“Look at the science”, Mr Ho – a letter to the Straits Times

Please, do not believe everything the media tells you

Yesterday, Green Kampong contributer Olivia Choong revealed that she had written to Andy Ho about his misleading article in last Friday’s (30 Oct) Straits Times. In response, he wrote, saying that she had “completely misread” him, and that “anytime (arguments against anthropogenic global warming is presented), …one gets emotional responses such as yours.”

He also exhorted her to “look at the science and not just the spewings of environmental groups… before crucifying someone who supports an opposite view”, completely missing Olivia’s point – that she was asking him to “look at the science” before coming up with an opposite view for the sake of one.

Julian L. Wong, Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress adds his and the planet’s “emotional response” to Andy Ho’s column, and has given us permission to reproduce his letter to the Straits Times here:

Letter to the Editor, The Straits Times

November 2, 2009

Andy Ho relies on selective analysis, dubious science and false assertions in urging Singapore to resist action on climate change (Reasons for S’pore to be cool on global warming, ST Oct 30). In doing so, Mr. Ho single-handedly casts a pall over his own credibility as a science writer, compromises the integrity of the paper for which he writes for, and undermines the international standing of a country that wants to be, in the words of PM Lee Hsien Loong, a “responsible member of the international community” that should shoulders its “fair share of the collective global effort to reduce carbon emissions.”

Mr. Ho relies on a two-year old study by a certain Dr. Roy Spencer, who argues that climate change leads to upper atmosphere cloud interactions that in fact exert a cooling effect. “Current climate models do not factor in this cooling mechanism,” Mr. Ho concludes.

Conveniently, however, Mr. Ho ignores major new studies, including one published just this July in Science from Amy Clement and colleagues, which finds that the warming of the ocean leads to less low-lying clouds, which ordinarily block the sun’s rays and slows down global warming, leading to further ocean warming, and so on. In other words, ocean-cloud interactions lead to amplifying global warming feedbacks.

Mr. Ho also ignores a number of other amplifying feedback interactions such as the defrosting of the permafrost, destruction of tropical wetlands, and the decelerating growth of tropical forest trees, but to name a few. In fact, as Dr. Joe Romm writes in Climateprogress.org, “the best evidence is that the climate is now being driven by amplifying feedbacks,” rather than negative feedbacks like the one Spencer describes. This means that most climate models, which do not take into account these amplifying feedbacks, are probably underestimating the effects of global warming.

Mr. Ho fails disclose another fact. Roy Spencer is listed as a policy advisor to the Heartland Institute and a contributor the George Marshall Fund, two conservative U.S.-based think tanks that have a track record of spewing global warming-denial rhetoric and whose works have been backed by significant funding from Exxon-Mobil, according to sourcewatch.org.

There are other flaws in Mr. Ho’s analysis. He glorifies the antics of Chris Monckton, a climate science denier, but doesn’t mention he doesn’t have a science degree. He mentions the Oregon Petition that rejects the notion of human-caused global warming signed by over 9,000 “scientists”, while glossing over the detail that the initiative has been heavily criticized for shoddy signature collection, lack of verification of the credentials of signatories, and the duplication of listed signatories. He carelessly charges that the developing world would not agree to reduce their use of fossil fuels without regard for recent announcements by China, India, Brazil and Mexico among other developing countries to curb their emissions growth.

Mr. Ho urges Singapore not to be “bamboozled” by Western leaders to take climate action, but it seems that the real bamboozling is coming from another source.

Julian L. Wong
Senior Policy Analyst
Center for American Progress
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