Brokaw's Global Warming Special – count the errors

It’s interesting, despite the accusations that always fly from Gore and his minions about skeptical scientists being on the take from Big Oil, that many of the big energy companies are deeply invested in the AGW movement. I tend to assume that since many have launched alternative energy subsidiaries, they’re just angling for a better spot at the trough, when the pols dish out the subsidies.

I’ve never been an admirer of Tom Brokaw. But, just what were his errors that you mention?
REPLY: Watch the special and count them.

I’d just like to throw this thought out there. When do BIG oil companies make record profits? When supply is restricted and prices high? Or when supply is large and prices low? So why would it be a shock to anybody that oil companies would support AGW proponents? They get profits and bonuses while acting as victims.

Dave Wendt (18:18:32) :
It’s interesting, despite the accusations that always fly from Gore and his minions about skeptical scientists being on the take from Big Oil, that many of the big energy companies are deeply invested in the AGW movement. I tend to assume that since many have launched alternative energy subsidiaries, they’re just angling for a better spot at the trough, when the pols dish out the subsidies.
That’s part of it, but my belief is that the oil companies love the AGW movement mainly because it will lead to higher oil prices by placing artificial restrictions on oil without an economically viable (so far) alternative. This is especially true if you believe that we have reached “peak oil.” If oil reserves are truly dwindling, what could be better for oil companies than government policies that result in less of it being sold but at a much higher price?

I will be wacthing this…as long as I can take it, just for the opportunity to send Discovery Channel feedback :
http://extweb.discovery.com/viewerrelations
I don’t hold out any hope of a rationale discussion or revelations of any relevance other than the continuing cacophany of voices I’ve already heard.

tough call, new South Part or AGW…

South Park.
It will be more accurate.

So why would it be a shock to anybody that oil companies would support AGW proponents? They get profits and bonuses while acting as victims.

I’m glad I’m not the only person who has noticed how much the entire fossil fuel industry stands to gain from the AGW hysteria. It will be difficult for the average person to sort how much of the increased price is due to carbon taxes, artificially induced scarcity, or outright price gouging, so profit margins are going to soar while Uncle Sam bears all the blame from the public.

Planet Perspective is lacking. So Depressing!
It’s so sad, I used to feed birds and was an avid birder, now I never put food out as I know it is truly destructive to them because of cats and diseases. Meanwhile we spend more as a nation on wild birdseed than we do on foreign food aid for starving humans.. I turn my eyes away and let the birds live in secret, lest my observations destroy them.
I used to watch all the wonderful nature shows on TV, National Geographic and the Weather Channel, now I can’t tolerate the constant propaganda.
The word “PLANET” is spoken and I turn it off, wanting to just puke. So now I watch politics and history.
I lived in Alaska and wandered far on foot and skis. I walked on the ice of the Bering Sea in Nome, 1968 and collected a little bottle of melted sea ice. I flew over the vast expanses, I climbed the mountains. Alaska almost killed me in 1971, skiing in July. Alaska almost killed me several times. Western Colorado has almost killed us too, ice and snow and getting
The earth is so much bigger and so much more powerful than people stuck in cities have ever imagined.
I’m depressed about the press, but guess what, we have a BABY BOOM!
HOPE and CHANGE! When people start to get back to core values, they have BABIES!

WakeUpMaggy (21:05:11) :
“The earth is so much bigger and so much more powerful than people stuck in cities have ever imagined. ”
Very wise statement, indeed.

Wakeupmaggy…Thanks for an interesting post. But…the good news regarding the current baby boom turns to bad news as we realize that 40% are born to unwed mothers. Most of these stories end badly.
“At least the war on the economy is going well”.

Royal Dutch Shell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Dutch_Shell is planning to drop all new investment in wind, solar and hydrogen energy.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/03/you-can-be-sure-of-shell.html
The socialistgreenwarmists are miffed. Long may that continue. Linda Cook, who heads Shell’s gas and power business, said that wind and solar power “struggle to compete with the other investment opportunities we have in our portfolio”.

Shell ( http://www.midsun.uwaterloo.ca/www/sponsors/bronze/ ) has contributed to solar car races for decades. — John M Reynolds

Shell has given up on renewable energy citing it being too expensive and takes about five generations just to break even lol
Two articles in the Guardian yesterday, one by Monbiot, expressed their anger that they could not force a business to follow their religion.
And an extra slap in the face for the Revolucion Guardianista, Shell said they’ll develop biodiesel instead of wind, solar and excrement power.
All the egocentric Marxists who post on their comments section cried “Shell only cares about its shareholders!!!!!!”
I don’t think Marxists realise that most shareholding in the world is regular working folk. It’s not all rich Jews and Anglo-Saxon Protestants aka grey haired white men whom Communistas detest to much.
Anyway, more fear factor from the Guardian today
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/18/nasa-climate-change-james-hansen
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/18/perfect-storm-john-beddington-energy-food-climate
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/18/west-antarctic-ice-sheet-melt

You lot have to read the comments below this article. It is no joke. It is a perfect example of alarmist mass hysteria breaking out with no basis in reality at all…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/18/perfect-storm-john-beddington-energy-food-climate

Extra CO2 makes ragweed grow in New York…eeek..but world harvests will decline

We live in a fascist society now. Big media are part of the governing fraternity, and Brokaw is part of big media. Why do you think General Electric owns NBC news? Why, because they need a huge government investment in otherwise uneconomically feasible “alternative” energy products, and the only way they will get them is by using their media power to get the right people elected. Brokaw is a useful idiot in this, as the only real asset God gave him in life is his good looks, even NBC may be in the category of useful idiot, because all GE has to do is select the right idiots to run it, then close oversight is not needed.

OT, sorta:
“A Modest Proposal”
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/a-modest-proposal-to-prevent-the-pernicious-warming-of-our-fair-globe/

. . . To wit; that it be enacted as the cornerstone of the necessary reform of our health care system, that, prior to engaging in any action that might potentially extend a human life, that a doctor, nurse, or other medical professional simply be required to file an environmental impact statement in which the carbon emission consequences of said life-extension are clearly set forth and arrayed against any environmental benefits that might ensue from the preservation of the individual in question.

I expect the CMS (Medicare) bureaucrats are hard at work on this proposal, as we speak.
/Mr Lynn

Watched 30 minutes of South Park.
Laughed a lot.
Watched 5 minutes of Brokaw.
Laughed a lot. 🙂
WakeUpMaggy (21:05:11) , great post. I’m a city boy who’s well aware of how precarious human life is outside the extremely un-“natural” state we call civilization.

tom in Florida has it right
For all those who bash Big Oil as being overly profitable, please consider this list.
This shows the average return on equity (investment) for various industries as available from finance.yahoo.com. All of these industries are more profitable than major integrated oil companies, Big Oil. Why is there no similar bashing of these industries?
Industry Return on Equity, Percent
Long Distance Carriers (phone) 78.90
Information & Delivery Services 64.90
Aerospace/Defense – Major Diversified 55.70
Publishing – Periodicals 48.00
Cigarettes 44.50
Diversified Computer Systems 35.20
Cleaning Products 34.20
Agricultural Chemicals 33.70
Application Software 32.30
Personal Computers 30.90
Restaurants 30.20
Auto Parts Stores 30.20
Management Services 30.00
Metal Fabrication 28.20
Processed & Packaged Goods 26.80
Industrial Metals & Minerals 26.50
Food Wholesale 26.10
Dairy Products 26.00
Trucks & Other Vehicles 25.60
Personal Services 25.40
Electronics Stores 25.40
Insurance Brokers 25.10
Beverages – Wineries & Distillers 24.90
Major Integrated Oil & Gas 24.00

Look at what NOAA is publishing… a Climate Leteracy book. http://climate.noaa.gov/index.jsp?pg=/education/edu_index.jsp&edu=literacy
Those people are going insane and way ahead of themselves and science.

We don’t get TDC (perhaps that is a blessing), but here’s a Q&A by Bryan Walsh about it.
This “interview” alone is enough to make one barf, so I can only imagine how bad the actual program is.
They continually conflate issues, such as pollution, which have little or nothing to do with either C02 or climate change. For example:
“Do you sense that we’re moving towards a consensus in America that global warming is real, and that we need to take action?”
“It’s complex. I think that the vast majority of the scientific community — and much of the public — believes that it is real. It’s a matter of consequence, how we’re going to deal with this. There are a lot of complex parts. We haven’t arrived at a common intersection of those parts yet, but that’s not surprising given the nature of the issue we are dealing with. (See pictures of the world’s most polluted places.)”
It ends with:
“Given all that you’ve seen in a lifetime of reporting, are you hopeful that we’ll be able to tackle climate change?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve seen a lot of good things. When we used to go to the Black Hills as a child, to the creeks near the Homestead gold mine, and my parents would warn me away from the water because it was so polluted from the runoff. But it’s gotten much better since then. We’ve cleaned up the air in Los Angeles. I really do detect a big appetite now for making profound changes.”
So, we get that he’s “concerned about the environment”.
Who isn’t, and how does that make him an expert on “climate change”?

Leon Brozyna (09:50:56) :
A bit O/T (but not too much, going from Brokaw to Hansen)
Here’s another Hansen pronouncement from the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/18/nasa-climate-change-james-hansen
“The democratic process doesn’t quite seem to be working.”
Hansen is particularly unhappy with “corporate lobbyists” but he and his group of protesters are certainly lobbyists by this definition: lobby: a group of persons who work or conduct a campaign to influence members of a legislature to vote according to the group’s special interest. Lobbying is an essential part of the democratic process. It’s one important way that an electorate can be informed. My lobbyists are good, yours are bad.

Aron (02:13:23) :
A “perfect storm” of food shortages, scarce water and insufficient energy resources threaten to unleash public unrest, cross-border conflicts and mass migrationas people flee from the worst-affected regions, the UK government’s chief scientist will warn tomorrow.
What could possibly happen to our climate in the coming decades that would cause a mass migration? This has always seemed like one of the silliest global warming caused scenarios out there. If man can adapt to life in the African bush with a little genocide thrown in for good measure man can adapt to anything. I’m really not expecting to see any Eskimos or Bedouins showing up in our neighborhood anytime soon to escape extreme climates. Climate is only one factor, and I would consider it a minor one, that determines where a person lives. To think that a change in temperature of .5c/ decade would cause a whole population to leave house and homeland is ridiculous.

The lack of posted “errors” by those that watched the Brokaw special can mean only that either (a) people had better things to do than to suffer through it, or (b) heavy on effects of warming (anthropogenicity is assumed, of course) and policy changes needed to “fight” this change accompanied by pep talks such as “we can do it!”, “it’s not too late yet”, etc., which, since they are for the future to judge, cannot at this time be listed as errors.
Without supporting the need to combat climate change I must say that control of good old fashioned pollution, achieving energy independence, and saving a finite hydrocarbon supply are worthwhile goals and, agreeing that man can do anything he sets his mind to, including a complete overhaul of our energy generating system, why not give a larger cut of the various energy taxes and trading schemes being proposed for a stepped up basic research program (I’m trying not to say “Manhattan Project”) so that an actual solution can be reached within 10-20 years that does not involve millions of acres of ugly windmills. Set technology loose on the energy problem, reap the benefits from all the “spin-offs” and really see a change by 2100.

Is this correct?

So? Error Number 1 is _____????