<p>Lawrence Soloman is a typical denial propagandist. He writes a book called “The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud (and those who are too fearful to do so)” and buries the admission on page 45 that he "noticed something striking about my growing cast of deniers.
None of them were deniers.</p>
<p>Kind of makes the title a little, oh, I don’t know - phony?</p>
<p>It’s not surprising that, given that anyone with even a tenuous shred of credibility who is willing to repeat the denier’s party line can make a tidy living on the rubber chicken circuit and achieve a certain amount of fame in some circles, there’s going to be that kind of charlatanry going around.</p>
<p>Dad<em>of</em>3, do you have a solution to the problem you perceive?</p>
<p>^^
It’s a question of priorities to me, and climate change, whether real or imagined, is a very tertiary issue to the US as far as I am concerned, and should stay in the sidelines. </p>
<p>The only think I’m positive about is that in such issues, if the West “unilaterally disarms” by putting restrictions on its industry, the most predictable outcome is every third world country will do what it can to pick up the slack. Economic considerations are >> environmental in poorer countries, that other than lip service and cheating to make the western customers feel good or put them on the defensive, transferring production overseas is guaranteed to increase pollution.</p>
<p>With all due respect, Dad<em>of</em>3, that just sounds like a rationalization for doing nothing in the face of a warning that if we do nothing we’ll be stealing our children and grandchildren’s future. Keeping that “tertiary issue” on the sidelines, as you put it, is sort of like saying that the question of whether the meat is poisoned is less important than whether or not the forks are placed correctly.</p>
<p>It may make some people “feel good” to think that we’re not screwing our grandchildren by doing nothing because there’s “no real solution” to the problem, but I find that attitude to be conveniently self-centered. </p>
<p>This is also interesting, esp. the part about the US being unable to compete because China is violating trade agreements to not subsidize renewables.</p>
<p>So the next time I see “97% of scientists agree” or “almost all of 2,500 government funded grant consumers believe” that fossil fuel consumption is the primary reason for warming, I should first remember that Solomon is a bad man? Bad in general or bad for pointing out it isn’t true?</p>
<p>An important distinction, because the conversation seems a little vague on that point.</p>
<p>Re: #98 - Since it’s a big world, with so many people claiming so many ludicrous things as truth, I’d be surprised if someone hasn’t read up on the Jurassic in some bad geology textbook and tried to draw parallels with today, but most people stick to more recent history when pointing out the problems with the CO2/temperature correlation as described by the AGW lobby: </p>
<p>Catahoula, do you claim to fully understand the science behind global warming theory? Because otherwise I honestly don’t know why you’d post something like you did in your last post, since neither you nor I have enough mastery of the subject to know if its a meaningful observation or not. </p>
<p>I have no problem being honest about this: I don’t understand global warming theory. I’ve read articles, but the real science is beyond my mastery. Albedo, forcing, aerosols, etc. Not an easy subject to master. So I have to decide how credible it is by assessing the people on either side. On one side, the overwhelming majority of people who actually do understand the science (whether it’s 97%, 90% or some other number.) On the other side, creationists and pathetic old guys exaggerating their tenuous claims to have some credibility to get gigs working the rubber chicken circuit, and the other guys, including old hands from the tobacco companies rear-guard action designed to avert any action to restrict the sale of cigarettes, who have been recruited to use deceptive and dishonest methods to push what is, to me, an obvious agenda.</p>
<p>Not really all that tough of a decision, unless you really, really want it to be. And if you really want it to be a tough decision you repeat snappy pop-science soundbites that absolutely “prove” that the science must be wrong even though you have no real basis for knowing if they do or not.</p>
Kluge, most people sharing your sentiments are decent folks who want to do the best for society, especially those who will be inheriting our sins. But many of you are taking an extremely naive viewpoint along the lines that if you have it better than others, you must be somehow be doing something wrong, and if you do something that gives you pain, what you’re doing should be good, and vice versa. </p>
<p>I lived in Asia till my mid thirties and most businesspeople viewed the western man-on-the-street as a guileless soul who’s inherited too much wealth that he deserves to be separated from using any means. This sentiment is in business and government and everyone in-between and nobody there would think twice about faking whatever figures are needed to accomplish their prime objective - move jobs over. Even assuming the most alarmist figures, we’re talking about projections of a degree F a decade, which in the priorities of third world countries, wouldn’t be a blip on the radar. </p>
<p>Look at emissions to the atmosphere from these countries:
[List</a> of countries by carbon dioxide emissions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions]List”>List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions - Wikipedia)
Look at the graph on China’s emissions in the last decade. Do you really think there’s any truth in their love of the environment, or is it business expansion at all costs? Do you remember the shut down of industry near Beijing during the Olympics to combat pollution? The only reason that was done was PR and for two weeks. When you pressure a company in Ohio that is run under our much cleaner standards, the steel then gets made by barefoot workers in Asia who dump the chemicals in the water and release the sulfur in the air while paying off their inspectors and PR firms to tout another zero pollution factory.</p>
<p>While I see far worse environmental problems than climate change in my birthplace such as chemicals in the water table, it doesn’t prevent the politicians from preaching to hapless western audiences on their evil ways and their need to hold back while leaving industry in his country unleashed. Climate control has become a tool for other countries to create new industry using our subsidies and market, while at the same time making us cripple our own industry and lifestyles by guilt-tripping us while they go full steam ahead.</p>
<p>I don’t know how aware you were of environmental issues during the 60s and early 70s. When I was in college, the panic (not quite as big as the current global warning, but enough to attract a fair number of scientists and magazine covers) was the forthcoming ice-age based on data data tabulated from the 40s to the 70s and explained by a variety of bad things the westerners did. Should we have turned off the West and brought our lives down to the rest of the world to avoid the cooling? Or the population explosion crisis in the 60s leading to widespread starvation in the next generation - should the US have scaled back to one child per family to save the world?</p>
<p>What I’m advocating is not rushing out and putting on handcuffs on ourselves as step 1 when the biggest and other major players will reverse any sacrifice we make, whether it would have worked or not. Let’s study what it takes to live with these changes if in fact they do occur. Our industrial society with much much worse emissions is hundreds of years old, and the Pittsburgh that survived the pollution from then isn’t going to die in the next twenty years if don’t throttle back the coal mines of VA.</p>
<p>For my grandchildren, I hope our society doesn’t steal from them the thought that what’s important is we focus first on our jobs and our lives that enables us to target new frontiers that benefit everyone like the Americans before us did - invent suspension bridges, air and space travel, computers, medicine, dams, manhattan project etc., reap the rewards and be proud of it, rather than live guilt-ridden lives feeling that the A/C we ran yesterday is hurting the woman with a dozen kids who’s living in a flood plain, while her neighbor lives in a mansion next door laughing his way to the bank at our expense.</p>
This statement, though widely believed, is false. It’s based on a story in Newsweek Magazine that exaggerated a theory which never gained a lot of traction and was quickly debunked - by science.</p>
<p>
Actually, those sissy “alarmists” at MIT are projecting a temperature increase of 5 degrees C, + or - 2 degrees, by 2010. [MIT</a> Global Change Program | Greenhouse Gamble](<a href=“http://globalchange.mit.edu/resources/gamble/]MIT”>Greenhouse Gamble | MIT Global Change) While 2100 might be too far off for you to care about, I’m hoping to have grandchildren who will see the dawn of the next millennium. Ignoring your use of the loaded term “alarmist” which implies that scientific projections are little more than the hysterical screaming of the easily-frightened, do have any understanding of what effect a relatively small increase in global temperatures will have? It’s not just that summer days will get hotter, and winters milder. We might get lucky; changed weather patterns might result in a higher percentage of the hurricanes staying out at sea. Or not. No matter how you slice it, we’re gambling our children’s future on an environment that we’re not as well adapted to as the one we have enjoyed for the past several hundred years.</p>
<p>I am very much aware that developing nations are likely to cut corners to bring their economies up to the level of ours. Does that justify our doing nothing?
It might make you “feel good” to think that this is a reasoned, reasonable response to the situation instead of a rationalization which justifies short-term benefit over long-term solutions, but it’s not. It’s an excuse for doing nothing; which in turn gives everyone else an excuse for doing nothing, which means that nothing will be done. In the short term, we will benefit. In the long term, our grandchildren will suffer. </p>
<p>Nope, though the question seems irrelevant. I was only pointing out a misunderstanding of fact in post #98, the one dstark complimented.</p>
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<p>But you should care very much exactly how many scientists support, unequivocally, the position that’s ascribed to them. You should also care very much about what the major players on your side do, whether it’s Gavin Schmidt blogging to support the life work of his boss or his boss getting arrested yet again for being a civil disobedience attention whore. Actually, the fact Hansen is still head of the GISS, with his hands on that dataset, should give you bad dreams.</p>
<p>You probably should also worry about the fringe that pushes unsupportable claims for political aims which, sad to say, would include whomever does the executive summary for the IPCC reports and… well, the WaPo for pushing that bogus 97% number and misleading sincere people like yourself.:)</p>
<p>“Bogus?” Are you sure? I’ve read Solomon’s critique and am less than overwhelmed by it. There are a lot of people who don’t actually understand the science behind global warming. Lots of people with PhDs, lots of meteorologists, geologists, paleontologists, etc., who are no more qualified than you or I to express an informed opinion regarding the robustness of the science. The 97% figure came from a study designed to identify the opinions of “climatologists who are active in research.” How would you go about finding out how good the consensus is among those best qualified to have an opinion? Solomon certainly makes no proposal answering that question. The author of the study noted that with regard to the near-unanimous agreement by climatologists: “They’re the ones who study and publish on climate science. So I guess the take-home message is, the more you know about the field of climate science, the more you’re likely to believe in global warming and humankind’s contribution to it.” </p>
<p>Do you disagree, Catahoula?</p>
<p>It’s clear that people who don’t understand the science have no reluctance to proudly proclaim that it’s been “debunked” - you can see it on Fox News all the time. But by any rational metric - peer-reviewed publications, the assumptions underlying more advanced work (most scientific work in anthropogenic global warming is not directed at the question “is it happening” but in the details at this point,such as analyzing the feedbacks from various mechanisms, etc.) there is a robust consensus in the scientific community about the validity of global warming theory. Even the American Association of Petroleum Geologists is on board.</p>
<p>So how overwhelming is the consensus? Is 97% actually “bogus” if directed at those who are actually involved in ongoing climate study? The way I see it is that Solomon’s clever nitpicking is just another obfuscatory tactic designed to mislead sincere people like yourself. :)</p>
<p>You have my sincere apology for attributing your admiration to the wrong post, dstark. I should have double checked exactly which one or ones you were referring to.</p>
<p>Which parts were underwhelming to you, kluge? This?</p>
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<p>Or this?</p>
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<p>Or, is it the fact that it’s mathematically impossible walk away from those two percentages with an agreement rate of 97% to both questions unless you discard some of the respondents whose opinions you solicited in the first place. </p>
<p>Hey, I know! Why don’t we do a survey on how the SEIU is regarded by working people? Then we’ll cull out the responses from anyone other than an SEIU member. What do you think we’ll find out?</p>
<p>Well, Catahoula, I do know that there’s no particular reason why a petroleum geologist would be an expert in global warming, and they work in an area where the existence of global warming is, well, inconvenient, which probably explains why that particular sub-group tended to bring the average down. Yes, I would discard those opinions - they’re not experts in the subject area. Their votes are no more relevant than yours or mine. (Note, I used to have an in-law who was a geologist. Smart guy, but he studied rocks, not climate.)</p>
<p>But I guess those are the opinions you prefer over those of actual climate scientists, correct?</p>
<p>lol, kluge… ask your in-law how he views the SEIU or lawyers, for instance. I’d be curious to know.</p>
<p>Correct me if I’m wrong but I can’t see the difference between your spin (nuanced to the point of abject submission to disreputable authority figures) and Ezra Klein’s:</p>
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<p>Now Ezra Klein is widely thought in certain circles to be a smart guy but I can’t see anything other than dishonesty here in that while he holds front and center the bait… “1,372”… he’s switched to another number entirely for the “97 to 98 percent”, the one from the report its self:</p>
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<p>Smoke, mirrors, spin, and PR applied to the gullible - the result isn’t very pretty, I’m afraid.</p>
<p>Getting back to the original thread, Pickens talks about several issues - foreign dependence, jobs, technology, issues which most of us have a real and measurable vested interest in. If you talk to a hundred people on the street and ask them how precisely our inaction in climate change issues has tangibly affected their life in the last 25 years it will be nothing compared to how people have been impacted by every other kind of change, starting with the economy and jobs.</p>
<p>Assume every action by man has had some impact somewhere - the question is how does it fit in the big picture? While the climate change scientist has worked on how not have the temperature rise by a couple of degrees or have a fewer hurricane or snow storm, he is utterly unqualified to assess the impact on a society with increased alcoholism and depression because an industry was destroyed, or on children who didn’t inherit middle-class homes. </p>
<p>Imagine if environmental issues were the prime factor in assessing Hawaii. The arrival of people is causing permanent “environmental change” on the local flora and fauna - exterminating them. So is the solution to try to rollback the clock and deport all non-natives, and restore the islands to the 15th century, or do we put this in perspective and say it’s priority #19 and try to manage with the change?</p>
<p>Whether Pickens plan is viable or not, I don’t know, but at least he’s addressing issues that have actually greatly affected us in the past decades, and we know will in the future impacting us in orders of magnitude more.</p>
Why are you looking backwards, Dad<em>of</em>3? Has *anyone ever *suggested that global warming is a historical problem, rather than a future one?</p>
<p>I think we can all agree that our personal self-interest - the immediate futures of Americans of an age to have college age or near-college age children - would be economically benefited by assuming that global warming is a hoax. Cheap energy from coal and natural gas - yee-haw!</p>
<p>So it’s very easy and even seductive to slip into a mindset which dismisses concerns over the consequences for our children and their children in the future arising from our taking the easy way out. If that’s not really a problem, we make out great! That makes it really easy to side with the “Let’s do nothing” crowd. That’s why I’m always a bit skeptical about the latest excuse for doing nothing. </p>
<p>Picken’s proposal is valuable for highlighting some basic issues about energy. First, you have to analyze mobile energy sources separately from fixed location sources. Cars and planes need energy sources more compact than renewable sources currently supply; fossil fuels are their current best power supply. Which leads to the observation that fixed-location energy, like electric power grids, should minimize their use of the kind of energy sources that are needed for mobile energy users. Whether it’s windmills, PV, hydroelectric, or nuclear - we probably should be minimizing the grid’s dependence on coal, oil and natural gas. Recognizing that fact is at least a start.</p>
<p>Catahoula, I guess I’m missing your nuanced interpretation of data which (apparently) makes the fact that those most knowledgeable about the actual science behind global warming theory being the ones most overwhelmingly in agreement as to its validity “spin.” Personally, I don’t find the fact that 50% of the petroleum geologists surveyed disagreed with that to be a telling rebuttal, given that few if any petroleum geologists are likely to have studied the data or the science behind the theory. But there I go again - hiding behind the people who actually understand this stuff and demonstrating my inability to perceive the deceptive plot behind that seemingly straightforward fact…</p>
<p>“publishing in the field” seems a euphemism for “emotionally and financially invested in the continuation of the gravy train” but I realize it’s difficult for the faithful to see that.</p>
<p>I’ve got to hand it to you for your argument, though: no facts needed at all, just an unwavering repetition that your prophets see the future best of us all. Never mind their lack of a list of successful predictions - no problem, we just haven’t waited long enough. Never mind those same prophets are saying we can’t wait - nope, not even another minute. Never mind their bad behavior, either - they’re working for a higher cause, so we can’t apply the same standard to them we do tobacco executives. And most of all, disagreeing with a bunch of dishonest duck-squeezers is proof-positive you’re only suitable for working the “rubber-chicken” circuit, lol. </p>
<p>Other than the long term warming trend a VW bug full of chimps with one protractor between them could have plotted long before Hansen and Gore were even a parental regret, there’s nothing to the whole schtick but smoke and political ends, kluge.</p>
<p>Catahoula, you’ve already admitted that you don’t understand the science. But you’re obviously comfortable with painting all climate scientists as dishonest, scheming frauds who ignore evidence you apparently are sure exists that the entire framework in which they work is bogus - so they can feed off that “gravy train” of academic salaries. In your view, their work must be suspect because they all agree, and what they’re working on isn’t so easy to detect that you can see it with your own eyes. Your accusations are offensive and foolish.</p>
<p>But I guess it’s difficult for “the faithful” to see that, eh? :)</p>
<p>Actually, there’s a world of difference between what I said “nope” to…</p>
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<p>… and what would make you happy, kluge.</p>
<p>Turnabout’s fair play so here’s one for you: do you claim to understand anything about the basis of your beliefs on the subject, other than some people you think are really smart say so?</p>