February 28, 2010

Al Gore would like you to lie back and accept what the government decides is good for you.

The other day I said:
I see the analogy between global warming and the weapons of mass destruction used to justify the Iraq war. Those who planned the war believed there were other good reasons to go to war with Iraq, but they made a decision to use weapons of mass destruction as the reason to go to war, because they thought people could understand this reason and unite behind the war effort. But then, when the WMD were not found, the war looked like a big mistake.

... [P]eople [who] support the policies that are supposed to deal with global warming [may have] other reasons they have for wanting those policies [but may] rely on the global warming prediction rather than those other reasons....
Now, here comes big Al Gore with a huge op-ed in the NYT that begins with a fat juicy piece of evidence that I was right:
It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.

Of course, we would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil. And we would still trail China in the race to develop smart grids, fast trains, solar power, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy — the most important sources of new jobs in the 21st century.
He wants the policies that are sold under the name "global warming" whether the prediction of global warming is right or wrong.
[T]he crisis is still growing because we are continuing to dump 90 million tons of global-warming pollution every 24 hours into the atmosphere — as if it were an open sewer....
The "pollution" is carbon dioxide, which is what flows out of our noses and mouths when we exhale. Do you think of your breathing passages as spewing shit? There's nothing dirty or toxic about carbon dioxide. The problem has only to do with the greenhouse effect. But isn't it so much more effective — i.e., scarier — to make people think we're still talking about filth?

What do you make of these meanderings about capitalism and socialism?
The decisive victory of democratic capitalism over communism in the 1990s led to a period of philosophical dominance for market economics worldwide and the illusion of a unipolar world. It also led, in the United States, to a hubristic “bubble” of market fundamentalism that encouraged opponents of regulatory constraints to mount an aggressive effort to shift the internal boundary between the democracy sphere and the market sphere. 
When someone writes like that, I get suspicious. I want to rewrite it in plain English: After the fall of communism, people placed more trust in the market and were wary of government-dictated solutions.
Over time, markets would most efficiently solve most problems, they argued. Laws and regulations interfering with the operations of the market carried a faint odor of the discredited statist adversary we had just defeated.
Yeah, that's what was already in my translation of your previous windbaggage. Maybe this piece is just padded. Maybe it's a devious plot to bore us into submission.
This period of market triumphalism coincided with confirmation by scientists that earlier fears about global warming had been grossly understated. 
Oh? Just a coincidence? Al Gore has unwittingly tweaked my suspicion that the scientists are politicos.

Not only did the fall of communism make the work of the government regulator much more difficult, according to Al, the mainstream media also became less supportive:
Simultaneously, changes in America’s political system — including the replacement of newspapers and magazines by television as the dominant medium of communication — conferred powerful advantages on wealthy advocates of unrestrained markets and weakened advocates of legal and regulatory reforms. Some news media organizations now present showmen masquerading as political thinkers who package hatred and divisiveness as entertainment. 
Quick: Name a showman masquerading as political thinker. You said "Al Gore," right?

And what is this "hatred and divisiveness"? It's just criticism and debate. Al Gore is distressed that the media don't propagandize for government regulation as they did back in the good old days of communism.
And as in times past, that has proved to be a potent drug in the veins of the body politic. Their most consistent theme is to label as “socialist” any proposal to reform exploitive behavior in the marketplace.
As in what "times past"? Is the lively public debate of today somehow akin to the racial bigotry that stalled civil rights legislation? Because worrying about socialism isn't expressed as hatred. Really, Gore seems to expect people to lie back and accept whatever the government decides is good for us.
From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption. 
What?! I knew this was religion! We're supposed to believe. And please don't use "rule of law" as a synonym for government regulation.
Later this week, Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman are expected to present for consideration similar cap-and-trade legislation.
And we should just lie back and take it.

I search in vain for the part of the article where Al Gore notes his personal financial interest in this regulation. So, supplemental reading: "Gore’s Dual Role: Advocate and Investor."
Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming skeptics, say Mr. Gore is poised to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire,” profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in.

Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, asserted at a hearing this year that Mr. Gore stood to benefit personally from the energy and climate policies he was urging Congress to adopt.

Mr. Gore says that he is simply putting his money where his mouth is.
The mouth, is, as noted, a sewer.
“Do you think there is something wrong with being active in business in this country?” Mr. Gore said. “I am proud of it. I am proud of it.”
So the market is great... when it's making you a billionaire.

ADDED: In the comments Paul draws my attention to the NYT's post-script identifying the author, which includes: "As a businessman, he is an investor in alternative energy companies."

207 comments:

1 – 200 of 207   Newer›   Newest»
Randy said...

Al Gore's career is full of "Shoot first. Ask questions later" moments.

Fred4Pres said...

The day is rapidly approaching where everything Al Gore told us will be shown to be nonsense. He will go to the grave saying he was right.

He was ruined by losing the 2000 election.

save_the_rustbelt said...

Gore is right about China.

U.S. corporations are primarily focused on developing new and creative executive compensation programs (a few exceptions, Intel comes to mind)that enrich executives even when they blow up the economy.

Otherwise, Gore is a gas bag.

AllenS said...

Everything he says is utter rubbish, yet he continues to get richer. Go figure.

Unknown said...

Free market is bad when others get rich but great when you get rich. Envy is ugly.

MaggotAtBroad&Wall said...

That schtick about "market fundamentalism" is a favorite meme of far left kook George Soros. In fact, I would bet he's the one who coined the phrase.

When the White House released the names of visitors during the first 6 months or so of the Obama administration, Soros had been a visitor to the White House on 4 different occasions. Obama is being bombarded with Goracle like thinking from all sides.

Omaha1 said...

Prof. Althouse this post is brilliant. It is truly weird that the global warming mongers want us to all believe that CO2 is a pollutant. I'll bet that there are a lot of college-age people who don't even know that we breathe out CO2 and that it is beneficial to plants.

The lack of publicity on Al Gore's financial interest in CO2 mitigation is shameful and disgusting. It does indeed seem that he aspires to be the high priest of a new environmental religion, acquiring riches and political power as the early popes did prior to the Christian reformation.

kentuckyliz said...

Gore wasn't ruined by losing the 2000 election - as compared to how he is being ruined by Climategate exploding. (Although you wouldn't know it by following just American MSM.) He had to run this nag piece to try and rescue his financial stake. Greedy warm-monger.

Anonymous said...

As with everything liberals due, the means is just to get the ends.

Al Gore can't come out and tell his audience that we should stop sending our billions in gas money to these Muslims who are using it to murder us.

The liberals would string him up.

So, he couches it in terms his dumb ass followers will accept: We need to save the planet ... please stop driving your car.

Christy said...

Putting his money where his mouth is, huh? Where did his money come from? Al Gore, Sr. was not a wealthy man, but two generations of serving in the Senate have made the family wealthy. Anyone else have a problem with this?

The Railroad Robber Barons put their money where their mouths were, and other peoples money raised using questionable ethics. They also didn't exactly use honest business practices. Then again, they built a nation transforming infrastructure.

Gore may be creating a nation transforming structure, but a destructive one.

bagoh20 said...

The idea that we have been deregulating ourselves is ridiculous. I suspect we have added on the order of 300,000 new laws per decade. My state alone (CA) passes 1000- 1200 new ones every year. Regulating everything from my dogs nuts to when I can use my phone. People like Gore will never be satisfied with their level of control of others (not themselves). The danger of these people and their ideas is so glaring, the egomania, the insatiability, the neurosis, the greed.

wombat said...

Gore was dreamier as Ryan O'Neal. He's not so compelling as Dr. Julius Maybe.

Unknown said...

Great takedown!

Here's a short version of his piece: "Fox News! They're like drugs to these idiot Americans."

Anonymous said...

"...we would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil."

Let me translate for you liberals what Al Gore is saying here, because he's using a lot of "code words" to put this problem into a frame of reference you can agree with.

First, let's strap on our decoder rings and de-mystify Gore's code words:

National Security Risks = Terrorism
Global Oil Market = Arabs
Unstable Region = Wackjob Arabic Country
Economic Risks = Carbombs built with our money
Overseas = Foreign Crazies
That Oil = Arab Oil

So, if you replace the "code words" then ... here is the translation:

"...we would still need to deal with the terrorism, because of our growing dependence on wackjob arabs, dominated by dwindling reserves in the wackjob arabic countries of the world, and the risks of the carbombs they build the money we send to the crazy Muslims in return for their oil."

Al Gore is a racist. He just couches his racism in terms that the liberals who support him can agree with without being thrown off campus.

Jason (the commenter) said...

Maybe Al Gore has all sorts of other policies he wants enacted and is using global warming as a cover. Maybe Al Gore sees his global warming campaign crumbling and he's trying to bolster it with every idea he can think of. Either way, it seems like a rather confused mess to me.

Brent said...

Everyday I hear the woefuil complaints against Evangelical Christians of "they want to imp0ose their morality by law on the rest of us" and "they want to control women's bodies" and other such tripe.

At the same time, earth worshippers like Al Gore are hoping to gain unelected control over the lives of everyone on the planet - and THAT is the complete reason for their campaigns, and yet, until Ann's dissection of their public words, no one talks about their wanting to impose their morality on everyone else.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Paco Wové said...

"...what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption."

Sounds like one of those creepy, swivel-eyed bible thumpers.

Mikio said...

Quick question: what would it take to convince you AGW deniers/skeptics that you're wrong? Name the source you trust that could do this for you. I submit it's Limbaugh but why don't you tell me? And don't be a putz and say yourself interpreting the raw data because you can't gather the raw data yourself firsthand, someone has to provide it, so name them.

Here's the answer. Nothing and no one (short of Limbaugh) could convince you morons you're wrong making you the religious nutjobs on AGW, not us. I can tell you what would convince me I'm wrong: an overturning of the scientific consensus. Easy. Now let's see you do it.

KCFleming said...

Another stellar post, Althouse.

Soros is about to become even wealthier as he profits from the destruction of two currencies, all via his machinations, including installing a socialist as President of the US.

Gore is one of his minions, whose every word is a lie, including "and" and "the". His article is his "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" moment.

The reference to 'market fundamentalism' is indeed a religious one, proffering his religion of socialism-via-the-carbon-economy over against a nonexistent 'religion' of capitalism.

He is very aware that socialism is a faith, but unaware that capitalism is not.

Anonymous said...

"Al Gore is a racist. He just couches his racism in terms that the liberals who support him can agree with without being thrown off campus."

Which isn't to mean he's not right.

We need to stop sending our money to crazy Arab countries who use it to build carbombs and murder us.

Al Gore and I just disagree on the solution to that problem.

Al Gore's solution is for you to quit driving.

My solution is to go take their fucking oil from them at gunpoint if they don't stop building fucking carbombs with our money.

I like my solution better than Al Gore's solution.

KCFleming said...

"Quick question: what would it take to convince you AGW deniers/skeptics that you're wrong? "

Answer: Some data that haven't been complete bullshit.

Jason (the commenter) said...

Isn't Gore, and just about anything printed in the New York Times, an easy target? I'm not saying this wasn't a good blog post, just that some people make posts like this WAY too easy.

Anonymous said...

"Name the source you trust that could do this for you."

The only source I'd trust is: Al Gore.

The moment Al Gore sells his mansions and his houseboats and stops flying around on private jets to Davos is the moment I will believe there is a real problem.

But not until Al Gore ends his carbon pollution of the planet will anyone take you stupid fuckers seriously.

bagoh20 said...

Mikio, We just want proof, honest, non-agenda driven proof. It's called Science. You have the burden of proof not us.

You are admitting that you don't care about truth, because you are willing to accept the word of people who have been proven wrong, admitted to lying, and have clear financial and other motivations. You're that one who's got some explaining to do, not us.

Skeptics are automatically correct until proven otherwise.

george said...

Gore skewers his own argument several times. If you read the rest of the article he warns us that weather is not climate and then goes on to explain how the the recent record snowfalls are in fact climate and prove the globe is warming. In what Ann quotes he lambastes the market and then praises it when it happens to enrich him... even though what he is praising is not a market at all but a totally artificial regulatory construct that he wants created whereby he will be enriched.

In this way he is of a piece with Obama. Neither of them can think clearly enough to go from one paragraph to the next without contradicting themselves or proving themselves wrong in some fashion.

Jason said...

The libtards are quiet. They must be waiting Kos to forward them the Organizing for America/DNC talking points in rebuttal.

Speaking of libtards: Hey, Alpha Liberal! You asserted that Limbaugh called Chelsea "ugly" on his show! Where's that proof? Or will you post a retraction, along with the name of the sources who passed that lie on to you?

Why are you covering for lazy journos who make you look bad?

Jason (the commenter) said...

Mikio: Nothing and no one (short of Limbaugh) could convince you morons you're wrong making you the religious nutjobs on AGW, not us.

I am a scientist, I am wrong about things all the time. When someone else, claiming to be a scientist, wont release their data, wont tell me how they performed the tests to come up with their results, I do not believe them because they are not following the scientific method.

Perhaps there is man made global warming, wouldn't shock me, but there is no way anyone should believe the predictions or statements of people who are so afraid of other people looking at their data that they destroy it and lie about destroying it.

It is simple as that.

AllenS said...

Mikio, I don't know how old you are, but I'm 63. I can tell you that it's neither warmer, nor colder than when I was a kid. This year where I live we had a warm November, than a cold December. The temp goes up, the temp goes down. I'll bet it's been like that since the glaciers melted some 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. Obviously, it was global warming that melted the glaciers. It sure wasn't the presence of man that did it.

Jason (the commenter) said...

Jason: ...libtards...

What would Sarah Palin say if she heard you talking like that?

Jason (the commenter) said...

Mikio: ...consensus...

Consensus is how politicians decide issues. It has nothing to do with science. Science is making a falsifiable prediction and having your theory survive the results.

Anonymous said...

In the name of saving the planet, Gore pumps solutions and technologies in which he is fully financially invested.

If a bank won't give an electric car company a $529M loan, use your board member Al Gore to get the Obama Department of Energy to do it.

(From the wall street journal 9/25/2009: "A tiny car company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has just gotten a $529 million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000.")

What Gore does is called salesmanship, not public concern. He's as dirty and greedy as the worst of wall street.

Oh, and the name of the car - Fisker - couldn't be more apt. The tax payer is getting fisked.

DADvocate said...

Now, here comes big Al Gore with a huge op-ed in the NYT that begins with a fat juicy piece of evidence that I was right:

The use of "big Al Gore," "huge" and "fat juicy" in the same sentence made me chuckle.

...showmen masquerading as political thinkers who package hatred and divisiveness as entertainment.

I thought of Keith Olberman although he's minimally entertaining.

human redemption

Gore's not in it just for the money. He wants to be known as the second coming also.

KCFleming said...

Gore: "“Do you think there is something wrong with being active in business in this country?” Mr. Gore said. “I am proud of it. I am proud of it.

That's not the market, it's the crony capitalism of fascists. And he's proud of it.

Mikio said...

Pogo -
Answer: Some data that haven't been complete bullshit.

I just told you you have to name the source of that data. Fail.

NewHam -
The only source I'd trust is: Al Gore. The moment Al Gore sells his mansions and his houseboats and stops flying around on private jets to Davos is the moment I will believe there is a real problem.

That’s rhetorical bullshit. You would just call him a more desperate liar. Give a real answer. Fail.

bagoh20 -
Mikio, We just want proof, honest, non-agenda driven proof. It's called Science. You have the burden of proof not us.

I have the scientific consensus on my side. You don’t. Try again. Fail.

Jason (the commenter) -
I am a scientist… blah blah blah

All that and you still failed to answer by naming the source that could convince you you’re wrong and that AGW is real. Fail.

AllenS -
Mikio, I don't know how old you are, but I'm 63...

Also didn’t answer the question. Fail.

Anonymous said...

"Skeptics are automatically correct until proven otherwise."

And this is the scientific method that has served mankind the best, but this isn't about science ... it's about politics and power.

Look Mikio, we're going to not only listen to what they say, we're going to watch what they do to see if it matches what they say.

It doesn't.

Al Gore wants you to quit driving your car (but he won't quit driving his) because he sees a national security risk in giving these Muslims a bunch of our money that he believes they will use to destroy us.

That's why he's using words like "national security risk" and "unstable region."

He's telling you these people are crazy whackjobs who want to kill us with our own money ... he's just using words you either cannot decode or don't want to decode.

You're supporting a racist.

Al Gore is correct, of course. to want to stop giving these crazy Muslims the rope to hang us with, but his solution to the dilemma sucks.

His solution is for us to give up our way of life and submit to his "rule of law" so we can be "redeemed." And he can keep his private jet.

Fuck him and fuck that.

I have a better solution: Let's take their fucking oil if giving them all the riches in the world isn't good enough for them.

The whackjob Arabs need to be made to understand something: "We're taking the oil. And you're going to sell it to us and not the Chinese because that's what is in the long-term interests of the United States."

This is the position that I expect the leaders of my country to deliver to them

Our leaders must secure our long-term interests by whatever means is the most effective. If the best way to secure our long-term interests is to pay the Arabs for the oil ... well, we're fine by that. We'll make sure they live long, happy, rich lives.

But if the only way to secure our long-term interests is to fucking take it from them, we'll fucking do that too and the Arabs just need to understand that and get comfortable with it.

George Lucas explained it best in Return of the Jedi: We're here for Han Solo. As Luke Skywalker warned Jabba The Hut: "You can either profit by this, or be destroyed by it."

It's not about global warming, kid.

It's about the solution to the problem Gore is only too happy to explain to you: Terrorists using our own gas money to kill us.

wombat said...

I did NOT have sex with that climate science!

bagoh20 said...

Mikio, Skeptics can't fail. Only those making claims. I'm afraid only you are failing. You don't seem able to understand the concepts of proof, science or truth, so troll off. You just sound stupid.

Unknown said...

Keep in mind this is the guy who thought the man from Tennessee who won the Mexican War was President Knox. He and Soros thought they were going to make a killing in carbon offsets, and then the truth comes out.

If The Living Redwood is so concerned about the national security threat of dependence on foreign oil, why doesn't he get behind Sarah Palin's dictum, "Drill, Baby, drill"? (Oh, yeah, makes too much sense).

Those damned peasants can be so - inconvenient.

Ann said...

It also led, in the United States, to a hubristic “bubble” of market fundamentalism that encouraged opponents of regulatory constraints to mount an aggressive effort to shift the internal boundary between the democracy sphere and the market sphere.

Interesting that the proponents of market constraints (Dodd, Barry, etc.) were and are the ones who really want to "shift the internal boundary between the democracy sphere and the market sphere". Funny, but they were also the ones who looked the other way when all these unsafe business practices that so outrage them now were happening. As Everett Dirksen observed, "A million here, a million there...".

Omaha1 said...

Prof. Althouse this post is brilliant. It is truly weird that the global warming mongers want us to all believe that CO2 is a pollutant. I'll bet that there are a lot of college-age people who don't even know that we breathe out CO2 and that it is beneficial to plants.

Do they teach photosynthesis any more?

AllenS said...

Mikio, I don't know how old you are, but I'm 63. I can tell you that it's neither warmer, nor colder than when I was a kid.

Allen, I grew up just outside of Philadelphia and most of my Christmases were wet, not white. Some winters were so warm, you only needed a light jacket November - March. Mikio might want to check out what the founder of Greenpeace said when he left the organization in disgust, that it had been taken over by a pack of far left nuts.

Anonymous said...

Shorter Mikio:

Name any source you would trust.

Me: Source

Mikio: You can't use that source ... that's rhetorical.

Ad infinitum

Mikio, dude, you have no credibility because the scientific method does not allow you to create strawmen.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Al Gore wrote:
"Some news media organizations now present showmen masquerading as political thinkers who package hatred and divisiveness as entertainment."

That is not a very nice thing to say about Keith Olbermann, Katie Couric, Chris Mathews, Andrea Mitchell,etc.

Beta Rube said...

Maybe Al and his pals should get out of the way of nuclear energy production and domestic oil and gas exploration if they ae so concerned about reliance on crazy terrorist states.

The environmentalists have done more to force energy dependance on the US that all the Hummers combined.

Mikio said...

bagoh20 -
Mikio, Skeptics can't fail. Only those making claims

By that stupid logic, Holocaust deniers/skeptics can't fail. Face it, nothing and no one can convince them they're wrong either. Just like you guys on AGW.

Anonymous said...

Mikio, what part of "You're supporting a racist" don't you understand?

Or are you a racist also? You must be, since you're supporting the racist Arab-phobe Al Gore.

Jason (the commenter) said...

Mikio: All that and you still failed to answer by naming the source that could convince you you’re wrong and that AGW is real. Fail.

Just because an authority says something we don't believe it. Just because a bunch of authorities (consensus) say it we don't believe it. You think what other people tell you to think, we think for ourselves. If other people tell you our way of thinking is a failure, then so be it.

Obviously nothing we say can convince you to think differently, even put a doubt into your mind. You literally need Al Gore to express doubts about global warming in order for you to have them also. I find that strange, but I suppose it is a valid way of thinking. Kind of reminds me of Catholics and the Pope. So if we are religious thinkers we must be Protestants and you a Catholic.

Anonymous said...

Al Gore: "Simultaneously, changes in America’s political system ... conferred powerful advantages on wealthy advocates of unrestrained markets and weakened advocates of legal and regulatory reforms."

Notice how he's subtly mixing apples and oranges here? He's making a comparison between "unrestrained" (which often has a negative connotation) and "reforms" (which generally has a positive connotation). A more honest rewrite of this sentence would say:

Simultaneously, changes in America’s political system ... conferred powerful advantages on wealthy advocates of unrestrained markets and weakened advocates of legal and regulatory restrictions."

Now we have a difference of philosophies that can be discussed, instead of an ipso facto statement that my way is better because I use the word "reform" to describe it.


Ann: "So the market is great... when it's making you a billionaire."

Through political manipulation, of course. And many would argue that if it involves that much political manipulation, it's not really a market any more. It's more the mark of a Third World country, where fortunes are made through gaming the political system, instead of serving a consumer need better than the competition.

"...what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption."

You said it, Paco. Creepy as hell. The rule of law was instituted to prevent just such a thing, not to abet it. We don't need you redeeming us, Al Gore. You're not our god.

Turtledove said...

We are supposed to save the planet through taxation and payments to carbon exchanges?

Anonymous said...

God, I'm so sick of these racist-deniers coming on here to support the Arab-phobe Gaia killer Al Gore as his private jets pump our sky full of carbon atoms as if our world is his private sewer.

Can't we ban these morons?

Freder Frederson said...

I bet Althouse doesn't even realize that carbon dioxide is toxic. Hasn't she ever seen a submarine movie? It is not the lack of oxygen, but the build-up of carbon dioxide that is a deadly threat as those guys sit on the bottom of the ocean.

X said...

shorter Fat Bastard: Get in my belly!

Mikio said...

NewHam -
Shorter Mikio:
Name any source you would trust.
Me: Source
Mikio: You can't use that source ... that's rhetorical.
Ad infinitum
Mikio, dude, you have no credibility because the scientific method does not allow you to create strawmen.


Can you gather the massive amount of raw data necessary to reach a conclusion? No. That's why you can't use yourself as the source. You guys are so slow.

AllenS said...

Mikio, you got nothin.

Elliott A said...

He lied in the op-ed about the errors in the IPCC report. First, they claimed there was no material conclusion not based on a peer reviewed source. Whoops! He misrepresented the Antarctic ice situation since while the ice is falling into the sea at the edges, it is growing on the ice sheet. Also, IPCC fudged the actual rate of growth to make it appear insignificant statistically instead of significant which it was. Arctic ice melting has absolutely no effect on sea level since it is already floating and has no solid land underneath. Other errors were effects of burning of Amazon rainforests, food production of North Africa ( said to be reduced in a short time by 50%, but actually rising by 20%), temperature trends since 1998, the midieval warm period, actual CO2 measurements vs. ice core derived measurements, quality and reliability of temperature recording staions, failure of the tree ring thermometer since 1961, etc. This week, it became known that the seminal sea level rise paper was flawed and withdrawn.
If Mr. Gore really believed that we need to get off foreign oil, he would be pushing for further development of our own oil and gas resources, stomping around the Dakotas and Montana for coal to liquid plants, pushing nuclear, etc. The money we are sending overseas could then be used to develop the alternatives he and the rest of us wish for. Nice clean Hydrogen cars emit H2O which is a worse greenhouse gas than CO2. Fuel cells require a fuel source. Batteries are toxic and difficult to properly dispose of.
Most of the commenters here are smarter than Mr. Gore, yet he is the one with a billion dollars in the bank. Go figure.

Jason (the commenter) said...

Freder Frederson: I bet Althouse doesn't even realize that carbon dioxide is toxic.

I bet she didn't either. But you know what else is toxic? Water (see drowning), table salt (see an MSDS), flour (ditto). And get this, all the carbon dioxide released into the air by burning fossil fuels was originally in the air!

Skyler said...

I'm about as hawkish as one can get about the war in Iraq, but even I would have to concede that without the threat of Iraq being on the verge of possessing nuclear weapons, it would be very hard to justify the war there. (I like the idea of bracketing Iran to keep them threatened, but realistically, that is not sufficient).

Now that we know that global warming is a complete and utter fraud based on pure lies and a global conspiracy to undermine science and the world economy, there can be no justification for implementing a single one of those policies. Not that there was a good reason for it anyway.

Paul Kirchner said...

In fairness to the NY Times, it does mention in Gore's byline that he has a financial stake in the issue. Quote: "As a businessman, he is an investor in alternative energy companies."

So when Gore writes, "I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an illusion," is he saying he wishes he'd go broke? Personally. I always have mixed interests depending on I invest; for example, after pulling all my retirement funds out of the stock market last year, I find myself sort of hoping that the market doesn't start doing well despite the fact that that would mean my business would do better. I just hate to feel like an idiot. However, I'm sure Gore is above all that. Furthermore, if and when the climate crisis is generally understood to have been a delusion, Al Gore tells us he will be happy, despite the fact that that will make him one of history's great laughingstocks. Evidently, that won't bother him.

If I were a believer in AGW it would drive me crazy that Al Gore is the go-to guy on the subject. He constantly exaggerates, and his writing style is that of the rabid polemicist, oozing sarcasm, full of loaded expressions, and assuming bad faith on the part of anyone who disagrees with him.

I notice that Gore addresses the Climategate scandal in only the most glancing manner, choosing to focus on only one element, and as always in the most loaded terms possible. Here is his characterization of the FOIA requests: "scientists besieged by an onslaught of hostile, make-work demands." Note to Al: every government or government-funded entity regards FOIA requests as hostile and make-work. So what?

AllenS said...

Peanuts. Peanuts are toxic to some people. Don't forget peanuts.

Anonymous said...

"Can you gather the massive amount of raw data necessary to reach a conclusion? No."

Yes, I can. Maybe you can't, and therefore you must rely on Al Gore's word for it, but I am perfectly capable of doing the data collection.

One data point that I've gathered myself (but by no means the only one) is my careful comparison of Al Gore's word measured against his deed; and by that measure Al Gore is an utter and complete failure.

It is why we are having this debate. He is unable to convince by his deed, nor his easily disprovable altered temperature data.

His words are all about "unstable regions" and "national security interests," easily detectable code words for his latent anti-Arab racism, which you refused to engage on.

So, you're clearly a racist too. Your silence on this aspect of the debate is deafening. It reveals all.

So why would anyone believe a racist with data that has been massaged, altered, adjusted and illegally hidden from FOIA requests?

Mikio said...

Jason (the commenter) -
Just because an authority says something we don't believe it.

So be a mature, honest adult already and admit I'm right: nothing and no one could convince you you're wrong and that AGW is real. You don't have to admit the part about it making you the unyielding religious nutjob and not us (even though it follows).

Jason (the commenter) said...

Skyler: I'm about as hawkish as one can get about the war in Iraq, but even I would have to concede that without the threat of Iraq being on the verge of possessing nuclear weapons, it would be very hard to justify the war there.

Strangely, I heard the other day on NPR that Iraq still has trade sanctions imposed on it by the UN, until it can verify it has a system to prevent it from developing weapons of mass destruction. We may have moved on, but the bureaucracy hasn't budged an inch.

Paco Wové said...

If you already know everything, Mikio, I don't know why you bother asking questions.

Mikio said...

NewHam -

No, you can't personally gather the massive amount of raw data because it requires that you travel around the world including the poles. And if you mean gather the raw data from sources who already gathered it, I asked you to name those sources. Last time dealing with you on this. I'm sick of your slowness.

Paul Kirchner said...

NewHam said...
So, you're clearly a racist too. Your silence on this aspect of the debate is deafening. It reveals all.
>>

Does every argument has to devolve to "who's the secret racist?" I'm so sick of that tack and I don't like it any more when it's used by people on the same side of most issues as me. It's like reductio ad Hitlerum.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Mikio,
The real question is what will it take for you to question the studies behind AGW?

Anonymous said...

"... scientists besieged by an onslaught of hostile, make-work demands."

See how clever he did that? Those making the requests aren't the scientists, in Gore's mind. They're "attackers" and "deniers" and they're "beseiging" the poor unarmed scientists.

It's a war (Gore would have you believe) with the Holocaust deniers on one side and Jew-scientists on the other and the deniers are trying to burn the Jews (scientists) IN THE OVEN, ZOMFG! SHOOT THEM, quickly before we all die!

That's their next logical argument: kill the deniers just like the Holocaust-denying Nazis.

Their tactics turn everyone off - even their own supporters, who are no longer speaking up except for the deadenders like Mikio.

Even if global warming were proven to me convincingly, I'd probably still fight it just because the other side are a bunch of unlikeable assholes. I'd probably just want the Planet to go ahead and die and them with it even if it meant I'd go too.

Someone should buy Al Gore a book: "How To Win Friends and Influence People."

Al Gore is the AGW's worst possible spokesman. They'll never convince as long as the New York Times insists that he is their face.

dbp said...

Freder Frederson: I bet Althouse doesn't even realize that carbon dioxide is toxic.

You're probably right since the current level is far below toxic levels. We are currently at the high 300's ppm level (let's just round to 400) and symptoms of CO2 toxicity start around 1%. 1% is 10,000 ppm, so we are up to a whopping 4% of where any effect is noticeable.

And as Jason pointed out--lots of things are toxic (vitamins, alcohol) at high levels, but are either harmless or required at low levels.

Omaha1 said...

Mikio said,

"Quick question: what would it take to convince you AGW deniers/skeptics that you're wrong? Name the source you trust that could do this for you. I submit it's Limbaugh but why don't you tell me? And don't be a putz and say yourself interpreting the raw data because you can't gather the raw data yourself firsthand, someone has to provide it, so name them."

You and your ilk are the ones suggesting that severe penalties should be applied to CO2 emitters, distorting the world economy and penalizing anyone wealthy or productive. The burden of proof is on your side, to convince the American people that these measures are necessary to prevent CATASTROPHE!

Gore himself is a global warming hypocrite with his mansion, houseboat, and mulitple large computer monitors. His own behavior does not do anything to persuade me that we are in a crisis.

Anonymous said...

"No, you can't personally gather the massive amount of raw data because it requires that you travel around the world including the poles."

But Mikio, I have done that. I've traveled the world collecting the data very carefully using highly-calibrated instruments. It may surprise you, but it's possible to travel the world nowadays and do data collection.

The data I've collected show a cooling planet. In fact, the computer model I coded shows that within 100 years, we'll see the return of the Ice Age - to a 95% degree of certainty.

No, you can't see my data, it's proprietary and covered by non-disclosure agreements. File a FOIA request and maybe one day you'll get a look at it if I haven't had to destroy the source data because my hard drive is filled up.

And please, stop using words to make your case.

Words are not data.

It's unscientific for you to keep using words.

dbp said...

Al Gore:

"Similarly, even though climate deniers have speciously argued for several years that there has been no warming in the last decade, scientists confirmed last month that the last 10 years were the hottest decade since modern records have been kept. "

Phil Jones of the CRU said two weeks ago that there has been no "statistically significant" warming since 1995.

What is one to think?

Anonymous said...

"What is one to think?"

I'm pretty sure that Mikio is the proof that they don't want you thinking.

Anonymous said...

Mikio: "I can tell you what would convince me I'm wrong: an overturning of the scientific consensus. Easy. Now let's see you do it."

I think you're about to get your wish.

Do you even realize what you're saying when you say your proof is that you have the scientific consensus on your side?

Fundamentally, you're saying you don't actually have proof. You're saying that you're depending on a group of other people's opinions. You're saying that you don't have data that speaks for itself, unequivocally, so you're depending on the editorializing of a group of scientists (because they don't have actual proof either). If they did, they wouldn't have to be polled to prove that AGW is true. It would be intuitively obvious based on the data.

Imagine if a killer asteroid was headed straight for earth. Any moron with a telescope could look up in the sky and see it. Any moron (with some physics background) could understand the calculation of its orbit and the fact that it was going to hit the earth. Do you think we would be waiting with bated breath for a poll of scientists to see what the consensus was as to whether we were all going to die? No, because we'd have actual proof of what was true and a "consensus" would be unnecessary. It wouldn't matter what your scientific experts said or what Rush Limbaugh said. It would be true because it was true and the data would unequivocally show it to be true.

Anonymous said...

"Most of the commenter here are smarter than Mr. Gore."

That's why his argument was not presented here.

Mr. Gore is, however, smarter than most of the morons who still use the New York Times as a source of information.

Which is why his argument was presented there and not here.

Elliott A said...

Mikio- The data used by the data collectors for the entirety of Arctic Canada is ONE station. Very reliable and perfectly representative I am sure.

Anonymous said...

Mikio:

Do you believe Phil Jones when he tells you there has been "no statistically significant warming of the planet since 1995" even though the population of CO2 producers has increased substantially in those years?

Do you believe him? Yes or no. Don't wait for the translation. Answer me now!

Is Phil Jones a credible source of information?

Anonymous said...

Moreover, the whole premise of your question is ridiculous.

"Quick question: what would it take to convince you AGW deniers/skeptics that you're wrong? Name the source you trust that could do this for you. I submit it's Limbaugh but why don't you tell me?"

Why do you even think the word of any one person would or could be that crucial? Do you even understand the concept of science and scienctific truth? Having Rush Limbaugh say global warming is true is just as irrelevant as him saying it's false as a standard of proof. If you think anyone intelligent would change their whole opinion of the subject based on one person's opinion then you don't understand the deep roots of the skeptical position in this instance. The skepticism comes from the substandard nature of the raw data, the substandard scientific methods of those manipulating the raw data, the substandard science of proxy reconstructions, the gaming of the peer review system, the excessive secrecy at odds with sound scientifc practice, the politicization of the scientists involved, the misuse of statistics, and the all-around dodginess exhibited by those claiming to know the truth based on their expertise which we'll just have to take their word for. Once you deal with all those issues, then we might have a chance to assess the actual truth of their claims. And they might be entirely or mostly right. Or they might be mostly wrong. (See, that's what it means to be a skeptic.) But we'll never know which until the deadwood is cleared out and climate science is run like other legitimate science where scientific principles are followed not just in theory but in practice. Where the data and methods, the statistics and programs, and the caveats and conditions are out in the open for all to examine. Where conclusions are drawn only so far as they are warranted and supported by the data and not drawn simply to please political or activist goals. If you have to prove something through consensus, it means you're going too far beyond what your data can support.

So, to convince me that you're absolutely right, you're going to have to supply me a time machine and let me go 50 or 100 years into the future and measure the temperature and the sea level. That's the only way a prediction about the world 50 or 100 years from now can be proven. Short of that, it's just a guess. An educated guess, to be sure, but just a guess. But we could make better guesses, and lower the level of skepticism, by cleaning up climate science and holding it to much higher standards than it has heretofore been held to.

Anonymous said...

"The data used by the data collectors for the entirety of Arctic Canada is ONE station."

And the temperature sensor was installed inside a bag of peas kept in a refrigerator.

Anonymous said...

Kcom is engaging in rhetorical tricks.

You can safely ignore everything he just said. He's just using words ... not data.

Words aren't scientific.

Only data.

MaggotAtBroad&Wall said...

AGW is theory, not science. Science is NOT dependent on a consensus. It's provable by repeated experiments creating the same result.

For example, holding variables like purity levels constant, then water will boil at 212 degrees at sea level. Every time you perform the experiment under those conditions, you will get the same result. That's not a consensus. It's an indisputable fact. That makes is science.

That there are highly qualified people like Richard Lindzen, who has 3 relevant Harvard degrees, who has conducted 45 years of climate related research, who wrote chapter 7 of the IPCC, and who has said he agrees with probably 90% of the IPCC report but disagrees with the ultimate conclusion that man made pollutants will result in a climate catastrophe is all the proof one needs to show that AGW is not science. It's an unprovable theory.

Henry said...

How about we take all the current and prospective cap-and-trade money and spend it on earthquake engineering? We would save more lives.

And think of all the "earthquake" jobs that would generate. Earthquake jobs could be "the most important source of new jobs in the 21st century."

Sorry, I got off track there at the end and began paraphrasing Al Gore.

But why not tackle earthquake survival with the same urgency with which we tackle global warming? The answer is simple. Global warming risks are still hypothetical. This permits global warming alarmists to avoid quantifying the cost of their solutions.

Earthquakes are a different story. We know that earthquake engineering is expensive and does not happen unless national governments allocate precious resources to making it happen.

In contrast the regulatory fixes for global warming are entirely indirect, as are their costs. This last fact permits the global warming crowd to spin fantasies in place of cost-benefit analysis. When cornered, their only way out is to go alarmist.

You can't do that with earthquake engineering. The risks are known. The solutions are known. The costs are known. That makes it so much harder to tackle than global warming.

Anonymous said...

"Science is NOT dependent on a consensus."

But if it is, then the overwhelming consensus is that Mikio and his buddy ManBearPig are full of shite hucksters.

That's all the science I need.

Henry said...

Pure oxygen is toxic.

Moose said...

Heh - look here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-10459872-260.html
Pompous windbag meet pompous windbag..

Mikio said...

exhelodrvr1 -
Mikio,
The real question is what will it take for you to question the studies behind AGW?


I already said in my initial post it would take an overturning of the scientific consensus. Science is self-correcting. That's what's great about it and what makes it the polar opposite of religion in at least one important sense.

I see no higher authority on scientific matters than scientific consensus, as opposed to you guys who see conservative talk show hosts, politicians, and websites like World Net Daily as higher authorities on scientific matters. Yes, scientific consensus has been overturned numerous times in the past. This only bolsters my point. If the science is bogus, it'll be shown to be so by the majority of scientists doing the research who are always trying to one-up each other. The odds of the thousands and thousands of them conspiring are ridiculous tinfoil hat stuff.

Anonymous said...

And let's just understand something about science ... it's woefully inadequate for explaining what goes on in our environment.

Scientists, for example, cannot explain the placebo effect where people spontaneously heal themselves with only their mind.

Scientists aren't Gods. They can't explain much of what goes on and historically have been full of cheats and liars and hucksters just like Gore.

One of the scientifically proven facts is that people who ask you to trust them blindly because you cannot collect the data yourself have their hand in your wallet to a 95% degree of accuracy.

Quaestor said...

Mikio wrote:
I can tell you what would convince me I'm wrong: an overturning of the scientific consensus

There never was a "scientific consensus" Not even half of the signers of the original IPCC report were even qualified in the field. Besides, science is not a matter of consensus. It's a matter of evidence. AWG is used by its adherents to explain everything. If it's hot, it's global warming. If it's cold, it's global warming. If it rains in Vancouver, it's global warming. If it doesn't rain in Alice Springs, it's global warming. That which explains everything is religion, not science.

Anonymous said...

Mikio: "I already said in my initial post it would take an overturning of the scientific consensus."

The scientific consensus is that there has been no statistically significant anthropogenic global warming since 1995, even though CO2 production and human population in that time have increased dramatically.

Source: Phil Jones, head of the East Anglia CRU.

Not A Source: Politician an vested interest Al Gore.

Unknown said...

Freder Frederson said...

I bet Althouse doesn't even realize that carbon dioxide is toxic.

Yeah, let's get rid of all those plants (and I'll just bet you were one of the ones laughing up your sleeve when all the 'In' Lefties were making fun of Reagan when he said trees cause pollution).

Phil 314 said...

Mikio;
what would it take to convince you AGW deniers/skeptics that you're wrong? Name the source you trust that could do this for you.

Not to pile on here but I'll speak as an applied scientist (physician). I can recall telling women patients that the data clearly indicated that taking estrogens after menopause would lead to a longer and better life. And I can recall that was the firm consensus of practicing physicians. There were some skeptics who raised doubts but it took the "Women's Health Initiative study (actually put together to better elucidate the benefits of estrogens) to demonstrate that they were in fact harmful.

Do I believe I was deluded? No. But i now have a much better appreciation for scientific skepticism.

And when one of the leading authorities on AGW admits he lost the data and then "fudged" the data and that lately (i.e. in the past 10 years) he hasn't seen the outcomes his theories would predict, I find my scientific skepticism raised just a bit.

Anonymous said...

Gee,

The new consensus has been announced by Phil Jones and the boys at CRU but Mikio is nowhere to be found.

Where'd he go?

Unknown said...

If only we were experiencing a bubble of free market fundamentalism! Our economy has not been a free market for as long as any of us have been alive. From manufacturing steel to designing cars to banning fats/salt, the government has been steadily increasing control of our economy and our lives for decades.

Anonymous said...

"From manufacturing steel to designing cars to banning fats/salt ..."

Um ... the government really wold never ban salt. It is the primary way that the government involuntarily doses people with a medicine called Iodine to prevent the formation of goiters.

I've often wanted some goiters, but sadly the government doesn't want me to have any, so they adulterated the salt to include this medicine, surreptitiously tricking us all into taking it ... you know, for our own good.

They put poison in the alcohol once, too, for our own good.

See: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/02/the-majesty-of-the-law/36283/

Charlie said...

"In addition, e-mail messages stolen from the University of East Anglia in Britain showed that scientists besieged by an onslaught of hostile, make-work demands from climate skeptics may not have adequately followed the requirements of the British freedom of information law."

I love this part of Gore's op-ed. He blames the "skeptics" on the East Anglia email scandal. That's rich.

Unknown said...

From the very beginning of this issue Al Gore has resorted to character assassination as a response to his opponents. Everyone who disagrees with him is a tool of the oil companies.

I read the skeptic blogs every day and have never heard the word "socialism" mentioned. Many people in the science and engineering world have serious doubts about the certainty of Al Gore's pronouncements. The emails show that even the climate catastrophists have doubts about the quality of the evidence being touted as "definitive". Other recent evidence shows that some of this evidence is of questionable quality at best.

I don't give a damn about socialism if it can solve a problem. I have three engineering degrees, spent years separating signals from noise and dealing with the inherent uncertainties in all kinds of measurements. I am a skeptic because given the complexity of the system, the size of the change and the minimal information we have of conditions before the change started one cannot know with complete certainty the cause.

wombat said...

We need daily, confirmable temperature readings to better assess Al Gore Weather. He just needs to bend over and let us measure where the sun don't shine.

Henry said...

PatCa -- I agree.

There's so much wrong in Gore's apologetic one hardly knows where to start, but his idea that market "triumphalism" was some kind of heady overreaction to the fall of the Soviet Union is ignorant of history. Margaret Thatcher and then Ronald Reagan preceded the fall of the Soviet Union by many years. Thatcher and Reagan lauded free market capitalism not in contrast to the fall of communism (it hadn't happened yet), but to the failures of European-style socialism.

It is an invented past that Gore bemoans, though he knows it not.

I think he really, sincerely, believes -- like all the social visionaries of his ilk -- that collective action is more virtuous than individual interest. It's sad when collective action has to be coerced, but for the visionary, coercion is a small price to pay.

Mikio said...

NewHam -
The scientific consensus is that there has been no statistically significant anthropogenic global warming since 1995, even though CO2 production and human population in that time have increased dramatically.
Source: Phil Jones, head of the East Anglia CRU.


He said he’s convinced of the long term trend of AGW regardless of shorter term fluctuations. You of course won’t mention that.

Excerpt of BBC interview (this new format isn't letting me hyperlink for some reason, so...) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8511670.stm

"BBC: If you agree that there were similar periods of warming since 1850 to the current period, and that the MWP is under debate, what factors convince you that recent warming has been largely man-made?
Jones: The fact that we can't explain the warming from the 1950s by solar and volcanic forcing - see my answer to your question D."

The scientific consensus remains that AGW is almost certainly real despite your feeble attempt to show otherwise.

Anonymous said...

You know, I really don't understand this.

After Mikio comes here to announce that he'll take the new scientific consensus and change his views he disappears when that consensus shows up and announces its new findings that there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995.

I can't understand why he's gone quiet all of a sudden.

If I didn't know better, I'd think he was a mindless troll working for George Soros and now that the new consensus has been revealed by Phil Jones old Mikio has gone on to some other blog to try to gin up Al Gore's stock price without that pesky SEC arresting his ass for stock manipulation.

Anonymous said...

"He said he’s convinced of the long term trend of AGW regardless of shorter term fluctuations."

He's convinced even though the data show no warming? That doesn't sound very scientific. That sounds like an opinion ... not a recitation of the data.

Is Mr. Jones now in the opinion business, or the scientific release of data business?

The data he maintains show no warming. He should be convinced that there's been no warming since 1995, and that is all he should be convinced of. An as a dispassionate scientist only interested in the data, that's where his sentence should end.

The data snow no warming since 1995, even though we have more people and more CO2 in the air.

He can be "convinced" all he wants but the consensus nor the data are with him.

The scientific consensus, which you previously said you'd respect (but now are silent about), agrees that there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995 even though we have lots more population, lots more cars, lots more airplanes and lots more CO2 production in those years.

So, will you now announce that you agree with the new scientific consensus that global warming stopped warming in 1995 as Phil Jones reports the data shows.

Or not?

Don't wait for the translation, answer me now! Yes, or no!

Anonymous said...

" ... almost certainly real ..."

So you admit that the scientific consensus agrees that AGW might not be really be occurring.

Almost certainly real ... means it isn't all the way real. It's only a possibility. It's almost certain, which means not certain. Right?

So another equally valid way of stating the case is that "the scientific consensus is that the theory of anthropogenic global warming is uncertain at this point."

The data seem to support that conclusion, scientists agree, because the data show no continuing warming since 1995, according to Mr. Jones. Even though there are a lot more CO2 sources.

He may be "convinced" he is onto something that he cannot yet prove, but he certainly hasn't proven it yet ... wouldn't you agree?

And since the consensus is that AGW isn't provable yet beyond a reasonable doubt (not to a certainty, but merely to the less restrictive reasonable doubt) shouldn't we study this alleged warming more before we radically alter society based on some washed-up politicians recommendations?

Recommendations he stands to gain considerable riches from?

Will you admit Al Gore stands to get rich on this and that this might be an ulterior motive?

Answer me now!

AllenS said...

I think that there's one thing we all can agree on. The fact that the earth will end on Dec. 21, 2010. The Mayan calendar says so. I hope it's not really cold that day. Because that would like totally suck.

Jason (the commenter) said...

I would like to agree with Mikio, but the consensus here is that he is completely wrong, so I have to go with that.

Anonymous said...

He goes quiet when he doesn't want to admit the obvious.

I think maybe his head exploded.

They don't realize how they're convincing people that AGW doesn't exist merely because of the way they argue their case.

That if they'd change their tactics and arguments it might actually get them a better result.

They're checkers' players.

Mikio said...

kcom -
Why do you even think the word of any one person would or could be that crucial?

I don't. I said "source" right there in your c&p which is hardly necessarily one person. Build another straw man and attack it. As for your time machine stuff, that's not feasible so what I said remains true: nothing can convince you you're wrong, thus, you're the religious whackjob on this, not me or the Left who are trusting scientists to tell us about science rather than Beck, Limbaugh, Drudge, or Inhofe.

c3 -
Not to pile on here but I'll speak as an applied scientist (physician). I can recall telling women patients that the data clearly indicated that taking estrogens after menopause would lead to a longer and better life. And I can recall that was the firm consensus of practicing physicians…

I spoke to the reality of scientific consensus being overturned. That the AGW one has, despite setbacks here and there, been around for decades now and has withstood more scrutiny and combatting to counter it than any scientific theory besides evolution is why I’m not a denier/skeptic.

NewHam -
So, will you now announce that you agree with the new scientific consensus that global warming stopped warming in 1995 as Phil Jones reports the data shows.
Or not?
Don't wait for the translation, answer me now! Yes, or no!


He didn’t say it stopped. He said:
“I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

Furthermore, you’re lying that the scientific consensus has been overturned on AGW in general.

Obviously, as my question has shown here, you AGW deniers/skeptics are the religious whackjobs on this topic as evidenced by your inability to name what could realistically convince you you’re wrong. I was able to do it for myself. Why can’t you? Very simple question. Because here’s the honest answer none of you can give: nothing can. Checkmate.

Anonymous said...

The New Scientific Consensus has been released:

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is to appoint an independent team to examine its procedures after admitting having made errors that exaggerated the severity of the impact of global warming.

The Met Office, which supplies the global temperature trends used by the IPCC, has proposed that an international group of scientists re-examine 160 years of temperature data.

The Met Office proposal is a tacit admission that its previous reports on such trends have been marred by their reliance on analysis by the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit."

All previous research has been "marred" by reliance on faulty analysis of the data by East Anglia CRU.

That's according to the UN IPCC - the Earth's premier consensus reporter.

Anonymous said...

Mikio,

You really need to keep better informed about the concensus.

The IPCC decides what the concensus is ... not Al Gore, or you.

The IPCC says all previous research has been marred and cannot be counted on. That is the scientific concensus. It has announced the undertaking of a review of the destroyed data.

Here is the IPCC announcement:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7039264.ece

Look, dude, it's not your fault. It's hard to keep up with what the consensus is. You're reporting the old consensus. Totally understandable that you aren't keeping up with the news. It moves fast.

The new consensus is at the link. Go inform yourself and then come back when you're better prepared to debate this topic.

Anonymous said...

From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption.

I got back from church an hour ago. That's were we learn that God has offered us redemption through Jesus Christ.

Secular law as an instrument of human redemption is beyond creepy. It is a blasphemous and prideful sin.

I used to think people talking about AGW advocacy as a new "religion" were exaggerating. But Mr. Gore is not advocating public policy and the secular law as means to benefit society and make us all more prosperous, safe and happy.

No, he is talking about "human redemption."

Sounds like religion to me.

And Al Gore has his hand in the collection plate.

Mikio said...

NewHam -

Then explain this from your own link:

The Met Office says that it does not expect “any substantial changes in the resulting global and continental-scale multidecadal trends”.

Doesn't look like an overturning of the scientific consensus to me.

Alex said...

Mikio - keep citing your "consensus", and the American people will keep gas guzzling.

Alex said...

NewHam - does anyone doubt that the IPCC will conclude AGW is very real after their "review"? Come on man, be a realist!

Alex said...

Great fisk of Al Gore by Althouse. Of course the lefty haters will counter - does Althouse so feverishly fisk Sarah Palin or Dubya when he was in power?

Henry said...

The Met Office says that it does not expect “any substantial changes in the resulting global and continental-scale multidecadal trends”.

Finally, an IPCC prediction we can believe.

Mikio, the problem with the whole consensus line of defense is that the consensus is not scary. A 1 meter rise in sea level over a century and some flattening of temperature differences between the poles and equator is relatively benign.

One can accept the consensus as a given and still reject the undemocratic and illiberal regulatory structures that the consensus-framers demand. Yet Gore and his ilk continue to refuse to undertake a serious cost-benefit examination of their non-scientific advocacy.

This is how Bjorn Lomborg has attacked the global warming alarmists and it infuriates them. I recently read some attacks on his work along with his defense and it is remarkable that the point of difference is Lomborg's insistence that the Western economic system actually is a net benefit for the world. The free-market west has improved the environment extended life expectancies, reduced famine, and generated liberty.

This is the economic and political system -- based on fossil fuels and economic freedom -- that the alarmists demand must fundamentally change.

The argument therefore isn't about science. It's about political control and resource allocation.

To pick up a point I made above, until global warming alarmists explain why it is more important to put money into carbon reduction than alternative boons to humanity (like earthquake engineering for example), they can't be taken seriously.

Mikio said...

Henry -
Mikio, the problem with the whole consensus line of defense is that the consensus is not scary. A 1 meter rise in sea level over a century and some flattening of temperature differences between the poles and equator is relatively benign.

Where are you getting that? I’ve seen nothing but the opposite of what you’re saying. Example…

“By contrast, 84% of scientists say the earth is warming because of human activity. Scientists also are far more likely than the public to regard global warming as a very serious problem: 70% express this view, compared with 47% of the public.”

http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1550

Even though you're not so much of a wingut as to deny AGW, thinking it's not a serious problem still puts you at odds with the scientific consensus.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Mikio,
"I already said in my initial post it would take an overturning of the scientific consensus. Science is self-correcting."

Thank you - then you are acknowledging that you have already stopped believing in the old consensus. Because that has already been changed. So what exactly are you cursing about?

Alex said...

Even though you're not so much of a wingut as to deny AGW, thinking it's not a serious problem still puts you at odds with the scientific consensus.

Liberals winning hearts & minds, one at a time.

Henry said...

Mikio -- But how serious is serious? The IPCC Fourth Assessment asserts an 18 to 59 cm (7.08 to 23.22 in) rise in sea levels. That's serious, but it doesn't put the Maldives under water.

Now how serious is that compared to the life expectancy of 1 billion people in China? The Chinese government has already answered that question for itself and has chosen industrialization.

Alex said...

Mikio - so what are the priorities? Is AGW so uber-emergency compared to water shortages, bad air, malaria, mal-nutrition?

Allan said...

What would convince me I'm wrong about the AGW theology would be:
if the temperature suddenly followed the upward blade of the Hockey Stick
as the AGW consensus confidently predicted years ago would be happening NOW
and has not yet happened according to that renowned scientist
Dr. Phil jones

Automatic_Wing said...

I wonder if this "scientific consensus" that Mikio speaks of has ever been wrong before.

Anonymous said...

"'Why do you even think the word of any one person would or could be that crucial?'

I don't. I said "source" right there in your c&p which is hardly necessarily one person. Build another straw man and attack it.
"

Yeah, right. Do you even read the words you write? Here is what you said in the very next sentence of that c&p (which you mysteriously omitted here) regarding this purported source: I submit it's Limbaugh.

Now I know Rush has been fat at times, but I doubt he's ever actually been counted as more than one person. So my challenge stands unaffected: why do you think one person's pronouncement would be sufficient to change a another person's mind on a topic like this? Is it because you let other people make up your mind for you? Do you not understand the idea of critical and independent thinking?

"As for your time machine stuff, that's not feasible so what I said remains true: nothing can convince you you're wrong"

No, correctly put, nothing can convince me you're right if you don't have the evidence. See how science works? You're positing a claim about the world 50 and 100 years from now which you cannot prove. You can make your best argument for it, you can believe it, you may even be right, but you cannot prove it. Only time will tell if you're right. In the meantime, it would behoove you to show some humility based on the fact that you really don't know what the world is going to look like 100 years from now. And neither does any scientist or human being currently alive.

Tell me what the current scientific track record is for predicting climate 100 years in the future? How many times has it been done successfully? 15 out of 20? 5 out 8? 1 out of 3? 2 out of 4? Oh, that's right, it's never been done successfully before. Not once. In fact, the record for that sort of prediction is 0 out of 0. There's no rational basis to believe, based on any scientific history or track record, that we're capable of predicting the climate 100 years in the future.


"thus, you're the religious whackjob on this, not me or the Left who are trusting scientists to tell us about science rather than Beck, Limbaugh, Drudge, or Inhofe."

What they are telling you is their best knowledge at present, which is, frankly, abysmally low. The list of things we don't know and don't understand about climate is miles longer than the list we do. It's hard to admit that, though, if you're a scientist or anybody else who is considered an expert in a given field. That's where the sin of hubris comes in. Intelligence analysts can't say they don't know, so they give their best guess. Climate scientists can't say they don't know (and they're pressured by politicians not to say that) so they give their best guess. Anthropologists can't say they don't know so they give their best guess. (That's why every little bone fragment becomes a human ancestor with an entire history, including diet, facial features, ancestors, etc. Finding human ancestors is how you get famous in physical anthropology.)

Always keep in mind that scientists are human like everyone else. They have their failings and weaknesses. You should never surrender your own innate intelligence to follow the whim of any crowd, even a crowd of scientists. If we all did that, no consensus (even the wrong ones) would ever be overturned. If you want absolute certainty and the comfort of a consensus, you're arguing about the wrong field. For god's sake, what crazy person could believe entire continents move thousands of miles over time. Certainly they are immovable, right? Compared to that utterly wrong consensus (that held out for 40 years) the concept of AGW is just a whisper on the wind in terms of solidity.

michaele said...

Here's a bit of news that I read in my local Knoxville paper a few days ago:

The degree - an Honorary Doctor of Laws and Humane Letters in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology - will be given to Gore at the spring commencement exercises of the College of Arts and Sciences on May 14, where he will be the featured speaker.

“Why?” you ask. Let’s see what UT Knoxville Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek said:

“Vice President Gore’s career has been marked by visionary leadership, and his work has quite literally changed our planet for the better,”

If I were a UT alum, I would be infuriated and insulted. The timing is just so bad and makes the University seem clueless.

If there's an organized protest march, I will join in.

From Inwood said...

Hey, we were told in Election 2000 that the term "Rule of Law" was evil & a racist “code word”. Argumentum ad captandrum (vulgus.) And Bumper Sticker Logic.

From Inwood said...

captandum

Pixelkiller said...

I didn't read through all 122 comments, but regarding Weapons-of-mass-destruction; when I google 550 tons of Uranium Yellow Cake, I get a whole S--t-pot full of replys. (The last time I did it that list was 6578 long) So, Ann, and any commenters, can Yellow Cake Uranium be considered a weapon of mass destruction? Or, perhaps, a weapon in the process of becomming?
I do know the Army guarded it like it was Fort Knox for some years before they sneaked it out the country.

Anonymous said...

Well Mikio,

The consensus seems to be that:

a) AGW data is shite
b) Even if that is not true, and one accepts the data as presented, the conclusions to be drawn from that data are faulty, and
c) Even if the conclusions to be drawn are accurate, the remedy is disproportionate to the threat.

You've lost the debate using your own data and accepting your own premises.

Move along, dude.

From Inwood said...

"Count every emission" says Jesse Jackson

From Inwood said...

NewHam

You forgot "d":

d)Human Redemption, nevertheless, demands that we still accept bankrupting-governmental intrusion into our lives because it’s still for our own ultimate good. And social justice. And concern for our planet & our children & our childrens’ children.

You’re certainly not against Human Redemption, now, are you?

From Inwood said...

I have it on good authority that the US Torture Statute will be amended to state specifically that AGW is a form of torture & a new Amendment to the Constitution will define AGW as “cruel & unusual punishment for anyone, citizen or non, in the US"!

jeff said...

"[T]he crisis is still growing because we are continuing to dump 90 million tons of global-warming pollution every 24 hours into the atmosphere" Wow, that seems like a lot. Works out to about 33 billion tons a year. Big number. Of course natural decay of trees, grass etc, releases 220 gigatonnes a year. All into a atmosphere of 5,000,000 gigatonnes. And CO2 is a fraction of a greenhouse gas compared to water vapor. The reason there is no focus on water vapor is that people don't dirty up the sky with water vapor. If we burned a fuel that released ox and h20 only as the byproducts we would have our Gore's and Mikio's wanting to tax or ban it.

Anonymous said...

"If I were a UT alum ... I'd be furious."

I don't know ... if I were a UT alum, I'd be very quiet about it.

I certainly wouldn't put it on my resume any more than I'd put my Disney College degree on there.

traditionalguy said...

The confident Mr Mikio is a provocateur whose job is to keep the appearance of a debate open on a settled subject. The effects of CO2 in the atmosphere are global cooling. The Doomsayers for Profit are shifting their argument into a case of Dirty, Filthy Carbon Impurity in the air. But they need some time to ratchet up the new propaganda storm, so Mikio is sent out to give a false impression that there is still an on going debate. These evil guys are showing the Banality of Evil.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Al Gore is getting an "Honorory Degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology?" LOL. What a joke these honorary degrees have become.

What is ecology anyway? Knowing which trash bin gets the glass and plastic and which gets the newspapers?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

"And we would still trail China in the race to develop smart grids, fast trains, solar power, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy — the most important sources of new jobs in the 21st century."

Isn't it amazing how leftists like China so much? China is an oozing toxic dump - ruled by corrupt communist government agencies

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I think there is something larger at play. I notice many left-wing politicians (Democrats) sing the praises of China.

Must be all that communal control. All that power.
Never mind the bad smell, the oozing orange and yellow water, the dead rivers, the toxic waste, and the villages filled with cancer sickened individuals - they have wind farms and solar!

yes said...

Mikkio, here's one:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/7332803/A-perfect-storm-is-brewing-for-the-IPCC.html

More:
http://theautopsy.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/more-fallout-from-climategate/

What happens when you try to contest warmist claims, but even more useful is a list of URLs near the bottom, to Delingpole, Climate Audit, etc

Who benefits? Al Gore, organizations like this:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/wwf-the-para-governmental-organization-at-the-epicenter-of-climategate/

Just what I happened to have bookmarked....

yes said...

Also, Mikkio, Jones and Mann and their confreres have admitted they cooked the data and walked back most of their predictions.

Tom Spaulding said...

Why does it take a consensus to prove what is supposedly a scientific fact? Shouldn't one lone scientist, given the accurate data, be able to completely reconstruct the study and deny or confirm the theory? I thought that's what made it 'scientific".

Is there some doubt as to what the numbers will add up to if everyone has access to the same numbers? The consensus was not about believing in the existence of AGW, it was a consensus that believed what the sloppy scientists said the bad data showed. So let's run the data again....

Oh, that's right...the consensus is that the dog ate the data.

mrkwong said...

Sophie - Jones has admitted he doesn't know what the hell he's doing.

Mann hasn't walked back anything, but he's the one most clearly guilty of scientific, uh, let's be exceptionally charitable and call it 'error' with his cooked hockey-stick data.

The fact is that there's no reliable data anywhere. NOAA and GISS and CRU all 'adjust' the data (just about every time anyone's looked they find that what GHCN, GISS, etc. are doing is adjusting downward historical temperatures) then apply a bunch of other statistically dubious finagles to get their warming trends.

We have to start completely from scratch, openly, and the current players would be better off sitting the next one out.

Gore's little bit of faith-based nonsense is the clearest example yet of what's wrong with the warmist side - they've made up their minds and they're not interested in the facts.

As for Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham - each needs to be struck solidly upside the head with the cluebat.

Robin said...

Mikkio, the IPCC WG2 report that contains all these dire predictions that you pretend are "consensus" has been shown to be full of errors, misrepresentations, advocacy articles misrepresented as peer review science and outright fraud.

And yet you call that "consensus"?

Chef Mojo said...

Jeebus. How many times does it need to be said that science is not about consensus? Morons like Mikio just can't seem to get it through their thick skulls that this concept is a constant of science. All it takes is one scientist to overturn to work of thousands of others. Consensus is bullshit of the purest ray serene.

Interesting the Mikio equates AGW skeptics with Holocaust deniers. Interesting, but also typical of Mikio's ilk.

So, an historical event with eyewitness testimony in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions is to be equated with skepticism of a far off future event divined by statistical models based on faulty and false data input.

Mmm. Yeah. Right. Deniers of the Shoah have eyewitnesses to history to stand against them. Works for me.

Proponents of AGW, OTOH, don't have squat at this point, other than a desire for a fascist grab for societal power and control.

Robin said...

Chef Mojo, its not merely interesting that Mikio repeats the ad hominem of the AGW adherents, its the core "argument".

AGW adherents don't want to talk science, they don't want to talk data, they don't want to talk process - they want to abandon that as quickly as possible and rush off to ad hominem.

Because they've been losing the real scientific debate for years. That's the message of the CRU scandal, that the adherents know they are losing and have to bully, cheat, lie and obfuscate.

Roux said...

AlGore=Benedict Arnold

Joe said...

I agree with Theo; the most disturbing part of all this is Gore's insistence that we "use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption." This is beyond creepy. Unfortunately, it is the attitude of most modern liberals, which is why there can be no compromise with them. How do meet someone halfway on a philosophy that is completely and utterly vile?

Joe said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Joe said...

I should add that the sea levels aren't rising at all. You'd think that if this is the big threat, which isn't no matter how you slice it, you'd at least see that. But, you don't.

Oh, and nitrogen can be toxic. Should we have a war against nitrogen? There's tons of that shit in our atmosphere.

Jon said...

Jason (2/28/10 9:56 AM ):

I am an avid Rush listener; early in the Clinton Era he DID make a nasty remark about Chelsea's looks (I was listening). He got reamed out by his listeners (after all, they are mostly decent people) and apologized profusely on air the same day, and never did it again.

Chef Mojo said...

Oh, and nitrogen is toxic. Should we have a war against nitrogen? There's tons of that shit in our atmosphere.

Holy shit! Nitrogen comprises 78% of Earth's atmosphere! Goddamn! Light my hair on fire! I need to run around in circles screaming!

Ritmo Re-Animated said...

Not all facts are obvious. Not all data is readily apparent.

Consensus matters in science not because scientists create the equivalent of a priesthood of knowledge, but because science only reveals what humans have been able to, and sought to study.

Therefore, the positions taken by those humans -- those who have actually, rigorously researched a topic and submitted their findings for review by colleagues who have the same stake in advancing the most credible and empirically accurate understanding of their field of study -- matter.

There seems to be an unwillingness here to accept the utility of science simply because it represents the best human approximation of the natural world, rather than a complete and definitive explanation of it.

But by definition, science will cease to exist (or matter) once there is a complete and definitive explanation of something.

I am curious as to what explanation the Althousians would advance for why CO2 retains heat, but shouldn't be expected to do so at the planetary level.

Mind you, this explanation doesn't have to be definitive, or complete. Just credible.

It's not like your ideas are being submitted for peer review, or anything. And it's not like you would face the social ostracism or professional backlash that comes from failing to advance part of an empiric and accurate understanding of your certain field of study. So this should be easy to do.

It should also be really funny.

Which is why you won't do it.

I can't understand how caution became a laughable course of action to advocate. Especially among self-styled "conservatives". Since when did a defense of the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine become a more conservative cause then a defense of the conditions that allowed for the agricultural revolution?

Are you guys just opposed to the advent of agriculture because it has the word "revolution" in it?

Mind you, the agricultural revolution also allowed civilization to develop, so it's a good thing that Theo has reminded us of an ethereal alternative.

Those liberals and their damn civilization! When will they stop yammering on about such mundane and trivial annoyances!

Unknown said...

"He was ruined by losing the 2000 election."

Bingo.

Al Gore is bitter at his country, and a society that denied him his 4 to 8 years of glory.

His hook or by crook billionaire status is his revenge.

He has gone mad.

Unknown said...

Great analysis that deserves to be widely read - i am linking to it on my blog.

Anonymous said...

I am curious as to what explanation the Althousians would advance for why CO2 retains heat, but shouldn't be expected to do so at the planetary level.


Everyone knows CO2 retains heat. However, everyone also knows that the effect is logarithmic, and cannot by itself account for global warming that would be dangerously outside the range of normal variability. Only if there is a significant positive feedback loop would there be a risk to the health of the planet. But after tens of billions of dollars poured down the grant-chasing rat hole for twenty years, there is not only an absence of general agreement on the magnitude of any such forcing, but not even any good evidence for its sign.

jeff said...

"I can't understand how caution became a laughable course of action to advocate."

Because those who advocate do not practice it, therefor it is laughable. How do you NOT understand it?

AST said...

This brings me to one of my pet peeves, the repeated trumpeting that stupid politicians are very smart. If you're liberal, you're extremely bright, no matter how many dumb things you do and say.

"Smart" to me, doesn't mean that you can state a lot of factoids. It means that you can differentiate between important ones and irrelevant ones and that you can reason based on the truth. Al Gore is not a scientist. He's a spokesperson who is making a bundle of money from promoting the idea that global warming is a crisis. Now that that has crumbled under scrutiny, he's falling back on the fatuous claim that CO2 is filth.

We might well have problems due to global warming, but the answers these people have come up with will do little or nothing to solve the problem, and in that they will do us great harm by wasting resources and damaging world economies.

Charlie said...

It's important for those of you responding to Mikio to know that the global warming model has failed as science. You should familiarize yourself with the evidence.

First, the Global Warming model violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics (pdf)--http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v4.pdf

Second, effects predicted by the GW model are simply not in evidence, nor does the GW model predict climate events accurately--http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/Climate_Change_Science.html#IPCC_Model

It's just a little basic science, folks. Learn it and vanquish Gore's AGW orcs.

PS: I'm not the Charlie above.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Ritmo,
" the positions taken by those humans -- those who have actually, rigorously researched a topic and submitted their findings for review by colleagues who have the same stake in advancing the most credible and empirically accurate understanding of their field of study -- matter."

So you're saying that global warming doesn't matter?

sonicfrog said...

Mikio said

Quick question: what would it take to convince you AGW deniers/skeptics that you're wrong? Name the source you trust that could do this for you. I submit it's Limbaugh but why don't you tell me? And don't be a putz and say yourself interpreting the raw data because you can't gather the raw data yourself firsthand, someone has to provide it, so name them.

Ha! You're a climate novice. You just got foisted on your own petard! Up until a few weeks ago, if you weren't a member of the Team, you couldn't get the raw data that CRU, GISS, and GHCN uses to determine climate trends. All they would offer up was the ADJUSTED data. Which was why Phil Jones and others got busted for not complying with FOI requests. If the data were available, there would have been no need for the FOI requests!

Peter V. Bella said...

Al Gore makes Bernie Madoff look like a piker and Ponzi proud. It shows w=how low the NYT has sunk, when they give a charlatan and a fraud three pages to tout his carbon for billions program.

Soon, the green house effect will be discredited too. Maybe they can come up with some crime to imprison Mr. Gore.

Anonymous said...

@Mikio: Quick question: what would it take to convince you AGW deniers/skeptics that you're wrong? Name the source you trust that could do this for you.

1) Ten years of data from a robust network of surface meteorological stations. We are now interpolating the temperature of the Amazon Basin from stations in Rio de Janeiro and Caracas. This is crazy. We need to cut funding to mountebanks like Michael Mann and Al Gore, and instead spend it on decent data collection.

2) A transparent, well-documented, reproducible method of correcting the raw surface station data for things like urban heat islands, agreed upon by all interested parties.

3) Satellite measurements that agree with the surface data to within two standard deviations.

4) A theoretical computer model that accurately reproduces the past ten years of data retrospectively, and then without any fudges or fiddling with the program, accurately predicts ten more years of measurements prospectively.

5) Definitive proof that there is no natural process that could produce identical measurements.

On every single one of these points, the scientific "consensus" is laughable.

fizzymagic said...

Those who are defending the "scientific consensus" are missing a significant point; Gore is far beyond the scientific consensus in his claim that global warming presents a catastrophic threat to human civilization. That's a long, long ways beyond "serious problem."

The current economy is a "serious problem." It is not a catastrophic threat to human civilization.

AIDS is a "serious problem." It is not a catastrophic threat to civilization.

Likewise, most scientists who accept significant anthropogenic global warming view it as a "serious problem," but nowhere near a threat to human civilization. Conflating their position with that of Al Gore is dishonest.

It's embarrassing that reputable climate scientists allow this kind of nonsense be presented to the public as their position. It's very difficult to find a charitable explanation of their silence about Gore's continued misrepresentations and misinterpretations of the science.

Anonymous said...

@RB: Are you guys just opposed to the advent of agriculture because it has the word "revolution" in it?


If you care so much about agriculture, you should be delighted at what a longer growing season in Canada and Siberia, in conjunction with 500 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere, would do to fill peoples' bellies.

mockmook said...

Mikio,

It isn't the source of data that is important.

You are stuck in a fallacy of trusting "authority."

It is the quality of the data that is important.

Ritmo Re-Animated said...

"Because those who advocate do not practice it, therefor it is laughable. How do you NOT understand it?"

This is a fascinating idea, jeff. It seems you are saying that just because any single, proponent of caution regarding AGW who produces any CO2, just because he recognizes that his miniscule contribution does not make the difference that a whole society can, his position is invalidated.

It's like proof by hypocrisy! An ad hominem in reverse! Personal examples are the way one validates the logic of one's position! Wonderful!

Ritmo Re-Animated said...

That's a great idea, Skookum John! Can we ship out the entire population of the red states to Canada and Siberia too, or just their farmers?

JAL said...

Al Gore: what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption.

With Joe here.

The molecules of the Founding Fathers are spinning. Spinning. Spinning.

...our (<---- meaning the leftist 'good guys') ability to USE the Rule of Law as an instrument of redemption?

Holy Cow.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The power we give the government -- which WE created and WE own -- is for the purpose of securing the Rights we have to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. (Gv'ment doesn't give us the Rights, btw.)

The "government" is supposed to contribute to our safety (think national defense) and Happiness (what we get to pursue if the Al Gores of the left would let us).

Nada about "redeeming us." (What is it Al Gore redeeming us from? The sin of breathing too fast and driving too far?)

Government does what it was supposed to do -- and We the People will be alive, free and pursuing happiness to whatever degree we each want to. Nothing about someone deciding to redeem us (for our own good!) by making more laws.

The funny thing there is, in the Christian (which seems to have the corner on the "redemption" idea) version of this you don't get redeemed by the law. You get condemned by the law.

Here's another bumpersticker, Al: Get your laws off my Life, Liberty and pursuit of Happiness.

Tom Spaulding said...

You're right, Ritmo. Hugh Hefner for Celibacy Czar.

Who can't get behind that? (So to speak)

Ritmo Re-Animated said...

"Who can't get behind that? (So to speak)"

I dunno. Ted Haggard? Jimmy Swaggart?

The establishment that Theo Boehm relies upon for redemption?

Allan said...

Skookum:

"4) A theoretical computer model that accurately reproduces the past ten years of data retrospectively, and then without any fudges or fiddling with the program, accurately predicts ten more years of measurements prospectively."

I disagree with you on this point.

I've done some computer modelling.
It's all B.S.
A computer model is an electronic ouija board.
You fiddle with it until you get the result you unconsciously want.

Put it this way:
If someone came to you with a computer program
that had accurately predicted the stock market
for the last 10 years
(and there probably are some that have)
would you trust it enough
to invest your life savings with it now?

Ritmo Re-Animated said...

I think all opponents of earthly redemption should try explaining to the families of murder victims, pedophilia, theft, etc., that corruption is just an acceptable part of life and that they have NO right WHATSOEVER to take solace in the establishment and enforcement of laws that keep society safer and more secure by disincentivizing against murder, rape, theft and the like!!! NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER!!!

And YOU MUST NEVER TAKE ANY PRIDE OR COMFORT IN THAT! IT IS BLASPHEMOUS TO DO SO, I TELL YOU! BLASPHEMOUS!!!

How pure it must be to have such tolerance for corruption on earth! How convenient to relegate any interest in proper and morally defensible action to Heaven alone!

lanelseymour said...

Best line from Gore's NYT article:

"From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption."

Exactly what progressives believe.

But you'll have to excuse me, Mr. Gore, et al, if I decline to entrust MY redemption to YOUR governance.

mrkwong said...

Mikio asks: what would make a 'denier' believe in climate change?

Well, first you start with a rigorous and public analysis of the surface temperature data for time period for which we have a reasonable consistent record, say the past 150 years. This must study such issues (that the current bunch of climate scientists wave off as insignificant) as urban heat island effect, the siting of surface temperature recording instrumentation, and the precipitous drop in the number of measuring sites in the post-colonial, post-Soviet era.

Bear in mind nothing like that exists now.

Then you'd need:

- Some honesty regarding the historical temperature record (e.g. the medieval warm period, which the current lot of climate scientists have been denying for a decade, now are trying to spin as having been localized to the Northern Hemisphere),

- Real observed evidence of a causative relationship between atmospheric CO2 and temperature (right now, to the extent that there's even an observed correlation, it goes the other way, positive feedback exists only in software models that haven't yet predicted anything accurately),

- Climate scientists who don't engage in unethical and illegal behavior whether it's Mann's statistical malpractice, Jones' FOI evasion, the Team's collusion in preventing publication of scrutiny of their work, or Hansen's anti-coal 'civil disobedience'.

For a start, anyway.

traditionalguy said...

Ritmo...Theo's redemption establishment does not rely on men's sacrifices. But the law of sin and death has been used and still is used as a threat of death to those who do not turn over their money to priests. That is a suggested redemption by a man's own sacrifice of property. It is so attractive to the elderly to redeem themselves with such a gift to a church/charity that Mortmain statutes exist to restrain this abuse. AlGore is only the newest rehash one of the oldest abuses on earth by priesthoods that steal men's sacrifices. Good try Al. The real redeemer, the man and God Christ Jesus, paid with His own blood and now applies it as our high Priest in heaven as he choses. With that knowledge, the law is no longer a threat to His believers, so they are free indeed.

Anonymous said...

If, instead of rehearsing slogans at one another, you wish to hear an interesting colloquy on the subject of climate change from an actual scientist at the Fermilab, you could do worse than spend an hour and a quarter with this video.

Of course, an hour and a quarter is about 74 minutes longer than the average attention span of the prototypical blog commenter.

Present company excepted, of course.

Anonymous said...

@Allan: I disagree with you on this point.

I've done some computer modelling.
It's all B.S.


Well, that's why I specify that it ought to be able to make prospective predictions that can then be looked at retrospectively at the end of the predictive period. In other words, "By their fruits shall ye know them."

That would be a huge improvement from what we've got, ridiculous kludges that can't accurately model past climate changes and definitely can't make a decent forecast.

If someone made a ten year prediction that came true, they would get my attention, just like a mutual fund with a ten or twenty year history of outperforming results gets my attention. Doesn't mean it's anything but statistical noise, but it beats the alternatives and deserves further scrutiny.

M. Report said...

Do you think of your breathing passages
as spewing shit?

Only if one is a member of the
Loony Liberal Left, or of the
Mad Muslim Mob; Both have a
serious psychological problem
with being trapped in a body
with messy biological functions;
Both project their self-disgust
onto the world.
"The World is a carcass, and
only dogs chase after it."

Ritmo Re-Animated said...

I have no idea what you're trying to say, TG. All I know is that it doesn't seem a stretch to deem a society that is not afraid of rule of law as more redeemable than one that is. Why anyone would declare that the word "redeem" suddenly has to have a purely theological definition is beyond me.

algie said...

Al's Lament for Clmate-gate

Well I want it to be understood
Global Warming is bad and not good
So the phony pitch
That made me quite rich
Would I do it again? Yes I would


....uuuu..'o^o'..nn!n....algie
Illegitimi nOn carborundum

Ritmo Re-Animated said...

I dunno. In thinking it over, I could see why people could get uncomfortable with Gore's usage of the word "redeem" (or whatever form he used it in).

But as long as we're going to pounce on that, I think it's fine to react in like manner to any proposition that a clear line be drawn between theological and secular matters.

If someone wants the purity of a strict line between "heavenly" redemption and "earthly" corruption, in some sense they are conveniently allowing themselves to condone both.

I submit that a certain amount of corruption is a part of life. But so should be an effort to call it out. Particularly when it affects the viability of public institutions or their ability to protect our basic rights.

For crying out loud, your entire jeremiad (and the series of them) decrying Al Gore, science, and any other stakeholder in the side of the public AGW debate that you detest is nothing but a cry against corruption, itself!!!

You want to give this entire sidebar a theological spin? How about this? Jesus' diatribe in the temple was another condemnation against corruption. Earthly corruption.

As a society grounded in secular government, not theocracy, you have no business telling the anti-theocrats who comprise the vast majority of this society that there should be no earthly sense of redemption that accompanies the combating of earthly corruption.

Once the Constitution is supplanted by the Bible, you can make a strict separation, and say that one side of that coin only applies to earthly establishments and the other only to religious establishments. But not until then. Ok, TG?

David said...

mrkwong gets close, but not quite. Here's how you do it: you hypothesize on the collection of factors that influence climate, both natural and manmade, including solar patterns, tilt wobble, humidity and cloud cover, CO2, El Nino and related phenomena, etc. Then you build a model, perhaps even experimenting in a lab to try to determine the _independent_ effect of each of these factors. Then, you either collect or estimate a sizable set of data on all of the hypothesized factors (150 years is barely a drop in the climate bucket) along with temperature measurements, AND (this is very important) you also determine and state error ranges for every measurement or estimate. Finally, you plug all of the data into the model and see if, starting from very long ago, it in any way accurately predicts the observed temperature (or better, a 20-year moving average of temperature to smooth out very short term weather patterns) given the error ranges of the measurements and estimates, with statistical certainty. If, and only if, the model accurately predicts temperature, then you can apply that model to predict future climate with some certainty, including applying CO2 projections, and from that you can isolate the natural climate change from anything created by human activity. At this point, you have convinced me that human activity is causing a measurable amount of climate activity. Until then, we must accept the null hypothesis - that any changes in climate that we think we observe are natural phenomena. This is how science works.

From what I can gather, the temperature data is questionable at best, I haven't seen any serious attempts to isolate natural factors, the data is very short lived, and the models as they exist do a downright awful job of predicting what today's climate should be based on observations from 100 years ago.

Jane said...

"...what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption."

You keep using that word. I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Unknown said...

We Americans hold two firsts in the Nobel Prize arena, the Nobel Prize for World Class Swindles and the Nobel Prize for Campaigning. (Gore's and Obama's)

mrkwong said...

AprilApple - China loves green energy because they know they can sell all the green-energy appurtenances to the West, and get Western green-energy outfits to build (that is, hand over IP) in China.

They'll build lots of demonstration projects but in the end they'll do whatever they need to do to get the job done, whether that's coal, nukes, whatever.

mrkwong said...

David - the problem with your approach is that climate scientists cannot even identify, much less agree, on all the inputs that make up the Earth's climate.

The subset that could be reproduced in a lab environment is so small as to guarantee that interrelationships between the various factors will be missed.

We are still far, far too early in just identifying and measuring the forces at work in Earth's climate to be able to model anything to the level of detail needed to drive policy, absent real-world confirmation (stunningly absent in the case of GIStemp, etc.) of their results.

EW1(SG) said...

Mikio first says:

Quick question: what would it take to convince you AGW deniers/skeptics that you're wrong?

Quick answer: Evidence that AGW is occurring.

What Mikio doesn't seem to get is that "consensus" is relevant in politics, but not in science.

The reason the "skeptics" outnumber the AGW cultists is because the data and the conclusions based on the premises of the folks touting the dangers of AGW have not been reproducible by other scientific institutions.

And until that happens, the "results" of those heavily invested in predicting a correlation that has never before existed should properly be viewed with skepticism.

Anonymous said...

The addled Mikio is sooooo behind the curve.

Here's a

"Memorandum submitted by the Institute of Physics (CRU 39)". As the site puts it, "The Institute of Physics is a scientific charity devoted to increasing the practice, understanding and application of physics. It has a worldwide membership of over 36,000 and is a leading communicator of physics-related science to all audiences, from specialists through to government and the general public. Its publishing company, IOP Publishing, is a world leader in scientific publishing and the electronic dissemination of physics."

"The Institute is pleased to submit its views to inform the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee's inquiry, 'The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia'."

http://tinyurl.com/yar8s7s

Read it all.

Consensus, Mikio? HAH

Oh and BTW, Mikio: have you not heard the expression "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"? The onus is on warmists, not skeptics, to make their case. Alas, their case, like your credibility, is crumbling with each passing day.

Dave said...

What would it take to convince me that AGW is real? What I would need to take it seriously is a statement by the "global warming scientists" of an experimental result which would convince THEM that AGW is NOT true. (I.e. When Galileo saw the moons revolving around Jupiter, it completely disproved the geocentric universe; when Michaelson/Morley proved there was no ether wind, it completely disproved the ether theory; and so forth.) I have posted this request on blog after blog and not received one reasoned response (evidently 15 years of global cooling is not such an experiment result). Until I hear of such an experimental result, then AGW will continue to be a belief system instead of science.

When I hear of such an experimental result, I say - let the experiments begin!

D

jeff said...

"It seems you are saying that just because any single, proponent of caution regarding AGW who produces any CO2, just because he recognizes that his miniscule contribution does not make the difference that a whole society can, his position is invalidated."

While I realize reading comprehension isnt your strong suit, what I am saying is exactly what I said. However, I will restate it for you. As long as the people claiming drastic measures in lifestyle and travel must occur or we are doomed while they live in huge houses and fly around the world creating a carbon footprint I could only dream of, then they obviously dont believe in what they are saying so why should I?

And that is such a stupid rhetorical trick. No where did I every say ANY CO. It's clear what I said and meant.

zefal said...

From Grist magazine:

An interview with accidental movie star Al Gore

9 May 2006 9:29 AM

There's a lot of debate right now over the best way to communicate about global warming and get people motivated. Do you scare people or give them hope? What's the right mix?

I think the answer to that depends on where your audience's head is. In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.

http://www.grist.org/article/roberts2/

Unknown said...

"Over time, markets would most efficiently solve most problems, they argued. "

We don't *argue* that, we *observe* it, Mr. Gore. The alternative of simply shutting up and letting politicians tell us what to do has proven, time and time again, to be a tragic mistake.

Jason said...

I am an avid Rush listener; early in the Clinton Era he DID make a nasty remark about Chelsea's looks (I was listening). He got reamed out by his listeners (after all, they are mostly decent people) and apologized profusely on air the same day, and never did it again.

What, precisely, was the "nasty remark." Where's the tape/transcript?

You don't think the usual hyenas would be airing that tape ad absurdum if it existed? You don't think there'd be a permanent link to the transcript on Salon and Kos, if it really happened?

We can find Steve Martin appearances on the Dating Game from 1968, for Chrissakes, but nobody can find this???

Almost the only stuff out there is lies about the incident.

Post your proof.

Unknown said...

Let me also add, that I would find Mr. Gore's bloviations rather more difficult to dismiss if he had ever practiced what he preaches. However, he still flies around in private jets, buys waterfront property well within the area of inundation that he threatens us with in his slideshows, and lives in a house that consumes about as much energy as a mid-sized apartment block such as the little people live in.

Al, you're a flaming hypocrite.

JeanneB said...

***It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity ...***

Note the slight-of-hand in the very first sentence. It wasn't the "recent attacks" that undermined the calamity-pushers. The attacks were based on FACTS: erroneous data, skewed results, cover-up conspiracies, etc.

As I continued reading, Gore reminded me of Scarlett O'Hara's Paw after her mother died. Dottering, living in the past, believing his Confederate bonds will save the family.

ghytred said...

The problem with AGW is that no-one knows what affect a doubling of C)2 is supposed. A lot if climate scientists (IPCC) have settled on a figure - I forget what it is and it doesn't acually matter because there is no theoretical basis for it.
This is the heart of the matter, as if the affect is very low then we don't have to worry. If the effect is higher than estimated we have to worry lots. But no-one knows.
One of the reasons thay have fixed on the figure they have is that they expect clound to be a positive feedback, excerbating any warming. But that's an assumption. It may be a negative one leading to low sensitivity.
The models don't do clouds at all (well, not much)

trittico said...

I have discovered the sinkhole of stupid on the intertubes.

Halleluhiah!!

Anonymous said...

The sun so hot I froze to death,
Obama don't you cry.

neil wilson 1 said...

Maybe I missed something but has anyone noticed that January was one of the warmest January's in history?

I know it was cold in a lot of the US and it snowed a lot in the north east. Down here in Texas, it was colder than 75% of other January's.

But, no matter how hard you try, there are a lot of theories that show the earth's warming for the last 150 years is due to AGW. There are no theories that can explain the warming because of sun spots or volcanoes or random noise.

This is very similar to evolution. There is evidence on one side and there is no evidence on the other side. The best the other side can do is say that the pro-evolution side does not explain everything perfectly.

Look, Gore doesn't have a perfect explanation of climate change. But his explanation is far superior to the people who disagree with him.

Anonymous said...

"there are a lot of theories that show the earth's warming for the last 150 years is due to AGW"

Ah, no there aren't. Not even the hard core crazy warmies claim that warming 150 years ago was due to AGW. You're pretty far out on a limb on that one.

And one lousy prediction doesn't trump another lousy prediction. That's a case of what I mentioned earlier in this thread. If you don't know, you don't know, and you should say so. A "better" explanation that is still worthless based on a lack of enough knowledge doesn't benefit anyone. It just provides pseudo-respectability to what is in reality a shot in the dark.

Unknown said...

Scientists--not just Jones and Mann--ante up their careers every time they offer a study and its data. (lie: data destroyed, date withheld.) They add to the ante every time they build conclusions on that study data. (lie: there is any positive motive to bending conclusions toward politically palatable or "al goric" conclusions.) They ante further when they aggregate such findings into large-scale reports for the political sphere, reports such as the IPCC report (lie: it's one report. It's annual reports of dozens and hundreds of elements). Your antipathy to Gore is just childish Limbaughian demonization, the mark of small minds, but it's warranted in a way--Gore isn't a scientist, he's a popularizer, and he is perfectly happy to take the heat (lie: he's doing it to become wealthy--thought that principle would disqualify the entire Republican caucus, and lead to lots of laffs). Behind Gore are thousands of scientists who have anted up their careers in a bet that they're right. This is not unusual behavior for scientists, which is why they're so careful, and why they tend to deal in arcane questions divided into tiny parts.

What have you anted, wingnut denialists? What's on the table, where's your dog in this fight? You keep referring to facts and studies--you're comically, completely wrong most of the time, and deviously wrong some of the time, but I thank you on that account; it has been a long time since somebody's supplied so many fresh and unflinching examples of the logical fallacies. (tu quoque--Gore has a big carbon footprint therefore he's lying!)

Nothing in the game means you are a pack of yapping dorks, proudly ignorant, sharp-edged stupid looking for an eye to put out.

When you have a way to deal with 200,000 dendochron lines, 100 million hard real-time temperature points, thousands of ice cores, and the cautious, patient, very very public peer-reviewed studies, then come out from under Althouse's fragrant skirts and put a few shekels on the table.

PS since 'Climategate' 'broke'-154 published peer-reviewed studies confirm or fail to refute AGW in dozens of areas of study. Total that do refute or fail to confirm: one. One study does not defeat 154 studies. That's in the past year, since you've declared victory. In that time, since the opinion of angel-believing, dinosaur-saddling fucksticks has 'turned against' AGW, it has been confirmed in various details not a few or a dozen but hundreds of times.

Nothing in the game. Patriots who love America, and you're comfortable betting for its failure to prepare for a catastrophe. Nice work, dildoes.

ice9

Anonymous said...

Yo, David: Macho posturing isn't very edifying coming from anyone, but at least soldiers, firemen, and linebackers get to do it without inspiring laughter. Scientists, not so much. Science fanboys, least of all.

Ritmo Re-Animated said...

"While I realize reading comprehension isnt your strong suit, what I am saying is exactly what I said. However, I will restate it for you. As long as the people claiming drastic measures in lifestyle and travel must occur or we are doomed while they live in huge houses and fly around the world creating a carbon footprint I could only dream of, then they obviously dont believe in what they are saying so why should I?

And that is such a stupid rhetorical trick. No where did I every say ANY CO. It's clear what I said and meant."


I'm just as happy to point out why critical thinking is not your strong suit, jeff.

No proponent of policies urging caution regarding AGW is basing their position on advocacy of an alteration of your vaunted definition of "lifestyle". Granted, there are efficiencies that are gained by the network effects that come with living in cities, using public transportation, and other things that make sense from an economic standpoint - despite the possibility that such obvious and intelligent solutions make your skin crawl. To take one example, high-speed rail would be an enormously efficient way to travel distances of less than 600 miles or so, much moreso than flying. How this would make things worse for people who regularly require travel of that distance is something I'm sure you'll invent a reason for, probably by pulling it out of your ass. Because in case you haven't noticed, air travel is not usually considered the most desirable way to get from point A to point B.

But I digress. The fact is that nearly anyone who loves to drive their car would feel no impingement on their "lifestyle" due to changes to the engine design or fuel choice alone. Even if consumers reject a possible loss of horsepower with a hybrid vehicle and felt that the gas savings didn't compensate for that in the meantime, Honda, BMW and others have now come out with engines that run on hydrogen - which also drives a powertrain on the principle of combustion; a process that must feel so good to you as the pistons vibrate under your sensitive and easily stimulated thighs.

It's simply idiotic to propose that consumers won't prefer a technology that replicates the attributes they enjoyed in older technologies (and if there's demand for such attributes, they eventually will be replicated), but which is cleaner, comes with cheaper associated costs, while providing less of a burden to most people's values.

I hope that, for your sake, whoever made the insane decision to employ someone like you at least didn't put you in charge of conducting market research.

But keep that Hummer well shined. I'm sure it makes a great "statement". To Saudi monarchs and others whom you would let define what constitutes the American "lifestyle" on behalf of the rest of us.

You terrorist-supporting, America-hating, effeminate jerk.

Or, you could just drive a hydrogen-fueled Hummer with a noisemaker and huge exhaust pipes fitted to it for the cosmetic purposes that matter so much to you. We know you crazy cons only care about image anyway. And if you use exhaust pipes that are big enough and numerous enough, no one will suspect your penis is really as small as it is. Surely you can compensate for your insecurity regarding your tiny penis through the flashy trimmings. Engine design issues will not do nearly as much to ease the psychological misgivings that stem from your anatomical shortcomings as exterior features will.

Robohobo said...

"He wants the policies that are sold under the name "global warming" whether the prediction of global warming is right or wrong."

And that is because his basic assumption is that the American people are too damn stupid to understand the NUANCE of his arguments. I am sick to death of his type. Elitists need to be shown just how us proles really think of them. No matter how you paint it, it is still Statist claptrap in different clothes and THOSE arguments are the pure stuff of Marx and Engels. It is Gore, Progressives and The Left that are the ones who are too stupid to see that they are the useful idiots.

Rope. Tree. AGW proponent. Some assembly required.

Because if believe in that shiite you really are too stupid to be allowed to continue.

Lawyer Mom said...

He personifies a bubble and triumphalism.

zefal said...

trittico:

You finally stumbled across dailykos.com. I did that several years ago.

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