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National Review Online contributing editor Jim Manzi, in an April 21 post, uses Mark Levin’s book Liberty and Tyranny as an example of conservative writers (quoting Ross Douthat) “offering bromides instead of substance, and … pandering instead of grappling with real policy questions.” I think he’s wide of the mark.

Although I believe the science clearly supports “skeptics” in the global warming debate, conservatives and libertarians can believe in alarmist global warming claims without giving up their conservative and libertarian credentials, just as liberals can be “skeptics” without giving up their liberal credentials. The fact that a conservative might believe we are facing a global warming crisis should not necessarily come as a surprise, but the specific arguments made by Manzi are disingenuous.

The global warming debate should be decided on the basis of science and economics rather than politics. If there were plausible arguments for each side of the scientific issue, and if people based their opinions on science rather than political convenience, one would expect each side of the debate to have adherents from all ideological persuasions.

This has proven true of global warming “skeptics.” As the organizer of four international conferences on climate change, I have had the pleasure of meeting scientists and concerned citizens from a wide range of ideological backgrounds who share my own view that humans are not creating a global warming crisis. Two of the most passionate skeptics at these conferences have been Richard Courtney, a socialist from the United Kingdom who is an expert reviewer for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and Lawrence Solomon, an author and lifelong environmental activist from Canada.

I have also had the pleasure of meeting and discussing global warming with legislators – both Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal – who also believe humans are not causing a global warming crisis.

In contrast to the diversity of thought among skeptics, true believers in global warming alarmism tend to be overwhelmingly liberal. This isn’t because conservatives and libertarians are stupid or refuse to think seriously about the issue. It’s because if manmade global warming were indeed a crisis, its cause would be capitalism and its solution would be an all-powerful central government. Liberals happily skip over all the missing links in the argument – the dubious science, whether government action would stop or delay climate change, and whether it would be worth the expense – and jump to this conclusion.

Conservatives and libertarians, having seen this skit before, are more likely to pause and demand evidence and explanations. They quickly find evidence that the “attribution” issue is still unresolved, that reducing emissions is unlikely to have any effect on climate, and that cap and trade programs are vehicles for massive fraud. Only a few conservatives “don’t get it,” which brings us back to Mr. Manzi.

At first, Manzi says his chief complaint about Liberty and Tyranny is:

“Levin does not attempt to answer this question [whether carbon dioxide affects temperature levels] by making a fundamental argument that proceeds from evidence available for common inspection through a defined line of logic to a scientific view. Instead, he argues from authority by citing experts who believe that the answer to this question is pretty much no. Who are they? An associate professor of astrophysics, a geologist, and an astronaut.”

This is unfair to Levin and, by extension, to others in the global warming debate who sometimes choose to write about the issue without delving into the science. The science is there for anyone who wants to read it, from Anthony Watts’ excellent Web site at http://www.wattsupwiththat.com to the 880-page Climate Change Reconsidered, a chapter-by-chapter rebuttal of the latest IPCC reports with more than 4,000 footnotes. Not every book by a conservative or libertarian that comments on global warming needs to provide a summary of this scientific research. And it’s pretty fair to guess that if Levin had done so, Manzi would have nit-picked him apart anyway.

Manzi doesn’t bother to identify who the professor, geologist, and astronaut who Levin cites are, so allow me. The associate professor of astrophysics is Nir Shaviv, one of the most accomplished solar physicists in the world. He has already been published many times in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, and has forever made his mark in the world of solar physics by redefining landmark principles of stellar gravitation and radiation known as Eddington luminosity. Shaviv used to believe carbon dioxide was the primary driver of global warming, but in recent years has published groundbreaking research showing solar activity and cosmic rays may be more important factors.

Dudley J. Hughes, the geologist, is a recipient of the Texas A&M Distinguished Alumni Award, which according to Texas A&M University, “is the highest honor bestowed upon a former student of Texas A&M University.” He is a recipient of the Texas A&M Geosciences and Earth Resources Distinguished Achievement Award. He is a recognized expert regarding earth sciences and carbon dioxide, and authored the 1998 book, A Geologic Reinterpretation of the Earth’s Atmospheric History, Inferring a Major Role by CO2.

Phil Chapman, the astronaut, is a scientist with a degree in physics and a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has worked as a science researcher in Antarctica, a staff physicist at MIT, and a propulsion scientist at the Avco Everett Research Laboratory. He worked closely with the inventor of the solar power satellite, and contributed to NASA research on power in space. Oh, and amidst all these scientific accomplishments, he also found time to be an astronaut.

Manzi is either ignorant of the scientific accomplishments of these three scientists, or sought to score a cheap point by taking advantage of uninformed readers.

Manzi then criticizes Levin for citing the Oregon Petition, signed by more than 31,000 scientists. He says its phrasing is “dodgy,” but it’s hard to imagine a more explicit denunciation of global warming alarmism than the petition, whose signers say they “reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposal” and state “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” I’ll return to the “dodgy” claim in a moment.

Manzi says “more than 20,000 of these ‘scientists’ lack PhDs in any field.” This is an odd if not misleading way to admit that more than 9,000 signatories have PhDs, and another 7,000 have Masters in Science degrees. That is more than 16,000 scientists with advanced degrees in science. The remainder are mere “scientists” with standard degrees in science. This seems quite impressive to me.

Manzi claims “there was very little quality control” exercised during the collection of signatures for the petition, and “at least one person signed it as Spice Girl Geri Halliwell.” A call or email to Arthur Robinson and his colleagues would have laid this myth to rest, as well as shown some gratitude to the volunteers who invested thousands of hours in the Petition Project. They have long insisted and documented the fact that they vigorously follow up on and verify the identity and credentials of all signatories.

Robinson is quick to admit that global warming alarmists sometimes submit forged signatures in an attempt to discredit the Petition. This is similar to the documented efforts of Tea Party opponents to slip moles into Tea Party rallies with misspelled signs and racist rhetoric in an effort to discredit the Tea Party. On one occasion global warming activists were briefly successful in submitting a petition “signed” by a Geri Halliwell before it was discovered and removed.

Manzi claims “Scientific American did the hard work of actually contacting a sample of individual signatories, and estimated that there are about 200 climate scientists who agree with the statement in the petition among the signatories.” What actually happened is a global warming advocate with Scientific American claimed to have tried to contact 30 of the 1,400 signatories holding a PhD directly related to climate science, but was successful in contacting barely half of them. Of course, he could have contacted the Oregon Petition staff, who could have given him contact information for the sample of names he was pursuing. Instead, he made the unsupportable determination that anybody he could not personally hunt down without the assistance of Oregon Petition staff was not a credible signer.

The Scientific American writer asked the few signers he reached if they would “sign the Petition today” with yet-to-be-updated information. Roughly one-third of the scientists, predictably, said they would not sign the petition “today” with data that had yet to be updated. The Scientific American hack deceitfully claimed this meant the scientist now disagreed with the core message of the Petition.

Manzi musters a final attack on Levin with his own appeal to authority. He lists several scientific organizations that allegedly “didn’t reject the notion of man-made global warming.” This evidence of professional opinion, Manzi says, means skeptics must believe in some kind of “conspiracy” to conceal the true science of climate change, which he dismisses as “wingnuttery.”

But how meaningful are the resolutions and statements that Manzi cites? Such statements invariably express the opinions of members of small and politically motivated committees or individual leaders of organizations rather than the views of the organizations’ members. They are often thinly veiled calls for more government funding. Their authors are often transparent in their motivation to use their positions in scientific organizations for political ends.

For example, Manzi lists the American Chemical Society as an organization that “didn’t reject the notion of man-made global warming,” but the ACS position was reached with little or no input from the ACS scientists themselves. The ACS membership is currently in open revolt regarding the ACS position statement, but Manzi forgot to mention that.

It is interesting, moreover, how Manzi states his proposition. By saying these organizations “don’t reject the notion of man-made global warming,” he glosses over the very ambiguity he accuses skeptics of indulging in when they say “global warming is not a crisis.” Both statements are broad enough to embrace the idea that there is a small human influence on climate but that it is not enough to merit efforts to reduce human greenhouse gas emissions. By Manzi’s own logic and words, the scientific organizations he cites do not contradict the position of most skeptics.

Here’s another way to think about it. Attempting to discredit skeptics by producing a list of organizations that “didn’t reject the notion of man-made global warming” is like attempting to discredit the notion of organized crime by producing a list of experts who don’t believe the nation is beset by a La Cosa Nostra crisis.

In conclusion, Levin does a fine job conveying the real doubts in the scientific community about the causes, extent, and consequences of climate change. It’s because of his efforts and those of many other conservatives and libertarians that barely a third of the American public still believes in man-made global warming.