Friday, August 06, 2010
To the troglodytes who read this blog: on global warming and climate chaos ... by gimleteye
Since global warming has been a real and present danger, the conservative right-- embodied by the Fox News methane machine and Rush Limbaugh-- has promoted a counter-argument: that even if the planet warms, we'll just shift crop production north. Instead of growing corn in Texas or Missouri, we'll grow it in Minnesota, Michigan or Canada, "tributary" of the United States. "You're just all crybabies," the right-wing spin machine responds to the idea that climate chaos will rearrange the deck chairs. Republicans stopped a climate change bill-- even the watered down, awful one-- from getting to the floor of Congress before the August recess. Today's New York Times front page story caps the grand folly: "Russia, Crippled by Drought, Bans Grain Exports". Yesterday, the price per bushel of wheat was up 39.9 percent. The report ends with a quote from a Russian investment analyst, "Grain is an emotive issue, you want to make sure you have sufficient supplies." Our own troglodytes have an answer: America is different. We will be no different by the time we have a crop failure like Russia's.
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7 comments:
What bothers me about articles like this are the assumptions that anthropogenic climate warming is proven science, and a foregone conclusion.
No matter that the very "scientists" that were performing the "science" that "proved" anthropogenic global warming were caught red handed with their pants around their ankles skewing data to support their desired result. No matter that these same "scientists" were shown to have actively engaged in suppressing articles on anthropogenic climate change that disagreed with their agenda. The evidence of their malfeasance is irrefutable, as it came from their own emails.
IF the globe is warming; and IF the cause is anthropogenic, THEN it will be time to take action. IF the globe is warming and it is a result of natural processes, all we can do is go along for the ride.
Before spending billions of dollars that will have to be diverted from other needs, we should be sure the science that drives the decision is integrous and reflective of reality.
Other scientific disciplines use double blind studies with placebos to ensure data integrity. A similar approach should be used to ferret out the truth of this important issue before crying wolf.
unrelated: Have you read the Jackson report?
"No matter that the very "scientists" that were performing the "science" that "proved" anthropogenic global warming were caught red handed with their pants around their ankles skewing data to support their desired result."
Untrue. David, update your sources.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/opinion/11sun2.html?_r=1
"a panel in Britain concluded that scientists whose e-mail had been hacked late last year had not, as critics alleged, distorted scientific evidence to prove that global warming was occurring and that human beings were primarily responsible. "
"Before spending billions of dollars that will have to be diverted from other needs"
Also, the solutions of clean energy solve a number of problems: dependence on foreign oil/national security, limited resources that are going to run out, our health from pollution, etc, etc.
Whichever side of this scientific wrestling match is right doesn't matter to me I'll just kick the A/C a few degrees lower and drink an extra mojito by the pool to stay cool and fresh.
As George Carlin said the earths been here 4 billion years and man about 200 thousand.....the aerth will get rid of us when its good and ready.
Gimleteye, have you looked at the Sandra Ruiz disqualification and how that decision might effect other candidates in similar circumstances?
Gimleteye, there will be no accession to the ever more evident, ever hotter reality of global warming until the global economy collapses.
The US is now a corporate-state. Did you hear, the oil well is plugged and all the crude and the corexit has just vanished! Don't believe me or BP, then just ask Carol Browner, the people's guardian of the environment. Gosh it was a close call too! That act of industrial homicide and the deadening of the Gulf of Mexico nearly brought down Britain's largest corporation and the Obama Administration. All's well now though, the corporate media will take the clean-up from here.
The banks now have grabbed almost all the wealth of this nation. Almost! But even gorged on the people's money, the banks are ironically walking dead, like Paul Krugman used to say, they're zombies. More like vampires to my mind. Because there are a few pockets of wealth and working class influence they simply must suck dry if they are to survive a little bit longer. There's the nation's public school system, there's public and private pension funds, there's the Social Security system, Medicare and Medicaid, there's all the public services delivered by state and local governments. There's the largest unionized work force left in this country, the teachers. What, you thought this sudden flood of disparagement and denigration of teachers was "for the kids"? What started with Reagan and PATCO is supposed to end with Obama and NEA-AFT. Can't pay teachers those exorbitant $50,000 a year salaries and a pension in their old age. We've got Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon's bonuses to think of right.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/business/06denver.html?_r=1&hpw=&pagewanted=all
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/us/07cutbacksWEB.html?hp
Anonymous;
I've read the emails myself. It's clear they were distorting data and suppressing dissenting opinions in major trade journals. I could frankly give a shit for what a British panel says.
At some point, we all have to agree on what reality is. If we watch a video of someone pulling out a gun on a street and shooting someone point blank in the head, we have to agree that that is murder, not the victim asking for it or the shooter driven to it because of a horrible childhood.
If scientist's are emailing each other, asking each other for assistance with "scaling" factors because their data isn't supporting a warming conclusion, we have to agree that this calls any results they have published into question. We have to agree on what reality is! In the previous example, we don't convene a panel to study the issue and say, well, he had a tough childhood, so society made him shoot that person. And in the climate change example, we don't convene a panel to say everything is OK when the scientist was looking for a fudge factor because his data didn't support his desired conclusion. In his own words in his own email! And that's only one example in their back and forth emails. Reality is reality. If we can't say all the data is suspect because of this, we might as well agree that there is no such thing as reality and we're not really here.
Science is science when the way in which it is carried out brooks no debate about the results. When it comes to whether there is climate change in the first place; and if there is that it's getting warmer, not cooler; and if it's getting warmer, that the cause is anthropogenic; is so not there.
Properly conducted science takes away from bias influencing results. Climatologists aren't even close to being able to show that their data has that kind of integrity.
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