Richland woman to attend climate conference
Saturday, November 28, 2009
RICHLAND — Ellyn Murphy of Richland is preparing to join 8,000 other concerned world citizens in December at the Climate Change Conference scheduled in Denmark.
The conference, with representatives from 192 countries and many nongovernmental organizations, could produce a global agreement to set limits on human-produced greenhouse gas emissions, primarily carbon dioxide, or CO2.
Murphy’s going has nothing to do with her day job as a researcher at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which involves sequestering CO2 deep underground within basalt.
Rather, this trip is to represent the League of Women Voters’ Task Force on Climate Change. She is one of eight task force members who are taking personal time off and paying their own way.
The league agreed last year to support cap-and-trade regulation as a method of reducing CO2 emissions. So does Murphy, but her main reason for going is to learn as much as she can about the big picture of global warming and how to avoid the results.
“It will be an educational experience so I can talk to people in this community about curbing emissions worldwide,” she said.
While climate change has been a hot issue for researchers for more than a decade, convincing the public that global warming isn’t a hoax hasn’t been easy, Murphy said.
“There’s still a segment of the population who doesn’t want to do anything about it,” she said.
Earlier this week, news agencies in the U.S. said Congress may probe whether prominent climate research scientists at England’s University of East Anglia who are advocates of global warming theories misrepresented the truth about climate change.
The researchers’ e-mails, which were found and leaked by hackers, discussed how to manipulate data that does not support global warming.
Such allegations of tainted and unsettled science have dogged the global warming controversy for years.
Still, Murphy says public opinion seems to have shifted from people being wary of human-caused global warming to a general awareness today that it is a serious problem that needs to be addressed globally.
The goal of the conference is a Copenhagen Protocol in which signatory nations would agree to impose policy actions, such as cap-and-trade limits or a carbon tax that would regulate how much CO2 could be emitted. It would replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The U.S. did not sign the Kyoto pact, but Murphy hopes it will sign at Copenhagen.
Beyond the protocol, Murphy says there may be another equally important benefit.
“One of the biggest benefactors of cap-and-trade will be the nuclear industry. ... It will be easier to get the financing to build the plants,” said Murphy, who calls herself pronuclear and a moderate on the league’s task force.
Her personal schedule prevents her from attending the conference’s first week, when President Obama will address the assembly, but she’ll arrive Dec. 13 for its last half.
“I expect to learn about the issues other countries are facing,” she said, including China, which has surpassed the U.S. in CO2 emissions.
She said China is concerned about sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide pollution in its own country, while carbon dioxide is not yet a high priority.
But when Chinese officials decide to act, it will happen faster because it is a dictatorship, she said.
China already is moving aggressively into manufacturing solar and wind technologies aimed at the U.S. market, Murphy said.
Comments
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Annsboy (Jerald Sargent) says...
In ten or twenty years, hopefully sooner the truth will come out about this hoax. As tempertaures go up, co2 increases, not the other way around. But there is no funding to scientists without a "crisis" so let's all destroy the economy to solve a non existant problem. Twenty years ago it was "the coming ice age" as Regan said, "here they go again"
November 29, 2009 at 11:11 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mavulous (mav ulous) says...
>Such allegations of tainted and unsettled science have dogged the global warming controversy for years.<
There is a very real reason for that. Full disclosure and rigorous peer review settles most issues of this nature. That has been lacking in this case.
►Still, Murphy says public opinion seems to have shifted from people being wary of human-caused global warming to a general awareness today that it is a serious problem that needs to be addressed globally.◄
Actually, support for this issue has been declining since the summer because of the global recession. As long as Americans are forced to deal with 10+% unemployment, they forget about the polar bears and focus on their own families. Clearly, Ms Murphy is discounting the effect of the recession on the American people.
November 29, 2009 at 11:32 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mavulous (mav ulous) says...
Ms Murphy needs to ask some critical questions:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news...
November 29, 2009 at 8:59 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Bob_Knows (Bob Knows) says...
"convincing the public that global warming isn’t a hoax hasn’t been easy"
That's because it IS A HOAX!
The public isn't as stupid as these LWV cows think we are.
November 30, 2009 at 7:17 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Chuck (C. Ulysses Farley) says...
Beleif in global warming ought to be classified as a religion in that it requires a lot of faith. Or to put it another way: 400 years ago the "consensus" in the scientific community was that the world was flat.
November 30, 2009 at 7:47 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
artmann (Art Mann) says...
On the news this morning it is being reported that the DATA used to predict Global warming has been lost!!!
Doesn't this mean this meeting should be canceled??? Save taxpayer hard earned money???? Stop this B.S. in its tracks and get the word out to everyone you know!
November 30, 2009 at 7:58 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mavulous (mav ulous) says...
Hopefully, what this all means is that scientists must now rebuild the models with data that they can all agree on in order to reconstruct the case for climate change based on universally rigorous and peer reviewed inputs.
November 30, 2009 at 8:50 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
artmann (Art Mann) says...
Oops th Data was dumped not lost, by the same Hadley scientists. Will any loon who still believes this Global Warming fraud please raise their hand!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news...
November 30, 2009 at 9:02 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mavulous (mav ulous) says...
Dumped, lost, unavailable, whatever...
The University's position is that 95% of the data has always been available:
https://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/...
November 30, 2009 at 9:43 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
artmann (Art Mann) says...
Mav- Your post is from the CRU; the same folks that perpetrated this fraud!!!
Uh, call me a little skeptical at anything they might print in trying to cover their collective backsides. We need to post what the scientific community is saying, not what these potential criminals say.
A great comment here in this article from scientist ehmoran if you want to use the find function.
"These same scientists threatened my job with the US Geological Survey when trying to publish a study showing with higher confidence that global temperature changes were natural and caused solely by Earth's physical processes. Additionally, these same scientists would not discuss or refute the science and facts presented. Instead, they took two days to personally insult and attack me."
http://www.businessinsider.com/climat...
November 30, 2009 at 12:10 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mavulous (mav ulous) says...
Art, it's extremely difficult to prove intent. What has been lacking for a very long time is full disclosure. Now the original data was lost, dumped, obfuscated, (insert verb of your choice), a very long time ago and well before Jones became director of the CRU at UEA. Jones may still be culpable in that he continued to operate and build upon a set of data assumptions that could not be reproduced to verify the foundation for his oft quoted temperature models. Why he did that in his capacity as a highly respected scientist is beyond me and he has left his reputation in the scientific community wide open to criticism as a result.
November 30, 2009 at 1:29 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mavulous (mav ulous) says...
Would you trust this man?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment...
November 30, 2009 at 2:15 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
artmann (Art Mann) says...
Ummmm Why? Could it be the millions of dollars in Govt. grants and "others", with a huge financial investment in the bogus Green industry. I am convinced we will have this, like Obamacare, rammed down our throats. I read the comments on these articles and that seems to be the concensus of experts. Nothing, not even a fraud placed directly under our noses, can stop this power play of a few elite rich who have way too much invested.
November 30, 2009 at 2:18 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
abc99354 (Jim Talbott) says...
Why is it we only hear from the "Tin-Foil Hat Crowd" on this sort of issue?
December 1, 2009 at 5:34 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
artmann (Art Mann) says...
As if on cue here is what I said about the MONEY.
"Consider the case of Phil Jones, the director of the CRU and the man at the heart of climategate. According to one of the documents hacked from his center, between 2000 and 2006 Mr. Jones was the recipient (or co-recipient) of some $19 million worth of research grants, a sixfold increase over what he'd been awarded in the 1990s."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001...
And Jim why don't you show us how bright you are and actually do something besides name calling. You really helped your cause.
December 1, 2009 at 9:15 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mavulous (mav ulous) says...
That's an excellent article, Art. Indeed, it has always been about following the money trail. Ring the bell and your pet scientist will always salivate. Sorry, Pavlov, but I couldn't resist. As for the "Tin-Foil Hat Crowd", if that's the crowd that knows the truth, then I shall be proud to join them.
December 1, 2009 at 10:22 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mavulous (mav ulous) says...
>Director of East Anglia's CRU Scientist Phil Jones to temporarily step down... 'pending investigation into allegations that he overstated case for man-made climate change.'<
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
December 2, 2009 at 9:06 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )