I have to admit I was skeptical myself of Gregg Easterbrook’s self-proclaimed “long record of opposing alarmism” regarding global warming. To be sure, a bit of my own research showed that Mr. Easterbrook has long opposed alarmism, just not of the global warming variety.

In this June 2003 Wired magazine article, “We’re All Gonna Die!,” Easterbrook debunks a number of apocalyptic myths, including the dangers of germ warfare, runaway nanobots, supervolcanoes, and shifting magnetic poles. He does include “Sudden climate change!” (#9) as a myth, but in this Easterbrook doesn’t disagree with the many scientists supporting the notion of manmade climate change. Such scientists were among the first to decry the alarmism of The Day After Tomorrow and the attribution of increase in strength and quantity of hurricanes to global warming, for example.

To the question, “Could an abrupt climate change really happen?,” the Pew Center on Global Climate Change answers, “Scientists have just begun to study the possibility of an abrupt climate change. But when scientists talk about abrupt climate change, they mean climate change that occurs over decades, rather than centuries. It’s too soon to know for certain whether abrupt climate change could occur, but if it does, it’s not expected to happen within the next several decades.”

In this article Easterbrook is really addressing the idea that a sudden climate flip “could happen as rapidly as over the course of a few years.” He himself acknowledges that “it’s reasonable to expect that global temperatures will get warmer, owing at least in part to artificial greenhouse gases.” That doesn’t sound like a skeptic to me, and that’s from a piece written almost three years ago.

If Easterbrook was a skeptic regarding climate change on a relatively lengthy time scale, then he was a rather private one on this point. The Commons Blog has picked up and expanded on this skepticism regarding Easterbrook’s supposedly “long record.”