there's no thread on this hot debate here ? we'll jump jump right into it then:
KK
Location : New York Super Powers : poastwhore Number of posts : 8316 pennies : 7853 Rep : 354
Subject: Re: Climategate Sun Nov 29, 2009 7:19 pm
i'm all for ending pollution and dependence on fossile fuels. not sure i'm on boad with the global warming thing though
java
Number of posts : 3126 pennies : 2097 Rep : 58
Subject: Re: Climategate Sat Dec 05, 2009 5:28 pm
Jeff Masters gets at something in his great piece on the “climategate” e-maelstrom (http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1389) that most press coverage leaves out: this isn’t our first time around the track. The Manufactured Doubt industry has been around for decades, working to thwart regulatory constraints on large corporations that make dangerous products. Not only are all the same techniques being used in the same way on climate change, in many cases they’re being used by the same people and institutions that fought against tobacco, CFC, asbestos, and auto safety regulations.
In every case they have been discredited, their science exposed as fraudulent, their economic doomsaying given lie by subsequent innovation and growth. In every case, documents later show that the truth about the products’ dangers was known but deliberately concealed and the effort to deceive was intentional and well-funded.
It’s an industry that uses dishonesty to defend corporations. Plain and simple. Everyone ought to know that by now and it ought to frame media coverage of these dreary “skeptic” controversies. Yet the press seems to think that every new claim or contrived controversy from the industry deserves to be met with the same furrowed brow, the same quote and counter-quote presentation of “sides,” the same chin-scratching atmospherics of doubt. It’s always the world’s scientists and scientific institutions being asked to defend their integrity, not the professional dissemblers and character assassins.
I haven’t read the emails. I’ll leave it to others to determine whether a few scientists or a few papers deserve a newly critical eye. As Masters says:
Even if every bit of mud slung at these scientists were true, the body of scientific work supporting the theory of human-caused climate change—which spans hundreds of thousands of scientific papers written by tens of thousands of scientists in dozens of different scientific disciplines—is too vast to be budged by the flaws in the works of the three or four scientists being subject to the fiercest attacks.
Whatever may be on trial in this latest dismal theater piece, it isn’t the validity of the basic conclusions of climate science. Media coverage of this spectacle is a failure if readers do not come away understanding two facts:
1. The overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed science shows that climate change is happening, human-caused, and dangerous. 2. The overwhelming majority of economic modeling shows that action to address climate change is compatible with robust economic growth.
The rest is sound and fury.
———
UPDATE: A fantastic interview on Washington Post with science historian Spencer Weart reaffirms what I was saying above, particularly this bit:
The theft and use of the emails does reveal something interesting about the social context. It’s a symptom of something entirely new in the history of science: Aside from crackpots who complain that a conspiracy is suppressing their personal discoveries, we’ve never before seen a set of people accuse an entire community of scientists of deliberate deception and other professional malfeasance.
Even the tobacco companies never tried to slander legitimate cancer researchers. In blogs, talk radio and other new media, we are told that the warnings about future global warming issued by the national science academies, scientific societies, and governments of all the leading nations are not only mistaken, but based on a hoax, indeed a conspiracy that must involve thousands of respected researchers. Extraordinary and, frankly, weird. Climate scientists are naturally upset, exasperated, and sometimes goaded into intemperate responses… but that was already easy to see in their blogs and other writings.
Location : New York Super Powers : poastwhore Number of posts : 8316 pennies : 7853 Rep : 354
Subject: Re: Climategate Sun Dec 06, 2009 9:38 pm
This can't be true. Obama promised he would put an end to lobbying in Washington. and we all know he would never break a promise
For the second quarter of 2009, here is a list compiled by the Center for Public Integrity of all the oil, gas, and coal mining groups that spent more than $100,000 on lobbying (this includes all lobbying, not just climate change lobbying):
Chevron $6,485,000 Exxon Mobil $4,657,000 BP America $4,270,000 ConocoPhillips $3,300,000 American Petroleum Institute $2,120,000 Marathon Oil Corporation $2,110,000 Peabody Investments Corp $1,110,000 Bituminous Coal Operators Association $980,000 Shell Oil Company $950,000 Arch Coal, Inc $940,000 Williams Companies $920,000 Flint Hills Resources $820,000 Occidental Petroleum Corporation $794,000 National Mining Association $770,000 American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity $714,000 Devon Energy $695,000 Sunoco $585,000 Independent Petroleum Association of America $434,000 Murphy Oil USA, Inc $430,000 Peabody Energy $420,000 Rio Tinto Services, Inc $394,000 America's Natural Gas Alliance $300,000 Interstate Natural Gas Association of America $290,000 El Paso Corporation $261,000 Spectra Energy $279,000 National Propane Gas Association $242,000 National Petrochemical & Refiners Association $240,000 Nexen, Inc $230,000 Denbury Resources $200,000 Nisource, Inc $180,000 Petroleum Marketers Association of America $170,000 Valero Energy Corporation $160,000 Bituminous Coal Operators Association $131,000 Natural Gas Supply Association $114,000 Tesoro Companies $119,000
Here are the environmental groups that spent more than $100,000:
Environmental Defense Action Fund $937,500 Nature Conservancy $650,000 Natural Resources Defense Council $277,000 Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund $243,000 National Parks and Conservation Association $175,000 Sierra Club $120,000 Defenders of Wildlife $120,000 Environmental Defense Fund $100,000
java
Number of posts : 3126 pennies : 2097 Rep : 58
Subject: Re: Climategate Sun Dec 06, 2009 10:01 pm
KK wrote:
This can't be true. Obama promised he would put an end to lobbying in Washington. and we all know he would never break a promise
For the second quarter of 2009, here is a list compiled by the Center for Public Integrity of all the oil, gas, and coal mining groups that spent more than $100,000 on lobbying (this includes all lobbying, not just climate change lobbying):
Chevron $6,485,000 Exxon Mobil $4,657,000 BP America $4,270,000 ConocoPhillips $3,300,000 American Petroleum Institute $2,120,000 Marathon Oil Corporation $2,110,000 Peabody Investments Corp $1,110,000 Bituminous Coal Operators Association $980,000 Shell Oil Company $950,000 Arch Coal, Inc $940,000 Williams Companies $920,000 Flint Hills Resources $820,000 Occidental Petroleum Corporation $794,000 National Mining Association $770,000 American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity $714,000 Devon Energy $695,000 Sunoco $585,000 Independent Petroleum Association of America $434,000 Murphy Oil USA, Inc $430,000 Peabody Energy $420,000 Rio Tinto Services, Inc $394,000 America's Natural Gas Alliance $300,000 Interstate Natural Gas Association of America $290,000 El Paso Corporation $261,000 Spectra Energy $279,000 National Propane Gas Association $242,000 National Petrochemical & Refiners Association $240,000 Nexen, Inc $230,000 Denbury Resources $200,000 Nisource, Inc $180,000 Petroleum Marketers Association of America $170,000 Valero Energy Corporation $160,000 Bituminous Coal Operators Association $131,000 Natural Gas Supply Association $114,000 Tesoro Companies $119,000
Here are the environmental groups that spent more than $100,000:
Environmental Defense Action Fund $937,500 Nature Conservancy $650,000 Natural Resources Defense Council $277,000 Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund $243,000 National Parks and Conservation Association $175,000 Sierra Club $120,000 Defenders of Wildlife $120,000 Environmental Defense Fund $100,000
Obama break a promise? *ghasp* Actually most of his cabinet appointees are lobbyists too.
KK
Location : New York Super Powers : poastwhore Number of posts : 8316 pennies : 7853 Rep : 354
Subject: Re: Climategate Mon Dec 07, 2009 3:17 pm
i am so sick of politics as usual. i don't care what the party affiliation.
java
Number of posts : 3126 pennies : 2097 Rep : 58
Subject: Re: Climategate Mon Dec 07, 2009 5:23 pm
KK wrote:
i am so sick of politics as usual. i don't care what the party affiliation.
Me too. I don't care about their bogus bread-and-circus pretense at being two different parties. They're all globalists to me. Or as Hugo Chavez calls them, "neo-liberals."
KK
Location : New York Super Powers : poastwhore Number of posts : 8316 pennies : 7853 Rep : 354
Subject: Re: Climategate Tue Dec 08, 2009 10:33 pm
java wrote:
KK wrote:
i am so sick of politics as usual. i don't care what the party affiliation.
Me too. I don't care about their bogus bread-and-circus pretense at being two different parties. They're all globalists to me. Or as Hugo Chavez calls them, "neo-liberals."
i really think it is time we step up an make our dis satisfaction known