This is both my personal learning project and my contribution in the struggle to confront the ongoing Republican/ libertarian assault on rational science and constructive learning, as manifested in their malicious strategic Attacks on Science ~ A collection of articles, scientific resources, plus my own essays and indepth critique of various presentations from unidirectional-skeptics ~ Hopefully a resource for the busy, yet discerning, student who's concerned about the health of our Earth
{edited 11:00pm May 31} Heartland Institute's James Taylor is at it again with his latest Forbes article: "Global Warming Alarmists Caught Doctoring '97-Percent Consensus' Claims"
It's the usual mix of misrepresentation and smooth manipulation. The only way to do it justice is to once again copy the whole thing, divide it by paragraph and add comments along with links to authoritative information resources that set the record straight.
Taylor is complaining about:
"Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature"
I'm simply an individual so it's tough to keep up with all the latest happenings. Thus, I admit I don't know why, but for some reason my posts regarding the so-called "Principia Scientific International" have been receiving quite a spike in views recently, so I figure perhaps it's time for a few updates:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ here's some more updates:
Forbes' James Taylor has written another case study in denialist dirty tricks with his:
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Forbes.com| James Taylor | 5/22/2013 After Oklahoma City Tragedy, Shameless Politicians Unsheath Global Warming Card
James wrote: "Not 24 hours passed from the time a devastating tornado ripped through Moore, Oklahoma, killing at least 24 people including eight children, until shameless global warming activists in Congress began exploiting the grief and pain of a devastated community to tell an idiotic tale of global warming causing tornadoes. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), shame on you for being such hard-hearted and factually ignorant vultures preying on other people’s misery.
Before we even get to the objective facts regarding global warming and tornadoes, can we at least respect the human tragedy in Oklahoma and give victims a few days to grieve before we try to politicize their pain? Literally minutes after the F5 tornado devastated Moore, Whitehouse rushed out to the cameras to blame “polluters,” “deniers” and Republicans for the Oklahoma tornado..."
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It's incredible listening to James Taylor trumpet "sense of decency" then dive right into malicious manipulation of the facts for ruthless political ends. Where does simple honesty, or fairplay, fit into Mr. Taylor's world view? For the record, which can be found at: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/transcript/transcript.php?id=218984 - Senator Whitehouse's gave his standard climate speech, the one he's made more than 30 times already, before he had any knowledge of the Moore catastrophe! But, Heartland's James Taylor {Along with WUWT's Anthony Watts, and others} is the type who seems only interested in demonizing - learning and developing genuine understanding have always been the last thing he wants to focus on.
Here is an interesting story written by Graham Readfearn about a new study by Dr. Riley Dunlap, and Peter Jacques published in the journal American Behavioral Scientist that looks behind the slew of climate science denial books that have been published over the past couple decades.
The conservative movement and especially its think tanks play a critical role in denying the reality and significance of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), especially by manufacturing uncertainty over climate science. Books denying AGW are a crucial means of attacking climate science and scientists, and we examine the links between conservative think tanks (CTTs) and 108 climate change denial books published through 2010...
Readfearn's article was printed at DeSmogBlog.com who also have a very generous sharing policy, thus with a tip of hat to DeSmogBlog I am happy to repost Graham's interesting article about this eye opening study:
IF you haven't seen them on the television or come across their interviews on the radio or in newspapers and magazines, then you've almost certainly seen their work as your eyes scan the climate change section in your local book store or library. They are the authors of books claiming to reveal the…
In light of Senator Whitehouse's claims, I thought this lesson, based on up to date information - explaining what scientists are observing within the Arctic Circle and the implications of those observations, was worth sharing. It's a recent post from SkepticalScience.com that has the most comprehensive collection of digestible information I've seen to date about our Jet Stream. Considering how much the Jet Stream influences weather this is an informative article that should be read as supplement to Senator Whitehouse's attempt to wake up Republican Senators to the stakes they are gambling away.
Thanks again to SkepticalScience.com for making these posts available to folks like me. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Posted on 22 May 2013 by John Mason Barely a week goes by these days in the Northern Hemisphere without the jet stream being mentioned in the news, but rarely do such news items explain in detail what it is and why it is important. As a severe weather photographer this past 10+ years, an activity which…
In light of my previous post regarding the much misrepresented Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's May 2oth Senate floor speech - which actually had nothing to do with the Moore tornado tragedy, despite what you may have read - I figured I may as well share the Senator's complete speech so you can see for yourself.
Mr./Madam President, every week we’re here I try to remind this body of the damage that carbon pollution is doing to our atmosphere and oceans, try to awaken us to our duty. I’ve done it thirty-three times now. I’ve tried to kick out the underpinnings of any argument the deniers could stand on.
I’ve kicked out the scientific denial argument, which properly belongs in the category of falsehood. I’ve kicked out the economic denial argument, pointing out that in a proper market the costs of carbon must be in the price of carbon. I tried to kick out the religious denial argument, showing that the belief that God will just tidy up after us however stupidly we behave runs counter to history and Biblical text.
Today, let’s take a crack at the political argument. How wise is it for the Republican Party to wed itself to the deniers and proclaim that climate change is a hoax?
Make no mistake. That is the default Republican position. The default Republican position is that climate change is a hoax. It’s been said right on this floor, and in committees, and I haven’t seen a single Republican Senator stand up afterwards in this chamber to say, “Wait a minute, that’s actually not the case.”
The chamber looks empty, but on C-SPAN lots of people are watching. Lots of Republicans are watching. Yet not one Republican has ever gotten back to me, even quietly on the side, to say, “You know what? This is really getting serious. Let’s see if we can work on this.”
An iron curtain of denial has fallen around the Republican Party. So let me respectfully ask my Republican colleagues: what are you thinking? How do you imagine this ends?
More than 95 percent of climate scientists are convinced that human carbon pollution is causing massive and unprecedented change to our atmosphere and oceans. You want to go with the five percent, and you think that’s a winning strategy?
Moreover, it turns out a lot of those five-percenters are on the payroll of the polluters. You know that. It’s public knowledge. Some of those “payroll scientists” are the same people who denied acid rain, or the dangers of tobacco.
You still like those odds? Those are the folks to whom you want to hitch your Republican wagons? You’ve got to know that they aren’t telling the truth. So where does this go? What’s your end game?
Our planet has had a run of at least 800,000 years with levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere between 170 and 300 ppm. That’s measurement; not theory. Eight hundred thousand years. Homo sapiens have only been around for about 200,000 years, so that 800,000 years—8,000 centuries—takes you back a ways. Eight hundred thousand years between 170 and 300 ppm, and in just the last 50 years we’ve blown out of that range, and have now hit 400 ppm and climbing.
And you want to be on the side of “nothing’s going on”? Really?
Have you noticed the floods and wildfires and droughts and superstorms and tornadoes and blizzards and temperature records? Have you noticed those warming, rising seas? Have you noticed species invading new territory, and miles of dead pine forests in the Rockies, and Arctic sea ice disappearing?
Do you understand that carbon in the atmosphere gets absorbed by the sea, and that that is a law of science and is not debatable? Do you understand that because they are absorbing the carbon the oceans are getting more acidic?
Thirty percent more acidic already and climbing? Do you understand that's a measurement, not a theory?
It’s one thing to be the party that stands against science. Are you really also going to be the party that stands against measurement?
And do you know the measurement is showing that the ocean are not just becoming more acidic, they’re becoming more acidic at the fastest rate recorded in a geologic record of 50 million years?
Have you not heard about the coral reefs, those incubators of the ocean, bleaching out and dying off? With almost twenty percent gone already worldwide?
If you’re a denier, look around. Do you think the news is getting better for you?
Let me ask my Republican friends, what’s your best bet on whether this climate and oceans problem gets better or worse in the next 20 or 40 years? Seriously. Your party’s reputation is on the line here—all the chips; tell me how you’re going to bet. Do you want to bet the reputation of the Republican Party that suddenly this is all going to magically start getting better? ‘Cause that’s what you’re doing.
And let me ask you this: what are the young people of today going to think when they are thirty-seven, or fifty-seven, and it really is worse, maybe a lot worse? What are they going to think about the Republican Party then? That you took the five percent bet with their futures? That you went with the polluters over the scientists?
Young people are already out there asking their universities to divest from coal, like they divested from the evils of apartheid and the dangers of tobacco. Good luck with that youth vote when you lock in with the coal merchants.
And the youth vote grows up and sticks around.
How’s it going to look for the Republican Party when the historical record shows—because facts have a funny way of coming out—that the campaign to fool the public on climate change was just as phony and dishonest as the campaign to fool the public on acid rain and the campaign to fool the public on tobacco? When the historical record discloses that the five percent wasn’t even real and was actually a scam, paid for by the polluters?
And you, with young Americans’ futures in the balance, took sides with the scam. If that is the state of play for young voters as they come of age, why would those young people ever trust the Republican Party, on anything else, ever again?
Speaking of taking sides, have you noticed who’s left on your side? The Koch brothers—billionaire polluters; the big oil companies -- the biggest polluters in the world; the coal barons—with their legacy of pollution, strip mining, “mountaintop removal,” and safety violations that kill their miners. There’s a fine cast to be surrounded by.
But wait, you say, there’s more. There’s the Heartland Institute, and the Institute for Energy Research, and the American Enterprise Institute, and the American Legislative Exchange Council; and the Heritage Foundation. There are many organizations.
Right. Like the heads of Hydra, they may look like many, but in reality it’s all the same beast. It’s all the same scheme. It’s all the same money behind the scheme. You can name those front organizations, and many more, but none of it is real. They’re all just part of the same cheesy vaudeville show put on by the big polluters.
Do you really want to lash yourself to that operation, and go down with that ship? The great Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, branding itself as the one that gave it all to protect a gang of scheming polluters? That’s where you’re headed.
Look who’s on the other side, on record, against you, seeing through that nonsense. How about the Joint Chiefs of Staff, our military leaders? How about the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops? How about NASA? NASA’s driving a vehicle as big as an SUV around on the surface of Mars right now. They sent it there, to Mars; they landed it safely, and now they’re driving it around. On Mars. Do you think those scientists just might know what they’re talking about?
How about every legitimate American scientific professional society -- about thirty of them? How about major American corporations like Walmart, Ford, Apple, or Coca-Cola? How about global insurance and reinsurance businesses, like Lloyd’s of London and Munich Re, whose business depends on accurate risk models?
Whose side do you like in that?
In this corner, the Joint Chiefs, the bishops, Walmart, Ford, Apple, Coke, NASA, thirty top scientific organizations, the top insurers and reinsurers, and by the way several thousand legitimate others.
In that corner, the polluting industry and a screen of sketchy organizations they fund.
Let’s be serious. Do you really want to bet the reputation of the Republican Party that the polluters are the ones we should count on here? ‘Cause that’s what you’re doing.
And for what? To protect market share for the polluters. That’s your upside. Market share for polluters.
I’m willing to do a carbon pollution fee that sets the market in balance, and returns every single dollar to the American people. No new agencies. No new taxes. No bigger government. Every dollar back. Just a balanced market, with the costs included in the price, which will make better energy choices, increase jobs, and prevent pollution. Yes, that does mean less market share for the polluters as new technologies emerge. That’s actually the point. But every single dollar back in Americans’ pockets.
And by the way, the American people -- three-quarters of them believe that climate change is real and that we need to do something about it.
So you may have a question for me: why do you care? Why do you, Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, care if we Republicans run off the climate cliff like a bunch of proverbial lemmings, and disgrace ourselves?
I’ll tell you why. We’re stuck in this together. When cyclones tear up Oklahoma, and hurricanes swamp Alabama, and wildfires scorch Texas, you come to us, for billions of dollars to recover.
And the damage your polluters and deniers are doing doesn’t just hit Oklahoma and Alabama and Texas; it hits Rhode Island with floods and storms, and Oregon with acidified seas, and Montana with dying forests. So like it or not, we’re in this together.
You drag America with you to your fate.
I want this future: a Republican Party that has returned to its senses, and is a strong and worthy adversary; in a strong America, that has done right by its people and the world. That’s what I want.
I don't want this future: a Republican Party disgraced, that let its extremists run it off the cliff; in an America suffering from grave economic and environmental and diplomatic damage, because we didn’t wake up and do our duty to our people, and lead the world.
I do not want that future. But that’s where you’re headed.
So I’ll keep reaching out and calling out, ever hopeful that you will wake up, before it is too late, both for you, and for the rest of us.
{I have included links to sources that offer background information to my claims.} Over at the Detroit News Frank Beckmann has written another one of those boilerplate articles that underscores the misunderstanding too many people have regarding global warming. {Anthony Watts couldn't resist jumping on the bandwagon also... but I'll focus on Beckmann's article.}
His May 21st Detroit News headline read "Senator blames global warming for tornado" Beckmann follows up with: "Not hard to believe, but Democratic Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse Monday tried to blame global warming for the tragic tornado in Oklahoma." ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“... So you may have a question for me: why do you care? Why do you, Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, care if we Republicans run off the climate cliff like a bunch of proverbial lemmings, and disgrace ourselves?
I’ll tell you why. We’re stuck in this together. When cyclones tear up Oklahoma, and hurricanes swamp Alabama, and wildfires scorch Texas, you come to us, for billions of dollars to recover.
And the damage your polluters and deniers are doing doesn’t just hit Oklahoma and Alabama and Texas; it hits Rhode Island with floods and storms, and Oregon with acidified seas, and Montana with dying forests. So like it or not, we’re in this together.
You drag America with you to your fate.
I want this future: a Republican Party that has returned to its senses, and is a strong and worthy adversary; in a strong America, that has done right by its people and the world. That’s what I want. . .”
Secondly, Senator Whitehouse was giving that pre-written speech while the Moore catastrophe was developing.
If anything, it was sort of a prophetic {if obvious} utterance - one that folks such as Beckmann would do better taking notice of.
You see Senator Whitehouse was trying to express the reality of how we are loading the climate dice and it's a story we should all be paying attention to. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
In his second paragraph Beckmann writes:"Amazingly, these supposedly smart people are either ignorant of, or refuse to acknowledge, the history of extreme weather events on our planet, in our country, and – where tornadoes are concerned – in the American Southwest." ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
This is pure folly, like trying to navigate heavy traffic with eye's glued to the rear-view mirror.
We must realize the past is no longer a window to the future - certainly not when we have increased our atmosphere's insulation ability by about a third! Please realize that cloaking our planet in a few extra layers of insulation truly has changed everything. Our "Earth: 2000s" is not the geo-physical being it was back in... say 1900s. Why can't Republicans bring themselves to admit that fundamental truth. Last century's goals and solutions are obsolete, wake up to our brave new world.
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In his final paragraph Beckmann writes: "I wish I could get people like this senator to just read and consider the information as easily available as reading a Wiki page. Read the “List of North American tornadoes and tornado outbreaks” history here." ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
How ironic, I myself wish I could get people like Beckmann to appreciate that our "climate" is a "Global Heat Distribution Engine."
I wish Republicans would be interested in understanding the structure of our atmosphere starting with our dynamic but thin troposphere... where our weather happens.
I wish people like Beckmann would stop ignoring the physics of increasing the insulating ability of our atmosphere by something like a third!
I wish people like Beckmann would think about our North Pole. That glaring white, radiation reflecting, continent sized landscape of ice that IS now melting and evolving into a heat absorption plate called the Arctic Ocean.
More and more, every year, rather than reflecting radiation back to space, that surface is now warming and evaporating and sending up masses of moisture laden air into convection patterns that Earth hasn't experienced in geologic eons.
Then, those moist air masses displace and shove other air masses into the realm of the Jet Stream. This in turn causes that flow to become more serpentine and erratic.
Keep in mind that weather fronts and storm patterns are pushed and pulled by the Jet Streams which circle our planet.
I wish Republicans could appreciate that yes indeed the increasing tempo of ugly extreme climate events, be they tornadoes; or hurricanes; or droughts, or torrential rains; or long lived extreme heat waves - do relate back to our society's injection of over two gigatons of greenhouse gases, per month, into our atmosphere. The physics is clear and no amount of misrepresentation will change that reality.
The crazy-making never seems to end. When ideology blinds rationality it's an ugly thing as we can witness in the latest (May 9th, 2013) broadside from Dr. Harrison Schmitt and Dr. William Happer, at the ever ready to mislead Wall Street Journal's Op-Ed pages {alsohere, here, here, to mention a few.} It's another example of contrarian science in a vacuum - where you can get away with writing a bunch of impressive sounding stuff and present it to under-educated, politically scared people, desperate for soothing news, and ready to embrace anything that gives them the answers they want - rather than the truth they need. Now if Schmitt and Happer had something serious to offer, they would write up a paper and have it published in a professional scientific journal where experts could judge the merits of the claims made. But, they've never done that, believing that past glories is all it takes to establish their legitimacy. Instead they write an op-ed filled with so much misdirection and misrepresentations we can drive a high school science class through it. I don't have that, but I do have a review from those reporters of climate science over at SkepticalScience.com which is worth sharing. With no further ado, I present a serious evaluation of their May 9th, 2013 article:
Posted on 15 May 2013 by Dumb Scientist Dr. Harrison Schmitt and Dr. William Happer, who have scientific backgrounds but are not climate scientists, just wrote an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal. Despite their claims, global warming continues. This continued warming is confirmed by GRACE,…
The following is an examination of an article by Bill Randall, published by Communities.WashingtonTimes. Basically, I've done a paragraph by paragraph critique, along with a few links to authoritative information sources.
Bill's words are in Courier font, my comments are in Georgia font and in blue.
Global warming quiz: Do you know or think you know?
Research Reveals Almost All Climate Science Denial Books Linked To Conservative Think Tanks (via Desmogblog)
A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming (via Skeptical Science)
Schmitt and Happer manufacture doubt (via Skeptical Science)