Minnesota State Senator Tom Neuville

Michael Asher, of the Daily Tech blog, reported a survey today which revealed that less than one half of all scientists who have written peer reviewed scientific articles about Global Warming between 2004 and  February,2007 believe that global warming is caused by humans.
Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers “implicit” endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category  (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis.  This is no “consensus.”

The article is Linked Here, and is entitled, ” Comprehensive survey of published climate research reveals changing viewpoints“. It’s an interesting read.

The Wall Street Journal just came out with an editorial commenting on the significance of the recent revisions of NASA surface temperature measurements.

The Journal’s article raises some good points, and is Linked here .

I have no doubt that if the mistake in temperature readings went the other way, the main stream media would be trumpeting the story. Other than the internet blogs, there hasn’t been too much written about the fact that, with the new revisions, it is no longer accurate to say that six of the ten warmest years on record occurred since 1990. Actually, that happened in the 1930’s and 1940’s, well before CO2 from industrial growth became an issue.

Governor Tim Pawlenty sent a letter to Senate majority leader Larry Pogemiller and Speaker Margaret Anderson-Kelliher today outlining the conditions for a special legislative session.
The Governor is concerned about calling a special session before there is agreement on the entire agenda. If the Governor called a Special legislative session without such an agreement, the legislature could do anything it wished, and could stay in session for as long as it wished. This creates a high probability that the special session would become a vehicle for partisan politics.

Most Minnesota citizens are willing to see the legislature called back to deal with the I-35 Bridge collapse and flooding in Southeastern Minnesota. But they don’t want to see legislators engaged in partisan debate on issues for which there is no consensus.

A copy of the Governor’s letter to Legislative Leaders can be viewed at the link below. The Governor is right to insist upon a stipulated agenda before he calls a special session of the legislature.

PawlentyAug28th-1.pdf

Just because it’s summer doesn’t mean that I get to relax as a legislator. Most legislators, including me, have other jobs. After the legislative session, the transition back to our regular jobs is challenging because so much work was delayed from session months to June and July.
This summer has been particularly busy dealing with constituent services. Maybe the most significant is the water problem experienced by citizens in Webster, Mn. About 50 residents in Webster shared a common well. Several years ago, a now defunct Ag-Cooperative caused a petroleum spill which contaminated the Prairie du Chien water table which was the primary source of water in Webster. Officials recommended that new wells be drilled, and they were. Unfortunately, the new wells were worse than the old. The water was black, high in manganese, iron, cyanide, radium, and Hydrogen Sulfied. The water from the new wells stained hair and tubs and smelled like rotten eggs. Pretty bad stuff.

A new coop purchase the property that caused the problem in the first place, and agreed to participate in the cleanup with the assistance of the State Petro Fund. After spending lots of money, the water was still bad, and things were moving slowly.

Citizens contacted me for help. About two months ago we reassembled experts from the Minnesota Pollution control Agency and the Health Department. They answered questions from citizens in the old town hall in Webster and promised to find, and pay for, a solution.

This week we met again for the third time to discuss 3 possible solutions. The implementation will still take some time, depending on further water test results. But, at least the people of Webster have the attention of State Officials. The MPCA and Health Department Officials have to be commended for their work. They spent much time and some late nights to address the concerns of people from Webster. I was glad to do a little “pushing” on behalf of my constituents. Hopefully, the solutions will come quickly.

In addition, I had to hire a new Legislative Assistant. His name is Peter Wienicki. When you see him, he’ll make quite an impression since he is 6 ft.9 in. tall. My former L.A., Ruslan Bocancea left to begin law school and because his work visa ran out. Ruslan does have a school visa so was able to stay in America if he attended school full time. I’ve learned much about our immigration laws working with Ruslan. I enourage people to get to know Peter as he now begins to learn more about District 25. He is a Political Science major from Hamline University.

There have been the parades, the county fairs (see pictures with the Sibley County Princesses below)

But, the Big event of the summer was my daughter Anne’s wedding. The wedding was in Northfield on July 7, 2007 ( Yup, that’s 7-7-07). Here are just a few pictures of the Big Event:

Two weeks ago, I attended the Annual Meeting of the NCSL (National Conference of State Legislators) in Boston. This was a wonderful opportunity for me to meet other legislators from around the country to discuss criminal justice, public safety, health care and other issues. Marilynn came along and we even had time for sight seeing a few of the Historical places in Boston.

Last week, Marilynn and I took some time off to travel to the Boundary Water Canoe Area (BWCA) in Northern Mn. with friends Tim and Sandy Morisette.  The fishing was amazing. Marilynn won the fishing contest and provided plenty of “shore lunch” for everyone. Here are some pictures of our two trips.

Today, Robert Samuelson of Newsweek Magazine (see right) chastised his own magazine only one week after Newsweek printed a cover story designed to discredit global warming critics. The Samuelson Article, Linked Here, and entitled “Greenhouse Simplicities”, is highly unusual because of the strength of its criticism so soon after the Original article was published. The original article, entitled “The Truth About Denial”, by Sharon Begley, is Linked Here.

An excerpt from the Samuelson article says:

But the overriding reality seems almost un-American: We simply don’t have a solution for this problem. As we debate it, journalists should resist the temptation to portray global warming as a morality tale — as Newsweek did — in which anyone who questions its gravity or proposed solutions may be ridiculed as a fool, a crank or an industry stooge. Dissent is, or should be, the lifeblood of a free society.

I give much credit to Mr. Samuelson. He is right to call Newsweek’s Story a “highly contrived story”. We must continue to have an honest scientific debate about global warming in this country. It is the media’s duty to honestly report scientific facts in a manner which people can fairly understand, and does not cause unfounded alarm.

Earlier this month, another announcement was made regarding the measurement of temperatures in the U.S. which are often the basis for many claims made by advocates of man-induced global warming.

Well it turns out that the data may have been off, due to faulty algorithms (No pun intended) used to analyze the data.

Here is a Link to an article which explains the recent lowering of the official U.S. temperature data. A short excerpt from the article is pasted here:

McIntyre suspected that one of these adjustments had a bug, and had had this bug for years. Unfortunately, it was hard to prove. Why? Well, that highlights one of the great travesties of climate science. Government scientists using taxpayer money (underling added) to develop the GISS temperature data base at taxpayer expense refuse to publicly release their temperature adjustment algorithms or software (In much the same way Michael Mann refused to release the details for scrutiny of his methodology behind the hockey stick). Using the data, though, McIntyre made a compelling case that the GISS data base had systematic discontinuities that bore all the hallmarks of a software bug.