Category Archives: "Political" Science

Yes, Virginia, you do have to produce those ‘Global Warming’ documents

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“Yes, Virginia, you do have to produce those ‘Global Warming’ documents“. Anthony Watts the citizen-scientist provides a sneering headline to his reprint of a partisan Washington Examiner op-ed.

Right-wing “think tank” the American Tradition Institute says that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s legal campaign against climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann, who worked at the University of Virginia from 1999 t0 2005, is somehow principled and that the University of Virginia is somehow wasting taxpayer’s money by resisting Cuccinelli’s groundless legal actions.

Cuccinelli have been widely condemned over this in the press and by academic and legal bodies. We covered the fall-out from “Kook’s” first kick at this cat back in October. In a nutshell, Kook is not engaged in an effort to prove that Mann defrauded Virginia taxpayers, and has not demonstrated any reason to believe that the University has information relevant to such an accustion. He just wants to root around and see if he can find anything that can be twisted into an accusation after the fact. It is the near definition of a witch-hunt.

Funny how libertarians rail against government oppression unless they manage to grasp the levers of power. Anthony’s readers salivate over the persecution righteous smiting of Dr. Mann by Tea Party supporter “Kook” Cuccinelli, but they’ll return to howling about their own persecution soon enough.

There’s a useful timeline at the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Washington Post has a recent report on this.

Demented thinking: Copenhagen didn’t work – but taxes will

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“Demented thinking: Copenhagen didn’t work – but taxes will“. Climate economist William Nordhaus says in the January 2011 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that carbon taxes are the best approach to achieve significant emissions reductions. Anthony Watts says “no way! Taxes are always bad!” and then posts the press release. Thus disproving Global Warming. Anthony’s readers supply the elaborate economic and political insights.

From the press release:

[William Nordhaus] says that it is necessary to raise the price of carbon to implement carbon policies so that they will have an impact on everyday human decisions, and on decision makers at every level in every nation and sector. At present, incentives and levels of involvement vary, and where some countries have implemented strong emission control measures, they only cover a limited part of national emissions. – Eureka Alert Press Release, Jan 5, 2011.

I really don’t know what the best political solution is for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, but I’m willing to try anything that seems effective.

Funny, Anthony didn’t draw attention to this article from the same issue – Global warming: How skepticism became denial. Here’s the abstract:

The conversation on global warming started in 1896, when a physical chemist estimated that the mean global temperature would rise several degrees if the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was doubled. The topic eventually became one of the most passionate in the history of science. The author points out that climate experts were initially strongly skeptical of the theory of global warming; it took a variety of evidence to gradually convince them that warming due to human emissions was likely. The public, however, was guided away from this conclusion by a professional public relations effort, motivated by industrial and ideological concerns. Deniers of the scientific consensus avoided normal scientific discourse and resorted to ad hominem attacks that cast doubt on the entire scientific community—while disrupting the lives of some researchers. The author points out that scientists have failed to mount a concerted public relations campaign to defend their position. When trust is lost, he asserts, a determined effort is needed to restore it.

Naked bodies and a new Messiah

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“Naked bodies and a new Messiah“. Robert Zimmerman posts a guest entry on the Spiegel Online article Green Groups Try to Sex Up Climate Change. Apparently, environmentalists are trying to capture the public’s attention.

From the Spiegel Online article:

A survey of 13,000 people in 18 countries, presented by German international public broadcaster Deutsche Welle at the Global Media Forum in Bonn in June, suggests that ordinary citizens are less interested in climate change than was previously thought. The survey showed, for example, that only one in three Dutch people are concerned about climate change — even though the Netherlands is considered especially at risk from rising sea levels.

From Zimmerman’s comment:

Every tactic outlined in the article above is either a superficial public relations stunt or an effort to spin facts so emotionally that the general public will be mesmerized into doing whatever the global warming activists want.

Such denialist self-pity! It has been precisely the success of the denialist and conservative punditry’s shouting and deception that drove me to create this website. They have done an excellent job of confusing, distracting and fatiguing the public.

Denialists taken those primitive efforts of the tobacco, acid rain and ozone apologists and perfected them. Congratulations, you’ve sown ignorance moved the debate backwards.

It’s hard not to conclude that well-organized high-profile climate change deniers such as Watts, sundry conservative pundits and think tanks and even Tea Party Republicans understand that we are seeing the early signs of global warming – rising temperatures, increased snowfall, extreme weather, etc. They’re just more interested in holding back public opinion to protect their political interests.

The environmentalist campaigns highlighted in the Spiegel Online article show a far lower level of organization for the battle of public opinion. What happened to the global conspiracy taking orders from Maurice Strong and Al Gore?

The planet may not be so easily manipulated.

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup

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“Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup“. Anthony Watts helpfully posts the denialist “think tank” Science and Environmental Policy Project’s spin on recent news. The government is trying to grab power! Only Conservative blogs tell the truth! Government waste! Smoking is good for you!

I love the editorial by the unshakeable Fred Singer, which has the brass to try using a quote from Dr. James Hansen to support the tired old claim that “models cannot be used to predict future global temperatures reliably”. LOL.

Spin, spin, spin.

Clean Coal (Say WATT?) – Our Energy Future

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“Clean Coal (Say WATT?) – Our Energy Future“. More Christmas Guest pudding from Ira Glickstein. He’s excited that The Atlantic apparently now “supports coal”. James Fallows’ latest article is Why the Future of Clean Energy is Dirty Coal. He suggests that electricity can be produced by redesigning coal power plants to reduce their carbon emissions. Doesn’t seem like quite the “warmist” reversal Ira wants to proclaim.

“No coal ever!” only exists in the make believe world where environmentalists want us to go back to living in caves. In the real world environmentalists want to move as fast as possible to cleaner non-carbon energy sources, not stop energy usage.

Coal is central to current power generation in many places, so the more we can improve its utilization the better. But there’s no “clean” version, and it is not “cheap”. Extracting it damages the environment and so does burning it. China is probably the world’s largest consumer of coal power, but they are also the most active in pursuing “alternative” energy.

So… What were your saying Ira? Oh, you prefer direct carbon taxes to “cap-and-trade”. Me too. Bet you Anthony’s readers don’t like either.

Climate Change and the Corruption of Science: Where did it all go wrong?

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“Climate Change and the Corruption of Science: Where did it all go wrong?“. Christmas Guest pudding from Bernie Lewin. Apparently Global Warming is just a way to use apocalyptic scenarios to generate social panic and maintain political power. And the scientists all jumped onboard because they like the attention.

So all the denialist rants about conspiracies, lying scientists, and impending secret world governments is just a rational response?

That’s funny, cause I thought the fundamental basis for Global Warming denialism was right-wing interests exploiting paranoia over perceived threats to autonomy to protect their own power.

Early Christmas gift from Lisa Jackson: power plant greenhouse gas limits

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“Early Christmas gift from Lisa Jackson: power plant greenhouse gas limits“. Ryan Maue tells us that those criminals at the EPA are abusing their powers and regulating power plant and refinery emissions. Just like every other administration over the last 30 years!

It’s official: Polar bear not an endangered species

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“It’s official: Polar bear not an endangered species“. Didn’t Anthony Watts make this claim this a few days ago? Is it truer now? Does the corrupt and evil Obama administration continuing a noble and glorious Bush administration policy mean that maybe Obama isn’t as partisan as Anthony asserts? Don’t worry, Anthony won’t make that mind-blowing leap.

Obama caves on promise, Internet to be regulated by FCC

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“Obama caves on promise, Internet to be regulated by FCC“. Anthony Watts is now a telecommunications expert! The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is enacting weak “Net Neutrality” regulations for internet access that protect service providers but don’t protect consumers.

The immediate question that comes to Anthony’s mind is this:

With this newfound power, how long before it mutates beyond original scope, and websites that are critical of the government begin to be shut down, or simply IP throttled out of meaningful existence?

I would imaging [sic] that site [sic] like this one would be a target, since we don’t report what the government line on climate change is.

Well of course you’d think that if you’re a self-important conspiracy theorist with a hatred of gubmint.

The FCC Net Neutrality regulations are a heavily flawed political compromise. But what else is new? Presumably Anthony’s outrage dovetails neatly with the Republican position. Hmmm… Let Big Businesses charge whatever they want! Don’t do anything because we can’t predict what the future! We can’t trust governments! Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Climategate–the Made Up Story, or Mr. Assange, WUWT?

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“Climategate–the Made Up Story, or Mr. Assange, WUWT?“ Anthony Watts’ associates express their annoyance that Julian Assange of Wikileaks is claiming to have been the first publisher of the stolen Climategate e-mail excerpts. It was them, damn it! They are the hipster heroes!

“Charles the Moderator” says the e-mails were on Wikileaks because he uploaded them. Economist Ross McKitrick makes the nuanced statement that Assange et. al. are “nothing but fakes and cretins.”

Perhaps “Charles” was afraid of legal complications, but I thought it was all public property…

Ah the good old days, when the denialists momentarily had a new way to convince themselves that they’d uncovered the vast decades-long conspiracy to use climate data to install a communist world government!