by Roger A. Pielke

Record rainfall and over a thousand dead in Mumbai.  Devastating floods in central Europe. A record hurricane season in the Atlantic, including more than $100 billion dollars in damage from Hurricane Katrina. The summer of 2005 seems to have witnessed more than its fair share of weather-related disasters. And, perhaps understandably, no weather-related disaster occurs without someone linking it to the issue of global warming. For example, Klaus Töpfer, director of the United Nations Environment Programme, made such a connection in an interview with the Financial Times Deutschland. “We live already in climate change. The worldwide increase in strong rains, droughts and (wind)storms are indications that the greenhouse effect is having an influence …”

by William Colglazier  

The following is a rebuttal to an earlier article by Roger Pielke, Jr. entitled "Science Academies as Political Advocates" that appeared in "bridges" vol. 6.

Science Academies and Climate Change

In his op-ed published in bridges, Roger Pielke, Jr., cited the June 2005 statement on climate change issued  by eleven national science academies as an example of these institutions unwisely engaging in political advocacy and politics. In our view, the eleven academies’ statement was consistent with and supported by careful objective studies done by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) over the past 15 years, which is the reason that the then NAS President Bruce Alberts signed the statement.