environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots Mitt Romney
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 11, Day 2: Is Being An Opportunistic Hypocrite Genetic, Or A Lifestyle Choice?
The Wall Street Journal notes that the Mittster has been inconsistent on climate change. Heh heh heh heh.
Rivals of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Friday repeated their accusations of flip-flopping on core issues, after he told an audience on Thursday that he didn’t know what caused global warming.
Mr. Romney said earlier this year that human activity played a role.
“Mitt Romney’s positions change, often dramatically, depending on the audience or location,” said Ray Sullivan, a spokesman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, also a GOP candidate. “Voters need to consider the fact that Romney, in one week, changed positions on man-made global warming, capping carbon emissions and Ohio’s efforts to curb union powers.”
It took me longer than I expected to write this letter, given that it was essentially a rephrasing of yesterday’s. Sent October 29:
Having learned early on that an inadvertent bit of truth-telling can deep-six a politician’s aspirations, Mitt Romney should know never to question conservative shibboleths.
Young Willard Romney was only 20 when he watched his father’s 1968 presidential run spin out of control when George Romney spoke of being “brainwashed” by advocates of the Vietnam war. While history has vindicated the Michigan Republican’s apostasy on our Southeast Asian misadventure, primary voters at the time rejected him soundly. So it is today, with the conservative base unified in its absolute denial of climate change.
Like father, like son. Historians will undoubtedly recognize Romney the Younger’s timid statement on global warming as a piece of truth-telling uncannily similar to that which sank Romney the Elder’s presidential run. Anti-science Republican absolutists will never acknowledge climate change, and Mitt’s subsequent equivocations may not be enough to undo the damage done by his brief flirtation with the truth.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots Republican obstructionism Richard Muller
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Year 2, Month 10, Day 31: DFH Edition
The San Antonio Express-News reprints Eugene Robinson’s column (see yesterday’s letter for another quote):
Muller and his colleagues examined five times as many temperature readings as did other researchers — a total of 1.6 billion records — and now have put that merged database online. The results have not yet been subjected to peer review. But Muller’s plain-spoken admonition that “you should not be a skeptic, at least not any longer” has humbled many deniers.
Not so, I predict, with the blowhards such as Perry, Cain and Bachmann, who, out of ignorance or perceived self-interest, are willing to play politics with the Earth’s future
Here is what we know: The rise in temperatures over the past five decades is abrupt and large. It is consistent with models developed by other researchers that posit greenhouse gas emissions — the burning of fossil fuels by humans — as the cause.
Nobody’s fudging the numbers. Nobody’s manipulating data to win research grants, as Perry claims, or making an undue fuss over a “naturally occurring” warm-up, as Bachmann alleges. Contrary to what Cain says, the science is real.
It is the know-nothing politicians — not scientists — who commit an unforgivable fraud.
Muller has no idea what’s going to hit him. Sent October 26:
It’s an axiom of modern American politics: to find out what Republicans are up to, listen to what they accuse others of doing. This strategy, perfected by Karl Rove and his collaborators, is on vivid display in the GOP presidential primary, as aspirants vie with one another to make ever-more-revealing statements about their inability to accept the facts of climate change.
When Rick Perry claims that climatologists fake or cherry-pick evidence in order to win grant funding, it’s because he and members of his administration are notorious for fudging facts for personal gain. Michelle Bachmann’s claims of misinterpreted data are particularly risible; the White Queen of conservative wonderland can believe six impossible things before breakfast without even breaking a sweat.
Dr. Richard Muller, the erstwhile “climate skeptic” whose recent study undercut oft-repeated Republican shibboleths, is going to find himself stigmatized as a dirty hippie before the end of the week.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots Republicans Richard Muller
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Year 2, Month 10, Day 30: Sometimes These Letters Just Walk Up And Beg To Be Written
Eugene Robinson writes in the October 25 Washington Post about the logical consequences of the Muller/UC study:
For the clueless or cynical diehards who deny global warming, it’s getting awfully cold out there.The latest icy blast of reality comes from an eminent scientist whom the climate-change skeptics once lauded as one of their own. Richard Muller, a respected physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, used to dismiss alarmist climate research as being “polluted by political and activist frenzy.” Frustrated at what he considered shoddy science, Muller launched his own comprehensive study to set the record straight. Instead, the record set him straight.
“Global warming is real,” Muller wrote last week in The Wall Street Journal.
Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann and the rest of the neo-Luddites who are turning the GOP into the anti-science party should pay attention.
Sharp learning curve ahead for Muller, who is going to find himself stigmatized as a leftist DFH within a few days. Sent Oct. 25:
In a sane political environment, the release of Dr. Richard Muller’s study confirming the reality of global climate change would be a game-changer of huge proportions. When a study administered by a leading “skeptic” and largely funded by arch-denialists the Koch brothers comes down conclusively on the other side of the debate, it should change a few minds.
And in a sane world, it would. But the people who funded Muller’s study aren’t interested in facts; they share a political philosophy with those who evinced disdain and contempt for the “reality-based community” during the previous administration. Corporate climate denialists and the politicians they subsidize have combined nihilism and solipsism in a toxic package: they care not for the continued survival of our species, because they (as a Bush official said to Ron Suskind) “create their own reality.”
And that’s why the Muller study won’t matter to Republican lawmakers.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots scientific method sea levels Texas
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Year 2, Month 10, Day 22: Today Is The Tomorrow You Worried About Yesterday
The Columbus, Indiana “Republic” runs an AP article on the censorship of climate science in Texas:
GALVESTON, Texas — A Rice University oceanographer says the state’s environmental agency is refusing to publish his research article on a Texas bay unless he agrees to delete key references to rising sea levels and human involvement in climate change.
Professor John Anderson has declined the proposed edits by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, calling the changes to a report on Galveston Bay “censorship” and an attempt to mislead the public.
Consequently, the state agency said it will remove Anderson’s article, which deals with long-term sea level rise and mentions manmade climate change, which commissioners have publicly questioned in the past.
Republicans are the hardest Sapir-Whorfians of us all. If there are no words for the problem, there is no problem. Presto! Sent October 18:
It is an axiom of many politicians that many difficult problems are easily solved by eliminating them from the historical record. Military records and embarrassing photographs can be destroyed or made to vanish; statements are rendered “inoperative”; actions can simply be firmly denied. A compliant media enables this behavior by fostering a simulacrum of journalism in which the presentation of two divergent opinions is considered “objective.”
But when policy is based on science, absolute veracity is essential. The recent censorship of climate scientists’ work in an oceanographic report on Galveston Bay is a case in point.
Climate-change denial may be electorally convenient for Texan lawmakers, but rejecting actual measurements and analysis when they don’t fit a preset ideology is both unethical and stupid. Rising ocean levels aren’t Republican or Democratic; the greenhouse effect is neither conservative nor liberal.
Those who politicize scientific research destroy the value of both politics and science.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes idiots Republican obstructionism Rick Perry Texas
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Year 2, Month 10, Day 19: Sciencey Stuff Is Easy!
The SF Chronicle reports on Rick Perry’s new energy plan.
West Mifflin, Pa. — Texas Gov. Rick Perry sought to recharge his flagging presidential campaign Friday by introducing an energy plan that calls for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and expanding oil production in the Gulf of Mexico.
Perry said his proposals would kick-start the sluggish economy and create 1.2 million new jobs through development and by rolling back clean air rules and other federal regulations.
Why on earth would anyone trust this guy? Sent October 15:
The revelation that his administration purged any mention of rising sea levels and global climate change from a recent scientific report should be a warning to voters everywhere: Texas governor Rick Perry has a very tenuous relationship with the truth. This act of government censorship was so egregious that all of the scientists involved in the extensive environmental study have requested their names be removed from the document.
Needless to say, it behooves all of us to regard the Texas governor’s newly introduced energy plan with a substantial grain of salt. Mr. Perry’s readiness to ignore problematic truths is surely matched by an equal readiness to replace them with convenient falsehoods. Given Republican primary voters’ preference for tough-talking liars, this may be a sound political strategy, but to those who know both science and history, it resembles Soviet-style revisionism far more than the finest traditions of American democracy.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots James Inhofe Senate Republicans
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Year 2, Month 10, Day 11: Snicker. Snicker. Snicker. Guffaw.
Heh heh heh (the Oct. 7 Tulsa World):
If Norman wasn’t the place to be for weather research in the south, or even the nation, this announcement today should help.
The U.S. Department of the Interior selected the University of Oklahoma to be one of eight regional climate science centers nationwide, school and Interior officials announced Friday.
The center, which will be housed at the OU Research Campus in Norman, will aim to provide a link between weather and climate projections about how to manage federal lands, natural resources and fish and wildlife, according to a release from the OU College of Atmospheric & Geographic Sciences today.
“The nationwide network of Climate Science Centers will provide the scientific talent and commitment necessary for understanding how climate change and other landscape stressors will change the face of the United States, and how the Department of the Interior, as our nation’s chief steward of natural and cultural resources, can prepare and respond,” said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.
Every once in a while these letters are fun. Sent Oct. 7:
With the selection of the University of Oklahoma’s Norman campus as one of the nation’s new climate science centers, the irony is thick on the ground. This news surely sticks in James Inhofe’s craw. After all, the Senator is a man who prefers improbable conspiracy theories to observable realities, and who chooses to go on record as denying the relevance of climate science. Perhaps there will be a dedication ceremony when the new offices are opened. It would be a gracious gesture to invite America’s most famous denialist to the reception.
Perhaps he could say a few words?
Or perhaps he could lay aside his petrol-powered preconceptions and listen carefully to what climatologists are actually saying about the threats we’re all going to face in the coming centuries?
Naaaah. Senator Inhofe listening respectfully to climate scientists? That would be even more unusual than an unseasonal snowfall in Washington, DC.
Warren Senders
environment: assholes corporate irresponsibility denialists idiots
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Year 2, Month 10, Day 9: Say That To His Face, Why Don’cha?
Michael Mann kicks some serious butt in the October 1 issue of the Vail Daily (CO):
An individual named Martin Hertzberg did a grave disservice to your readers by making false and defamatory statements about me and my climate scientist colleagues in his recent commentary in your paper.
It’s hard to imagine anyone packing more lies and distortions into a single commentary. Mr. Hertzberg uses libelous language in characterizing the so-called “hockey stick” — work of my own published more than a decade ago showing that recent warming is unusual over at least the past 1,000 years — as “fraudulent,” and claiming that it “it was fabricated from carefully selected tree-ring measurements with a phony computer program.”
These are just lies, regurgitation of dishonest smears that have been manufactured by fossil fuel industry-funded climate change deniers, and those who do their bidding by lying to the public about the science.
The highest scientific body in the nation, the National Academy of Sciences affirmed my research findings in an exhaustive independent review published in June 2006 (see e.g. “Science Panel Backs Study on Warming Climate,” New York Times, June 22, 2006, among many others).
Dozens of independent groups of scientists have independently reproduced and confirmed our findings, and more recent work by several groups shows that recent warmth is unusual over an even longer time frame.
They have a 500 (!) word limit. It’s always fun to stand up on behalf of the good guys. Sent October 5:
By rights, Michael Mann should sound a lot angrier than he does in his rebuke to Martin Hertzberg. It isn’t every day that a responsible researcher with a lifelong record of scientific integrity has his work and findings impugned so cavalierly.
Well, let me qualify that. Such irresponsible public treatment isn’t on the menu for most scientists — but it is now the norm for climatologists, whose message appears highly unwelcome to the fossil fuel industry. The giant multinational corporations which have grown rich from building a petroleum addiction/delivery mechanism into our society are naturally resistant to anything that will end their profitability, and they have invested millions upon millions of dollars to build a denialist infrastructure which has successfully muddied the debate, delaying action on what is certainly the gravest threat our species has faced in recorded history.
Provoked by their paymasters, the unhinged voices of talk radio hosts and mendacious professional dissenters have created a working environment in which climate scientists now regularly receive death threats along with frivolous lawsuits and public mockery. Are there any other scientists whose work is treated so badly? The only parallel in recent history is the defamation campaign waged against the researchers who uncovered definitive links between smoking and cancer. It is illuminating to realize that many of the same individuals who spread calumnies about these conscientious investigators are now in the pay of Big Oil and Big Coal — once again taking fat paychecks in exchange for misleading the public.
Considering that his lifework has been derided, his integrity has been impugned, and he’s been subjected to frivolous investigation after frivolous investigation, Dr. Mann’s rebuke to Martin Hertzberg’s misrepresentations is extraordinarily civil. My hat’s off to him; under analogous circumstances, I could never be as courteous.
Warren Senders
UPDATE: And I’m in print, although they decided I was from Medford, Oregon.
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots Rick Perry scientific consensus
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Year 2, Month 10, Day 6: Please Pass The Brain Bleach.
Another report on the Texas Tornado, this time from the Concord Monitor (NH):
One man challenged Perry about his skepticism of global warming. The man charged that Perry had ducked a question in a previous debate when moderators had asked him what sources served as his evidence.
“I’m ready for you this time,” Perry said, prompting a laugh. He went on to say that in recent weeks a “Nobel laureate of some acclaim,” whom he did not name, had decided there is no definite proof that global warming has been caused by humans. The audience applauded.
“For us to take a snapshot in time and say what is going on in this country today and the climate change that is going on is man’s fault and we need to jeopardize America’s economy,” he said. “I’m not afraid to say I’m a skeptic.”
For “skeptic” read “dingaling.” Sent October 2:
While Rick Perry feels the need to cite a “Nobel Laureate” to bolster his rejection of the near-universal scientific consensus on global climate change, he didn’t mention the hundreds of Nobelists in multiple disciplines who support the findings of the vast majority of the world’s climatologists.
Mr. Perry prefers the contrarian position of Dr. Ivar Giaever, a physicist who won the prize in 1973 for his work with semiconductors and superconductors, and whose climatological experience is limited to participation in a single discussion panel at a convention of Nobel laureates. He’s done no research in climate science and has no published papers in the field, despite a lucrative affiliation with petrol-subsidized conservative think tanks like the Cato Institute.
Mr. Perry’s rejection of science when it’s inconvenient to his political aspirations is contemporary Republican realpolitik at its best. A Nobelist’s opinion? Valid — if it supports his ideological preconceptions. Otherwise? “Junk science!”
Warren Senders
Uncategorized: assholes denialists idiots Republican obstructionism Rick Perry scientific consensus
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Year 2, Month 10, Day 5: Some Days These Letters Are No Damn Fun At All
The LA Times for September 30 reports on Rick Perry’s eagerness to embrace climate denial in all its forms:
At a New Hampshire town-hall style meeting, his first of the campaign, the Texas governor sparred Friday evening with a questioner who tried to pin him down on the issue. The man, whom Perry addressed as “Mike,” began by noting a 2011 report from a panel of experts chosen by the National Academy of Sciences, which concluded that climate change is occurring and “is very likely caused primarily by the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities.” The man noted that Perry had ducked—twice–when asked at the Reagan Library debate this month to name the scientists he found most credible on the subject.
Spending more than three seconds contemplating the vile opportunist that is Rick Perry is enough to send me screaming in search of a shower. Sent October 1:
Governor Perry’s rejection of climate change reflects the conservative base to which he must pander. In his public remarks on the subject, he’s frequently accused climate scientists of manipulating data in order to secure remunerative grants. Given the sordid history of Republican data-manipulation, this is projection at best, knowing hypocrisy at worst. Similarly, his readiness to accept the views of scientists when they bolster his preconceptions demonstrates that for Mr. Perry, like other GOP aspirants, ideology trumps reality.
Remember the Cheney doctrine that a miniscule chance of Iraqi WMDs was justification for an invasion? By all rules of logic, a similarly small probability that climate change is a genuine civilizational threat should galvanize us into action. However, since Republicans don’t “do” logic and are motivated only by nonexistent threats, the worldwide scientific consensus on climate change is sufficient only to trigger rhetorical posturing, and a grotesque rejection of genuine expertise.
Warren Senders
environment: assholes denialists idiots
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Year 2, Month 10, Day 4: Hats Back On, Gentlemen — An Idiot.
Hey, gang! Want to make fun of an idiot? Check out Norah Flanagan, in the Enid, Oklahoma, “News and Eagle.” You can’t make this shit up. Well, actually, you can:
I would probably be a bit more concerned about belching cows heating up the atmosphere than I am if the people doing the so called tests and crying in their green tea weren’t treating the climate changes like a religion. Every time I hear anything about the subject I get this ultra nasty picture in my head of goofy looking Moonies (that cult that hands out flowers and plays tambourines on streets) I’ve never seen a Moony with my own two eyes, only pictures in magazines and on TV, but these climate people remind me of them. They’re goofy.
Has the weather changed in the last few years? Yes it has. We’re cruising toward three seasons rather than four. Freeze your nostrils shut cold winter, monsoon season, and hot enough to fry eggs in the dirt at 6 a.m. summers. When you take into consideration that this area right here, the Canisteo Valley, was once a tropical rain forest, and that we had a mini ice age back in the Middle Ages, then it doesn’t take a big stretch for a thinking person to figure out that we’ve entered ANOTHER weather cycle. All things have a cycle, there’s light, there’s dark, there’s cold, there’s hot, there’s life, there’s death. Nothing stays the same. Absolutely nothing. So why in the world would people think that the weather should? Besides, Al Gore being the poster child for the Global Warming/ Moony freaks is a good nuff reason for me to shoot darts at the theory. I didn’t trust the guy back when he was Bill Clinton’s number 2 and now that he’s got those wiggly jowel thingies and does a comb over he creeps me out even worse.
When it comes to Global Warming, it’s kinda like God, you either believe or you don’t. I’m just one of those skeptics who like to see the actual data right in front of me. I don’t need a nerd in a lab coat deciphering the numbers for me, I’m quite capable of reading graphs and numbers all by myself, and the last thing that I want to see when I’m looking at data is the word ‘projected’. What? Projected means in the future, not right now. Projected means maybe. I don’t want maybe. I want this is what has happened/this is what will result.
The Enid News And Eagle only accepts letters in the mail — no email. So this one went off on Saturday morning, October 30. It’s been too long since I mocked an idiot.
When it comes to climate change, Norah Flanagan doesn’t need a “nerd in a lab coat deciphering the numbers for me”), and deprecates words like “projected” as meaningless. How does this attitude work in other areas?
One day her doctor finds a suspicious lump, but Norah feels fine — so she doesn’t care.
She reads the numbers on her biopsy results, but doesn’t understand them. A big number is good. Or is it bad?
A “nerd in a lab coat” (who happens, usefully, to be an oncologist) recommends a course of therapy and tells her the projected survival rate. But since she doesn’t want “maybe,” the advice goes unheeded. Plus which, the doctor has “wiggly jowl thingies” so she knows he’s a quack.
I hope she would not be so reckless. Experts spend years mastering a subject or a skill; we trust mechanics with our cars and surgeons with our lives for this reason.
Climate scientists (whom she compares to deluded cultists) have spent years learning to interpret the data on our planet’s health. If an overwhelming consensus of planetary diagnosticians tell us there’s a problem, dismissing them simply because their words are unwelcome (or because they’re funny-looking) is as foolish as ignoring an oncologist’s advice in the face of a metastasizing cancer.
Warren Senders
I will give an Antigravity CD to the first person to correctly identify the provenance of my headline.