WCCO Meteorologist: Global Warming Extremism uses 'Squishy Science'

Mike FairbourneBy Paul Walsh 

Longtime WCCO TV meteorologist Mike Fairbourne says that the environmental movement is practicing “squishy science” when it ties human activity to global warming.

Fairbourne’s assessment Monday came on the same day that the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine appeared before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and announced that it has the signatures of more than 31,000 scientists — including Fairbourne’s — who agree that the human impact on global warming is overblown.

Fairbourne, who joined WCCO in 1977 and has been a meteorologist for 40 years, said that while there is no doubt that “there has been some warming” of global temperatures in recent years … there is still a pretty big question mark” about how much of that warming is from human activity.

“Do we need to be wise stewards [of the Earth]? Absolutely,” Fairbourne said. “Do we have to pin everything that happens on global warming? No, we need to have cooler heads.”

Read the rest of this article at Star Tribune.

11 Responses to WCCO Meteorologist: Global Warming Extremism uses 'Squishy Science'

  1. Dan Pangburn May 20, 2008 at 1:53 pm #

    Greenhouse gases absorb radiant heat from the earth’s surface and keep it warm. Except for the minuscule contribution of radioactive decay, all of this heat came from the sun and all must be radiated from the planet for it to retain its average temperature. Climatologists are good at measuring temperature and wind and determining how energy moves about the planet. Apparently, however, their training does not include knowledge of the mechanism by which greenhouse gases absorb radiant heat. This lack of relevant training has contributed to the Global Warming Mistake. With adequate training they would be aware of the science that all of the radiant heat from the earth’s surface that is going to be absorbed by greenhouse gases gets absorbed close to the ground (half within less than 24 meters) and is carried up by convection currents to where it ultimately gets radiated to space. The average global temperature is modulated by convection currents. The convection is negligibly influenced by the amount of carbon dioxide. The only effect of doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide is that the radiant heat from the surface would be absorbed a few feet closer to the ground. Human activity that puts carbon dioxide into the atmosphere never has and never will have any influence on global climate.

    Graphs of climate history presented at http://www.middlebury.net:80/op-ed/pangburn.html ) show that carbon dioxide level has had no significant influence on climate. The reason why the carbon dioxide level has no significant influence on climate is revealed in papers by Dr. John Nicol, Dr. Jack Barrett and Dr. Heinz Hug. These papers are available on the web at http://www.ruralsoft.com.au/ClimateChange.doc , http://www.warwickhughes.com/papers/barrett_ee05.pdf , and http://www.john-daly.com/artifact.htm respectively.

  2. Scott Todd May 20, 2008 at 7:32 pm #

    Fairbourne’s on air presence is as dull as a butter knife, but having learned this I have a renewed respect for him.

  3. Phidippides May 20, 2008 at 10:06 pm #

    It was nice to see him come out with this position. Strangely enough, when I read the Strib story and then read the comments, most people seemed like they were very supportive of him. Surprising coming from such a lib paper. Then again, maybe more of the online Strib readers aren’t big liberals.

  4. Brett May 22, 2008 at 5:30 am #

    What is Sven Sungaard’s opinion on this matter? He is so cute. Big ups to Mike Fairborne.

  5. D.H. Lawrence May 22, 2008 at 8:44 am #

    Not surprising… why? The mainstream media is 95% conservative and has been for a long time (fact- check who owns these companies- they are all Republicans- sorry but this is FACT). The majority of people are brainwashed in many ways including the belief that there is such a thing as a liberal media- in fact even in the 60’s the media was not that liberal and nor were the politicians. People- there is one political party in this country now. Any differences are really minor but exagerrated and hyped by the media to divide and conquer us. It is obviously VERY successful. We the people can and need to work together to fight the global money elite. The global money elite have no allegiance to any one country or religion. They worhsip money and the power that goes with it. Wake Up!!!!!

  6. John Johnson May 26, 2008 at 9:49 am #

    You can twist the truth again and again and call it the truth, but it is still a lie in disguise.

    They have polled the reporter and news anchors and the people who report the news are overwhelmingly LIBERAL. This is the real fact. Twisting the truth to talk about who owns the company is sleight of hand trickery used to deceive people for your own gain.

  7. D.H. Lawrence May 27, 2008 at 7:37 am #

    It is you who are resorting to sleight of hand. While those polls report that seems to be the case and I would even agree that it’s probably accurate, HOWEVER, they all know who pays the bills and signs their paychecks. That’s the first point. Secondly, all one has to do is watch the news and read the news OBJECTIVELY to see the bias. It’s plain as day. I know theat right-wingers don’t see it that way, perhaps that is because some of them are so radical that anything just right of center appears to be a liberal slant to them. It’s amazing what people perceive as reality, and alarming. Right leaning ropaganda has become reality, for many people. Today Nixon would be considered a liberal, just as many right wingers consider Joh McCain!! And that is so far from reality that it isn’t funny anymore. It’s just scary. Finally, there are many other “polls” and studies that prove the actual media (not the individual journalists) is right-wing biased. And the editorials don’t count either. Many right wing newspapers allow a mostly liberal based editorial section to give the appearance of objectivity and fool readers that way into thinking that that actual articles in the paper are not right wing. But really, all you have to do is pay attention to what the media presents and how ot’s presented. One simple example… show me where there is a “Labor ” section of any newspaper- or even TV news show. However, there is ALWAYS a “business” section. You are not seeing the forest for the trees brother.

  8. Mike McLean May 27, 2008 at 8:17 am #

    The Global Warmimg alarmists have been preaching to us that our temps will continue to warm and the ice will melt. Then about 3 months ago, they announce that oh wait a minute, we will have a Global Cooling for about 10 to 15 years and then we will resume with the Global Warming. So they are telling us that the world will warm and warm. But they couldn’t even see the Global Cooling until just now. Last year the world was short by 3 million square miles of ice. This year we now are 1 million square miles over the average.

  9. Chris mankey June 16, 2008 at 8:52 am #

    I wonder which group of corporate (profanity deleted)s own this website?

  10. Dan McGrath June 16, 2008 at 12:44 pm #

    Not hard to find out who owns the site. It’s on the “about” page. GlobalClimateScam.com is a project of Minnesota Majority. We are a non-profit grassroots watchdog group.

  11. peter richards May 31, 2009 at 5:02 pm #

    I’m not sure where Minnesota is, but their majority appear to be a bunch of paranoid neo-fascist primitives. No offence.

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