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Looks like right-wingers who argue against climate change because, well, it doesn’t suit their world view, are ever more boxed into a corner, ever more lashing out with ridiculous claims.
Among latest comes rant as editorial on Right Wing News website, which starts:
Quote:"Global warming" has nothing to do with climate change; at least not as practiced by politicians, would be entrepreneurs and the global elite. Environmentalism is now the home of socialists, ex-communists and anti-Americans.And how might we describe the author of this piss-poor polemic? A Neo-Nazi nutcase?
Really, just some sad old geezer, who might have a Canute-like wish the temperature is not rising, yet cannot combat reality, even though other crankies in the conservative camp will agree with him.
Just seen Daily Telegraph columnist Christopher Brooker ("Patron Saint of Charlatans" according to George Monbiot) asserting that BBC has lost impartiality re global warming.
Led to me posting:
Quote:hahaha, the Pot calling the Kettle black!Booker indeed not at all impartial re warming (I doubt, say, he has highlighted Australia with around wost heatwave in century, or ongoing drought in parts of S America), and Telegraph happy to publish his quixotic assertions.
BBC correct to follow the science – peer-reviewed papers, expert climatologists; while "sceptics" seem to favour blogs, tired and wrong arguments and so forth.
It’s time to move on: accept reality of warming, albeit with uncertainties, and figure out what – if anything – we’re going to do about it.
Further evidence re global warming disinformation from energy industry being akin to tobacco industry’s disinfo regarding effects of smoking; from New York Times:
Quote:For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming.“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.
But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.
“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995.
Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate You might think being a university professor might ensure that when you spout supposed facts, you can actually back them up.
But No! – witness the remarkable Ian Plimer, denier extraordinaire. I lately saw an article by him in the UK’s Daily Mail, telling everyone not to worry about climate change, and packed with info suggesting it’s a grand non-event. How comforting this might seem. Heck, he has more in a recent book, Heaven and Earth.
And yet, Ian P turns out to be little more than a big bag of bombast, and something of a scaredy cat to boot, judging by his unwillingness to enter into proper debate (shades of the legendary Lomborg here, I think: present information, and then evade straight answers to questions, even duck for cover, when folk have the temerity to highlight your errors. Not that fans of denialism mind, for they aren’t fond of fact checking, instead favouring cherry picking n twaddle, as this thread shows).
Anyways, on to some Plimer-isms:
Open Mind website quotes Plimer in radio interview:
Quote:IAN PLIMER: No, in the 1930s, it was much hotter. We had from 1920 to 1940 far less arctic sea ice than now, much, much warmer temperatures.– and goes on to show Plimer is talking utter nonsense: it’s much hotter now.
DeSmog Blog quotes question to Plimer from George Monbiot, the Guardian’s scourge of deniers (of course, the Plimer-ism goes unanswered):
Quote:"You state that “Volcanoes produce more CO2 than the world’s cars and industries combined.” (p413)This is similar to the claim in The Great Global Warming Swindle, whose narrator maintained that “Volcanoes produce more CO2 each year than all the factories and cars and planes and other sources of man-made carbon dioxide put together.”
But you do not provide a source for it.
This is what the US Geological Survey says: “Human activities release more than 130 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes”.
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/index.php
a. Please provide a reference for your claim.
b. How do you explain the discrepancy between this claim and the published data?
Clumsy Denier Ian Plimer Limps AWAY FROM the Finish Line
If you have stamina for it, you can read a radio interview, in which the interview is well prepared and on the ball, and Plimer verbally wriggles around:
And, especially as Copenhagen summit about to begin, the hysteria just keeps on coming. This from The Examiner, which somehow makes it into Google News:
Quote:At a press conference yesterday EPA administrator Lisa Jackson pulled one right out of an old Gestapo playbook when she announced that going forward her EPA would begin to regulate carbon dioxide as "pollution" and a "threat" to public health.It was a power grab usually reserved only for despot dictators in Banana Republics and earns the moniker: Greenhouse Gestapo.
A power grab that will affect every man, woman and child in America by putting a single government bureaucracy in control of virtually every aspect of life in these United States of America. (No, you won’t find those exact words in her speech. To include such truth would imply transparency and honesty from this administration, something that ten months into it’s first year has been as scarce as Nancy Pelosi at a Tea Party.)
Until yesterday, the date, December 7th had but one overriding meaning in American history. Marking the treacherous surprise attack by the Japanese navy on the U.S. Pacific Fleet based at Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Today forward however, December 7th will forever have dual meaning as a date that saw a second treachery perpetrated upon the American people.
EPA’s Jackson sets up greenhouse gestapo in ruling to regulate carbon dioxide as ‘pollution’
Kind of ironic that the above post includes notion of a scary woman at a tea party, when just had a Tea Party for US Republicans, and Sarah Palin was very prominent at this.
Next thing you know, reports CBS News:
Quote:Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called studies supporting global climate change a "bunch of snake oil science"And just who is Sarah Palin to comment? The very same woman who was also shown using crib notes written on palm of her hand for a tv interview.
Across the Atlantic, in Britain, former Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson was involved in recent establishment of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. A Wikipedia entry indicates that, from the start, this aims to be slippery with the facts:
Quote:When the GWPF's website was launched in November 2009, a graph used in the logo graphic on each page of the website of '21st Century global mean temperatures' showed a slow decline over the selected period from 2001–2008. It was found to contain an error for 2003 by Hannah Devlin of The Times, who also pointed out that if the period from 2000–2009 had been chosen, then a rise in temperature would have been shown rather than a fall. The error was also commented on by Bob Ward of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, who said the graph was contrary to the true measurements, and that by leaving out the temperature trend during the 20th century the graph obscured the fact that 8 of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred this century. The GWPF blamed a "small error by our graphic designer" for the mistake which would now be changed, but said that starting the graph earlier would be equally arbitrary.Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist (!!_ is the director of the foundation. Recently, the Observer (Guardian) published an exchange of emails between him and the Observer's science editor Robin McKie, re science of climate change. I reckon Peiser came off a very tardy second best:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/07/robin-mckie-benny-peiser-climate
Handy article from Media Matters for America begins:
Quote:The conservative media have mounted an all-out attack on climate science in an attempt to discredit efforts to fight man-made global warming. Media Matters for America has debunked prominent myths and falsehoods associated with this smear campaign.myts debunked include:
MYTH: The scientific consensus on global warming has been undermined by recent events
MYTH: Erroneous Himalayan glacier statement in IPCC report undermines evidence of global warming
MYTH: IPCC report was wrong about the Amazon and drought
MYTH: New study debunks link between global warming and hurricane intensity
Myths and falsehoods from the assault on global warming science
Another article from Media Matters for America slams recent Wall Street Journal piece that claimed global warming science is dead (!!):
WSJ's Stephens tortures science to claim "global warming is dead"
I haven't posted to this thread for a while, but that doesn't mean the global warming lies and climate change hysteria have stopped. Far from it; with recent snowstorms in the US, Fox "News" has merrily claimed global warming is disproved.
From Media Matters for America:
Quote:During their recent coverage of winter storms, Fox News has repeatedly mocked former Vice President Al Gore and cited the cold and snowy weather to attempt to discredit global warming. Fox News and other right-wing media routinely use snow to cast doubt on global warming, and internal emails from Fox News' Washington bureau show that in the past Fox employees have been instructed to question climate science.…
During one segment about the recent snowstorm, Fox & Friends aired an on-screen graphic that read, "What Global Warming?"
…
In the midst of global climate change talks in Copenhagen in December 2009, Fox News' Washington Managing Editor Bill Sammon sent an email to Fox staff questioning the "veracity of climate change data" and ordering the network's journalists to "refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question."
…
In an article titled, "Five Reasons the Planet May Not Be Its Hottest Ever," FoxNews.com sought to debunk the fact that global temperatures have increased over the past 30 years, as well as the notion that human activity has contributed to the warming. But in compiling a handful of contrarian arguments, Fox largely ignored climate science and botched basic facts; even one of the skeptics Fox cited said part of the article "does not make sense."
Broken Record: Fox Still Falsely Claiming That Snow Disproves Global Warming
See also this from Media Matters for America:
This thread could be immense, what with all the lies and disinformation about climate change!
Now one of wannabe contenders for US president – Texas governor Rick Perry – found to be joining the disinfo, by Washington Post:
Quote:Perry is wrong to suggest that that skepticism has gained strength among scientists.…
So, in contrast to Perry’s statement, there have not been a “substantial number” of scientists who manipulated data. Instead, there were a handful — who were falsely accused.
…
Perry’s statement suggests that, on the climate change issue, the governor is willfully ignoring the facts and making false accusations based on little evidence. He has every right to be a skeptic — all scientific theories should be carefully scrutinized — but that does not give him carte blanche to simply make things up.
Rick Perry’s made-up ‘facts’ about climate change
Something of a furore just now, as a paper that sceptics had seized on has been found sadly wanting, and so bad that the editor of the journal it appeared in has resigned.
From BBC article:
Quote:The paper, by US scientists Roy Spencer and William Braswell, claimed that computer models of climate inflated projections of temperature increase.It was seized on by "sceptic" bloggers, but attacked by mainstream scientists.
Wolfgang Wagner, editor of Remote Sensing journal, says he agrees with their criticisms and is stepping down.
"Peer-reviewed journals are a pillar of modern science," he writes in a resignation note published in Remote Sensing.
"Their aim is to achieve highest scientific standards by carrying out a rigorous peer review that is, as a minimum requirement, supposed to be able to identify fundamental methodological errors or false claims.
"Unfortunately, as many climate researchers and engaged observers of the climate change debate pointed out in various internet discussion fora, the paper by Spencer and Braswell… is most likely problematic in both aspects and should therefore not have been published."
…
Dr Spencer is one of the team at the University of Alabama in Huntsville that keeps a record of the Earth's temperature as determined from satellite readings.
He is also on the board of directors of the George C Marshall Institute, a right-wing thinktank critical of mainstream climate science, and an advisor to the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, an evangelical Christian organisation that claims policies to curb climate change "would destroy jobs and impose trillions of dollars in costs" and "could be implemented only by enormous and dangerous expansion of government control over private life".
Texas governor Rick Perry is currently making a bid to become a candidate for Republican Party's presidential bid.
He's among the scarier anti-science loons, among a whole batch of them; currently, the Tea Party seems committeed to pooh-poohing global warming, and taking anti-science stance. Sad, and worrisome.
Perry is more extreme than most; lots of bluff and bluster, maybe Texas style – the hell with facts, and let's pray if there are problems… Yes, pray: with Texas suffering severe drought this summer, Perry has advised the solution is prayer power; I heard that after one prayer meeting he organised, in a stadium, temperatures actually rose. But that hasn't fazed him; after all, what is reality to a man who espouses such faith?
From an LA Times editorial:
Quote:… Rick Perry, who has referred to climate change theory as a "contrived phony mess" and whose defense of this position Wednesday night marked the intellectual nadir of the debate."Well, I do agree that there is — the science is not settled on this," Perry said. "The idea that we would put Americans' economy at jeopardy based on scientific theory that's not settled yet, to me, is just nonsense."
Perry went on to compare himself, or those who agree with him, to 17th century astronomer Galileo Galilei, who in Perry's words also "got outvoted for a spell" when he adopted a minority opinion on a scientific issue. It would be far more accurate to compare Perry to Pope Urban VIII, who put Galileo on trial for heresy in 1633 because his conclusions that the Earth revolved around the sun contradicted Scripture.
…
At this point, the empirical evidence for warming, like the evidence for a heliocentric solar system or for evolution, is so strong that denial reflects a faith-based approach to public policy.
And that seems to sum up Perry's response to any number of threats. In the midst of a punishing drought that is turning his state into a tinderbox, Perry's answer has been to issue proclamations urging people to pray for rain and to slash firefighting budgets. Heaven help us if he wins.
US senator James Inhofe is a reliable font of nonsense re climate change. Now, from Think Progress:
Quote:In a radio interview with Voice of Christian Youth America, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) argued that his belief that global warming is a hoax is biblically inspired.…
In the interview, Inhofe did not mention he has received $1,352,523 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, including $90,950 from Koch Industries.
Media Matters for America has a piece, quoting utter claptrap from a forecaster called Joe Bastardi, who keeps being given airtime on Fox. Here's a quote from the fellow:
Quote:Bastardi doesn't understand the first thing about the greenhouse effect – it has absolutely nothing to do with the 'specific gravity' of CO2 or any other greenhouse gas, it has to do with the fact that GHGs absorb and radiate infra-red heat and in doing so warm the surface of the Earth.The Heartless Institute (aka Heartland Institute) has stooped to a new low with an advertising campaign reported on by Care2Care:
Quote:The Heartland Institute has launched a billboard campaign that compares people who acknowledge the scientific consensus on global warming to criminals and terrorists, such as Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. The Institute, a right-wing “think tank” funded by, among others, billionaire right-wing activists David and and Charles Koch, explains how the people featured on the billboards were selected:“The billboard series features Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber; Charles Manson, a mass murderer; and Fidel Castro, a tyrant. Other global warming alarmists who may appear on future billboards include Osama bin Laden and James J. Lee (who took hostages inside the headquarters of the Discovery Channel in 2010).” The Institute notes, “what these murderers and madmen have said differs very little from what spokespersons for the United Nations, journalists for the “mainstream” media, and liberal politicians say about global warming.”
Rupert Murdoch is supporting disinformation on global warming – as some posts above indicate, very very noticeable if see Fox News/Wall St Journal items, even without this new report on coverage by News International, which includes:
Quote:Primetime coverage of global warming at Fox News is overwhelmingly misleading, according to a new report that finds the same is true of climate change information in the Wall Street Journal op-ed pages.Both outlets are owned by Rupert Murdoch's media company News Corporation. The analysis by the science-policy nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) finds that 93 percent of primetime program discussions of global warming on Fox News are inaccurate, as are 81 percent of Wall Street Journal editorials on the subject.
"It's like they were writing and talking about some sort of bizarre world where climate change isn't happening," study author Aaron Huertas, a press secretary at UCS, told LiveScience.
It's clear that we're not having a fact-based dialogue about climate change," Huertas added. The report, available online, focused on Fox News and the Journal because of both anecdotal and academic reports suggesting high levels of misleading climate chatter in each.
…
The most common climate mistakes on Fox News involved misleading statements on basic climate science, or simple undermining and disparaging of the field of climate science. For example, on March 23, one on-air personality referred to global warming as a "hoax and fraud."
Misleading opinions
The misrepresentations in Wall Street Journal op-eds similarly twisted the science and disparaged the field
…
"It is entirely appropriate to disagree with specific actions or policies aimed at addressing climate change while accepting the clearly established findings of climate science," the authors wrote. "And while it is appropriate to question new science as it emerges, it is misleading to reject or sow doubt about established science — in this case, the overwhelming body of evidence that human-caused climate change is occurring."
http://www.livescience.com/23448-fox-news-climate-coverage-wrong.html
Note also that Fox is closely associated with National Geographic tv, which I think accounts for sometimes dire standards of the channels' documentaries [not a patch on standard of magazine articles; hard to find mention of global warming, or indeed ideas that maybe not all is well with the natural world]
Over on Slate, there's item about Heartland Institute making a bogus claim about one of its reports on climate change being translated to Chinese. Includes:
Quote:Heartland made this claim:The trend toward skepticism and away from alarmism is now unmistakable… Publication of a Chinese translation of Climate Change Reconsidered by the Chinese Academy of Sciences indicates the country's leaders believe their [failure to sign a global climate treaty] is justified by science and not just economics.
It was so fallacious, in fact, that the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) issued a very stern statement (emphasis mine):
The claim of the Heartland Institute about CAS’ endorsement of its report is completely false. To clarify the fact, we formally issue the following statements:
…
Heartland Institute Embarrasses Itself Again
It seems from this article in Rolling Stone that Americans are way in the lead when it comest to spouting twaddle about climate change. [Also in lead when it comes to researching and warning about it – go figure!].
Includes:
Quote:Climate change is impossible because "God's still up there."
How does cold heat the already hot.
Why do K & t energy budgets show a doubling of heat energy. ie the creation of energy from nothing!AGW is as ludicrous as the so called pathogenic virus.
Both use the same technique to beguile people in to the faith based system of so called authority.
Rationality has nothing to do modern westernised life!
from union of concerned scientists:
Donald Trump hasn’t yet assumed office, but already phoney baloney promoted, and promptly skewered by scientists:
Climate scientists condemn article claiming global temperatures are falling
A Republican-led panel promoted a misleading tabloid story alleging earth may not be warming, relying on data that leaves out important points of context
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