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The GOP's Fake Climate Scandal
Most people accept that politicians do stupid things in the service of parochial interests and paleolithic ideologies. It's a problem as old as Congress. Yet occasionally a Congressman does something beyond stupid--something that causes thinking people to wonder if this representative has the intelligence or integrity to serve in public office. These moments are like ice sheets splitting off the Arctic Shelf and sliding into the ocean--they're fun to watch and yet totally depressing.
Today's example comes from Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla), who has ordered a Congressional investigation into how the EPA "suppressed" a report that questioned the science behind climate change. Grist notes that the "suppressed" report was written by an economist with no training in climate science, includes no original research, cites old and irreputable references, and was nonetheless accepted, unsolicited, by the EPA's climate scientists for consideration. If the meagreness of the report's policy impact is a scandal, then so is the fact that Joe the Plumber isn't the go-to guy for rewiring your attic.
And yet Inhofe tells Fox News that this EPA economist, Alan Carlin, "came out with the truth" and that "they don't want the truth at the EPA." Inhofe really could be this stupid, or there could be a deeper, more cynical political logic at work. Fox concluded that "the controversy is similar to one under the Bush administration--only the administration was taking the opposite stance." Fox's message to its readers seems to be that the legitimate James Hansen scandal and the phony Alan Carlin "scandal" cancel each other out. It's all just politics.
If you believe that, how do you decipher the truth behind climate change? One way would be to start with what you already think you know and then look for those scientists--or economists posing as scientists--who support that position. Last week Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga) claimed that global warming was a "hoax"--a statement, impossible to back up with more than partisan intuition, that was met with applause on the House floor. It must have been quite a spectacle: A big chunk of legislators, smaller than in years past but still frozen in their beliefs, taking a jolly plunge into insanity.
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Arctic Speed-Melt Record
Although 2008 did not set a record for minimum sea ice it did set a record for speed melting. Arctic sea ice declined at a rate of 32,700 square miles a day in August. That's about the size of Maine. Every day. And that's compared to 24,400 square miles a day lost in August 2007—the record holder for minimum sea ice. The 2008 results...
EPA and Alan Carlin
As a reporter who spoke with Alan Carlin last week, I think you're missing the real element of the story. Carlin is a senior environmental economist charged with informing EPA decisions. He also has a degree in physics, by the way, and is not what you would call ignorant.
Alan Carlin's advice to the EPA, that they should consider more recent evidence, is most probably correct. That doesn't mean it would be easy for the EPA to do. But certainly it would be easier than regulating CO2 without the correct information. For the EPA to stonewall Carlin's report--essentially saying that the science was 'settled' as the warmists love to claim (since when did a participant in a debate get to decide when the debate is over?), they must accept that some day they will appear in a court (probably many courts) and will have to explain why they ignored 70% of the available science in reaching their decision.
Alan Carlin wrote a 100 page report in 4 days that captured some of the questions that still need to be answered before we should even consider the drastic actions that his agency may be legally forced to take if CO2 must be regulated under the Clean Air Act. He wrote reasonably and referenced peer-reviewed publications, and his point was just that these questions need to be answered. The response from the 'warmist' community has been unedifying, to say the least, questioning his background, capabilities and motives. All for asking questions.
Carlin's main concern seems to be that the Endangerment Finding (an official declaration by the EPA that CO2 is a danger to public health and welfare) may actually turn out to be a time bomb that may explode in the EPA, echoing the reasoning of our anonymous source as reported earlier today. As I wrote then, the EPA does not want to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air act without legislation limiting their regulation to the largest emitters. If the proposed new cap and trade legislation (which removes EPA's ability to use the Clean Air Act to regulate global warming gases) is not forthcoming, Carlin worries that it may well be very difficult for the EPA to carry out its mandate. His report was an attempt to have the EPA reconsider the science (which Carlin considers bad science), as despite the respectable trappings that cloak the IPCC and their reports, their hypotheses fail many observational tests in his view.
ExxonMobil propaganda masquerading as journalism
The author of the first comment here, Thomas Fuller, is a dishonest propagandist who masquerades as a "journalist". He writes column after column at The Examiner in which he regurgitates the denialist pseudoscience and outright lies cranked out by ExxonMobil-funded propaganda mills that masquerade as "conservative think-tanks".
Fuller has recently been spewing his scripted, phony, denialist rubbish and long-ago, many-times-over debunked falsehoods masquerading as "skepticism" over at RealClimate.org, part of his effort to peddle his phony "journalism" to the Ditto-Head market. If you want to see Fuller's arrogant dishonesty thoroughly exposed, check out the "Bubkes" article and discussion thread over there.
It is no surprise that Fuller is here to pimp the garbage found in Carlin's memo, which is a monumental public embarrassment not only for Carlin himself, but for the EPA who employed someone who is either genuinely unable to distinguish between actual science and the drivel found on right-wing blogs, or is an outright, deliberate fraud.
The simple fact is that now that the Obama administration and the Democratic majority in Congress are moving to take action to reduce CO2 emissions -- however belated and inadequate -- the fossil fuel corporations are kicking their campaign of denial and deceit into overdrive, seeking to obstruct and delay the urgently needed, and ultimately inevitable, reduction in the consumption of their products and resulting transfer of wealth to other sectors of the economy.
Cranks and frauds like Carlin and Fuller are an integral part of that propaganda campaign. They are worse than holocaust deniers. They are worse than HIV deniers. They deserve nothing but derision, contempt and condemnation.
fake climate science
Interesting points. I should note that this "climate scandal" story was initially pushed out by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has taken a considerable amount of money from ExxonMobil. We covered the ties between Exxon and this and other climate front group in this massive piece:
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2005/05/some-it-hot
See also this new post on how ExxonMobil is still at it, despite a pledge to reform its ways:
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2009/07/despite-pledge-exxonmobil-still-funding-climate-change-deniers
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The topics of global warming
The topics of global warming and whether the air we breathe is becoming more polluted seem like common-sense no-brainers. I don't have a degree in earth sciences, but I have been in the wine business for the past twenty years and traveling for twenty more. Not too long ago, places like Tasmania and England were considered too cold for reliable crops of grapes for quality wine. Now days, I feature a Tasmanian wine by the glass at a five star restaurant that has ripe, kool-aidy fruit, and I have to know what is going on with wine in Scandinavia. Meanwhile, alcohol levels are going up all over the world (more warm sun = riper grapes = higher sugars = more alcohol). California red wines can have alcohols pushing 17% (!) and still have some residual sugar. Despite my love of research, I am rueful about having to learn about any more wine regions in Canada, England or the Netherlands.
I find myself staring out airplane windows, suddenly noticing the brown haze of pollution in cities that I never used to think of as having foul air. On a recent trip to Mexico City (where I used to live twenty-two years ago), I marveled at the air quality—how blue and clear the skies looked—compared to the OC, which I sometimes call home. I don’t need a scientist to tell me that the air that we and our children are breathing is unclean. I can see it is so.
Science is sound but the regulations are unnecessary.
The earth is warming, and it's being done by us whether intentional or not (HAARP and Contrails could be sources of weather manipulation). Whether the source is a "hoax" or not is difficult to prove considering that these programs are both Top-Secret. One thing I do know for certain is that we have had sources of clean energy that are cheaper, easier to implement, and more powerful than those we seek to replace for close to 100 years. Nikola Tesla created Wycliffe tower while working on radio transmissions and envisioned it as a source of free power for the world, dreams that were quickly squashed by his financial backer: J.P. Morgan. The fossil-fuel interests have been squashing technology (some of which are extraterrestrial in origin) that could increase the amount of energy available worldwide for quite some time to keep us controllable and keep them in power. The stories you have heard about this are not simply urban legends, these people will use a mixture of incentive, confusion, libel, bullying, and murder to get their way and are just as ruthless and power-drunk as any other criminal syndicate. There is ample evidence for this at http://www.disclosureproject.org/ and http://www.theorionproject.org/ where there are military, intelligence, government, corporate and scientific witnesses on record testifying to this effect as well as documentation to support this testimony. To think this is a Republican vs Democrat issue is myopic, the two parties are branches of the same group pitting us against each other with the parties acting out their roles (whether conscious of it or not) to further the overall agenda of further control of the world's population. This is not a case of: Oops we've been polluting ourselves to death, we'd better clean up our act. This is a case of corporations DELIBERATELY destroying the environment as a way to force the third world out of their traditional (sustainable, and self-sufficient) lifestyles and into a cycle of debt-dependence that integrates them into the system and consolidates control with these corporations. They destroy the environment to gain control of more and more people and now they wish to use regulations to control us further in the name of saving us. Unless we reclaim the power that has been stripped from us the whole stinking edifice will come crashing down around our heads as the environment (due to whatever reasons) begins to collapse as well.
'suppressed' free energy?
after reading the comments about Tesla and extraterrestrial technology,I would say I feel the writer of said comments rates (on a scale of one to five tinfoil hats) roughly a twenty.
that there are those who want to keep denying the idea that humanity has the capacity to cause change to the Earth's environment is not in doubt. many people feel that anything that might upset their particular applecart is to be (at the least) suspected, and (far more likely) attacked by any means necessary. current legislation to attempt to address the emissions of CO2 are flawed, but the concept of "perfect" legislation is roughly as believable as the concept of the "perfect" human; it just doesn't exist. so we can wait around for something that will never come, or we can take a first step (after eight years of delay and obstruction) to trying to do something.
which is your choice?
Climate scandal
There are three questions which need to be answered.
1. Is global warming real? NASA says warming stopped in 1999, but, since they are a government agency, they may be wrong. As a former meteorologist, I don't think a ten-year trend is significant.
2. If warming is real, are man-made CO2 emissions the cause? I also beleive that the computer models are seriously inadequate. Look at real-world data, measurements. Go to the Carlin report, http://cei.org/cei_files/fm/active/0/DOC062509-004.pdf , and look at the evidence that CO2 is not the cause. Read the report, before you dismiss it as heretical.
3. If CO2 is causing global warming, will the cap and trade legislation have any effect to slow the warming? Answer: NO. Using the IPCC models, the reduction in CO2 emissions would delay "catastrophe" by only a few days at best.
Not that hard to answer
Those questions really aren't tough to answer. Do you deny the greenhouse effect is real? If yes, then you must believe there's a multigenerational conspiracy of almost every scientist not on a coal company payroll. Assuming scientists haven't been lying since the 19th century, then we know carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, we know emissions are rising, we know the amount in the atmosphere is increasing, unless you believe scientists all over the world making measurement are conspiring to lie. So if the amounts of greenhouses gases are rising, increasing the greenhouse effect, what is the inevitable result?
http://www.ravensblog.net
Really?
I am a environmental scientist. I also have the disprivilege of living in Inhofe country. This man is an embarassment to the great state of Oklahoma. I have met this arrogant pompus horses a$$. He is an narcissistic egomaniac beyond belief. Most of what spews forth from his cake hole is garbage. So if it speaks don't pay much attention, it is probably hungry for more of the special attention it craves.
You are NOT an environmental scientist
You are a phony. People whith formal educations in the sciences do not talk the way you do, with epithets and personal insults. If you are a scientist, I am Barak Obama.
Carlin
The Global Warming hoaxsters use the excuse Carlin was not a scientist. But two of the greatest scientists and inventors and great minds in history - Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison - never received ANY formal degrees - in fact, Franklin left school at age 10. Having a degree that says you are this or that does not necessarily make you more qualified than someone else, or vice versa. This guy had access to all EPA info and files, and spent YEARS studying them. He is a helluva lot more qualified than Al Gore, the idiot the hoaxsters follow blindly - he is not a scientist, either.
ericf said; (quote) Assuming
ericf said; (quote) Assuming scientists haven't been lying since the 19th century, then we know carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, we know emissions are rising, we know the amount in the atmosphere is increasing, unless you believe scientists all over the world making measurement are conspiring to lie. So if the amounts of greenhouses gases are rising, increasing the greenhouse effect, what is the inevitable result?(end quote)
"Assuming scientists haven't been lying"???
Correction!!!More like FRAUD than lies!!!
Do some research on the lie of the "2500 scientists from the IPCC's report". ill start you off by saying only 600 WERE scientists, they were not allowed to comment, and they're names were included whether they agreed with the conclusions or not.
The UN climate change numbers hoax
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/opinions/20081007-17643.html
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"How many MIT and IPCC lies does it take before you see the sham?
>>>The MIT modellers violated 49 principles of forecasting<<<
By Kesten C. Green and J. Scott Armstrong
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/06/16/ju...
"The MIT approach to forecasting is in substance the same as the approach adopted by the IPCC. Our forecasting audit of the IPCC approach and its conclusion therefore applies as well to the MIT forecasting effort: The forecasting procedures were not valid and there is no reason for policymakers to take their forecasts seriously. It also leads to the conclusion that the MIT forecast errors will be much larger even than the IPCC’s forecast errors."
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>>>IPCC clearly violated 72 scientific principles of forecasting<<<
We conducted an audit of the procedures described in the IPCC report and found that they clearly violated 72 scientific principles of forecasting
No Scientific Forecasts to Support Global Warming
YESTERDAY, a former chief at NASA, Dr John S. Theon, slammed the computer models used to determine future climate claiming they are not scientific in part because the modellers have “resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists”.
Pick on the science,not the messenger!
Real science always defeats political science in the end.
Correction!
We know carbon dioxide is a minor trace greenhouse gas with a miniscule effect after saturation point reached,and that was reached before the start of industry.
Correction!
We know (XemissionsX) HARMLESS Co2 is rising 97%? from natural sources such as; .
the ocean and the terrestrial vegetation and soils
Man Made GG contribute 1%? of Total atmospheric CO2,Even less than the natural variation of the 99%? natural sources
CO2 absorbs all radiation available to it in 10 meters. More CO2 only shortens the distance.
Oceans regulate the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere totally and rapidly through equilibrium exchanging 19 times as much C02 as humans produce.
Almost no energy leaves the earth?s surface as radiation to be absorbed by CO2. Almost all exits through conduction, convection and evaporation.
" increasing the greenhouse effect"????
Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics
Gerlich, Gerhard; Tscheuschner, Ralf D.
http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.1161
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"what is the inevitable result?"
"A SPIT IN THE OCEAN" would have more effect than Co2
Back in the early 1970`s I
Back in the early 1970`s I use to scuba dive off the NJ coast. On a 20 mile trip offshore all of us marveled at the hazy ban of reddish pollution that was just above the horizon line... last year I did a similar trip and was stunned to see that ban of pollution was now about 3xs bigger than it was back then... Just another sign of what we are talking about..
And regarding another poster speaking about grape growing in areas not usually associated with it... Greenland is now growing vineyards again... Last time was back when the Vikings lived there....
What Americans and most world economies have not grasped is that our discussion of speeded up global warming, economic collapse and military self defense --- all comes back to the same point-- OIL-- .... The media and the politicians discuss each of those topics like they are seperate and unrelated... They`re not. Global warming is tied to carbon - mailnly coal/oil burning, the economic collapse we are in the midst of fighting has much to do with our sending 3/4 Trillion dollars per yr to foreign oil exporters -who in turn like China, Japan, etc has rerouted that same $$$ back into our economy into the bond markets and stock markets contributing to artificially low mortgage rates and the housing bubble and the stock bubbles of 2000 and 2007-- Not to mention that that same oil slush fund that has accumulated in the Mideast has gone toward funding terrorist groups aligned against our interests and well being. And militarily- the USA is through our reliance on foreign oil and lack of alternative energy policies, which have been denigrated since the Reagan days forward, the budget for the services includes our protecting overseas bases, governments and trade routes that foreign oil follows to get to our shores --- none of which reflects the industries in the US that are devoted to maintaining those forces instead of being focused on furthering the US manufacturing/exporting base...
Global warming is not a one topic subject but a leg on a three sided stool upon which the US economy is supporting itself rather tenuously all of which is balanced on the back of OIL.. Hopefully the Obama admin can bring the issue to the forefront and finally after 30yrs do something about it.
I'm sure if you look at
I'm sure if you look at Inhofe's campain doner's there would be a few oil companies like the other OKIES.
global warming
To reduce this to a GOP or DNC scandal is to completely miss the significance of the leaked/stolen/released documents and the whole point(s). Geez! Unbelievable!
we need a name for this
In all my years of watching the political show boat going by, I've never seen anything quite like the great global warming "debate" now playing at some web site on everybody's computer screen. Comparing it to the evolution debate, for example, is like comparing Leave it to Beaver with Spiderman. Besides, outside of the USA there is hardly any debate about evolution. Perhaps the most fascinating thing of all is that some of these "skeptics" actually can write a decent story which, if read out-of-context, sounds clear, well-informed, and definitive. This shows they actually do have something between their ears, and yet they seem not to be able (or want?) to put it to any good use. After thinking about it for a while, I've concluded that the better comparison is with the justifications given in earlier times for various forms of racism, many of which were highly intellectual, if still remarkably superficial. At the risk of offending my esteemed audience, I might use Nietzsche as an example.
This analogy, I believe, actually does provide a bit of insight into what makes many of the skeptics work so hard for less than nothing. Just as many people, particularly in earlier times, were rendered incapable by their upbringing of considering, let alone accepting, that the vast majority of behavioral differences between racial groups were cultural rather than genetic in origin, and in particular that no race has any scientifically valid claim to having a higher "IQ" than any other, so the climate skeptics have been rendered incapable by their upbringing of accepting the scientific evidence that the human race must now begin to bring the same level of respect which they have but lately learned to give one other to the rest of the living world. We may be the dominant race in terms of the power we have over our physical environment (thanks in large part to our scientists, ironically enough), but just as excluding minorities (or women, for that matter) from full participation in a society actually damages its prosperity, so too does the conviction that we are far above all the rest of the living world must lead to similar -- in fact even worse -- results.
I think it may be useful to invent a word for this at about this point in our cultural history, just as we have already recognized the existence of racism, sexism, and nationalism. The most direct extension would be speciesism, but this doesn't sound quite right to me at least. Therefore, I herewith solicit ideas from the Mother Jones community for something better. Because once we have a name for it, we can more effectively begin a campaign to make everyone understand what shameful thing it truly is!