David Bellamy, climate change, junk science

My landlord told me about this one today. George Monbiot, Guardian columnist, one of my favourite pundits, did a good bit of detective work:

"For the past three weeks, a set of figures has been working a hole in my mind. On April 16th, New Scientist published a letter from the famous botanist David Bellamy. Many of the world's glaciers, he claimed, 'are not shrinking but in fact are growing. ... 555 of all the 625 glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich, Switzerland, have been growing since 1980.' His letter was instantly taken up by climate change deniers. And it began to worry me. What if Bellamy was right?

"He is a scientist, formerly a senior lecturer at the University of Durham. He knows, in other words, that you cannot credibly cite data unless it is well-sourced. Could it be that one of the main lines of evidence of the impacts of global warming – the retreat of the world’s glaciers – was wrong?

"The question could scarcely be more important. If man-made climate change is happening, as the great majority of the world’s climatologists claim, it could destroy the conditions which allow human beings to remain on the planet. The effort to cut greenhouse gases must come before everything else. This won’t happen unless we can be confident that the science is right. Because Bellamy is president of the Conservation Foundation, the Wildlife Trusts, Plantlife International and the British Naturalists’ Association, his statements carry a great deal of weight. When, for example, I challenged the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders over climate change, its spokesman cited Bellamy’s position as a reason for remaining sceptical.

"So last week I telephoned the World Glacier Monitoring Service and read out Bellamy’s letter. I don’t think the response would have been published in Nature, but it had the scientific virtue of clarity. 'This is complete bullshit.' A few hours later, they sent me an email.

"'Despite his scientific reputation, he makes all the mistakes that are possible'. He had cited data which was simply false, failed to provide references, completely misunderstood the scientific context and neglected current scientific literature. The latest studies show unequivocally that most of the world’s glaciers are retreating ..."
Read on at monbiot.com