In the 2007 “Beware of Global Warming Extremists” commentary, author Peter B. cherry picked sources to refute Global Warming by referring to "The Great Global Warming Swindle" which purportedly includes naysayers the likes of MIT scientist Richard Lintzen , NASA, The International Artic Research Center and other organizations and institutions.

Ironically Peter just passed on more disinformation that appeals to those who want to refute climate change/global warming.

Why doesn’t Peter make some of the necessary updates and corrections? Peter evidently hasn’t and won’t. So, we will.

FAIR wrote in 2004 before Peter's commentary, “Despite the consistent assertions of the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that human activities have had a "discernible" influence on the global climate and that global warming is a serious problem that must be addressed immediately, "he said/she said" reporting has allowed a small group of global warming skeptics to have their views greatly amplified."
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1978

Peter amplifies the skeptics by referring to the film made by Martin Durkin, “The Great Global Warming Swindle, “saying it refutes the current disinformation about Global Warming.

Peter said the film “features expert after expert in the fields of climatology, oceanography, biogeography, meteorology,... from reputable institutions,” et al.

The problem is Peter neglected to use verified sources to corroborate the film's assertions. According to SourceWatch the movie Peter referred to is more propaganda than science. It’s documented that the director, Martin Durkin mislead interviewees and distorted and edited their contributions:

1. "The Great Global Warming Swindle" film's writer and director, Martin Durkin, believes that "global warming is a hoax foisted upon an unsuspecting public by conspiratorial environmentalists," reported The Age in June 2007. Durkin previously made the anti-environmental film "Against Nature," which Britain's Channel 4 had to issue a public apology for, "because it misled interviewees and distorted the editing of their contributions."

"Oceanographer Carl Wunsch "complained he had been misled" with regard to "The Great Global Warming Swindle." He claimed that his interview "had been edited to look as though he was dismissing human-caused climate change." [2]

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_Great_Global_Warming_Swin...

2. NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia Center for Climate Systems Research, 2800 Broadway, New York, New York 10025, USA et al..

Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change
Cynthia Rosenzweig1, David Karoly2, Marta Vicarelli1, Peter Neofotis1, Qigang Wu3, Gino Casassa4, Annette Menzel5, Terry L. Root6, Nicole Estrella5, Bernard Seguin7, Piotr Tryjanowski8, Chunzhen Liu9, Samuel Rawlins10 & Anton Imeson11
1.NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia Center for Climate Systems Research, 2800 Broadway, New York, New York 10025, USA
2.School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia
3.School of Meteorology, University of Oklahoma, 100 East Boyd Street, Norman, Oklahoma 73019, USA
4.Centro de Estudios Científicos, Avenida Arturo Prat 514, Casilla 1469, Valdivia, Chile
5.Center of Life and Food Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Am Hochanger 13, 85 354 Freising, Germany
6.Stanford University, Center for Environmental Science and Policy, Stanford, California 94305, USA
7.INRA Unité Agroclim, Site Agroparc, domaine Saint-Paul, F-84914 Avignon Cedex 9, France
8.Department of Behavioural Ecology, Institute of Environmental Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Umultowska 89, PL-61–614 Poznan, Poland
9.China Water Information Center, Lane 2 Baiguang Road, Beijing 100761, China
10.Caribbean Epidemiology Center, 16–18 Jamaica Boulevard, Federation ParkPO Box 164, Port of Spain, Trinadad and Tobago
11.3D-Environmental Change, Curtiuslaan 14, 1851 AM, Heiloo, Netherlands

Here's the Abstract on Nature.com:
"Significant changes in physical and biological systems are occurring on all continents and in most oceans, with a concentration of available data in Europe and North America. Most of these changes are in the direction expected with warming temperature. Here we show that these changes in natural systems since at least 1970 are occurring in regions of observed temperature increases, and that these temperature increases at continental scales cannot be explained by natural climate variations alone. Given the conclusions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely to be due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations, and furthermore that it is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica, we conclude that anthropogenic climate change is having a significant impact on physical and biological systems globally and in some continents."
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7193/full/nature06937.html

3. MIT- Richard Lintzen is a contrarian according to colleagues and disputes the accepted IPCC view. He also has significant financial ties to Exxon Mobile.

Richard Lintzen linked to Exxon Mobile-
https://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0710c&L=ecolog-l&P=65
ExxonMobil links to Dr Richard Lindzen.
"Climate change deniers are having a ball lately. Dr Richard Lindzen does another opinion piece claiming that dissenting scientists are intimidated into silence: Climate of Fear: Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence."

"So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by
fear."

"So why is Dr Richard Lindzen, a professor of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT, being so brave and noble in his dissent? It turns out he has a dossier on ExxonSecrets.org which documents foundations he works for that receive funding from ExxonMobil. Ten years ago the guy was getting paid $2,500 a day to consult to the oil and coal industry. They got what they paid for, it is reported that he is a good climate scientist: Spinwatch: The global warming sceptics: Climate Change."

http://globalwarmingwatch.blogspot.com/2006/04/exxonmobil-links-to-dr-ri...

4. The International Arctic Research Centre-
Peter wrote, “No one is disputing that our climate is changing. But the theory that carbon dioxide emissions have any discernable effect on climate has always lacked solid scientific evidence. Yes, humans have an effect on climate, but it’s infinitesimally tiny compared with the vast natural forces which are constantly pushing global temperatures up and down.”

First of all Peter's comments are not varified with sources. Are these comments/opinions/ statements fact? We don’t know because they are unsourced. According to information on the IARC, there is an increase in carbon dioxide in the lower atmosphere. And it’s helping to create a cloud formation known as a “noctilucent” cloud. Noctilucent clouds are suspected of being a product of global warming caused by warming near the ground.

“High-altitude wisps known as noctilucent, or night-shining, clouds, like these over Alaska last June, are visible during summer months. Although they float 50 miles above the surface, noctilucent clouds seem to be affected by changing conditions near the ground. Global warming near the surface has cooled the upper atmosphere, and noctilucent clouds have become brighter, more numerous and more widespread. Once they could be seen only in the higher latitudes like Britain and Scandanavia. Now they can be seen as far south as Colorado and Virginia.”

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/04/23/science/20070424_CLOUDS_SLID...

"It is clear that these clouds are changing, a sign that a part of our atmosphere is changing and we do not understand how, why or what it means," stated AIM principal investigator James Russell III of Hampton University, Hampton, Va. "These observations suggest a connection with global change in the lower atmosphere and could represent an early warning that our Earth environment is being changed."

www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/aim/multimedia/first_view.html

“The clouds could serve as an indicator of climate change because an increase in carbon dioxide, which causes heating in the lower atmosphere, causes cooling in the upper atmosphere. Collins said the noctilucent clouds are a relatively new phenomenon. History indicates that humans first recorded their presence in the 19th century, he said. Satellite and ground-based data has been limited, he said, but it appears that the clouds have become more prevalent over time. A new satellite, Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere, or AIM, was launched in April 2007 to observe clouds and their environment in the mesopause, Collins said scientists are looking forward to having more reliable data, which could contribute to a broader understanding of the upper atmosphere, noctilucent clouds and how both fit into the climate system. “
Read on there’s more”
http://www.uaf.edu/news/a_news/20070817155816.html

NASA wrote, “One reason for the recent spread of noctilucent clouds might be global warming. "Extreme cold is required to form ice in a dry environment like the mesosphere," says Thomas. Ironically, global warming helps. While greenhouse gases warm Earth's surface, they actually lower temperatures in the high atmosphere. Thomas notes that noctilucent clouds were first spotted during the Industrial Revolution--a time of rising greenhouse gas production.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/19feb_nlc.htm

The Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) mission will be the first satellite dedicated to studying this enigmatic phenomenon. Due to launch in late 2006, it should reveal whether the clouds are caused by global warming, as many scientists believe.
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn9228-mysterious-glowing-clouds-t...

Glowing clouds whose proliferation may be linked to climate change.

NASA launched the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite on 25 April on a mission to investigate "night-shining" or noctilucent clouds. These clouds float 80 kilometres above the ground and are made of tiny ice crystals. Because they are so high up, the Sun still reaches them and makes them glow after sunset and before sunrise, when the ground is in darkness.

The clouds have been observed since the 1800s, but in recent years they have brightened and grown more numerous. They were first observed above Earth's polar regions, but have now spread to latitudes as low as 40°. Some scientists suspect their proliferation is related to increasing greenhouse gases, which can actually cause the upper reaches of the atmosphere to cool.

Now, the AIM satellite has inaugurated a new era in noctilucent cloud research, obtaining its first views of these ghostly structures.

The satellite spotted its first noctilucent clouds on 25 May. Since then, the clouds have become more numerous and have spread to lower latitudes (see map at right of the clouds' distribution on 11 June).

Low temperatures AIM has observed the pattern of noctilucent clouds around the north pole rotating over time. Russell suspects this may be due to areas of especially low temperature moving around rather than the clouds themselves moving. Temperatures where the clouds form hover at about -140° C.

Some researchers suspect the increase in the clouds seen in recent years could be due to human activity. Carbon dioxide absorbs energy in the upper atmosphere as well as radiation leaving the Earth's surface and then reradiates it very efficiently.

About half of that energy returns to the Earth's surface, causing warming. But because the carbon dioxide helps radiate energy away from the upper atmosphere, there is a net cooling there.

Human activities"Temperature certainly is one plausible explanation for why we're seeing more of the clouds and at lower latitudes and brighter," AIM chief scientist James Russell III of Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia, US, told New Scientist.

He also points out that the amount of water vapour in the upper atmosphere has increased in the past 50 years, perhaps as a result of increased methane in the atmosphere from farming and other human activities. Methane can react with oxygen in the atmosphere to create water molecules."

http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=78908&keybol...

Peter also mentioned:

Pasteur Institute in Paris
Danish National Space Center
Universities of Winnipeg, Ottawa, London, Jerusalem, Alabama and Virginia.

There are no available citations for the remaining three sources that we could find as of today 7-21-08: