Climate Change, Nasa And Sketchy Astronauts

April 11th, 2012

HT to Oliver Willis

This morning over at NRO, Jonah Goldberg is hyping a Washington Examiner (yeah, they're not biased) article which opens as follows:

"In an unprecedented slap at NASA's endorsement of global warming science, nearly 50 former astronauts and scientists--including the ex-boss of the Johnson Space Center--claim the agency is on the wrong side of science and must change course or ruin the reputation of the world’s top space agency.

Challenging statements from NASA that man is causing climate change, the former NASA executives demanded in a letter to Administrator Charles Bolden that he and the agency "refrain from including unproven remarks" supporting global warming in the media."

Okay, it sounds big and dramatic. In fact, it's as breathless as print propaganda gets. It's still certifiable horseshit. Who is behind this effort? This is who:

"Former Apollo astronauts Walter Cunningham and Harrison “Jack” Schmitt are listed as the main contacts for the letter, and their past advocacy against climate change science calls into question the scientific validity of the petition.

In 2009 Schmitt appeared on the talk show of 9/11 conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and said that he believed that the environmental movement was a front for Communism.

"I think the whole trend really began with the fall of the Soviet Union. Because the great champion of the opponents of liberty, namely communism, had to find some other place to go and they basically went into the environmental movement," Schmitt said." EMPHASIS MINE

Uh huh. 

What's the real latest information on this critical issue? Well, there's this...

And then there is THIS and THIS and THIS (which is especially depressing) and THIS.

But let's be honest. We really have no time for provable, empirical climate science when we are hot on the trail of the far bigger threat... the vast and insidious global Communist conspiracy.

WTF?

The Disaster Has Already Happened, cont...

April 10th, 2012

The Earth is full... via CNN

Mitt Romney - The Man Who Can Say ANYTHING

Jan 4th, 2011

But, what does he really believe?

2010 - "I believe that climate change is occurring -- the reduction in the size of global ice caps is hard to ignore. I also believe that human activity is a contributing factor."

- from Mr. Romney's book, No Apology, The Case For American Greatness

2011 - "I exhale carbon dioxide. I don't want those guys (the EPA, of course) following me around with a meter to see if I'm breathing too hard."

- Mitt Romney currying favor with yokels

sourced from Grist

The Disaster Has Already Happened, cont...

Dec 15th, 2011

Earlier, we posted about the dramatic methane gas releases that have been discovered in the Arctic. Treehugger published the graphic below illustrating the phenomena.

The Disaster Has Already Happened

Dec 15th, 2011

Less than a week after the "farce" that was the most recent round of international climate talks and the predictable corresponding wave of right wing denial regarding global warming, comes some very bad news.

Via The Independent:

"Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane – a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide – have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region.

The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Igor Semiletov, of the Far Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that he has never before witnessed the scale and force of the methane being released from beneath the Arctic seabed."

The Battle For The Conservative Soul, cont...

Dec 2nd, 2011

David Jenkins is justifiably gobsmacked by a recent Bret Stephens column conflating global warming science with "doomsaying prophecy and faith in things unseen":

"Mr. Stephens, in one fell swoop, is equally dismissive of religion and science. What kind of hubris causes one to have no use for either the knowledge gained from empirical evidence or the faith that has pushed mankind to rise above his base instincts?

This type of egotism seems to be running rampant among those—particularly in the right-wing media—who profess to be conservative. I believe this unfortunate phenomenon is the by-product of traditional conservatism being shoved aside by a radical, libertarian-inspired ideology that is deeply antithetical to traditional Burkean conservatism.

This ideology elevates personal freedom and financial gain far above all other values, and in doing so, empowers its followers to dismiss or even belittle anything that does not directly serve those parochial ends."

If the conservative movement doesn't right itself, no pun intended, with a strong push against the kind of thinking exhibited by Stephens, they risk total marginalization in the arena of ideas.

There Aren't Different Versions Of The Truth, cont...

Nov 14th, 2011

As it turns out, the Koch Brothers are being forced to face the fact that some things just aren't for sale. Not even at any price. One of those things is empirical truth.

Via Raw Story:

"A prominent climate change skeptic told Congress on Monday he no longer doubts that global warming is real and caused by humans, and joined other scientists in urging action to stop it.

Physicist Richard Muller, director of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project, whose two-year research was funded in part by a foundation formed by the conservative billionaire Koch brothers, said he could find no bias in other studies.

"We confirm that over the last 50 years, temperature has risen 0.9 degrees Celsius, or 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the same number that the IPCC (UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says."
Muller told the House Committee on Natural Resources that while he remains cautious about the extent to which humans have played a role, he now hopes other climate skeptics will come on board with his findings."

Muller, long thought of by climate change deniers as one of their own, simply couldn't deliver manufactured science. Funny how genuine science works that way, ain't it?

Charting Climate Awareness

Sept 19th, 2011

The Economist charts a recent Yale study which examined American views regarding climate change by political affiliation.

"Tea Partiers, unsurprisingly, tend not to believe in the phenomenon (the 53% who don't believe in global warming just outnumber the 52% who don't believe humans evolved from other animals) and are the most strongly opposed to all sorts of government action on the issue (yet quite keen, like majorities in all sorts of polling, on research into new energy sources). They also distinguish themselves in their assessment of their knowledgeability, with 30% considering themselves very well informed on the issue and a majority happy that it needs no more information on the subject."

Open the image in a new window for a better view.

Quote Of The Day - Here and Now Edition

Sept 14th, 2011

"We have to weigh whether or not we will accept the judgment of every national academy of science of every major country ... or whether we'll instead take the advice of ExxonMobil and the Koch brothers and Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck."




-- Nobel Laureate and former Vice President Al Gore discussing the ongoing Republican war on science.

Things You Can't Make Up - Galileo Edition

Sept 9th, 2011

Yes, Rick Perry said it. In defending his anti-science positions on, well, pretty much everything, he actually referred to the theocratic persecution of Galileo Galilei in the 17th Century to portray his irrationality as not only somehow reasonable, but steeped in tradition. Or something. It is very much worth noting that none of the audience laughed.

Huntsman is Doomed

Aug 18th, 2011

I know it has annoyed my contemporaries lately that I have continued to insist that Jon Huntsman would make a decent President. No, I don't support his general prescriptions for what ails us. But, he is not certifiably insane or, worse, willing to deny empirical truth to get donations. In one little tweet today, he not only again proved me correct, he also effectively ended his campaign.

permalink

It's not the first time he has rendered himself unattractive to the hardcore GOP base. In May, he said this:

"This is an issue that ought to be answered by the scientific community; I’m not a meteorologist. All I know is 90 percent of the scientists say climate change is occurring. If 90 percent of the oncological community said something was causing cancer we’d listen to them. I respect science and the professionals behind the science so I tend to think it’s better left to the science community -- though we can debate what that means for the energy and transportation sectors."

Jon, you just can't go around anymore not talking crazy in that party.

Al Gore Calls "Bulls**t" On Climate Change Deniers

Aug 9th, 2011

Literally. At an Aspen,CO conference on climate issues this past Monday, Al Gore lashed out at climate change deniers (like, Rush who proudly took credit for successfully misinforming recently):

"They pay pseudo scientists to pretend to be scientists to put out the message: ‘This climate thing, it’s nonsense. Man-made CO2 doesn’t trap heat. It may be volcanoes.’ Bullshit! ‘It may be sun spots.’ Bullshit! ‘It’s not getting warmer.’ Bullshit!"

This is great but the most amazing comment he makes is that there is, after so much pseudo-conservative propaganda, no longer "a shared reality."Indeed.

The Great Climate Change Distraction, part 3

Feb 17th, 2011

First, I stipulated that the debate over climate change was actually a tool that benefits polluters. The next day, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) lent vulgar credence to my thesis. Today, I argue with humor.

Copyright © Joel Pett 2011 

The Great Climate Change Distraction, cont...

Feb 10th, 2011

by F. Grey Parker

Yesterday, I published a piece arguing that the climate change "debate" has effectively neutered the environmental movement. 

We aren't talking about childhood leukemia and it's links to air pollution anymore. We aren't discussing industrial toxins and their direct correlation to neurodevelopmental disease. Instead, we are listening to Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) calling global warming a "hoax" and not only arguing against EPA regulations on that basis but hyping his new book on the subject before a house subcommittee.

From Tulsa World:

"I won’t tell you what it’s about, but the name of the book is 'The Hoax,'?" he said during testimony before a House subcommittee. 

"I did finish it last week." 

Just five days ago, the findings of yet another study proving a correlation between airborne toxins and childhood respiratory illnesses was published. 

From Environmental Technology:

"Childhood exposure to air pollution, particularly during pregnancy and in the first year of life, has been positively linked to the development of asthma by scientists in Canada."

The GOP doesn't care. More importantly, they have ensured that we don't publicly review the findings because the "climate" arguments take all of our time.

More from Tulsa World:

"Inhofe and House Republicans on the subcommittee focused on what they consider the enormous costs of EPA’s efforts to regulate greenhouse emissions, the jobs that could be lost and the questions that, in their view, continue to surround climate change science. 

Science is mixed, Inhofe said, but the economic impact is not."

As we all have now been trained like obedient little poodles to obey them when they start down this path, we followed the Republicans again into the trap of not discussing any other possible reasons for slowing the steady and intentional poisoning of ourselves.

The Great Climate Change Distraction

Feb 9th, 2011

by F. Grey Parker

The GOP continues to make good on it's promise to gut the Environmental Protection Agency and hopefully cripple and defund The Clean Air Act. There is every reason to believe they will succeed and it's because of semantics, not science.

L.A. Times KOs Fox

Dec 22nd, 2010

The L.A. Times hits hard at the now infamous instructions from Bill Sammon to spin stories on climate change:

“The way the data are interpreted can vary; it's legitimate for climate skeptics to reach conclusions that contradict mainstream theories. But only a crank would deny the underlying temperature data that show the Earth getting warmer — records compiled by independent stations around the world, combined with satellite measurements and confirmed by observations of rising sea levels, vanishing glaciers and other inputs — because to do so is to deny material and measurable facts. Instructing reporters to treat such facts as controversial is like telling them to question the laws of gravity when discussing plane crashes. The only reason for doing it is to further a partisan agenda, in this case an attempt to cast doubt on climate science in order to fend off government efforts to limit greenhouse gases.

Fox should either come clean about this and crack down on such partisanship in its news ranks, or it should stop pretending to be an objective news source.”