Denying Science
Mar 5, 2010 climate change, evolution, global warming
What was that I said the other day about climate change denial being the new evolution denial? Denialists are joining forces to say that “dissenting views on both scientific subjects should be taught in public schools.” When these people use words like “critical thinking,” what they really mean is that bogus unscientific nonsense should be taught as science. MoJo talked to
Lawrence M. Krauss, a physicist who directs the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University sums up what’s really going on here: “Wherever there is a battle over evolution now,” he said, “there is a secondary battle to diminish other hot-button issues like Big Bang and, increasingly, climate change. It is all about casting doubt on the veracity of science–to say it is just one view of the world, just another story, no better or more valid than fundamentalism.”
Meanwhile, this deliberate cognitive dissonance keeps diverging farther and farther from observable reality. Bad news from Siberia:
Arctic seabed stores of methane are now destabilizing and venting vast stores of frozen methane—a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The paper, in the prestigious journal Science, reports the permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic Shelf—long thought to be an impermeable barrier sealing in methane—is instead perforated and leaking large amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Melting of even a fraction of the clathrates stored in that shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.
Past extreme warming periods were associated with increased methane levels as a result of CO2 release. But I suppose the denialists’ next move is to propose a “scientific” theory of the Second Coming will solve the problem.
Ending The Age Of Stupid
Feb 22, 2010 Obama's communication strategy, climate change, global warming
More of this:
Maybe he should use a visual aid:
All that smoke about Teh Socializms™ and climate-change denial doesn’t stop the ice from melting.
Banned Christmas Videos
Dec 25, 2009 Christmas, censorship, climate change, global warming
Think Progress has the story:
In the videos, little animals learn about the problem and teach Santa Claus about it. The right wing has been outraged over the antics of these bears and penguins. One conservative called for a boycott of Build-A-Bear, and another said the the videos amount to “indoctrination.” In response to this right-wing pressure, Build-A-Bear has taken down the educational videos.
As one of the core missions at Osborne Ink is a crusade against censorship, the episode in question is presented here for your viewing pleasure.
Copenhagen: A Paranoiac’s Explanation
Dec 19, 2009 Obama's global popularity, global warming
I’ve got it. See, Obama’s trip to Copenhagen was all about serving his Chinese masters.
Never mind that getting 190 sovereign countries to agree on anything is like herding cats or nailing jello to a tree. Clearly, Obama cut a back room deal with China and sold out the progressive movement. Behind that magnificent speech there’s a cold, calculating conspiracy to melt the ice caps.
It’s the ONLY RATIONAL EXPLANATION!!!1!
SEE, HERE HE IS SELLING US ALL OUT TO THE CHINESE! AAARRRGH
CNN Coverage of ClimateHack
Dec 10, 2009 CNN, climate change, global warming
Celebrity Noise and Nonsense can’t help itself. If they were reporting the Watergate break-in today, G. Gordon Liddy would appear on the air to proclaim the Democratic Party was hiding information about Vietnam.
The Return of South vs. North
Dec 10, 2009 climate change, global warming, globalization
Copenhagen is resurrecting the North-South divide of global politics. It had been dead since 2001:
For months, the dialogue on climate policy has largely focused on the actions of China and of the United States—powerful and dynamic economies that are the two largest global polluters. Their electricity production, transportation and manufacturing industries account for the lion’s share of world pollution—with populous India not far behind. But these actions have grave consequences for smaller countries. Water wars between Burkina Faso and Ghana, or Pakistan and India, food shortages in Niger or oil shocks in American cities are all destabilizing to the global economy and political order. As the stakes mount and the conversation deepens, a new alliance among nations from the global south is asserting a voice in the debate.
This is the “welfare” argument writ on a global scale. The entire population of Bangladesh might be forced to relocate; but to where? IMHO, this is the reality that global warming deniers face. They insinuate all sorts of paranoid conspiracy scenarios aimed at reducing population (whether for capitalist, communist, or reptilian masters); but unless the human race begins to manage the problem, they will see millions dying of war, disease, famine, and hunger.
Morning Video
Dec 10, 2009 Morning Video, global warming
This is what I’m on about when I say that CNN should stop pretending that climate change denial is one side of a controversy. The controversy was over years ago; the industry shill on here is just keeping climategate alive as long as possible to prevent the human race from adapting. If someone came on CNN to advocate mass-suicide, they wouldn’t get the time of day. Or would they?
Your Liberal Media At Work
Dec 9, 2009 Faux Noise™, global warming
I’m told the UK Telegraph is a conservative-right newspaper, which explains why they’re covering this. It’s an astroturf “shadow conference” going on in Copenhagen:
Professor Henrik Svensmark, a physicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen, said the recent warming period was caused by solar activity.He said the last time the world experienced such high temperatures, during the medieval warming period, the Sun and the Earth were in a similar cycle.
Svensmark is a longtime denialist. Solar radiation does indeed affect climate, but Earth is currently at a century-long low point in the solar cycle. In other words, if solar radiation affects global temperature a lot, then we are in for some new record high temperatures. Which makes denialists the equivalent of the special-needs kid who won’t take off his sweater and coat even in a sweltering room.
Professor Nils-Axel Morner, a geologist from Stockholm University, said sea level rise has also been exaggerated by the “climate alarmists” using computer models.
He said observational data from lake sediments, coast lines and trees show sea levels have remained stable.
The Telegraph fails to report that Morner also claims to be an expert in dowsing. Kinda like this guy. Credible!
Professor Cliff Ollier, another geologist from the University of Western Australia, also said the environmental lobby have got it wrong on ice caps. He said the melting of ice sheets is caused by geothermal activity rather than global surface temperatures.
Geothermal activity, eh? Odd that no one can find the geothermal vents that are responsible, or point to a new upwelling of geothermal vents. But here’s what I find interesting about Ollier: I can’t find a lot of good references on the ‘net, though I can see his tracks in the astroturf “dissident” movement. One source said he was “retired,” which is probably another way of saying he works for the oil industry.
Professor Ian Plimer, from the University of Adelaide, claimed carbon dioxide from volcanoes rather than humans is driving warming as part of a natural process.
That would the Ian Plimer who refuses to debate Monbiot. He’s a “scientist” who’s afraid to debate a writer. As for his claim about volcanoes, it’s true they affect climate — eruptions cool the planet. They also emit CO2, but:
(A)lthough volcanoes release some CO2 into the atmosphere, this is completely negligible compared to anthropogenic emissions (about 0.15 Gt/year of carbon, compared to about 7 Gt/year of human related sources) . However, over very long times scales (millions of years), variations in vulcanism are important for the eventual balance of the carbon cycle, and may have helped kick the planet out of a ‘Snowball Earth’ state in the Neo-proterozoic 750 million years ago.
And now the pattern is complete:
The meeting was organised by Danish group Climate Sense and the lobby group Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).
As revealed in Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow
owns and operates ClimateDepot.com, which has been a main clearinghouse for the right-wing climategate echo chamber. ClimateDepot.com is managed by Marc Morano, former aide to Republican Senator James Inhofe. CFACT has received grants from Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and well-known right-wing foundations like the Carthage Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation.
The Usual Suspects. Which brings me back to this item, now verified:
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA–(Marketwire – Dec. 5, 2009) – On the heels of the controversial story about emails and data stolen by hackers from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, it has now been revealed that individuals posing as network technicians attempted to infiltrate another climate data center operated by the Government of Canada.
According to sources at the University of Victoria, two people claiming to be network computer technicians presented themselves at the headquarters of the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis and tried to gain access to the data servers. When challenged by an employee, the two individuals hastily left. The timing of this attempted break-in is very suspicious given that it occurred so closely on the heels of the release of hacked emails and data from a similar facility housed at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK. (Emphasis Mine)
There has apparently been more than one attempt, but the story today is climate science on the defensive instead of “desperate oil and gas conglomerates pay for Watergate-style break in.” SwiftHack is a story Teh Librul Media™ won’t do on their own, but climategate just shot through their stovepipe like cabbage through a rabbit. Some “liberal” media.
Who Paid For SwiftHack?
Dec 9, 2009 global warming, nontroversy
I’m still dealing with the fallout of my HuffPo piece Climategate and the Life-Cycle of Nontroversy, which I submitted to the “Media” vertical only to have the editors put me in the “Green” section. Instead of dealing with comments on Teh Librul Media™’s willingness to play media stovepipe, I wound up debating denialists, who are the Darwin-deniers of the 21st Century.
I suppose I held my own fairly well for a non-scientist; but I was actually trying to point readers in the same direction as Richard Graves:
“The real scandal is not the email archive, or even how it was acquired, sorted, and uploaded to a Russian server, but rather the emerging evidence of a coordinated international campaign to target and harass climate scientists, break and enter into government climate labs, and misrepresent climate science through a sophisticated media infrastructure on the eve of the international climate talks.”
Yeah, where did the hackers get their funding? Graves also makes note of the characteristic psychological projection that comes from the wingnutosphere and Faux Noise fear factory:
(T)his story would be an eerie and ironic echo of Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear” that was embraced by many of the same groups currently promoting the ClimateGate talking points.
John Birchers screech about secret commies, but organize themselves in secret cells. Obama detractors yelp about “worship-like reverence for a false prophet” and then pray to a six-foot cardboard cutout of George Bush. This is just more of the same: the denial industry insists there’s a vast global conspiracy at work in climate science, but the only conspiracy you’ll actually find is Saudi oil + Exxon + hackers = loud, stupid noises.
Let us conclude this chapter with the most thorough YouTube debunking of “climategate” I’ve found:
Saudi Oil Money (UPDATE)
Dec 8, 2009 Saudi Arabia, global warming, nontroversy
Climate scientists are not backing down, and that’s a good thing. But this bit of information in the NYT is what caught my attention:
The debate, set off by the circulation of several thousand files and e-mail messages stolen from one of the world’s foremost climate research institutes, has led some who oppose limits on greenhouse gas emissions, and at least one influential country, Saudi Arabia, to question the scientific basis for the Copenhagen talks.The uproar has threatened to complicate a multiyear diplomatic effort already ensnared in difficult political, technical and financial disputes that have caused leaders to abandon hopes of hammering out a binding international climate treaty this year.
It’s not enough the Saudis talked Bush into deregulating gas futures trading to drive up the price of oil. It’s not enough they scuttle every effort at meeting the challenge of global warming. They help fund the climategate nontroversy with support for the foundations that keep hacks and professional conspiracy nuts on the payroll. That’s a real conspiracy, and a transparent one.
UPDATE: He of the Little Green Footballs has anticipated me:
The very last thing the Saudis want is for the western world to get serious about alternate sources of energy.
And climate change deniers are playing right into their hands.
I’d like to see a debate between the Charles Johnson of 2007 and the CJ of 2009. Not that I hold anything against CJ; it’s the debate the GOP needs to have with itself and keeps putting off.
