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.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:
... [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....
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.He wants the policies that are sold under the name "global warming" whether the prediction of global warming is right or wrong.
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.
[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.The mouth, is, as noted, a sewer.
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.
“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."
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 207 of 207Just because something is produced naturally doesn't mean it can't be used to pollute. Consider rivers with too much soil in them. The soil, a naturally produced substance, suffocates the algae that is dependent on light and oxygen. You should have learned that in Junior High or earlier. Nature exists in an equilibrium, which involves anaerobic and aerobic organisms balancing the level of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. When there is too much of one of those gases, the earth's climate changes. Even if carbon dioxide weren't a greenhouse gas, cars produce a liberal amount of other gases, including Nitrous Oxide and Carbon Monoxide, and you don't breath those out, do you? Did you know that every time you pass gas, you pollute? Methane is a greenhouse gas. Of course, farting is an ancient process, and so nature has evolved to handle it when a single person lets one loose. Of course, more than one person passes gas at any moment, but it is happening at a controlled rate that nature can handle. However, imagine if all the organisms in the world simultaneously passed gas. Then, there would be an excess of methane, which would probably impact our weather in a measureable way. The reason for this is that the natural filtering mechanisms that stabilize the amount of methane in the air would not be able to neutralize the excess methane as quickly as it was produced, because it isn't at all common for all of Earth's organisms to pass gas at once. You can apply this same reasoning to non-naturally produced greenhouse gases. The last century saw an unprecedented increase in greenhouse gases, thanks largely to the industrial revolution. Nature has not had enough time to acclimate to this significant change, so naturally, the trend has been that the earth's climate has been steadily getting warmer.
CO2 is indeed beneficial to plant life ... but if you doubt that it's also a poison to humans & other animals, you're failing at basic biology.
"Global warming pollutants" also includes methane, which is an exponentiallly more potent greenhouse-gas than CO2 is, & which is now emerging from beneath the rapidly-disintegrating permafrost of the Arctic at levels about 1/3 greater than they were just five years previously (a phenomenon I'm sad to say is unrelated to either sunspots, volcanic activity OR Gore's home-heating bill). If Gore is actually using the phrase to refer only to CO2 he's incorrect - & unless he is doing so explicitly, making that inference is disingenuous at best.
An Inconvenient Coincidence: if you look up global thermal maps for the last few years, you find varying degrees of heating occur almost everywhere on the planet, with one conspicuous exception - North America has indeed undergone some cooling. Thus all the "GLOBAL WARMING LOL LOL LOL" comments from Americans have a certain truthiness to them ... as long as you ignore the rest of the planet.
The trouble is, the worst heating is taking place in a sparsely-populated region, so it's easy to ignore what's really happening there - & it's also the one habitat that can least afford a heat-surplus.
Ever wonder what it'd be like to live on a planet with one polar icecap instead of two? Stick around awhile & find out.
"There's nothing dirty or toxic about carbon dioxide. The problem has only to do with the greenhouse effect."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos#The_1986_disaster
"Mikio, Skeptics can't fail. Only those making claims."
Phrenologists, Hollow Earthers, 9/11 Truthers, Birthers et al will be delighted to hear this, as will those brave skeptics who so successfully destroyed the heliocentric model of the Solar System.
"Rope. Tree. AGW proponent. Some assembly required."
Translation: These monsters who preach their evil cult of cause & effect will make our cattle miscarry & our women become barren! They threaten to pollute the minds of our children with their insidious fetish of observing physical reality! We must unite to abolish their perfidious dogma of "science" once & for all! Have faith! Ba'al will provide! KILL THE INFIDELS!
What, precisely, was the "nasty remark." Where's the tape/transcript?
Now that was just moronic:
LIMBAUGH: David Hinckley of–of the New York Daily News wrote this, and what he has–he’s got–it’s very strange. He says, In: A cute kid in the White House. Out: Cute dog in the White House.’ Could–could we see the cute kid? Let’s take a look at–see who is the cute kid in the White House.
(A picture is shown of Millie the dog)
LIMBAUGH: (Voiceover) No, no, no. That’s not the kid.
(Picture shown of Chelsea Clinton)
LIMBAUGH: (Voiceover) That’s–that’s the kid. We’re trying to…
No, he didn't *call* Chelsea a dog. He did, however, play a dumb joke where he and his staff *joked* she was.
This would be like me posting a picture of a wino and then one of Ann Althouse. The inference would be clear: I think Althouse is a drunk.
Sorry, chum, he's a bastard to children, but he's your hero, I guess.
Precisely. So he never called Chelsea a dog. He never called Chelsea "ugly." It was a lie all along.
Ever worked live TV, dumbass? Shit happens. What happened to the staffer? Can you demonstrate intent? Can you rule out production error?
No.
Did Rush apologize on the spot? Yes.
Now, here's what you leave out, you intellectually dishonest idiot:
Here's Rush, four days later:
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry. Let me tell you very quickly what happened last Friday night. There was a new in list and new out list that was published in the newspaper. The writer said in, cute kid in the White House; out, cute dog in the White House. Could we show the cute dog in the White House who’s out, and they put up a picture of Chelsea Clinton back in the crew. And many of you people think that we did it on purpose to make a cheap comment on her appearance. And I’m terribly sorry. I don’t–look, that takes no talent whatsoever and I have a lot of talent. I don’t need to get laughs by commenting on people’s looks, especially a young child who’s done nothing wrong. I mean, she can’t control the way she looks. And we really–we do not–we do not do that on this kind of show. So put a picture up of her now and so we can square this.
But you didn't look far enough into the incident to find that, did you? You simply assumed the worst motives on Rush's part, because you argue in bad faith.
Rush isn't my hero. But the truth is. The whole truth. And having worked in live TV both as a network operator and as a cameraman, I know damn well what happened: They planned to show the White House dog, and had Millie cued up first.
Believe me... if the tape were all that damning, the libturds would be filling the airwaves with it. Air America would be broadcasting it every hour on the hour to their six listeners. But the tape is down the memory hole. Funny, that.
So it's settled then: Limbaugh NEVER called Chelsea a "dog."
Limbaugh NEVER called her "ugly."
Limbaugh did not say an unkind word about her.
One can speculate about the motives of the producer who put the photo up when Limbaugh called for Chelsea's photo. But that's all it is: speculation. There's no reason to assume bad faith on the part of either.
Incidentally, Saturday Night Live, Al Franken's long time employer, riffed on Chelsea Clinton as a lesbian as early as 1993. Chelsea, born in 1980, would have been 13 at the time. Yet we never hear people complain about that, even though Hillary Clinton objected to it at the time. No, libturds routinely give each other a free pass, while assuming the worst of everyone else.
Here's what else libturds did: Flat-out lie about the incident. I found the transcript, which was why I could be confident in telling Alpha Libturd he was full of shit. You found the transcript, too (even though you didn't find the whole story, or you left it out.)
But the libturds, including the late Molly Ivins (not to speak ill of the dead, but she's still responsible for her own writing), and including every libturd who's written about the incident that I've seen so far, have resorted to twisting the facts in order to make Limbaugh look as bad as possible.
I object to that crap, either on the left or the right.
And I object to you leaving out the full story, including Rush's on-the-spot correction and apology, and his follow-up in the days following. That belongs in the record, and you jerks are trying to pretend it's not there.
I find that the discussion of Prof. Jones comment on the statistical significance of warming since 1995 seems to miss what he is saying. Some take it to mean there has been no measurable warming. Some that the measurable warming has been so small as to be insignificant. It means neither of those things.
Following usual statistical methods, the null hypothesis is commonly 'no change' and then you see if the data force you to reject the null hypotheses at a specified (commonly 95%) level.
To be unable to reject the null hypotheses does not mean it is true. It means that IF it were true, the probability of seeing the data actually seen is at least 5%.
Jones says there has been measurable warming since 1995. It is just the null hypotheses (no trend, data caused by ordinary variation only) cannot be rejected at the 95% significance level. He notes it can be rejected at the 90% level (less than 1 chance in 10 we would see data of 1995 till now if there was no trend).
A question people should ask is given the trend value (about 0.15 degrees C per year), and the year to year variation, how may years, on average, are required before you can reject the 'no trend' null hypothesis.
I do not know what that average is (as I do not know the year to year variation) but based on what Jones says, it seems to be 15-20 years, so in few years we quite like will be able to reject the null hypothesis at the 95% level.
This is all elementary statistics. Anyone who says Jones said there is no warming is wholly mistaken. Anyone who interprets 'significant' to mean 'worrisome' (and so 'no significant' means 'no worrisome') is also mistaken. 'Significant' is a term of art in statistics and means no more or less than what I said above.cater
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.
Shit is what comes out of our butts when we defecate. Do you think of your digestive system as spewing shit?
Of course you do, because that's what it does. The body gets rid of shit because excess shit is toxic. Similarly, the body gets rid of (exhales) carbon dioxide precisely because excess carbon dioxide is toxic. If you drive out to the store, buy some dry ice, bring it out to your car, and then sit there with the windows closed, you will die (if you're lucky, you'll just pass out on the horn and someone will rescue you, but still, don't try it).
Now, the concentrations of CO2 present in most places are nowhere near that required for that sort of toxicity, but chemical and meteorological changes due to carbon dioxide itself increase mortality due to increased ozone, particles and carcinogens in the air.
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