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Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Experts on Global Warming: Prestigiousiness

One News Now, the AFA's news arm, is pushing the idea that Global Warming is a big hoax:

A climate change expert says Al Gore and other proponents of catastrophic manmade global warming are not only pushing flawed science, but also demonstrating hypocrisy while pushing their cause against what they consider a dire threat.
...Dennis Avery, an expert on environmental issues at the Hudson Institute, says he doubts Gore and the environmentally conscious singers will forego taking a private jet to the concerts. "I think the worst hypocrisy is the guilt trip that the green movement has offered to all of us," he says. "And people are enthusiastic about being Al Gore's side, if they're non-scientists, to prove that they're socially responsible people [or] to prove that they're 'good' people. And I think it's nonsense."

Yes, that's far worse hypocrisy than pretending to be an expert when you're not.

Who is Dennis Avery? His bio includes:

From 1980-1988, Dennis T. Avery served as agricultural analyst for the U.S. Department of State, where he was responsible for assessing the foreign-policy implications of food and farming developments worldwide. At Hudson, Avery continues to monitor developments in world food production, farm product demand, the safety and security of food supplies, and the sustainability of world agriculture. As a staff member of the President's National Advisory Commission on Food and Fiber, he wrote the Commission's landmark report, "Food and Fiber for the Future."
Avery studied agricultural economics at Michigan State University and the University of Wisconsin. He holds awards for outstanding performance from three different government agencies and was awarded the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement in 1983.

I find it odd that Avery's bio doesn't state the degrees he earned from the universities he attended. Odder, too, that Avery doesn't have a background in any of the hard sciences that would inform one's opinion on global warming.

And I don't know what the medal is for -- but it sounds more like spy stuff rather than being smart stuff.

Look, you don't have to be a scientist to have an opinion on global warming, but you do have to have expertise in order to be an expert. I wouldn't listen to Al Gore or Sting talk about global warming, except to the extent their claims reflect the consensus of actual scientists.