NEWS ALERT: Hudson Institute and Dennis Avery's Scientific Spin on Andes Glacier Study

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The recent opinion piece by Dennis T. Avery of the Hudson Institute is a great example of the PR spin and misinformation campaign being used in the climate change debate. His latest claims are almost as outrageous as his conclusion that organic food is more dangerous to eat than food produced using chemical pesticides.

In Avery’s piece: Some Inconvenient Glaciers, Avery claims that a study published in the June, 2006 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is further proof that: “… the Andes glacier study not only links glacial advances and retreats with the sun, but emphasizes that the earth’s glaciers have often retreated–and even disappeared–during past centuries, long before humans built cars and smokestacks.”

At first glance Avery’s conclusion sounds reasonable, but that is always the nature of well manufactured spin.

What Avery fails to point out is that while the study acknowledges that the varying temperature of the sun has caused glaciers to melt in the past, it concludes that when you couple these temperature variations with the realities of man-made global warming, our glaciers are in some very serious trouble.

Here are is a quote from the abstract of the Andes glacier study:

“These results highlight the sensitivity of highaltitude tropical regions to relatively small changes in radiative forcing, implying even greater probable responses to future anthropogenic forcing.”

Translation: glaciers are sensitive to small changes in temperature and global warming will make all of this glacier melting even worse.

And from the conclusion:

“It is likely that this mechanism also may serve to amplify the effects of warming trends, irrespective of their origin, which raises concern that global warming will adversely affect highaltitude tropical montane regions.”

Translation:
changes in sun temperature happen and global warming is making this all the worse.

Also from the conclusion:

“Conservative estimates of net anthropogenic greenhouse-gas radiative forcing for the next 50 yr surpass that of solar forcing in previous centuries, implying that profound climatic impacts can be predicted for tropical montane regions.”

Translation: estimates of the increase of man-made greenhouse warming will cause much higher temperatures than anything caused by changes in sun temperature and this will impact already sensitive glaciers.

Now we here at the DeSmogBlog know that “think-tanks” like the oil-backed Hudson Institute already has many pre-concieved notions about the science behind global warming, but this is blatant misrepresentation of the conclusions of a scientific conclusion.

The Hudson Institute is not offering the reporting of science, they are offering the propaganda of science and we here at the DeSmogBlog team are happy to point it out.

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Kevin is a contributor and strategic adviser to DeSmogBlog.

He runs the digital marketing agency Spake Media House. Named a “Green Hero” by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the “Top 50 Tweeters” on climate change and environment issues, Kevin has appeared in major news media outlets around the world for his work on digital campaigning.

Kevin has been involved in the public policy arena in both the United States and Canada for more than a decade. For five years he was the managing editor of DeSmogBlog.com. In this role, Kevin’s research into the “climate denial industry” and the right-wing think tank networks was featured in news media articles around the world. He is most well known for his ground-breaking research into David and Charles Koch’s massive financial investments in the Republican and tea party networks.

Kevin is the first person to be designated a “Certified Expert” on the political and community organizing platform NationBuilder.

Prior to DeSmogBlog, Kevin worked in various political and government roles. He was Senior Advisor to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and a Special Assistant to the Minister of State for Asia Pacific, Foreign Affairs for the Government of Canada. Kevin also worked in various roles in the British Columbia provincial government in the Office of the Premier and the Ministry of Health.

In 2008 Kevin co-founded a groundbreaking new online election tool called Vote for Environment which was later nominated for a World Summit Award in recognition of the world’s best e-Content and innovative ICT applications.

Kevin moved to Washington, DC in 2010 where he worked for two years as the Director of Online Strategy for Greenpeace USA and has since returned to his hometown of Vancouver, Canada.

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