Since Lionel and I opened our big mouths about Gore and Oscar the other day, I have been doing a fair amount of media – most friendly and some unfriendly. On the unfriendly (or suspicious) side the favorite argument seems to be that the majority of scientists say AGW is a serious danger – therefore it must be. Of course we don’t know that that’s really true and, even if it is, what we have been reading in the Climategate emails makes their motivations for such opinions more than a tad suspect. A cursory review of history reminds us that majority rule is a silly approach to science, in any case. If it were so, we would still be assuming the world was flat.
But never mind. It is majority rule (of a weird sort) that Obama and other leaders (all of them relatively ignorant about science themselves) are relying upon in their grand plans to combat global warming at Copenhagen and beyond. It’s kind of funny, really, if you take a step backwards and look at it. I imagine a number of those leaders are really nervous. They’re secretly afraid perhaps that the Speaker of the Danish Parliament, Thor Pedersen, has a point when he opines: “Unfortunately I seem to experience that scientists say: ‘We have a theory’ – then that crosses the road to the politicians who say: ‘We know’. Who can be bothered to hear a scientist who says ‘I have a theory’ when politicians go around saying ‘I know’.”
Are you listening, Barack Obama? Probably not.
UPDATE: According to the Timesonline, the UN’s IPCC and the UK’s Met Office are now going to be doing some investigating of the data and emails. The Met Office’s study, which promises a new transparent way of looking at climate research, won’t be complete until 2012. The UN (no surprise) gives no date for its investigation. But still Our President heads to Copenhagen to drive a multi-billion (trillion?) dollar international agreement on “Climate Change” by Dec. 14. Saturday Night Live writers, start your engines.
So then:
Why did the climate scientist cross the road?
Why did the climate scientist cross the road?
He didn’t. A grad student did it for him, ’cause he was at a global warming conference in Tahiti.
Okay, seriously. Roger, you’re understating the point out the “majority of scientists.” The way Jones, Schmidt, Mann, Wigley, and others were working the scammed peer-reviews, if you were a “reliable” CO2-warmist, you got grants, were easily published, got invited to all the best conferences (which seemed always to be in great resorts or vacation spots), and little peccadillos like WC Wang’s apparent fraud went away.
If you weren’t reliable, like Hans von Storch, or Pielke pere et fils, it became more difficult to publish and you became a target for derision and attacks, orchestrated and overtly political.
I’m interested in what media was unfriendly. In the old days they all were expected to report what happened, not approach a story with an attitude. I know that’s laughable naivete today, but still if you can name names.
Mr. Simon,
I agree with the thrust of your argument, but I suggest you reconsider your use of one common cliche. About fifteen years ago, the distinguished historian Jeffrey Burton Rusell wrote a brilliant book called Inventing the Flat Earth. I won’t spoil the story, but the basic question was this: “Since no educated person in the Middle Ages thought that the earth was flat why are we convinced that they did?” The answer teaches a lesson about the importance of ideology in intellectual life. He’s a very good writer. You may enjoy the book.
I think a better comparison is Lysenko. He had a pretty good run until Stalin died. He did a pretty good job of screwing up Soviet agriculture, too.
If the people worried about “man made” global warming (we now know what they meant by “man made”) were really so worried about it, wouldn’t they be happy to find some evidence that it may not really even exist?
But they are not. They are mad as hell.
There is way too much money in the game for there to be any retreat by the climate warming zealots. Gore went from a net worth of 2 million to 200 million since taking on this “noble” task. Noble in prize, but disgracefully deceptive in the moral outrage or hard science department. The time honored prize has completely lost credibility w/ Gore and now, Obama. The growing number of venture capitally backed initiatives that depend on science to be in tandem with their ideology, requires more than just a few errant emails. Good luck with that!
Yes, the Pres will show up, and his mere presence will turn the tide. That worked out so well with the Olympics. How about canceling the Olympics altogether because it will put too much C02 into the atmosphere! Not even a year into the administration and they are behind the curve.
OT –the NY Times now wants us to believe that brave O fought everyone in sight to make sure he got a surge for Afghanistan– that’s why it took so long because everyone was against him, but he stood tall (until it doesn’t work, then it will be somebody else’s idea). The Administration sends smooches to David Sanger again.
The climategate scandal shows that the best way to combat AGW is to stop funding the research.
It is perhaps amusing to study some weather information readily available on the internet. I apologize that the figures are not absolutely precise because they are taken from graphs at weatheronline.co.uk. In the last 28 years, the highest temperature in Copenhagen in December was 11 degrees C and that was back in 1983. Over these years, the average highest December temperature was around 7 C. Today, the high is 6 degrees C. Can someone please get these posturing buffoons at Copenhagen to have a reality check.
I agree with you.
What else have these lying scientists been lying about? The earth revolving around the sun, cancer being cured by chemo (Suzanne Somers), lone gunman killing Kennedy, 9/11, black helicopters, UFOs, the Clintons killed Vince Foster, etc…
I don’t think we can do much about the warming Earth but we do seem to be able to use the Northwest Passage for the first time in 500 years and it seems we may have to rename Glacier National Park. Go see the snows of Kilimanjaro before too long or it will be too late. Why is that so?
Oh BTW the evil Dr. Hansen calls for getting rid of coal electric generation and replacing it with NUCLEAR POWER. Now come on people I’m sure that is something we all can unite behind, right?
The Northwest Passage opened up temporarily about 60 years ago, cf The Northwest Passage: Arctic straits. There were 40 complete transits from 1957 to 1969.
There seems to be a ~54 year cycle, driven by the multi-decade oceanic oscillations, ~27 years of warming followed by ~27 years of cooling. Back towards the end of the last cooling cycle, there were people talking about a new ice age. Including Obama’s science adviser. This time, the switch to cooling is coincident with the sun going into an uncommonly inactive phase, we’ll see if the result is an especially colder period.
“Saudi Arabia called for an independent investigation into ‘climategate’ Monday, warning that the scandal over stolen e-mails threatened to undermine the global-warming negotiations beginning here [Copenhagen].”
Hey, how about that, the Saudis agree with us. Why is that, Algore?