing testimony of tobacco companies under oath I don’t think we’ll be taking their word for anything including their suppression of studies of the greater toxicity of second hand smoke.

    As usual you guys love to cherry pick something and ignore a wider context.

    Just anything to prove business as usual need not be scrutinised eh? The job description for these guys is not about prudent policy – it’s to create maximum political uncertainty to slow down any regulation. Having been done out of a job on tobacco they’ve moved on.

  12. Jan Pompe says

    Luke:I find it interesting that most western medical associations have made their conclusions on the matter.

    Well so much for evidence based practice (a current clinical procedures improvent project in NSW state hospitals) flying in the face of the actual evidence.

    I find it quite disturbing.

    Researchers are finding Epithelial Growth Factor Receptor polymorphism (mutation??) is playing a part, in research done in isolated parts of China where smoking tobacco never took hold (also little in the way of industrial pollution) so can’t skew the results of their studies.

    All you are trying to do is poison the well!!

  14. gavin says

    Jan – All you are trying to do is poison the well.

    Why do you insist on playing round the fringe in the name of science?

    “Cancer rates in China soared 41.48% from 1990 to 2000 and is expected to increase nearly 28% from 2000 to 2010 due to the high rates of tobacco usage, environmental conditions, and an aging population whose life expectancy has nearly doubled to 71.1 since 1949. Lung cancer is the most prevalent, with rates much higher than the total general cancer rates. Lung cancer rose 61.29% between 1990 and 2000, and a 51.38% increase is projected from 2000 to 2010. W.H.O. statistics list China’s adult male smokers at 67%, the highest in the world, with the exception of Mongolia’s 68%. Liver and stomach cancer are the next highest types, with breast and cervix cancer dominant among women. Survival rates for lung, liver, and stomach cancer are a low 15% according to W.H.O. reports”.

    http://www.ictradiotherapy.com/china.asp

    http://annonc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/16/10/1605

    Be aware there are links with increased coal burning too

  15. Jan Pompe says

    Gavin:

    “Why do you insist on playing round the fringe in the name of science?”

    It’s hardly around the fringe, EGFR mutations research is rather central to cancer research.

    You know I worked as RN in a hospice while finishing a physics degree, NONE of the lung cancer patients we got had ever been smokers most had non smoking spouses. Most of the nurses smoked so we looked whenever one came in the histories are taken for researchers.

    I also have ongoing access to medical research papers so don’t generally need to resort to google as you so obviously have done.

  16. Wm. L. Hyde says

    Luke, Gavin et al….for God’s sake, shake yourselves out of your self-satisfied ennui, and get down to some good, hard-nosed studying. The world is not as you’ve imagined after all.
    Cheers….theoldhogger

  17. Tilo Reber says

    “I love the way the article on Wikipedia manages to avoid saying that Sagan was dead wrong and Singer was far, far closer to what actually happened.”

    The global warming editor for Wiki is William Connelly. He is an AGW proponent, contributer to realclimate, and dues paying member of the hockey team. You cannot believe anything related to global warming on wiki.

  18. gavin says

    Sure Jan; we can probably both claim RL experience but it’s hardly appropriate for discussing gene pools, dynamic cell change in hazardous environments or even personal smoking resistance. Given the extensive coverage of the topic and edited references on wiki why should I bother calling up a handful of victims around me who succumbed to the nicotine scourge?

    BTW some dozens I spoke to afterwards actually chucked the habit.

  19. gavin says

    Tilo:

    A caller on talkback radio yesterday referred to a NY lawyer (about No 400 in the list) who has edited some 27,000 wiki posts on this or that. Am I worried? No.

    Wiki runs like a big ship with a good crew and stupid stuff reverts soon enough on auto pilot.

  21. Paul Biggs says

    Proteus – the quote is from July 2007, here:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/01/nbook101.xml

    Gavin – we were talking about Singer/passive smoking and the scientific evidence showing only that the increased risks associated with it are very small. That’s not to say that the risks aren’t larger, but they can’t be conclusively demonstrated by epidemiology, which is the art of drawing conclusions from inconclusive results.

    France has higher smoking rates than the UK, but a lower incidence of asthma, iirc. The difficulty lies in isolating various known and unknown genetic and environmental factors etc, when trying to link cause and effect.

    Plus, a significant percentage of lung cancers are not caused by smoking or passive smoking – radon gas causes 10% of lung cancers, smoking 85%, that leaves 5% for ‘other.’

    As for the Ozone hole consensus:

    New Research Challenges Established Ozone Hole Theory:

    http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002341.html

    Not widely publicised by the media, if at all, if I remember correctly.

    So, Singer could be right about passsive smoking, ozone, and global warming.

  23. chrisgo says

    It’s not easy to pin down the role of Connolley (or Connelly, he seems uncertain how to spell his own name) with Wikipedia.
    So I suppose we ought to be grateful to Tim Lambert, who on January 20th 2006 clarified it thus:
    “Connolley was recently made an admin at Wikipedia. Apparently the community there think he does a good job of editing” (20).

    There is also an interesting contribution from Luboš Motl (7) on the same thread.

    http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=505

  24. Jan Pompe says

    Gavin,

    You are rather good at missing the point I notice.

    “why should I bother calling up a handful of victims around me who succumbed to the nicotine scourge?”

    A turnover of 200 pa is hardly a handful, and the curious thing is that during the time that I was there none of the lung cancer cases had much involvement with nicotine. It’s just an anecdote I would be getting to worked up about it.

    Briefly it’s not the nicotine that causes the cancer but the oils (polycyclic hydrocarbons) in the tobacco that are turned loose when the cigarette is lit, triggers a chain of events involving the epidermal growth factor leading to the formation of COX-2 enzyme (no I cant’ remember exactly what it is) which is found to have a four fold increase in active smokers. This has been linked to the development of cancer. (This IIRC from a team at Cornell unfortunately I haven’t kept the paper)

    This also gels well with the Chinese study I mentioned earlier which showed a heightened incidence of cancer in never smoking women who waited for cooking oil to start smoking before adding the food to be fried. (I haven’t keept this paper either)

    Smokey barbies can thus be a problem too and there are far more ubiquitous sources of environmental hydrocarbons than the cigarette, your fry pan for instance!

  26. Mr T says

    Just wondering Paul, I couldn’t find it anywhere. Do the authors of this report actually define what they mean by “Nature”? Seems this thing called “Nature” is pretty important.