This is from the Huffington Post. One can only hope that Kerry will follow through. For a quick primer on Kerry’s grasp of climate science, see this WUWT article: Kerry Blames Tornado Outbreak on Global Warming and a rebuttal Increasing tornadoes or better information gathering? I get a kick out of Kerry’s line “This has to stop”. Okay then, please debate Mr. Will, put a stop to it Mr. Kerry! – Anthony
John KerryFacts Are Stubborn Things: George Will and Climate Change-
To paraphrase the conservative columnist’s favorite president, “There you go again, George.”
George Will has been one of my favorite intellectual sparring partners for a long time, a favorite more recently because he had the guts to publicly recognize the disaster that was George W. Bush’s presidency.
But in his latest Washington Post column, George and I have a pretty big loud disagreement.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy to see Will embracing the idea of recycling, but I’m very troubled that he is recycling errors of fact to challenge the science on global warming.
I’m even more troubled that Will used his February 15th column not only to cast doubt on sound science, but also to denigrate the work of two fine scientists.
Let’s be very clear: Stephen Chu does not make predictions to further an agenda. He does so to inform the public. He is no Cassandra. If his predictions about the effects of our climate crisis are scary, it’s because our climate is scary.
Likewise, John Holdren is a friend of mine and one of the best scientific minds we have in our country. Pulling out one minor prediction that he had some unknown role in formulating nearly three decades ago, as Will did in his February 15th column, and then using that to try to undo his credibility as a scientist may be a fancy debating trick, but it’s just plain wrong when it comes to a debate we can’t afford to see dissolve into reductio ad absurdum hijinx. (A side note: The incident in question occurred in 1980, which, as I recall, was just about the time Ronald Reagan made the claim that approximately 80 percent of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation and that, consequently, we should “not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emissions standards from man-made sources.”)
Dragging up long-discredited myths about some non-existent scientific consensus about global cooling from the 1970s does no one any good. Except perhaps a bankrupt flat earth crowd. I hate to review the record and see that someone as smart as George Will has been doing exactly that as far back as 1992. And it’s especially troubling when the very sources that Will cites in his February 15th column draw the exact opposite conclusions and paint very different pictures than Will provides, as the good folks at ThinkProgress and Media Matters for America have demonstrated so thoroughly.
This has to stop. A highly organized, well-funded movement to deny the reality of global climate change has been up and running for a long time, but it doesn’t change the verdict: the problem is real, it’s accelerating, and we have to act. Now. Not years from now.
No matter how the evidence has mounted over two decades — the melting of the arctic ice cap, rising sea levels, extreme weather — the flat earth caucus can’t even see what is on the horizon. In the old Republican Congress they even trotted out the author of Jurassic Park as an expert witness to argue that climate change is fiction. This is Stone Age science, and now that we have the White House and the Congress real science must prevail. It is time to stop debating fiction writers, oil executives and flat-earth politicians, and actually find the way forward on climate change.
This is a fight we can win, a problem we can overcome, but time is not on our side. We can’t waste another second arguing about whether the problem exists when we need to be debating everything from how to deal with the dirtiest forms of coal as the major provider of power in China to how to vastly increase green energy right here at home.
“Facts are stupid things,” Ronald Reagan once said. He was, of course, paraphrasing John Adams, who could have been talking about the science on global change when he said, “Facts are stubborn things.”
Stubborn or stupid — lets have a real debate and lets have it now.
I know George Will well, I respect his intellect and his powers of persuasion — but I’d happily debate him any day on this question so critical to our survival.
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BRING IT ON !
I want to see a Kerry/Will debate on Global Warming on prime time television.
This text by Kerry is a nice summary of all the pro-AGW arguments: science-is-settled, this-has-to-stop, sea-level-is-rising, artic-is-melting, big-oil-conspiracy, and so on.
I’ll even pay 10 bucks to see the debate on Pay-TV.
“We can’t waste another second arguing about whether the problem exists”
How can you have an intelligent debate when you ask the opposition to concede the point they are arguing because there is just no time to debate it. We see what this kind of ‘honest debate’ gets us in economics: two bills over $700 billion dollars with nothing to show for it because ‘we don’t have the time to debate, we must act now’.
Kerry:
“This is a fight we can win, a problem we can overcome, but time is not on our side. We can’t waste another second arguing about whether the problem exists…”
and later Kerry states
“…..but I’d happily debate him any day on this question so critical to our survival.”
Kerry is already contradicting himself, and the debate has not even started.
Hard to believe that not only has Mass. given us Barney Frank – Primary Architect of the collapse of Freddie and Fannie costing taxpayers a measly 400 Billion to date, and Primary Figure in the Witch Hunts in Washington Read Misplaced Anger on my Blog – but also John Kerry.
I have nothing against the fine people of Mass., but people PLEASE do us all a favor next election cycle.
As far as the debate goes, it will be a successful as any other on the subject, Kerry will lose and it will be hidden on back pages and blogged about with statements of biased mediation, poor format, un-substantiated claims, lack of scientific knowledge, etc etc.
If this is going to have any sort of merit it needs to be big and “sanctioned” just like a boxing match. There needs to be set rules and strict enforcements including two breaks for fact checks during the debate by a panel of respected Journalists and Researchers without obvious bias.
Too many times this boils down to a “big oil” + lobbyists + money + political ideology affair.
Other than those reservations and suggestions I say “bust him up George”
There is no way John Kerry wrote this. Let’s have the debate as soon as possible. There is nothing I would personally enjoy more than Kerry getting his narcissistic ego crushed – again. This is pure bravado on Kerry’s part.
I’m not real interested in seeing politicians or the media debate global warming or climate change or the lochness monster. I want to see a televised debate between scientist.
Mann Vs McKintyre
Hansen Vs Watts
The very, very scary aspect of Kerry is that he came so close to being President.
Let me get this straight. John Kerry is denigrating Michael Crichton’s scientific knowledge? That is like Jessica Simpson saying that Steven Hawking is weak on astrophysics.
John Kerry, were he quoting Scientific Fact and not using as his source more than dubious computer modeling, would to a lot of people seem to have the upper hand in the debate about Man Made Global Warming, or Climate Change and even more recently Climate Shift. Whatever happens, now that AGW is a quasi religious Faith, there will be blind adherence to the mantra and no chance of persuasion of the opposing logical view, whatever proven peer reviewed Facts are presented.
So in my humble opinion John Kerry is a dumb politician and will always be so. CO2 is not a poison/pollutant JK.
“Where there’s a Will there’s a way!” I hope Will verbally slaughters the man.
Kerry’s Huffington rebuttal has the odour of Gore about it. I get a whiff even here in Merry Olde England………
John Kerry wrote: “A highly organized, well-funded movement to deny the reality of global climate change has been up and running for a long time, but it doesn’t change the verdict: the problem is real, it’s accelerating, and we have to act.”
The IPCCs graph illustrating an acceleration of trends over the past century employs two natural variables to create the myth:
http://s5.tinypic.com/vowo7c.jpg
The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation “added warming” to the Northern Hemisphere temperatures from the early 1900s to the 1940s, cooled them through the late 70s, then warmed them again until approximately 2005.
The other variable was volcanic aerosols, which lowered global temperatures in the 1960s and 70s, adding to the 50 year trend. Volcanic aerosols from El Chichon and Mount Pinatubo also lowered global temperatures in 1982 and 1991 which increases the trend for the last 25 years.
It’s just smoke and mirrors. The IPCC is relying on the gullibility of the public. John Kerry fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
“A highly organized, well-funded movement to deny the reality of global climate change has been up and running for a long time”
WHERE? Someone tell me where I can get some of this dosh!
DaveE.
Please, let the debates begin!!!
I really, really hope this happens!
“I’m not real interested in seeing politicians or the media debate global warming or climate change or the lochness monster. I want to see a televised debate between scientist.”
Mann Vs McKintyre
Hansen Vs Watts
I couldn’t agree with you more. The main reason I am so skeptical of AGW theory is that the main proponents of it are anything but scientists. Most are some form of self-identified environmentalist, with little or no scientific training in weather or climate. Look at Al Gore and John Kerry. They are both attorneys who later became career politicians. How does that make them at all qualified to lead a discussion on climate change? I have talked to people with better scientific credentials than either one of them has at my favorite local pub. And you know neither Gore or Kerry would ever buy a round of drinks. They are only looking to take our money.
Fred from Canuckistan . . . (08:49:40) :
The very, very scary aspect of Kerry is that he came so close to being President.
———————————-
Yep, possibly even more scary than Al Gore being President.
Since, if by some remote chance, Kerry does follow through with having his behind handed to him, I’m expecting the phrase “peer-reviewed” to be repeated ad nauseum. Perhaps, given the importance of the occasion, the journals could let us (i.e. George Will) know some of the peer-reviewers. I think we would all be particularly interested in knowing who reviewed (badly) Steig et al., for Nature.
Now those I would pay to see!!!
Somewhat OT but also related, National Post’s Larry Solomon has a piece today about him being uninvited to debates because of his views on AGW:
“The art of the green disinvite”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/02/27/lawrence-solomon-the-art-of-the-green-disinvite.aspx
“I’d happily debate him any day on this question so critical to our survival.”
======================
Our survival?
What the hell is that loony talking about we are endangered species like the Polar bears now too?
Somebody closed the mental hospitals or something…
Here’s another Will, John Kerry can debate.
Washington, DC — Award-winning Princeton University Physicist Dr. Will Happer declared man-made global warming fears “mistaken” and noted that the Earth was currently in a “CO2 famine now.”
http://tinyurl.com/cj63tt
please can you edit my previous post and add this ” , we ” after “..talking about”
thnx
Kerry didn’t write that and there will be no debate.
This is an any-means-necessary campaign reacting to the growing collapse of the AGW story line.
That was a well crafted political hit piece by and for the AGW crusade with only a pretense of a willingness to debate in order to distribute more of contrived confidence and reliability which AGW supporters no longer have.
And with the current state of how debate travels the information global highway the debate is underway and unstoppable. .
Kerry is simply assisting in the attemp to obscure it from public comprehension.
This sort of thing is clearly panic driven and without any honest intentions.
With so many people taking part in this wider deabte there can be no AGW stone unturned.
Despite Kerry et al trying to stop it.
I agree with MAC, we need a full blown debate with credible scientists from both sides. However, I don’t believe it will happen because the AGW people have too much to lose. like all that funding!
Bill
Senator Kerry vs. George WIll in a debate on Global Warming during Primetime would be one of the most important moments of this generation. All the hypocrisy and poor science of AGW alamists would be displayed for all the public to see.
I hope that it happens!
Try this.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=af8f5b20-802a-23ad-49fb-8a2d53f00437&Region_id=&Issue_id=
Bernie,
That was the first thought that entered my mind:
George Will will recognize that this is a ‘proxy fight’, and it will suit him just fine to continue the exchange through the media … where it will do the most good.
Watch the next public opinion poll, to see how well the “there is no debate” argument is serving the AGW camp. This sort of extremism is exactly what’s contributing to their decline.
We have the expression “Devil’s Advocate”, precisely because we have recognized all along that any position can be debated.
Re: California
I warned about ominous drought patterns back in 2007 –
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/24/213213/264/398/294550
At a time when water officials pooh-poohed the idea.
Now California has seen near-record February rainfall –
With plenty more rain on the way for March –
And BuRec has informed agricultural users they will receive ZERO water this year.
It seems like water officials – both state and federal – in California seem to always be too little, too late. Whether it’s recognizing the signs of water shortage, or acknowledging a major increase in water supplies.
Sorry, Sec. Chu – but you really did go off the Cassandra cliff.
California can ill afford the destruction of its agricultural sector at this time of all times; yet, it seems some are intent on doing it. It wouldn’t be a case of meeting one’s own expectations, would it?