1. Dealing with economic troubles takes precedence. (My question: Isn't an economic downturn automatically making the contribution that environmentalists had wanted to compel? Less production entails less carbon production. Why not celebrate the downturn? It's what you wanted. Or is it that you wanted conscious, deliberate sacrifice?)
2. Maybe it's "a byproduct of the radicalization of the Republican Party." Amusingly, he fails to pair this with the suggestion that it's a byproduct of the radicalization of the Democratic Party. The article is illustrated by a picture of Sarah Palin (wearing a winter hat). Is Sarah that attractive? It's more likely the repelling force of the drastic changes pushed by the party in power.
3. Maybe it's "the determined effort by the hard-core anti-environmental right to dominate the discussion and change its terms." Hmmm. #3 is so much like #2 that my response seems too obvious to bother to type out.
Kilgore concludes:
This is one area of public policy where “respect for contrary views” and “editorial balance” is misplaced. Sure, there are many aspects of the climate-change challenge that ought to be debated, and not just between those at the ideological and partisan extremes. But we shouldn’t be “debating” whether or not the scientific consensus on climate change actually represents a vast conspiracy to destroy capitalism and enslave the human race, any more than we should be debating whether “death panels” are a key element of health care reform.So: Crush debate. On this and on health care. Because those people on the other side are terrible radicals.
Posts
163 comments:
This guys is clearly so smart he should just use the power of his mind to dispel those nasty CO2 particles.
How's this for the possible reason: Doom-monger fatigue. Folks can only hear that the sky is falling for so long before they start to wonder why they never hear a "ka-boom".
""Why are people caring less and less about the environment?""
Because there's less to care about. In the West many of the most visible sins of industry have been rectified.
The environmentalist movement is committed now to solving problems that are increasingly insignificant (endangered vermin) and increasingly hypothetical (the dangers of global warming).
It's a movement that is losing any touch with tangible reality.
How about #4: "Because it has served its purpose to restore the left/liberals to power and, being that responsible adults in that camp wouldn't allow the civilizational/societal hari-kiri represented by the more extreme / less realistic proposals/mandates of the doom-mongers, the issues goes back on the shelf until next time a Republican is in the White House or the GOP controls Congress."
Seems about right to me.
wv: "insulph" -- a nose-hair-curdling insult, like the way Kilgore tries to blame the left/enviro's inability to "close escrow" on their cherished ideal eco-programs on a numerically ineffectual GOP "radicalism". He thinks his readers are dummies.
This isn't a new attitude. In the early '80s, Time's editor wrote a special letter to readers saying the environment was too important for the magazine to continue to try to present a balanced presentation of environmental issues. From then on, Time would adopt an advocacy approach when it came to the environment. I canceled my subscription.
Since when do we need a special explanation when high-pressure sales tactics backfire?
The connection between burning fossil fuels and global warming is too subtle to grasp.
The only similar effort resulted in discontinuing use of fluorocarbons to preserve the ozone layer. But in this case, substitute chemicals were readily available, so no consumers suffered significantly. We still have car airconditioning, for example. Converting from steel SUVs with V-8s to fiberglass wind-up cars will mean a significant sacrifice.
Back in the day, TNR was the American propaganda organ for Mussolini. The more things change....
Doom-monger fatigue. Folks can only hear that the sky is falling for so long before they start to wonder why they never hear a "ka-boom".
So people have quit listening to Glenn Beck?
Conservative radio talkshow hosts are the biggest gloom and doomers I know, so this argument fails.
Maybe it's the fact that the Global Warming fanatics are not concerned with fighting pollution, they are obsessed with Carbon.
In fact they seem to ignore many of the big polluters because it doesn't fit the narrative. Also, the most obvious is the fact that global warming fanatics seem fanatical with their fantastic gloomy predictions and their solutions seem like economic schemes.
If man made global warming is a fact, then get real about the solutions. Now.
Perhaps a factor is that the preachers of the movement (ex. Al Gore..but not limited to him) continue to spew the carbon foot print of small countries on their lavish lifestyles while advocating policies that will banish the millions to a pre-industrial economy. Americans will put up with certain types of hypocricy, but not that one.
The simple answer is that the wholehearted embrace of the issue by leftist organizations, along with the fact that only lefty solutions are proposed, has made people suspicious of the motives of the people involved. Suspicions that were for many confirmed by the recent revelations.
The science may be reliable, but the actors involved have proven untrustworthy and in effect poisoned the well.
Back in the 1970s there was a paint factory on a lake I used to fish. There was a spillway at the opposite end that foamed up like a grandmother doing the dishes after Thanksgiving dinner.
Same as the rainbow in the sky, we took those suds to be God’s promise that the lake would never actually catch fire.
People understand the concept of institutional self-perpetuation even if they don’t call it that.
Did people ever really care about global warming or were they just answering polls in what they perceived to be the correct, enlightened manner?
Warmism seems to have lost some of its cachet.
People care less about the environment for two reasons. First, the environment is measurably better in the United States than it was 30 years ago. Second, the environmentalists have wasted much of their political capital. There has been so much screaming and fear mongering about this subject that most people have just tuned it out. Environmentalists also tend to be humorless nasty luddites, which hasn't helped their cause much either.
Excluding lies from a debate is not shutting it down. It is allowing them to go unchalenged that kills debate.
Now the warmistas are latching on to the lung cancer analogy; the earth's lungs are clogged with our co2.
The problem is that analogy is that we usually dont have doctors doctoring the x-rays and ct scans to make it look worst than it really is.
At least Madoff had the decency to plead guilty to his charades.
We are the only country in the world that forbids development of energy sources.
Take heart, Mr. Kilgore: I'd say you and your fellow enviro wackos are winning.
BTW, I should add that the only fish in Lake Foamy were these little top-feeding carp less than a pound apiece. They looked sort of like this.
Excluding lies from a debate is not shutting it down. It is allowing them to go unchalenged that kills debate.
well said.
Environmentalists have essentially lost the argument.
ClimateGate is merely the coup de grace of a narrative that has fizzled.
The change from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change" is a HUGE concession even if unacknowledged.
Overstatements by Gore and others have eroded credibility, and the obvious politicization makes the cause further suspect.
The slow realization that the USA is no longer the dominant polluter on the planet is perhaps the worst news of all for environmentalists.
The enviro-left depends on the USA to be the boogeyman, and their job becomes considerably more daunting (and less psychologically rewarding) when the focus turns to countries like China or India.
Lastly, environmentalism is a luxury of rich countries with few near-term threats.
We are no longer rich, and there are greater dangers for America on the horizon than "Climate Change".
Plus we are getting sick of these lectures from elite hypocrites.
"Excluding lies from a debate is not shutting it down. It is allowing them to go unchalenged that kills debate."
Of course we magically know what the "lies" are. You shouldn't have to exclude "lies" from the debate. If the proposition is untrue, then you ought to be able to show it to be a lie through debate. That is the whole point of the debate; to figure out what is truth and what is lies. If we already know the truth, we are not debating much are we?
People like Ed Kilgore think that people like me are stupid. It's annoying.
The enviro-left depends on the USA to be the boogeyman, and their job becomes considerably more daunting (and less psychologically rewarding) when the focus turns to countries like China or India.
For the first time China purchased more cars the US this year.
Isn't this an example of a false dichotomy? "Either you believe in global warming, or you don't care about the environment." And I must confess, I actually clicked on the link and read the article (I'm loathe to read anything in TNR because of their demonstrated and indisputable track record of publishing lies). After watching "Shattered Glass" I came away with the impression that TNR was basically a high school newspaper. This article strengthens that view.
Althouse: reading TNR so I don't have to. Thank you!
It's simple: who the hell are you to tell me what is right and wrong regarding CO2 and warming?
If you want to live in a lower CO2 atmosphere and a cooler world, fine - go ahead - nobody is stopping you.
But keep your hands off my atmosphere.
I am a CO2-er. I am different. I prefer high-CO2 atmospheres.
I have felt this way since I was young, but only now have I had the courage to come out of the closet and proclaim my true nature.
(If you don't think I am different, then you don't understand, and you don't know what it feels like to be a CO2-er.)
I believe that I am genetically predisposed to high CO2 atmospheres, and I have the civil right to my own atmosphere, and anyone who disagrees is just a hater and a bigot.
Keep your hands off my atmosphere!
We were winning the game until the umpires unfairly allowed the other team to bat.
Number 4. Maybe the public has caught on to the environmentalists' b.s. Marxism and rejected it?
As someone said, "I'll believe it's a crisis when the people who believe it's a crisis change their lifestyles to match the crisis."
Al Gore with your football-stadium-sized mansion, I'm talking to you.
Greenland was called Greenland for a reason, it seems, and Lomberg claims that global warming will save lives: 500,000 freeze to death each year in the northern climes.
Then there's the East Anglia University revelations.
And no one trusts the Democrats any longer. Everything they say appears to many to be a mad power grab.
Big investors have gone green, and are now pushing green initiatives to make it pay off.
Industry has largely left America and gone to China, so there isn't much left for us to cut back on.
There is no sensible discourse about the environment. Bambi said it all for the left.
But deer are chewing New Jersey to death.
I wonder what Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit(1686-1736) would think of the bizarre new religion that denies his simple experiments in 1724 that reliably measured temperature using a know atomic element Mercury(Symbol Hg) Atomic number 80; atomic weight 200.59; boiling point 212F; freezing point 32F; specific gravity 13.546; and instead worship a Holy Grail of emails that contains a hidden code revealed only unto them.
He'd probably wonder in what universe Hg freezes at 32 and boils at 212.
"There is no sensible discourse about the environment."
NO there isn't. And there hasn't been for 20 years. The same people who scream about global warming now and acid rain twenty years ago protest outside nuclear power plants. The same people who scream about the vanishing rain forests support policies that force people in the third world into subsistance farming which is the primary culperate in the rainforsts destruction.
When I was in law school I interned at the civil division of DOJ one summer. One of the cases I worked on involved the Hossier National Forrest. The forrest is home to an endangered bat species. It is also being invaded by junipers. Junipers are nasty weed trees that crowd out the hardwoods that are the bat's habitat. So, the forrest service implimented a juniper erradication program. It was a great program. it eliminated the juniper invasion and created better habitat for the bats and every other species of fauna in the forest. Siera Club was suing the government to stop the "illegal logging" of the forrest. Most environmentalists just want to see the world burn.
I agree with many of the above points. Another issue is that like many activist groups, environmentalists started with the small things and were fairly successful, but instead of building from there, they went straight to the BIG problems involving BIG solutions, often framed in moral terms and almost all of which involved the government assuming new, expansive powers.
garage mahal said...
I wonder what Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit(1686-1736) would think of the bizarre new religion that denies his simple experiments in 1724
Welcome to our side garage! /sarc
In fact a new religion has indeed taken the evidence of Fahrenheit's new invention and applied all kinds of arcane twists and turns, so that the bald physical evidence can be forced to conform to a foregone conclusion-- AGW. I'm glad you've come to the light.
wv: elizeon-- G.F. Handel's last oratorio.
Bonus points to anyone who can identify the following text without Googling:
[T]he peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
It is necessary to consider separately these two hypotheses, each of which has a distinct branch of the argument corresponding to it. We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.
First: the opinion which it is attempted to suppress by authority may possibly be true. Those who desire to suppress it, of course deny its truth; but they are not infallible. They have no authority to decide the question for all mankind, and exclude every other person from the means of judging. To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. Its condemnation may be allowed to rest on this common argument, not the worse for being common.
instead worship a Holy Grail of emails that contains a hidden code revealed only unto them.
Well those emails certainly seemed clear and concise in stating what the 'scientists' were trying to accomplish. Then again they should be to anyone who has a basic grasp of the English language and isn't blinded by their ideological tenants.
I'm still not convinced that warmer climate is the equivalent of the apocolypse.
If present trends continue, we can predict with certainty that... by this time next week, Garage will be telling us that Archimedes settled the whole question.
@ John
I have no problem with debating any of these issues on the substance but that is not what happens when, for example, comparative effectiveness research is called 'death panels'. Screaming 'death panels' is not engaging in debate it is hijacking it. It a mixture of ad hominem and non sequitur.
A debate between Rush and Moore is not what we need because neither of them is interested in the merits of the policy.
As someone said, "I'll believe it's a crisis when the people who believe it's a crisis change their lifestyles to match the crisis."
Well this certainly doesn't help their cause, at least among those who have their hypocrisy meters turned on.
But it never was about the saving the planet. When you have firms like Kleiner Perkins teaming up with Gore, all one has to do is follow the money to see what this is all about.
It's a lot harder to grasp the science underpinning the theory than to understand someone who screams "liers, liers!!!" And the advent of the internet has allowed even the kookiest views to be disseminated. And the MSM, afeared of the big bad internet bogeyman, has allowed the nutjobbery to spread even further. I swear, if I see another column inch dedicated to AGW deniers, anti-vaxxers, truthers, etc. I will scream...again...louder. Just how insane must an idea be before it is deemed to far gone to be considered as demonstrating an opposing viewpoint.
John, doesn't luddite mean anti-science and anti-progress, and wouldn't that more aptly describe the deniers?
Oh, and Garage...the freezing and boiling points of Hg are not 32F and 212F. If they were, thermometers wouldn't work below and above those points. A small point, but given the topic of conversation, I thought it important to point out scientific inaccuracy.
"I have no problem with debating any of these issues on the substance but that is not what happens when, for example, comparative effectiveness research is called 'death panels'. Screaming 'death panels' is not engaging in debate it is hijacking it. It a mixture of ad hominem and non sequitur."
Says you. I would say it is a pretty good sumation of where publicly funded healthcare leads. If you look at the Netherlands and the UK, death panals are exactly what they have.
There is nothing wrong with pointing out the possible down the road bad effects of a policy. I am quite sure if anyone had said death pannel back when the British NHS was passing in the 40s someone like you would have screamed that was a lie. Yet, here we are.
I can remember in the early 80s when the debate of the day was over invitro fertilization. Back them people said that it would lead to scientists making large numbers of fertilized eggs and then using a few of them and throwing the rest away. All right thinking people of the time said that was horrible slander on the technology and would never happen. And of course that is exactly what is happening today.
You don't like death pannel as a term not because it is a lie or unfair debate. You don't like it because it is effective rethoric. Well too damn bad. Sometimes life is like that. It wouldn't be effective if it didn't get at the truth in some way.
When the media announces they will henceforth cover only one side of a debate because it's too important for impartial journalism, most intelligent readers come to the opposite conclusion to what the propounders of this idea intend.
They think: Balance is bullshit. There is only one side and that's all we're going to cover. We think: Your argument must be very weak if you feel like you have to filter out the other side.
Former law student's claim that "The connection between burning fossil fuels and global warming is too subtle to grasp" assumes that no one watches TV, listens to the radio or has anything to do with an educational institution from Kindergarten to graduate school. Really, I think this idea has been explained a number of times -- by politicians, movie stars and hosts of local authority figures in individual American lives. It's got to be the best-known idea of our times. If it is being rejected now, it's not because it's "too subtle." It's because the public is actively rejecting the idea due to its lack of factual foundation and common sense and/or because they don't trust the messengers.
I often think that Al Gore is the worst thing to ever have happened to the environmental movement, followed by global-warming as a close second. There are lots of important environmental issues that in fact should be addressed, but since they fall outside this "global" framework, and this apocalyptic mindset, they are getting neglected more now than they were in the 70s and 80s.
"John, doesn't luddite mean anti-science and anti-progress, and wouldn't that more aptly describe the deniers?"
No. I think it would apply to the side that is demanding that we give up the modern way of life. I am not aware of anyone who denies the catastrophic effect of global warming who thinks that we ought not to continue progress. It is the other side that wants to return to the pre-industrial age with a good dose of totalitarian population control to boot.
"He'd probably wonder in what universe Hg freezes at 32 and boils at 212."
Thank you for making my day Crimso.
FLS: The connection between burning fossil fuels and global warming is too subtle to grasp.
jimspace wrote: It's a lot harder to grasp the science underpinning the theory than ...
Actually it's easy to understand the science underpinning the theory. What is hard to understand is why scientists make predictions when they don't know how to apply the science. They don't know the feedback effects on their model. They don't know the dampening effects on their model. What they trumpet is the idea of lots of feedback multipliers and no dampening. This is when settled science is abandoned in favor of politically-corrupted alarmism.
And we know the alarmists are wrong. We know that. Because they haven't been able to predict anything yet. Every year, new data is incorporated into the models and every year the predictions change.
You want to build a little mathematical greenhouse? Go ahead. Build a real one, if you want. Grow orchids in your little greenhouse. Just don't call it "Antartica."
Antarctica.
This could have something to do with it:
http://pajamasmedia.com/eddriscoll/2009/12/14/chinas-not-debating-this-at-all/
I'll submit three reasons of my own.
1) "Being green" has been packaged as an indulgence. I use indulgence both in the sense of an unnecessary luxury and in the sense of purchasing remission of sin. "Green" options are usually a little more expensive and/or a little more time-consuming than "non-green" options, and the trade-off has been the good feeling you get from "saving the planet". They haven't been sold as duty--wouldn't have had as many willing buyers. So when times get tight (or seem to), where duty might get you through, indulgences can be cut from the budget easily--in fact, they're usually the first to go.
2) "The environment" or "the planet" or "the globe" isn't real. Costs are. Since those terms are so big, there's a sense in which the issues are always abstract. So there's really no cost to nodding one's head and agreeing with the rhetoric. When the same sort of discussion is tied to a local park or river, though, the issues become very identifiable and the costs and benefits quantifiable. Then it actually means something to take a side. What's changed is that people got in power and are actually trying to impose costs. Now it's real in a way it wasn't before.
3) Some of the most vocal proponents are real jerks. This tends to drive down support. The term "deniers" is a case in point; whatever possessed proponents to connect their opponents, however tangentially, with Holocaust deniers? The ClimateGate emails have reinforced this perception, breaking down the standard impulse to believe the experts. Then, once the aura of infallibility is gone, the suggestion of actual malfeasance gets a lot more traction. Besides, the approach of "there's no time, do what we say because we're smarter than you" has always been a dumb one to take with Americans. We typically consider ourselves to have no betters and damn few equals, so doubling down on "consensus of experts" isn't all that useful.
It is the other side that wants to return to the pre-industrial age with a good dose of totalitarian population control to boot.
One of the last Tom Clancy books I read was Rainbow Six which was a total departure from his Cold War epics. The basic premise was a multi-national anti-terrorist commando unit that crisscrossed the globe whacking terrorists who as it turned out, were in the service of this huge pharmaceutical company that was creating a pathogen that would wipe out all human life (except for a chosen few) thereby saving the planet from the deprivations of man. Think Moonraker with a lot more technospeak.
I recall thinking that was the first Clancy novel where I had to suspend disbelief to get it to work for me. Now almost 10 years later and hearing some of the more ‘fervent’ environmentalists, I changed my opinion about it being far- fetched, but rather, just ahead of its time.
Yes, Ann, Palin is that attractive. Very attractive. My proposal for #4 is that some people like their world a little warmer: Crops grow better in our hemisphere, less disease, easier sailing through the Arctic. What's not to like about another degree or two?
To be pedantic, Luddites were anti-mechanization; science never entered into it at all.
At their core, environmentalists are largely Luddites in their outlook. They really believe that mechanization is destroying the earth; all those trains, planes and automobiles (which, of course, they will use both directly and indirectly while at once complaining about them.)
Arturius,
Did you see the History Channel show "Life After People"? The thing was filled with "environmentalists" who seemed downright giddy over the prospect of wiping out the human race. It was the creepiest thing I have ever seen.
Kilgore, didn't you get the memo? The plant strike has ended. Our little green friends are, once again, busily converting CO2 to oxygen and carbohydrates. Thank Heaven they didn't lose the photosynthesis recipe.
We have you lefties to thank for it. Through their representatives (those dang dandelions), the plants were demanding an impossible infusion of poop as a condition of returning to work. Thanks to Climategate and Copenhagen, their demands have been met. CO2 levels are dropping as I type.
Someone said "Death Panels", so the left is prepared to swallow whole tax hiking, deficit busting, road to single payer "reform".
Sarah said "Death Panels". The debate is over.
Got that?
Did you see the History Channel show "Life After People"? The thing was filled with "environmentalists" who seemed downright giddy over the prospect of wiping out the human race. It was the creepiest thing I have ever seen.
I missed it although I have heard reviews from others that pretty much echo what you said.
I don't care "less and less" about the environment. On the contrary, individually, I have made a lot of effort to change some things in my life (not using plastics that really can't be recycled, ie take out food containers, I bring my own, among other changes). I badger and badger city government to do more.
I think there were some moments there when there was some momentum, including after the bailout when the economy had already tanked, so I don't think it's all about the economy.
I don't know what it is, the explanation for the lack of momentum.
"But we shouldn’t be “debating” whether or not the scientific consensus on climate change actually represents a vast conspiracy to destroy capitalism and enslave the human race, any more than we should be debating whether “death panels” are a key element of health care reform."
Is it "crushing debate" (what hysteria, btw) to loudly say that anyone who believes either of those things is an asshole? What about saying they are morons? Losers? Bad-faith charlatans? Hacks? Paid shills? Brainless? Spineless? Rubes? Stupid?
How about, just stupid, and if aggressive about polluting the world with their idiotic fallacies, then stupid assholes. Is that "crushing debate"?
How about, just stupid, and if aggressive about polluting the world with their idiotic fallacies, then stupid assholes. Is that "crushing debate"?
I'd say so. You may be cherishing an illusion about which side you're crushing.
I don't know what it is, the explanation for the lack of momentum.
There was a time when I liked Tom Hanks as an actor. Then there came a point where I started wanting to see someone else win an Oscar for a change.
Its over exposure. You can only hammer the public with something so much that they just start becoming numb, if not indifferent. The preachiness doesn't help either.
Interesting coming from a guy named "Kilgore". As a Texan, I usually don't put "Kilgore" and "environmentalism" together in sentence. Witness downtown Kilgore in the 1950s: Lovely downtown Kilgore derricks
"Is it "crushing debate" (what hysteria, btw) to loudly say that anyone who believes either of those things is an asshole? What about saying they are morons? Losers? Bad-faith charlatans? Hacks? Paid shills? Brainless? Spineless? Rubes? Stupid?"
You can call them anything you like. It will just make you look like an asshole engaged in a lot of projection. This is especially true when you engage in complete denial of the numerous sins committed by your own side. If the science is so settled, Phil Jones wouldn't have been commiting felonies to keep his source data and code from being released.
Alan,
When I think Kilgore, I think of the lovely Rangerettes
http://www.rangerette.com/
Is it "crushing debate" (what hysteria, btw) to loudly say that anyone who believes either of those things is an asshole? What about saying they are morons? Losers? Bad-faith charlatans? Hacks? Paid shills? Brainless? Spineless? Rubes? Stupid?
No, probably not, but you're changing the subject. I wonder why?
How about, just stupid, and if aggressive about polluting the world with their idiotic fallacies...
Are idiotic fallacies a greenhouse gas? OMG, it's the Internet that is causing global warming!
Seriously, MM, I see no problem at all with invective, so long as it goes both way.
I do question the minds of people who seek out bomb-throwers as a strategy to avoid hard questions -- and as a way to smear all opponents. People like Ed Kilgore, for example. AprilApple's 12:14 pretty much sums up Kilgore's mindset in one sentence.
* * *
This just came to mind:
Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave Bowman: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Is Douglas Rain still alive? The IPCC should hire him to read their press releases.
So you think climate change represents a vast conspiracy to destroy capitalism and enslave the human race. And I'm supposed to not "crush debate" by nodding sagely, acknowledging your wise contribution to the "debate" over climate science?
You are saying that I am part of, or a dupe of, a vast conspiracy to enslave the human race and destroy capitalism. Because I find the reams of evidence pointing to anthropogenic climate change to be convincing.
So, how in any sense are you respecting my views or intelligence? You aren't having a debate. You also think there is no debate to be had. That you are good and that I am evil or stupid.
So in turn I have no qualms about calling you what you are: a stupid asshole.
I hate to say it but I wonder if the lack of momentum is people now expecting GOVERNMENT to step in and tke some action. There's a limit about what people can do without government action. I know that's gonna activate the lib button on this site and bring back the same old stuff when people tried to talk like they knew anything about what Mike Tidwell does.
"So you think climate change represents a vast conspiracy to destroy capitalism and enslave the human race."
No one thinks that. It is a product of group think and opportunism on the part of scientists with a few truly loathsome people thrown in (see Jones, Phil). Thirty years ago climate science was about as important and well funded as the study of cave invertabrites. Then came global warming and now it is a multi-billion dollar industry. That creates teremendous incentives for scientists to fool themselves. If I get a grant and build an institute to study "Man's effect on the climate" and hire you to run it, you are not going to spend much time or effort considering if man effects the climate. All of that money creates a soft tyrany of expectations among scientists. No one really wants to be the person who kills the golden goose.
That group think combined with the usual crooks, political opportunists and old socialists in need of a new excuse to end capitalism have created a perfect storm of scientific mendacity and political hysteria.
Kilgore refers to "many years of painstaking efforts to explain climate change to the American people." I have read books (including the recent IPCC reports) and spent innumerable hours on the Internet trying to find the real science case for AGW; my conclusion is that no one will take the trouble to set it forth. We only have the hockey stick and the exaggerated list of threats from "climate change." That's unless you accept Gore's book and movie as science. If there is a good case for AGW, it should be quietly and persuasively offered, along with specifics of the data and models supporting it.
Really? There are people who want to "end capitalism" left? Really? Seriously?
"At their core, environmentalists are largely Luddites in their outlook. They really believe that mechanization is destroying the earth; all those trains, planes and automobiles (which, of course, they will use both directly and indirectly while at once complaining about them.)"
I prefer Fuddites. They are generally far quieter; they're hunting rabbits, after all.
"Really? There are people who want to "end capitalism" left? Really? Seriously?"
You don't think that there are not lots of socialists, communists and other adherents to centrally planned economies left in the world? Do you honestly think they just gave up and went away after the fall of the eastern block?
Let me look for a crowbar and we can see if we can get your head out of your ass. Considering that it has apparently been up there your entire adult life, it is going to be a tough job.
John, don't be so violent, please.
I really don't see a lot (any) of communists and socialists around me, no.
Please try to answer without the violent imagery, if you can. If not, just don't answer.
"I really don't see a lot (any) of communists and socialists around me, no."
There is nothing violent about me helping you to pull your head out of your ass. It is an act of kindness actually.
Look at the proposals to combat global warming. They are a design for a centrally controlled economy. In the guise of controlling CO2 emmissions, the govenrment will have effective control over virtually every area of the economy. That sounds a lot like socialism to me. I would encourage you to read about the proposed EPA rules. You won't be able to build any building over a small mansion without being considered a "major emitter" and having to get a CAA permit from EPA. How is that not centralized planning.
I can understand why you don't see communists and socialists around you. Most people are too stupid to know what those terms mean. And thus are not smart enough to understand that is what they are advocating.
Sorry, I can't listen to you / read your posts when you insist on talking like you do.
If people care less about anything - it is due to the economy.
However, I agree with Crimso that it is a false dichotemy. I don't agree that people care less about the environment. I see a lot of people making personal changes that are positive for the environment.
John: I saw that program on NatGeo. It was very, very creepy. Science fiction dressed up as a documentary.
I think the article is illustrated with a picture of Sarah Palin because you can see she is wearing a cross earring.
Kilgore admits that 2 and 3 are interrelated. Anyway, it's good he brought it up, even though it was an unsatisfactory article IMO.
But! I really do think Yglesias and Althouse should do a bloggingheads.
Converting from steel SUVs with V-8s to fiberglass wind-up cars will mean a significant sacrifice.
That's especially true for the limousine liberals who drive around in Escalades with their "Save Mother Gaia" stickers on the back bumper.
You are saying that I am part of, or a dupe of, a vast conspiracy to enslave the human race and destroy capitalism.
I won’t go so far to say enslavement, but I do believe that capitalism is clearly a target of the global warming proponents. The very proposals that demand the ‘rich’ nations reduce their emissions while funding new green tech research at the same time funding billions to help ‘poor’ nation’s cope with climate changes is the same tired theme that used to be call for the workers of the world to unite. ‘Poor’ nations have been funded with tens of billions for, oh the last half century and a fat lot of good they’ve done with it. I have no reason to believe that somehow sending billions more will help them ‘cope’ with climate change than the previous billions alleviated their poverty.
Because I find the reams of evidence pointing to anthropogenic climate change to be convincing.
There are reams of evidence supporting the notion that we are being visited by extraterrestrial intelligences, but as with global warming, the jury is out as to whether it’s actually a bad thing.
There are few things more satisfying in life than smoking a Lucky Strike down to the nub and as you slowly exhale the last vestige of that smooth and silky flavor, flicking that butt on to the pavement right in front of a frizzy haired do-gooder collecting signatures on a petition to stop global warming.
Rachel Carson taught the Powerful the power behind fake "save nature" claims. No truth was ever listened to after that...the envios enjoyed full power of lying for results and financial blackmail. It became a Cult. The end of that cult will require an intervention to rescue the cult members. Simple bold truth is the antidote, but getting past the Media boys filter is a challenge.
How about standing in the sun on an unseasonable warm December afternoon as you savor a paper sack full of McDonald’s cheeseburgers. You unwrap each of these burgers individually as though they were the most thoughtful of Christmas presents and slowly chew each delicious quasi-meat like patty of indeterminate origin garnished by processed cheese products and of course a tart pickle. You slowly masticate each and every bite as you ball up the wrapper and toss it on the floor. When you finish your gentle repast you use the grease stained paper bag to wipe your lips before you toss it in the gutter. You belch thoughtfully and go back inside the OTB.
Life is good.
Really? There are people who want to "end capitalism" left? Really? Seriously?
Quite a few in fact. Take a look at any G8, antiwar, climate change protest (the Internets are replete with photos) and there is no shortage of anti-capitalism signs, slogans, Che t-shirts and the ubiquitous hammer and sickle flag here and there.
Didn’t Howard Dean not all that long ago claim he had had enough of capitalism or something similar?
So you think climate change represents a vast conspiracy to destroy capitalism and enslave the human race. And I'm supposed to not "crush debate" by nodding sagely, acknowledging your wise contribution to the "debate" over climate science?
You are saying that I am part of, or a dupe of, a vast conspiracy to enslave the human race and destroy capitalism. Because I find the reams of evidence pointing to anthropogenic climate change to be convincing.
I don't think this. I do think, however, that the climate bureaucrats at EPA and the UN are heedless of the logical economic and human consequences of the agreements, treaties and regulations they are pursuing. I don't think Jones, Mann et. al. have a position on capitalism, but they do think in a paranoid, Nixonian fashion about their enemies, who they facilely assume are all on the payroll of oil companies. Some of us are worried about, oh, an increase in starvation in the third world as arable land is converted to growing switchgrass to allow Europe to meet its CO2 goals by forcing the non-economic use of biofuels. Or an increase in poverty as, inevitably, developing nations are thrown backward in their progress. Certainly, there will be an impact on US and other wealthy countries, but morally, that's less of a concern for me.
Vast carelessness is a phrase from "The Great Gatsby." I think the CRU mob and the Copenhagen mob and the Al Gore cult are guilty not of a communist conspiracy but of vast carelessness.
HT
"Really? There are people who want to "end capitalism" left? Really? Seriously?"
Check out a typical "progressive" blog like this one.
http://pandagon.net/
Both the blog hosts and the commenters frequently talk about their dreams of ending Capitalism.
They are not "that" far out of the mainstream. One of the hosts was the Webmaster for John Edwards (before she was tossed under the bus).
Answer to question: Why are people caring less and less about the environment? They are not caring less. Many just don't buy into the fanatic fringe of the MOVEMENT. It has nothing to do with whether we care about our world. Which we do.
After the last race you stop by the bodega to pick up a hostess Snowball cupcake, a can of red bull and a pack of smokes. You sit outside on an upside down orange crate slowly enjoying your cupcake as you wager on the ongoing domino game and you stop for a moment. You stand up and flare your nostrils as you smell the odor of stale beer, cheap perfume, and desire that wafts from the gin mill on the corner. You smile as you revel in the promise of the night.
Life is good.
A far more thoughtful take on the same question from Clive Crook, who is a wise and honest warmist:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cc90fb80-e817-11de-8a02-00144feab49a.html
Excerpt:
Any fair-minded person would regard those (Climategate) exchanges as raising questions. On the face of it, these are not the standards one expects of science. Nor is this just any science. The work of these researchers is being used to press the case for economic policies with colossal adjustment costs. Plainly, the highest standards of intellectual honesty and openness are called for. The e-mails do not attest to such standards.
Yet how did the establishment respond? It said that this is how science is done in the real world. Initially, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change defended the scientists and played down the significance of their correspondence. Al Gore said he had not read the e-mails (they were stolen, for heaven’s sake) and that they were reassuring.
When, inexplicably, that did not quell the scandal, the climate-science establishment argued that even if CRU’s work was excluded from consideration, plenty of other evidence supported its findings. Maybe so, thinks the fair-minded voter. But the independence of other big research groups is not entirely clear. In any case, many scientists had just called the e-mailers exemplars of best practice. Why should one expect other researchers’ standards to be any different?
Which leaves smearing the doubters as opponents of science itself. They are either stupid or evil; “flat-earthers” or “deniers” (akin, that is, to Holocaust deniers). Supporters of the consensus no doubt lap this up. The voters who need to be convinced are less likely to. On the whole, people object to being called ignorant or evil. That is not how you bring them round.
Nothing torments the do-gooders more then when the common people enjoy their lives on their own terms and revel in their simple pleasures.
It drives them mad.
Both the [pandagon] blog hosts and the commenters frequently talk about their dreams of ending Capitalism.
Not the pandagon blog in this universe. Currently it is puzzling over Gay GOPsters, climate change denialists, and misogyny.
If the do-gooders had their way, they would outlaw mayonnaise.
Nothing torments the do-gooders more then when the common people enjoy their lives on their own terms and revel in their simple pleasures.
Nothing puzzles do-gooders more than people who ingest lethal drugs that won't even get them high, but will add to the profits of an uncaring corporation.
Newports, Salems, and Kools were the gateway drugs for my sister.
Not the pandagon blog in this universe. Currently it is puzzling over Gay GOPsters, climate change denialists, and misogyny.
But what about the pandagon blog in the universe where Mercury freezes at 32F?
Destroy capitalism.
Step 1: Hand 2 trillion to Wall St.
Step 2: ??????
Step 3: Anarchy!
Sofa King: don't think anyone took you up on your challenge quote, but sounds awfully much like John Stuart Mill's defense of free speech from "On liberty." Ahh if only the current crop of "liberals" was like the crop of classical liberals--Alas. Said to say one branch of liberalism has morphed into progressivism.
And by the way--who is Ed Kilgore--wasnt he the voice of Mr Ed? Never heard of the dude, and based on the snippet provided, doesnt sound like I would like to know him.
Maybe it's the fact that the Global Warming fanatics are not concerned with fighting pollution, they are obsessed with Carbon.
Yes. When the focus was on keeping the environment clean and safe for humanity, it was one thing. Now it’s focused on eliminating a marginal threat of a warming globe through measures that are highly unlikely to eliminate that threat (run by people who are just trying to make a buck and don’t actually practice what they preach), and none of it is really about making things better for people, it’s about making people suffer in support of some strange ideal temperature when we don’t even know what the ideal temperature is. To me, colder weather and hotter weather both bring with them upsides and downsides and it’s ridiculous to act like we know which is better. We’re not even allowed to debate it!
And of course, that's not even counting climategate emails and the recent cold temperatures.
The sad thing is, regular environmentalism has been shoved aside to support the global warming crowd and the two goals are not always compatable. Would the environmentalists of old have supported destroying a bunch of perfectly good cars and hoping people will buy new ones?
But what about the pandagon blog in the universe where Mercury freezes at 32F?
It might! We know so little about mercury.
Do-gooders demand that every restuarant stop using trans-fats
because "It is not good for you."
Taste does not matter. Your personal preferance does not matter. Freedom does not matter.
Donuts will be sold like crack.
Destroy capitalism.
Step 1: Hand 2 trillion to Wall St.
Step 2 would then be fascism, the classical economic definition anyway but its certainly not capitalism.
A handout is a handout whether it be to 'fat cat' bankers or welfare queens. Neither one has any role in promoting or sustaining capitalism.
Why is it that word that most often precedes "scientist" is usually "evil."
Sofa King: don't think anyone took you up on your challenge quote, but sounds awfully much like John Stuart Mill's defense of free speech from "On liberty."
It is indeed! It is one of my favorite pieces of writing: clear and to the point, it always seems strangely salient to current circumstances.
We know mercury makes a good thermometer. SO one wonders why the warmists keep applying "adjustments" to old temperature data that used mercury thermometers--and that the adjustments just happen to mostly go in the direction they want.
Why is it that word that most often precedes "scientist" is usually "evil."
Well if it was a Family Feud question I would have gone with "mad" being the number one answer of those surveyed.
You never hear someone being called an “evil used car salesman.” No one ever talks about an “evil telemarketer.” Even the most conservative publication does not complain about “evil IRS auditors.”
But the “evil scientist” has been a staple of literature and verse for a very long time.
Why is that?
Perhaps because they are inherently evil and our folk wisdom and sense of the world tells us that this is so?
So you think climate change represents a vast conspiracy to destroy capitalism and enslave the human race. And I'm supposed to not "crush debate" by nodding sagely, acknowledging your wise contribution to the "debate" over climate science?
I think that all you need to do is look at what has gone on at Carbonhagen. We have the same protesters who show up at G8 summits and preach all their anti-1st World rants. And, really the same sort of people who were still backing Communism as the Soviet Union was crashing. So, they have converted over to environmentalism, but their goals really aren't all that different.
You are saying that I am part of, or a dupe of, a vast conspiracy to enslave the human race and destroy capitalism. Because I find the reams of evidence pointing to anthropogenic climate change to be convincing.
I doubt that you are really a part of the conspiracy, but rather, possibly a dupe of those who are.
Do you really understand the science that well? If so, I would suggest that you should be the one doing the research, not the people who can't figure out why the Earth hasn't warmed in the last 11 years, but are still considered the experts in the field.
My view is that week by week, as more and more information comes out, the science behind AGW looks more and more like a house of cards.
Of course, I am a denialist, so my views are officially irrelevant (actually, I am agnostic, but that works out the same).
You never hear someone being called an “evil used car salesman.”
Because its redundant.
We know mercury makes a good thermometer. SO one wonders why the warmists keep applying "adjustments" to old temperature data that used mercury thermometers--and that the adjustments just happen to mostly go in the direction they want.
Coldists believe the readings which shows a dip in temps from the same scientists. How do we really know if the earth really cooled? Why didn't scientists just fake the data like they did in the "warming" years?
The word Evil is applicable to the destabilizers of the market system thru Currency manipulations to create crises. These guys are hard at work on using the Warming/Flooding crisis shown in their fantasy propaganda programs on TV and in films aimed at panicking the the weak minded. They are confident that they can then easily revoke our money and make us surrender to using their new system of Carbon Credit Units issued thru George Sosros's International Reserve Bank. After that happens the price of everything will be set by UN Bureaucrats that especially hat ugly Americans. Can Barack save us? Does he want to save us? Hmmm. BTW it is cooling and not warming as everyone knows.
SO one wonders why the warmists keep applying "adjustments" to old temperature data that used mercury thermometers--and that the adjustments just happen to mostly go in the direction they want.
My guess: to correct the inaccuracy of the readings. From a paper seemingly not connected to climate change:
The quality of the thermometer depends largely on the quality of the glass from which it is made. This fact had been common knowledge since the appearance of the Florentine thermometers. Fahrenheit recommended that to attain the best comparability different thermometers should be constructed of the same class of glass. The small thermal expansion of mercury thermometers makes the instrument very sensitive to the thermal behavior of glass. Inferior glass has a considerable thermal lag; that is, the volume change lags behind the temperature change reaching its final value only after several hours. Already in 1880 it was recommended that glasses containing lead oxide should be avoided. Glass also exhibits volume hysteresis; that is, its own volume depends not only on its present temperature but also on its past thermal history (during heating, the readings for a given temperature will be different than those for the same temperature when cooling). A glass thermometer heated to a high temperature and then cooled and placed in an ice bath seemingly comes immediately to equilibrium; however, the bulb continues to shrink, gradually causing a corresponding rise of the ice point. This is called zero-point creep. This progressive change of the ice point represents an asymptotic approach to some limiting bulb volume and, depending on the quality of the glass, may go on for a very long time. To illustrate this point we can mention that Joule (1818–1889) kept records for 40 years of the zero point of his thermometers. In 1844 he marked the freezing point of water as zero on a very accurate thermometer made by Dancer. Then, up to 1882, he determined the freezing point of water several times and noted that it has risen steadily up to 0.61 °C. When the thermometer was last examined in 1930, the creep was still in progress and had reached 0.67 °C. It was noted that the rate of rise had initially been rapid, but was slowing down and, it could be inferred, would ultimately be undetectable. Unfortunately, Joule’s thermometers were destroyed during an air raid in 1942. Although modern borax glasses are a great improvement over earlier glasses, they still exhibit creep. Zero-point creep renders the fixed points, and hence the whole scale of liquid-in-glass thermometers, uncertain and so precludes them as standards [5].
http://chemeducator.org/sbibs/s0005002/spapers/520088jw.htm
Taste does not matter. Your personal preferance does not matter. Freedom does not matter.
A limitation on transfats limits producer freedom, not consumer freedom, unless the consumer has a death wish.
One must wonder at conservatives' desire to facilitate their own poisoning, in the name of corporate freedom.
I might have misspoke. Your point is well taken. The phrase should be more properly “evil mad scientist.”
We can, I suppose give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are psychotic and not merely evil.
Although when we examine the strictures they would impose on our society in the name of unproven theories, it is hard to give them the benefit of the doubt that they would not grant to a lowly éclair.
We know mercury makes a good thermometer. SO one wonders why the warmists keep applying "adjustments" to old temperature data that used mercury thermometers--and that the adjustments just happen to mostly go in the direction they want.
Part of the reason that this seems to problematic is that the justifications for adjusting temperature seem more credible when the temperature is reduced, instead of increased, to compensate for, say, urban warming.
This is one of the reasons that the adjustments to the Darwin temperatures are so interesting. Two out of three sites were adjusted up in parallel by some 2 degree C during a time when the actual recordings were heading down. Then, the temperatures for all three sites were averaged, apparently to make the numbers look more plausible.
fls
Taste does not matter. Your personal preferance does not matter. Freedom does not matter.
A limitation on transfats limits producer freedom, not consumer freedom, unless the consumer has a death wish.
One must wonder at conservatives' desire to facilitate their own poisoning, in the name of corporate freedom.
I know you won't believe this, but some of us recognize certain things are bad for us or dangerous, yet, remarkably, we still want to make our own decisions about whether to do them or not.
A consumer may in fact have a death wish, or may just wish to take greater risks than Mike Bloomberg and his fellow nannies wish.
My guess: to correct the inaccuracy of the readings.
One problem is the justification for adjusting them. What are they using to base the adjustments on? Other inaccurate thermometers? Tree rings? Some other proxies?
This later gets into the reliability of the proxies, which are looking more and more questionable.
Also, how does this tie into significant upwards adjustments for the last decade or so? I would expect that these thermometers, or whatever is being used now, are more accurate, not less so, than in the past. And, there are likely more reasons to adjust temperatures down, than up.
A limitation on transfats limits producer freedom, not consumer freedom, unless the consumer has a death wish.
What the producer is not free to produce, the consumer is not free to choose. That seems self-evident.
One must wonder at conservatives' desire to facilitate their own poisoning, in the name of corporate freedom.
Perhaps they're simply unwilling to concede that unhealthiness alone is sufficient justification for banning a certain activity.
To say that the phrase “evil used car salesman” is redundant might very well be true.
But a used car salesman merely wants to sell you his wares, flawed though they may be. Not demand that you trade in your muscle car for a tin box that is attached to an extension cord.
No Mustangs. No Corvettes. No Cadillacs. No monster SUV.
They want everyone to look like Ed Begley Jr.
They are evil. Pure and simple.
How do we really know if the earth really cooled?
I don't honestly see how it could considering that Al Gore said the Earth's core was millions of degrees. Considering that is hotter than the photosphere of Sol, I'm trying to come to grips with how we even have polar caps at all.
When it comes to temperatures, we just don't know anything do we.
Whenever I hear a sentence with "the environment" in it I zone out.
Do gooders want to ban the French fried potato. The mozzarella stick. The Ring Ding.
My God, they want to ban the Twinkie!
They are evil.
We must resist with all our powers.
If scientists are faking the data both ways, warmer or colder, we're in a world of hurt.
The Climategate controversy and the research it has caused me to do has opened my eyes to this fundamental fact: Climatology, strictly speaking, isn't a science. It uses various sciences, including meteorology, statistics, physics, chemistry, solar astronomy and others, including social sciences. But there is no long tradition of climatological "science" whose rules and practices are handed down from the great science practitioners of the past. Climatology is more properly seen as an interdisciplinary offshoot that has grown into an immense field primarily because it has been so attractive to entities that give grants. And that is due to the tremendous publicity around the global warming issue beginning in the late 80s. From the very beginning, the science has been immersed in a bias. By definition, if you're a climatologist today, you start out with the belief that man is changing the climate through activities ranging from energy use to deforestation, and your job is merely to document it. There aren't climatologists who ask the question, "what if our assumptions are wrong?" Those questions come from other scientists, which is why they tend to react with hostility, paranoia and ad hominem attacks on the critics' motives. Even if the critics are highly qualified scientists, they aren't in the climatologists' club and are thus marginalized.
What the producer is not free to produce, the consumer is not free to choose.
When all the commercially available sweet baked goods contained transfats, where was my choice?
But if you're willing to risk your life to boost corporate products, I have some lead-painted toddler toys I'm trying to unload in the face of worldwide nannyism.
When it comes to temperatures, we just don't know anything do we.
Well I know the temperature of the Earth's core is not 'millions' of degrees and I'm not even a Nobel-Oscar award winning movie director professing to be an authority on the subject.
I think what we don't know is what a 1 or even 5 degree temperature increase will actually cause the human race to become extinct or even inconvenience us a little bit. I know I like it better when its 90 than when its 20. I know you can grow more crops in warm climates than cold ones. Those are easy ones. Does it mean ocean levels may rise to where I may have to find a new condo in Florida? Perhaps but the selfish part of me has difficulty getting worked up over it.
What I also do know is that the plans the wizened people in Copenhagen have planned is nothing more than an unprecedented wealth transfer scheme that may or may not actually reduce emissions.
That much I do know.
When all the commercially available sweet baked goods contained transfats, where was my choice?
All commercially available baked goods used Crisco?
Even Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookies?
I don't think so!
Even if the critics are highly qualified scientists, they aren't in the climatologists' club and are thus marginalized.
Let's try this argument in another realm, and see how persuasive it is, shall we?
One of my highly qualified EE professors proved with mathematical certainty that the makers of Zyklon B never could have shipped enough to Auschwitz to kill the number of Jews alleged to have died from poisoning. (He asserted the quantities of the insecticide the Nazis received were sufficient only to delouse the inmates' clothes.) Yet he was outside the Holocaust club and was thus marginalized.
So come up with a better argument than the "club exclusion" one.
I care about the environment more than Al Gore does. Really I do.
Because I know Al Gore is full of shit. I think Al Gore is sincere, but mostly wrong.
I believe there is a manmade component to global warming, but it is a small one and frankly these trends are caused by forces well beyond our means. Michael Crichton and Bjorn Lomborg were right on this.
And I know spending trillions on global climate change means less for habitat preservation and a host of far more serious challenges (over foresting, market hunting and fishing, etc.). Yes I recognize that there is some overlapp, but it is inefficient to do it Al Gore's way and far too wasteful.
Going Al Gore's route is prone...no, doomed, to failure.
When all the commercially available sweet baked goods contained transfats, where was my choice?
Assuming you aren't just making that "fact" up, are you required by law to consume sweet baked goods or something? Rush was right: if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
Humanity has not really progressed very far through the years.
Now the contemptuous dismissal hissed through clenched teeth at the bumptious masses of the common folk is:
“Don’t let them eat cake.”
I would be a great deal more willing to accept the scientific consensus if the scientists used the scientific method. Who thinks refusing to make data, code and methods available is science? I mean, other than climate scientists?
It would also help if they didn't routinely demonstrate gobsmacking incompetence. Some hints to "scientists" who'd like to be taken seriously --
1. Check you instruments. Really. When 90% fail basic scientific standards, you have a problem.
2. Pretend numbers are not science. Even when the pretend numbers are used to show "it's worse than we thought!"
3. "Why should I share my work with you? You'll only try to find something wrong with it." -- is not science.
4. Next time one of you announces a study which overturns everything previously believed in the field, it would be a good idea for someone to check it out before you buy it.
5. Get some professional help. Find some software engineers to fix the garbage code. Ask some statistics professionals to help with all the stats screwups. Seriously, you amateurs need help!
Try to do science for a while. Then maybe people will pay more attention to you.
Coldists believe the readings which shows a dip in temps from the same scientists. How do we really know if the earth really cooled? Why didn't scientists just fake the data like they did in the "warming" years?
Coldists? Adorable, truly.
The thing lost in all the “deniers” labeling, is that people for the most part are not questioning the temperature (although they may question the adjustments to the temperature), they are questioning the REASON for it. Some people are also concerned about the predictive value of models that so far haven’t seem to have predicted anything.
So come up with a better argument than the "club exclusion" one.
Your example is off point. Your EE professor is working within a well-established academic field called "history." There are different schools of thought and methods in history, but the rules of gathering and evaluating evidence for purposes of creating history have been honed over a period of centuries. (In fact, history is another field incorporated into climatology.)
Not so for climatology. Look at the questions and issues raised on this thread alone. Clearly the very important "proxy" element for determining historical climates is not robust and the e-mails show a great reluctance to do anything with that data other than present it if it helped make the case, and massage it if it didn't. To me, that's a science that is still crawling, not yet walking.
Whenever I hear a sentence with "the environment" in it I zone out.
Whenever someone on a tv show starts talking about making something “green” I want to throw things. Please stop preaching about this stuff during what is supposed to be mindless entertainment!
One of the greatest soldiers in recorded history, Frederick the Great, learned all of his strategy and tactics maneuvering toy soldiers made entirely of lead on the floor of his fathers palace. He was sensible enough not to put them in his mouth and chew them like a candy cane. Those future generals who did not were not as lucky.
That is what is known as natural selection.
Or at least that is what the scientists tell us.
Quote for today:
I used to say to our audiences: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
Upton Sinclair: I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked (1935).
Quote for today:
It's not easy being Green!
Kermit the Frog, The Muppets Take Mahattan.
"Coldists believe the readings which shows a dip in temps from the same scientists. How do we really know if the earth really cooled? Why didn't scientists just fake the data like they did in the "warming" years?"
Well, we *know* because scientists are sticklers about recording their work in precise detail and have, as a foundational element of their profession, the requirement of extreme openness and of releasing their work and data in detail in order that it be reproduced by others and thus verified or refuted...
Oh.
Nevermind.
We aren't supposed to notice that the dog ate their homework, that freedom of information requests were footdragged on or blocked or anything at all that led up to the "discovery" of the emails which we aren't supposed to take at face value despite not having the actual data or information or process available to review to see how any adjustments were applied or verified or even the utterly defensible reasoning behind seeking to do so.
Because the dog ate their homework.
What we're supposed to care about is that denialists seem happy to take some of the remaining data representation still showing cold bits at face value for effect without also taking all of the other data at face value.
Also, not to be missed, is the assertion that dogs eating homework is not at all important in the larger scheme of things but normal "scientific" practice, which those not overtly anti-science accept with due humility toward those whose understanding of such things are capable of nuance.
Synova
Do you believe the recorded dips in temperatures are accurate?
One must wonder at conservatives' desire to facilitate their own poisoning, in the name of corporate freedom.
"Perhaps they're simply unwilling to concede that unhealthiness alone is sufficient justification for banning a certain activity."
Perhaps we are also unwilling to believe any of the bullshit scare stories that the government tries to pull on us decade after decade.
Some of us have been around for a while and remember all the "boy who cried wolf" stories.
Butter is bad and margarine is good. Oh. Wait now butter is better and margarine is not.
Beer, wine and spirits are bad for you and we will PROHIBIT by law the consumption. Well, maybe not so much in moderation.
Beef is bad. Wait....beef has esential vitamins.
Fish is good...except for the mercury laden fish. Chicken is better except those with salmonella. And watch out for those eggs..OMG we're all gonna die.
Crisco is bad because it has transfats. Who knows anymore they just keep changing their minds.
The climate is cooling and we are plunging into an ice age. Except that now Gore tells us the interior of the earth is hotter than the sun.....Freak out.....we're all gonna die.
So on and so on. I don't believe any of it even if it is true because they have lied and lied and lied and lied for years.
Even if those above food choices or lifestyle choices are bad for me....shouldn't it be my choice? Why is it your choice to tell me what to do with my life and my body?
Hmmmmmmm. You know... the "pro abortion, it is your womans body and no one should control your reproductive system" type of people are the worst control freaks out there on all aspects of our lives. Go figure.
Former,
Your Upton Sinclair quote for the day is the perfect encapsulation of the confirmation bias among climatologists. I applaud you.
The Jones, Mann clique is 100 percent dependent on grants to do their work, and the grants are 100 percent predicated on the idea that we're facing some kind of crisis.
Yes, there are scientists and others who are funded, directly or indirectly by oil companies, etc. But that's just another illustration of the same principle.
Sometimes, however, to "prove" the bias of skeptics, it is presumed that oil companies bought and paid for research because they gave money to an organization distantly affiliated with the study.
If you can lose your job by bucking the paymasters, your scientific findings will reflect that fact. But if it's a grant that was given for a different purpose, some years back, and you weren't aware of it when you started looking into the issue, that's not the same thing.
Right now people are focused on finding a job or keeping their job-nothing else matters to many at this time. It's the economy stupid.
The Hostess cupcake factory had to lay off 50 people.
Little Debbie cries for you.
Every year, winter always gets in the way of global warming.
Butter is bad and margarine is good. Oh. Wait now butter is better and margarine is not.
And you still find nutritionists and doctors who will insist the fake butter spreads are better for you, as long as they don't have transfats. Never mind that they probably have something ELSE that is terrible for you that we just don't know about yet.
And dont' even get me started on people who keep telling me something is "natural". Hemlock is "natural" too, that doesn't mean it's good for you!
Wasn't Coldist that castle that the Nazis made into the POW camp that the plucky Brits kept breaking out of?
Dear Ed Kilgore,
Tonight, I'm burning 3 marxists in your honor. Will be adding 2.8 tonnes of carbon for you to choke on. Enjoy!
Well done, Ann. Amazingly, many on the left would be completely blind to your obvious points. The brainwashed never question nor do they want to. Although I would consider myself an environmentalist, often environmentalists' efforts do great damage to the environment or humanity. In my experience, realization of this makes not a dent in the thinking and that exact effort would be supported again regardless. It's a religion and we care little for the tenants of someone else's religion especially if we are expected to worship, and put something valuable in the basket.
Montagne Montaigne: "Because I find the reams of evidence pointing to anthropogenic climate change to be convincing."
Because your reams of evidence are fraudulent. Because you know this but still parrot the propraganda.
I'm sure you still believe Bill did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinksy.
"So, how in any sense are you respecting my views or intelligence?"
Repect is earned. And after the bs we've had to put with for decades from the corrupt climatology community, payback is delicious.
You're like a broker still trying to push Enron stock.
"Why are people caring less and less about the environment?"
If only there were superior and powerful beings to tell us what to do and what to believe and make us all behave like proper adults, all would be well.
Thank god there are unselfish leaders willing to force to do what we prefer not, out of childish intransigence.
God bless the State!
I myself have trouble even knowing which foot to put forward next. Right? Left? Random?
And plus, could they please wipe my ass for me?
I won't go into details, but this is clearly a State function.
@Zrimsek:
"Plucky Brits"? The leader of the operaton was Troy McClure, a true-blue American. Talk about revisionist history. . .
wv: pippo. What the Brits said to Troy as he took off in his glider or whatever craptastic thing he did to escape from Coldist.
Oh, and please tell me what to eat.
Do those round things, pebbles I think, are they good to eat?
Do I dare eat a peach?
What is safe to put in my mouth?
Pencils?
Oh but for that goddess State I might perish.
Pogo asked:
And plus, could they please wipe my ass for me?
Of course not. That would be socialism.
They'll just require that any new insurance plan cover ass-wiping. That's called the free market.
You are saying that I am part of, or a dupe of, a vast conspiracy to enslave the human race and destroy capitalism. Because I find the reams of evidence pointing to anthropogenic climate change to be convincing.
Those reams of "evidence" are all based on the same flawed set of data. Data that was manually adjusted by large enough increments to call the entire dataset into question. At minimum what needs to happen is this:
1) Release the raw data along with the "homogenized" data so non-involved people can check the quality of the work.
2) Release the algorithms and code for the models. I guarantee you in that much code there are bugs, and the more people who reimplement the same algorithms with new code the better.
But instead they've been busy ignoring FOIA requests. In what sane world does a scientist say "this is the result of my research, but you'll just have to trust me because I won't tell you what adjustments I made to the raw data."
I doubt this was any kind of grand conspiracy, but it's definitely terribly sloppy research. The most charitable reason I can come up with for Jones' behavior is he never kept track of the adjustments he was making, so even though he may have been acting in good faith at the time, he has no way to defend them.
The tree ring trace on the hockey stick chart was just plain fraud. There is no other explanation.
The connection between burning fossil fuels and global warming is too subtle to grasp.
It's also apparently too subtle to demonstrate mathematically without throwing in some scientific fraud to make it come out right.
Ken Lay was the main originator of cap and tax.
If a colonial era person could see the world today, he would not believe his eyes.
Imagination & creativity and pure brain power made it possible for 300million to be well-fed off ths same amount of land that once struggled to sustain 1-2 million.
Global warming believers are clueless pessimists.
I am not a "greenie" by any stretch of the imagination, but I also grew up embroidering an environmental symbol onto my chambray shirt for an Earth Day celebration back in the '70s.
I care about stupid waste and ridiculous amounts of unnecessary packaging. I care about wastefully creating "green" mugs, tee shirts and other paraphenalia, when we've already got stuff at home that we can and should be using.
I got on my firm's green office committee so I could stop them from buying more Stuff that would replace the Stuff we've already got and are already using.
At the root of my personal choices, though, are a Yankee/German frugality. Why use more than you need? And why is just about everything we purchase today made of plastic, instead of metal, paper or glass?
I'm not a fanatic, but I do find myself toting a string bag, rejecting plastic implements, and trying to use less junk that will end up in a landfill. That's just responsible citizenship.
Does it ever occur to you why sensationalism should somehow make a ridiculous topic worthy of serious debate?
FLS wrote:
"One of my highly qualified EE professors proved with mathematical certainty that the makers of Zyklon B never could have shipped enough to Auschwitz to kill the number of Jews alleged to have died from poisoning. (He asserted the quantities of the insecticide the Nazis received were sufficient only to delouse the inmates' clothes.) Yet he was outside the Holocaust club and was thus marginalized."
The "Holocaust club" is actually quite open to challenges, and takes those challenges very seriously.
Back when Holocaust deniers were claiming that the chemical residue on the bricks in the gas chambers at Auschwitz were inconsistent with the sustained use that mass murder would have required, the "Holocaust club" had samples of the bricks tested independently, offered the results to the general public, and offered samples to those wishing to conduct their own tests.
When Holocaust deniers claimed that the Zyklon-B pellets seized as evidence at Auschwitz weren't actually Zyklon-B, the "holocaust club" submitted pellets for independent testing, released the results, and offered pellets to researchers wishing to conduct their own tests.
Far from being a closed study that jealously guards its evidence, testimony, and data from the world in support of a sacred hypothesis, the "Holocaust club" is open and its research transparent.
I have nothing but your word that your professor was able to prove what you claim he did with "mathematical certainty". Therefore, I have no reason to believe that he was marginalized because he didn't belong to the "Holocaust club".
I would love to see climate researchers who support the man-made global warming theory employ the same level of transparency that Holocaust researchers display. That would be great. I would love to see those climate researchers take challenges to their hypothesis and data seriously, as opposed to using rhetorical strategies to demonize the opposition. I would love to see them engage in open debate with critics, as Holocaust researchers routinely do. I would love to see them release their data, just as Holocaust researchers do.
But they don't, and because they don't, they can't be trusted in the same way that Holocaust researchers can be.
Ed Kilgore, right about now, you are possibly the dumbest man on earth. This can change quickly however.
The connection between burning fossil fuels and global warming is too subtle to grasp.
And, in fact, too subtle to be maintained without some pretty egregious fudging.
I'm not a fanatic, but I do find myself toting a string bag, rejecting plastic implements, and trying to use less junk that will end up in a landfill. That's just responsible citizenship.
The harsh tone about the environmental movement right now is not aimed at people who do things like this. It is not inconsistent to be a AGW skeptic while also being an avid recycler and energy conserver. There are good reasons to do these things, and they express personal values.
Unless you left it out, I don't think you're proposing that the US provide billions of dollars in string bags to developing countries, or that we set a global cap on how many paper bags can be manufactured. That's another kind of environmentalism that Al Gore represents -- a will to power, based on science that has turned out to be flimsier than we had thought.
When it first came up, I thought, "You're telling us that something that is such an integral part of all life on earth is a pollutant?" Then I saw the beauty of it as a fund-raising/power-grabbing lever.
When the March of Dimes defeated polio, it didn't celebrate and disband. It found another cause that it knew could never be cured with a simple vaccine. The greens needed something like that, a threat they knew would never go away and would serve them until the sun turns into a red giant.
Excuse me if I distrust claims with such an obvious incentive for hyperbole.
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