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: Al Gore denialists Great Lakes idiots
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Year 2, Month 10, Day 18: How Long Do You Think It Would Take Them To Change Positions?
The Chicago Tribune runs another version of the Al Gore/Great Lakes story:
DETROIT—Former Vice President Al Gore says dealing with the climate change crisis is essential to fixing some of the environmental problems plaguing the Great Lakes.
Gore drew links between results of a warming planet and regional issues affecting the lakes in a speech Thursday in Detroit during the annual meeting of the International Joint Commission, an U.S.-Canadian agency that advises both nations on shared waterways.
So I figured I’d get his back. Sent October 14:
Mr. Gore’s recent statement on the Great Lakes’ vulnerability is a scientifically grounded, calmly stated analysis of a very alarming situation. Conservative denialists, of course, don’t care that he has the facts on his side — they’ll still deride the former Vice-President, because they don’t know how to do anything else.
But at some point in the not-so-distant future, global climate change will be so obvious that no one will be able to dispute it any more. At that point, we can expect the Republican party’s talking points to shift rapidly. Their current favorite (“the global warming hoax is a socialist plot to impose one-world government”) will give way to something new. My prediction: the GOP will claim that climate chaos can only be mitigated by tax cuts on the wealthiest one percent of society. After which, they’ll insult Mr. Gore again, presumably for having been right too early.
Warren Senders
environment: Al Gore algae denialists Great Lakes idiots
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Year 2, Month 10, Day 17: Repent!
The Worthington Daily Globe (MN) runs an AP piece on Al Gore’s words about the Great Lakes, which are shrill:
Former Vice President Al Gore says dealing with the climate change crisis is essential to fixing some of the environmental problems plaguing the Great Lakes.
Gore drew links between results of a warming planet and regional issues affecting the lakes in a speech Thursday in Detroit during the annual meeting of the International Joint Commission, a U.S.-Canadian agency that advises both nations on shared waterways.
He said increasingly intense storms likely caused by global warming are overwhelming wastewater treatment systems in the region. They dump excessive nutrients and sewage into the lakes, leading to beach closings and algae blooms.
Gore said climate change also causes more evaporation, which drives lake levels down.
I’m in a bit of a hurry today, and this letter’s joinery is slightly rickety in places. What the hell. Sent October 13:
While it’s fashionable in some circles to dismiss Al Gore’s words of warning on climate change, his facts are irrefutable. Excess precipitation has indeed overwhelmed water management systems — not just in the Great Lakes area, but all over the planet — triggering massive blooms of algae, contaminating public areas and impacting fish and wildlife populations.
Of course, this is just one aspect of a systemic problem so enormous it’s no wonder climate-change denialists prefer to ignore it entirely. Whether it’s the loss of biodiversity, the shocking decline in Arctic sea ice, or the uptick in extreme weather events everywhere on Earth, the evidence substantiating the danger posed by the greenhouse effect is now overwhelming — and very scary.
While the former Vice-President has the facts on his side, it’s fair to say that, unlike most prophets, Mr. Gore won’t gain any personal satisfaction from being proved right in the end.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: corporate irresponsibility denialists idiots scientific consensus
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Year 2, Month 10, Day 15: “Wading” Is An Apt Verb
An outlet called the Texas Tribune seems to have at least a vaguely DFH perspective on Texas’ current idiot-in-chief:
Between the year-long drought and Gov. Rick Perry campaigning for the presidency, global warming has become a big topic in Texas these days — and the head of the University of Texas Energy Institute, Raymond Orbach, is wading into the debate with a new paper aiming to debunk eight “myths” about climate change.
The paper, “Our Sustainable Earth,” appears in the forthcoming issue of Reports on Progress in Physics, a British journal known for encouraging (relatively) simple language from its contributors. In it, Orbach summarizes existing scientific evidence to argue that humans bear responsibility for climate change and an 80 percent reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions by 2050 is needed to stabilize global temperatures. Otherwise, he writes, “current global temperature rises will continue, and even accelerate” as greenhouse gas concentrations keep rising.
Orbach got the idea, he says, when he was reading about eight myths about global warming on a UT campus website. “When I started looking at literature, I noticed that there was warming beginning in 1980,” he says. (Indeed, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that temperatures across the United States have increased by 1.5 degrees since the 1970s.)
Read the piece. I like it when he says that Perry’s entitled to his own opinion. Sent October 11:
Dr. Raymond Orbach’s going to have his work cut out for him when it comes to restoring scientific truth to the discussion of climate change. Unlimited monetary resources and equally unlimited access to mass media outlets has allowed the voices of denial to keep the public “debate” unresolved. Since a failure of consensus automatically translates into a failure to act, our governing institutions are unable to move forward on addressing the climate crisis.
And there’s the rub: while Dr. Orbach’s voice is sorely needed, it’s the grim truth that denialists in our political system are influenced not by evidence and analysis, but by the wishes of their financial masters. Governor Perry’s antipathy to facts demonstrates that he’s not a “skeptic,” but an intellectually incurious hypocrite who’s ready to believe six impossible things before breakfast — but who espouses doubt when it is convenient for the corporations whose interests he serves.
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.