Global warming confusing for idiots

[Martin W]

Now, global warming is a complex issue. But that's no excuse for drivel of the type I've just come across – citing a few sceptics, and then sticking head firmly in the sand. There is much science involved; and the great weight of scientific opinion and evidence is that global warming is real and is serious. But, can still get barmy blather like this:

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GLOBAL warming might yet be revealed as the biggest and most expensive myth since the dreaded Y2K bug. … Now once again the media is full of crisis. The ice caps and the glaciers are melting. The polar bears are dying. The weather has turned hot and cold and violent. It's all because we burn too much carbon.

– err, yes, you've almost got it, tho as with rest of this column, oversimplifying just a tad. But then, isn't that the point here – a column by an idiot, for idiots.

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Once again there are many vested interests – NGOs, advisers, consultants, alternative energy purveyors, politicians and control freaks – who do well on all the excitement. Every oil company, every power utility and every car manufacturer has its hand on its heart promising to clean up its act. Their annual reports have more about their do-gooding than about their businesses.

hahaha – you don't figure there are any "vested interests" here, then? ExxonMobil, Western Fuels and so on?

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Al Gore is not the only one warning about cataclysm to come. The alarmists have been given support by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was established by the World Meteorological Organisation and the United Nations Environmental Programme. The UK government's Stern report lent further credence to the sky is falling down school of thought. Amidst all this, there are dissenting voices, which are seldom heard.

– this is a gigantic lie; thanks partly to funding by Exxon and others, much has been heard – and the guy here cites folk like Linzen and Lomborg, whom I've heard far too much from. (Lomborg's a claimed former greenie, and an economist for goodness sake!) Try googling for their names and global warming: hardly a suppressed few. In fact, for small number, they are real noisy; our idiot columnist even quotes from Linzen writing in a UK newspaper.

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in the 1970s the great fear was another ice age – also attributed to man's environmental irresponsibility.

– great fear of whom, exactly? Anyone recall an international panel on the next ice age? No, because the ice age fears were very limited in scope.

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Who am I to take sides in the great debate? My intention is purely to point out that respectable scientists are far from unanimous on global warming.

– and indeed, who are you? A ninny who skims info, without looking in any detail – and yet is happy to write a column about it.

Bah! – away with you. above piece at:

Global warming – a new religion? It’s okay, the polar bears are thriving.

(got no idea where the subhead writer got that notion from! But I'm sure idiots will approve)

Post edited by: Martin, at: 2007/05/16 08:53

[Martin W]

Much ado in news today re NASA administrator Michael Griffin making comments that catapult him into the ranks of idiots:

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“I have no doubt that a trend of global warming exists… I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with.

“To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t change,” Griffin said. “I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.”
…
Griffin’s comments immediately drew stunned reaction from James Hansen, NASA’s top climate scientist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

“It’s an incredibly arrogant and ignorant statement,” Hansen told ABC News. “It indicates a complete ignorance of understanding the implications of climate change.”
…
Last year, many NASA scientists were upset when reports surfaced that the agency had quietly deleted the phrase “to understand and protect our home planet” from the NASA mission statement. The scientists believe research on issues like climate change will suffer as NASA shifts priorities toward exploration missions to the moon and Mars.

NASA’s Top Official Questions Global Warming
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin Questions Need to Combat Warming

The stupidity here is indeed mind boggling for a man in Griffin’s position.
Yes, to anyone who reads Dilbert cartoons – with company boss who wanders around with head in the clouds – not surprising, but still, you might have figured that Griffin might have at least read some summaries of reports by NASA scientists.

[Martin W]

Griffin has since expressed some regret re his remarks, said the world is clearly warming.

But, there’s clearly no shortage of high profile idiots ready to spout nonsense on the issue. Here’s another:

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A theology professor who speaks for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation says global warming isn’t all bad.

…
Professor Calvin Beisner noted that carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming also enhance plant growth, which will help feed the world’s poor.

Beisner said the plants and animals that died for mankind’s sin in Noah’s flood were compressed into the fossil fuels we now burn to fuel growth.

He compared that to Jesus dying, being buried and then resurrected to give people new life.

He said, “Added carbon dioxide from fossil fuels isn’t pollution — it’s part of the solution to human poverty and to the thriving of the whole Earth.”

Theology Professor Says Global Warming Isn’t All Bad

[Martin W]

I mentioned Dilbert above.
Just been sent Doonesbury cartoon, with student scientist puzzled by finding that research results don’t fit the supposed story.
Happily, the White House Situational Science Advisor is there to put him right, inc by saying:

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Situational science is about respecting both sides of an argument, not just the one supported by facts.
That’s why I always teach the controversy! Like the evolution controversy, or the global warming controversy…

http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20070114

[Martin W]

Must admit I’d never heard of Larry Craig till his resignation over soliciting an undercover cop in a public toilet.
But, noting the ex senator’s a Democrat, and – shall we say – has shown huge capacity for being economical with the truth (blabbering about doing nothing wrong save admit guilt – so, soliciting sex from a man in a toilet’s ok is it? Then denying being gay; perhaps because for his public image he has be be a fine upstanding ‘murcan), just had look for him and position re global warming.

And, looks like he’s a fudger or even a hypocrite on this issue; been among those favouring situational science as mentioned above (this, of course, is not science at all).

Here’s a waffly quote showing he was happily aligned with the ranks of the Idiots:

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For example, in 1998, with Bill Clinton in the White House, Sen. Larry Craig said, “As more and more American scientists review the available data on global warming, it is becoming increasingly clear that the vast majority believe the commitments for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions made by the administration in the Kyoto Protocol are an unnecessary response to an exaggerated threat the vice president himself [i.e., Al Gore] is caught up in making.”

Certainty of Catastrophic Global Warming is a Hoax
His website has page re him doing stuff re warming for several years, but seems he’s still a fuzzy-headed about it:

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there isn’t even a consensus that a problem exists, let alone what to do about it.

The science appears to be clear that we do have a changing climate. But how much is it changing–and why–and is it important? Environmental changes are still largely a mystery. We don’t know how much man contributes to climate variability compared to nature, and we don’t know how much we need to curtail emissions.

I have been engaged on this issue for several years now. It’s mind boggling to contemplate how our economy–and that of the world–could be affected by policy proposals addressing climate change.

Why, we might wonder, doesn’t he admit it’s even more mind boggling to contemplate how entire ecosystems – not just economy – could be transformed if global warming predictions come true; as several already proving true (see another thread here). And not that some economists have suggested that moves to counter global warming might cost only a few percent of GDP – Why not wonder just why people are so opposed to taking action?

So, ex senator Craig, I salute your downfall. Hip hip, Hooray!
Hope you might now stand up and be a man, be true.

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