And in an unbelievable gaffe, he’s told a whole group of people exactly where they can go:
It is probably the most ugly statement I’ve ever seen from a politician regarding a group of people with ideas that disagree with the politician’s own view. If it were a race or class issue, he’d be vilified. He apparently has lost touch with what it means to be an American.
From The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room:
“An iceberg four times the size of Manhattan has broken off Greenland, creating plenty of room for global warming deniers to start their own country,” Markey said in a statement.
And I thought we were past things like this.
AP, Boston Globe, and WBZ-TV confirm this story. Here’s the story on the calving I broke before any MSM where I said “watch the media” I should have said “watch the politicians”.
Markey, who chairs the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, co-authored the House version of the climate change bill that’s currently stalled in the Senate.
h/t to Luboš Motl
=============================================
I think we, as Americans, with rights to free speech, should all remind Congressman Markey of what that actually means, especially those in Massachusetts who voted this man into office. His email contact form is here.
Below is the contact info from his web page:
Rep. Markey’s Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. Offices:
Rep. Markey encourages residents of Massachusetts’ Seventh Congressional District to contact him via e-mail, by phone, or through a visit to one of his three offices.
His Medford and Framingham District offices can assist individuals on a more personal basis with questions related to federal agencies such as Social Security, IRS, or the Veterans Administration. In addition, they can help with grant applications, service academy nominations, flag requests, scheduling requests for the district and visits to Washington, D.C.
His Washington, D.C. office handles questions related to legislation, agency oversight and general federal policy.
When leaving a message, include your full name, address, city/town, zip code, phone number, and e-mail address. Please understand that Ed receives several hundred letters and e-mails every day.
 |
 |
| Medford
5 High Street, Suite 101 Medford, MA 02155 781-396-2900 |
Framingham
188 Concord Street Suite 102 Framingham, MA 01702 508-875-2900 |
 |
|
| Washington, D.C.
2108 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 202-225-2836 |
|
Shameful behaviour. The bigotry is settled.
I think there is enough room in the United States for us when we take back this country. Perhaps Markey can take his own advice.
The people in congress are completely out of touch and out of control. Sometimes I do think its time for secession talk again.
“An iceberg four times the size of Manhattan has broken off Greenland, creating plenty of room for global warming deniers to start their own country,” Markey said in a statement.
Dear Representative Markey,
We did that 234 years ago. It became a republic based on individual liberty and equal representation for a country of, by and for the people.
You can leave now.
The partial legislation stunt they wanted to push on us last week included a requirement that home building and remodels have a charger installed for electric cars. Do Amish know what that is? They double in population every 19 years.
Many people don’t have cars.
This is another example of a person totally out of touch with reality and humanity.
Electric cars require lithium for batteries. That leaves a shortage for bi polars that take it for medicine. Has anyone told Markey there are issues?
It would be great to live in a place was there wasn’t continual hand-wringing over minute changes in temperature. Unfortunately, I don’t think ‘Deniersberg’ will last more than a few years.
Might be interesting to have a sweepstake on how long recognizable remnants of it last.
It could be that the gentle congresscritter is recalling a bit of corny Gore-ite rhetoric from a few years back, according to which all the scientists who disagree with the “concensus” on AGW could fit inside a phone booth. If so, there may be some satisfaction in knowing the Markey recognizes the skeptical movement has grown quite a bit lately.
It could be too that Markey is hearing echoes of the old Phil Ochs song “Mississippi,” written in the early 60s to denounce rampant racial abuses. The song (paradoxically, 100 years after the Civil War was fought to keep the southern states in the Union) invites Mississippi to “find yourself another country to be part of.” This comes to mind because I think for Markey and many others the fight against global warming has moral dimensions similar to or greater than the fight for racial equality.
Whatever the case, I would not get too upset at these rantings. Political partisans of all stripes are constantly dredging for sound bites that will provide them and their fellow partisans with a bit of glee and also stick in the public mind.
Congress critters must run for election every 2 years so i called him up and left a message that says “I can see November from my HOUSE!”
these people who use this terminology (“denier”) are vile, despicable, hateful, control freaks.
So is this the new mind set with the liberal left…if you don’t agree with them on whatever issue (Global Warming, politics, etc) then we can go start our own country? What has happened to unbiased science, the truth, in this country?
Talking produces CO2 and warms the planet…lol.
But at least it keeps people from doing anything.
I think what is most astounding is that this dimwit, Markey, does not understand that this mass broke off because the glacier is growing.
Nor has anyone informed him that the arctic is in the midst of a cold spell.
And if anyone thinks the relationship between CO2 and global warming has been exaggerated, let them contemplate the relationship between taxation and global cooling.
In Australia, we have our share of low life in the political arena.
http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/climate-changes-sceptics-a-threat-to-national-security/
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/leave_my_children_alone_hamilton/
Sorry Congressman, I can’t! I am busy standing on the other side of Guam to keep it from capsizing…
Canada may or may not be a model place to live but I have never been so glad to have moved here from Wisconsin, as I am now. My only question is who elects these people. And yes I remember Joe M., to young to vote in his day but now you know a good part of why I left the place.
I’m not surprised by the remark. I posted a comment on bostonglobe.com that commented on the Democrat’s historical penchant to take away freedoms and put people in concentration camps who are a threat, perceived or otherwise.
When we take this country back from these nitwits in November, we will be sure to remind this asshat of what he said. My contempt for these people has reached a new high. But frankly, I’m beginning to think these warmists have lost what little sense they had, and are ready to commit violence in support of their wacky theories. They have already proven that they will lie, cheat, commit fraud, falsify records, etc. It doesn’t take that much more before they get violent. I’m expecting it, and I’m ready to respond to it as well.
Time to play Kremlinologist. Why would Markey suddenly start spewing like an orc from Climate Progress now that there is no chance of passing climate legislation in congress?
pat said
“I think what is most astounding is that this dimwit, Markey, does not understand that this mass broke off because the glacier is growing.
Nor has anyone informed him that the arctic is in the midst of a cold spell.”
he wouldn’t believe either verifiable fact.
i’m re-reading Atlas Shrugged and i swear i feel like i’m trapped inside that story. up is down, hot is cold… we live in bizarre-world
Mr. Markey should recall what happened to the ruling class in Massachusetts 235 years ago.
/Research scientist NASA -Ret.
I saw this over on the Reference Frame, and had to chuckle at the spanking Lubos was handing out to Warming Trolls. 🙂
I’m sure he thought he was being funny. I’m also sure that his handlers will issue some kind of correction in a day or 2. But I’m really absolutely positive he is just an ignorant butthead.
It may be worthwhile to consider that Mr. Markeys’ next original thought will be his first. Like most Reps./Senators, he is spoon fed information by a boated staff of ambitious, self-important people grasping for a piece of cleverness to make their bones. The Union would be served best by an immediate 50% cut in congressional staffs/budgets—as a start.
I suggest Malarky, and all other Malarkyists, should go form a country on the Moon. After all, they are lunatics.
I worked in nuclear power for 20 years. I think the most delicious thing was listening to the head of the American Nuclear Society, at the time of Cherynoble being put on “Nightline” with Ted Kopple.
Marky, a strident anti-nuclear (leftist, out of touch nut..) made a variety of wild, and non-sequitor statements.
The head of the ANS, with an absolute “poker face”, when asked a question by Ted Kopple, responded by saying, “Before I answer those questions Ted, I’d like to address some of the points brought up by Congressman Malarky..”
I and my fellow engineers watching this (we happened to be at a house party that night) all looked at each other, and broke out in peals of laughter. We knew the head of the ANS knew EXACTLY what he had said and said it deliberately.
It’s what, 26 years later, and he’s still Congressman Marlarky!
Max
The ice will probably reattach during the winter, so we will all be able to celebrate New Year’s eve in Manhattan together.
This looks like one of those “collapsing ice shelf” stories which can be recycled by the press every couple of years.
Why are all these jamokes so much alike?
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/08/democrats-say-lets-exempt-rich-in-blue-states-from-tax-hike
This kind of bombastic buffoonery is nothing new from this mental pygmy Markey. Here is another gem:
Markey told high school students, from the World Wildlife Fund’s Allianz Southeast Climate Witness Program, gathered at Capitol Hill on July 10, 2008, that “in Somalia back in 1993, climate change, according to 11 three- and four-star generals, resulted in a drought which led to famine…That famine translated to the international aid we sent in to Somalia, which led to the U.S. having to send in forces to separate all the groups that were fighting over the aid, which led to Black Hawk Down.”
http://www.nowpublic.com/environment/war-somalia-black-hawk-down-and-katrina-all-global-warming
That imbeciles like Markey can get elected to high office just goes to demonstrate that America is indeed the land of opportunity…….
I’m 9,525 miles away from Washington DC, and a citizen of Australia, so once the message gets here maybe it becomes a bit distorted.
I was always of the belief that the American way was all about “freedom” and “democracy”. An example to the rest of the world.
Don’t you guys send and lose troops all over the world to maintain the ideal of liberty ?
Seems to me, the enemy is within !
[REPLY – You guys have not only helped us out, but have shouldered regional burdens we Americans have refused. And some of us (including a few liberals like me) very deeply appreciate it. And to my fellow liberals — both here and in Australia — who complain that we are not acting in our best interests, let me remind you that Freedom IS in our best interest. And that all of those other so-called “interests” pale by comparison. ~ Evan]
Oh cool it with the righteous indignation. I share your disdain for Markey’s bill in Congress, but the man was making a joke. A stupid joke, a joke based on his pseudo-science ideology, but nowhere near ACTUAL legislation to imprison Japanese-Americans, or anything like it. Your hysterical comparisons to the worst of 20th century politics – i.e. other posts concerning Nazi persecution of the Jews – are so off base, it makes you sound like a crank. That’s too bad, because I believe your blog is excellent.
And if you think this sort of rhetoric is at all unusual in American politics, you neither know our history nor follow contemporary news.
Stick to the science, Anthony.
Someone (think it was a president) once said that any good brains in Washington DC would be immediately hired away by private business. I do have respect for Senator Inhofe however.
Canadian fruit fly expert warned Markey on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008.
…-
“Jail politicians who ignore climate science: Suzuki
Prominent scientist David Suzuki says that people should look for a way to hold politicians who ignore climate change science legally responsible.”
“How a law concerning climate-change denial could be enforced baffled at least one leading criminal-law expert. “We used to have an offence of spreading false news,” said Kent Roach, the Prichard-Wilson Chair of Law and Public Policy at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.
“But that was struck down by the Supreme Court.”
Yet there could be a better blueprint for Dr. Suzuki’s legal scenario. ”
Read more:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=290513
The best thing we can do is to let these guys keep talking.
I was under the impression the a “Representative” as in a Congressman was to listen to the people, not the other way around.
I hope he gets voted out of office ASAP!!!
“Representative” (of a legislative or deliberative assembly) consisting of people chosen to act and speak on behalf of a wider group.
• (of a government or political system) based on representation of the people by such deputies : free elections and representative democracy.
Fortunately, his biannual performance review and contract renewal is coming up. Might I suggest that anyone in his district give his likely opponents a call and ask how they can help?
Another politician to add to the hit list. I wouldn’t mind if he questioned the “deniers” position, as I do the AGW theory, it’s his closed mind that bothers me. I will donate to his
political opponent.
It’s a financially rewarding state mandated new age religion imposed by elites for elitist interests. What did you expect, decent behaviour and two-way dialogue?
Like Unesco or the Scientologists they’d none of them be missed.
Tony can earn my especial Godspeed by offering to drag Markey along behind the boat as he sails into the sunset through the Northwest Passage
With the tide turning steadily against the ‘global warming’ mob in the US, the People’s Democratic Republic of Massachusetts is probably one of the very few politically safe places in which to make inane remarks like this.
I don’t know what people think in the US, but the outside world looks upon Massachusetts as a place where the politicians can literally get away with murder.
Actually I think he’s right in principle but he’s just got the location wrong! Rational people should have their own country where people like Markey wouldn’t get an entry visa…
I’ve worked out where I would like it to be but I’m not saying in case the price goes up!
I would like every developed country to set up a “carbon free zone” where green fascists can be sent to live the pious life without fossil fuels.
Ozzy Chris, You blokes as well. A threat to liberty anywhere is a threat to liberty everywhere. Our domestic enemies of liberty have always been here. They are shrill and get attention and sometimes get elected. Eventually though, the truth comes out as the sheepskin slips from the wolfand he is rousted(becomes TV pundit). And the Worlds oldest democratic federation persists and prevails.
Wow, this guy is a piece of work. To think he represents the people of Massachusetts. I would be embarrassed if he was my representative.
Malarkey takes the award for arrogance and snark, but for stupidity, I have to stick with his legislative buddy Henry Waxman. From an interview with Tavis Smiley in 2009:
“We’re seeing the reality of a lot of the North Pole starting to evaporate, and we could get to a tipping point. Because if it evaporates to a certain point – they have lanes now where ships can go that couldn’t ever sail through before. And if it gets to a point where it evaporates too much, there’s a lot of tundra that’s being held down by that ice cap.
If that gets released we’ll have more carbon emissions and methane gas in our atmosphere than we have now. We see a lot of destruction happening because of global warming, climate change problems, so we’ve got enough warning signals and enough of a scientific consensus to take this seriously.”
Got it now! Polar icecap evaporates, ships sail through, releases the tundra underneath which spews methane into the air… can anyone say tipping point?
Sorry, Henry, your pop quiz score is 4 wrong out of 3. Didn’t have a purple pen so I had to mark it up in red. Hope that doesn’t scar you for life.
Remember Californians and Massachusetts, these are your elected representatives. What does that say about you?
“Jail politicians who ignore climate science: Suzuki, What is remarkable about David Suzuki’s comment is he and his family spent time in a Japanese internment camp in British Columbia during the 2nd world war.
[REPLY – Over 20,000 were interned. 70% were Canadian citizens. Their property was confiscated. Conditions in the camps were unsanitary and there was inadequate protection from winter cold. After the war, internees were given the choice of forced relocation or deportation. They were forced out of the fishing industry into less lucrative, more undesirable occupations. ~ Evan]
Markey and others like him have already moved to a new country. They are out of touch and out of control. Others write about this now on a regular basis. For example, see …
Peggy Noonan for the WSJ [DECLARATIONS AUGUST 7, 2010]
America Is at Risk of Boiling Over
And out-of-touch leaders don’t see the need to cool things off.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703748904575411713335505250.html
There is a cute graphic also.
With that kind of keen mind and insightful arguments, he must be bucking for a Nobel prize. They do tend to give it to those that make such enlightened statements.
lichanos that was obviously not humor nor an attempt at humor. Comparing people to Holocaust deniers isn’t funny. He is revealing what he really is and that is a radical leftist.
Arn Riewe
No body could be that stupid. That is on the level of Guam flipping over and the American flag planted on Mars by the lunar mission.
Sour grapes by Markey.
MA has been wondering around for decades. After all they gave their electorial votes to George McGovern. Not to mention outstanding folks like Ted Kennedy. And John Kerry. And they also gave us the blueprint for Obamacare, namely Romneycare. So it’s fitting, imho, that MA polls think Ptolemy was really correct and that the heliocentric model stand right there besides AGW in the hallowed halls of Beakon Hill.
The Congressman has held his seat for so long, and with huge advantage that incumbents have in American politics, there is no real chance he will lose his seat. It is a shame but there it is. But we can take some comfort in the bitterness of the Alarmist crowd. They are losing and they know it. Keep up the fantastic work Anthony. Please plan a Canadian tour soon.
As for “I can see November from my house”. That is the Funniest thing I have heard in a month. I suspect it will be copied shamelessly all over the web.
PaulH- “The best thing we can do is to let these guys keep talking.”
Agreed.
If your congressman is so concerned about AGW, why does he have 3 offices with their commensurate heating, cooling and staff travel requirements and why is he suggesting that his constituents travel to these offices when he has email and phone access?
Is he exempt from reducing his energy footprint or is this another instance of “do as I say, not what I do”?
(from Australia, where we need our own revolution)
A remarkable example of the argument for “Term Limits”.
You could put everything Ed Markey knows about global warming in a small plastic bottle, and the walls would still collapse from the low internal pressure.
He’s just a left wing pol who knows nothing of science; what else would you expect from him?
“pat says:
August 8, 2010 at 4:49 pm
Arn Riewe
No body could be that stupid. That is on the level of Guam flipping over and the American flag planted on Mars by the lunar mission.”
Pat,
Stupid is as stupid does. Remember, he’s chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee in the House. Read and watch for yourself.
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200904/20090413_waxman.html
pat says:
August 8, 2010 at 4:49 pm
“and the American flag planted on Mars by the lunar mission.”
Say what? I missed that one. So if any others did too here is a link to the story.
http://www.zimbio.com/Congresswoman+Sheila+Jackson+Lee/articles/31/Breaking+News+Exhaustive+Search+NASA+Archives
Markey has been my rep for as long as I can remember. He has the IQ of your average doorknob. To suggest that he is a “left wing” pol is to suggest that the man knows his right hand from his left, which I can assure you he does not, or at least not without help.
As the warmers are those who are promoting a brave new world by changing everybody’s living habits, I would tell them:
“Why don’t you go ahead and move to the new world you are proposing? Please serve yourself, and don’t wait for us. Leave us and the majority of people with healthy brains living in the world it has cost so much for mankind to build.”
I know let’s call it the USA.
I think I know what to do with all of our cruise lines now.
This should be investigated by the House ethics committee as hate speech. This man is hoping that tens of millions of Americans will move to an inhospitable melting iceberg knowing that it would be their death sentence. He is sick and unfit to be serving the American people when he has so much obvious contempt for them.
I think we should just take back this one. It is roomier, and not shrinking, as the credibility of alarmist garbage like AGW is.
Markey doesn’t understand that it is he who is a “denier” on global warming. He is denying there is an other credible side in this scientific debate on the climate and whether there is any real change in the past, now, or to come. It seems he just bought his own ticket to his new country. Pack up your long johns Markey, you picked a rather cold and unstable place to live.
Iggy Slanter says . . .
“As for ‘I can see November from my house’. That is the Funniest thing I have heard in a month. I suspect it will be copied shamelessly all over the web.”
Actually, it’s been around for a while.
Markey = alarmist = act like God!
We the people of reason, who believe in individual liberty and the natural rights of man keep pointing out the hypocrisy, arrogance and thinly disguised agendas of the other group the Collectivists until we are blue in the face. It’s time to stop. All Colectivists regardless of their strip or whatever fake cause they claim to represent all have the same end in mind, which is to destroy the free market or at least bilk billions off of it. Anybody with any objective sense knows that there is no Human Made Global Warming, never has been, never will be.
So then, what’s to do done. The time for arguing with them is over. Long over. It’s past time we did what must done. They have to be resisted and defeated publicly and privately. This Congressman and every one like him needs to be simply thrown out of office, end of story There’s no way one can reason with the unreasonable. It’s that plain and simple.
“lichanos says:
August 8, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Oh cool it with the righteous indignation. I share your disdain for Markey’s bill in Congress, but the man was making a joke. A stupid joke, a joke based on his pseudo-science ideology…”
INDEED – Markey has become a bad joke for the whole WORLD to watch … and a sad joke to boot ….
But we have our share of idiots north of the magic line in the Great White North. The Mounties and the FBI may respect the magic line but stupidity crosses with impunity.
Al Gore said AGW has moved on from science (which is settled) to now a moral issue. Markey is carrying the torch.
Congressmen generally don’t have the time or IQ necessary to do their own research, so they depend on the expert information of well respected organisations like the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.
“An iceberg four times the size of Manhattan has broken off Greenland, creating plenty of room for global warming deniers to start their own country,” Markey said in a statement.
Dear Congressman Markey: This is what glaciers do when they are healthy. Maybe if you had paid attention in High School science classes, you could see through the new federally funded religion of “Climate Scientology” Actual scientists and engineers can tell the difference.
“John F. Hultquist says:
August 8, 2010 at 5:29 pm
“and the American flag planted on Mars by the lunar mission.”
Say what? I missed that one. So if any others did too here is a link to the story.
http://www.zimbio.com/Congresswoman+Sheila+Jackson+Lee/articles/31/Breaking+News+Exhaustive+Search+NASA+Archives”
Apparently Ms. Lee is cranially challenged. Let’s not forget her “two Vietnams” of a few weeks ago:
Do we have a common theme going? Three congresspeople with the collective IQ of a box of rocks.
So idiocracy is the way to go, right?
Let’s step back for a second from the global warming issue and look at the way our society works in general. Say we have the following situation:
– there is a real and very serious crisis that requires taking action well in advance before its effect become apparent;
– it is of such nature that once those effect are there to see by all, it is too late to do anything to prevent it; the only way to prevent is significant sacrifices by the general population, which makes preventive action highly unpopular;
– not only that, the majority of people so not understand why we should be worried about it, because they are too scientifically (and generally) illiterate, and it is only a small group of scientists who understand it well
– those scientists are seen by the masses as belonging to the self-appointed intellectually arrogant “elites”
The above description fits very well global warming, peak oil, and our global ecological overshoot in general, but I am not talking about those right now, I am talking in general, there can be plenty of other such scenarios.
So can someone explain to me what mechanism is currently present in our society that will make sure that action is taken on time in such a situation?
Deniersberg , no government there , sounds like paradise! See everyone there! I get first dibs on ocean front property.
Markey = Malarkey
Brent in Calgary
I think, it is no big deal… just don’t go cheap, give us deniers whole Antarctic! When Manhattan and Florida are under water and island archipelago what remains of U.S. is constantly battered by class 10 hurricanes, that bring droughts, tornadoes and snowstorms, they (believers) will beg us for mercy!
There’s nothing unusual, nor climate induced about this. I copied a bit if iceberg information from the Britannica website, and edited for brevity:
http://www.britannica.com/titanic/iceberg.html
“Icebergs form during the spring and summer when warmer weather increases the rate of calving (separation) of icebergs at the boundaries of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and other glaciers. In the Northern Hemisphere, about 10,000 icebergs are produced each year from the west Greenland glaciers, and an average of 375 flow south of Newfoundland into the North Atlantic shipping lanes, where they are a hazard to navigation.
At the point where glaciers or ice shelves meet the sea, water pressure beneath the ice shelf or glacier tongue interacts with the outward-moving glacier. Tides, which may have ranges up to 6 m in the Arctic, with small sea level changes associated with wind and swells, produce an intermittent increase and decrease in force on the protruding end of the glacier or ice shelf, and this results in the birth of a large monolith of drifting ice. Most Antarctic icebergs are formed through gradual break off from the Antarctic continental ice sheet as it thins toward the coast and exudes into the ocean as a great ice shelf with fronts hundreds of kilometres long.
Icebergs are produced at a rate of approximately 280 cubic km per year (67 cubic miles per year) in the Arctic and 1,800 cubic km per year in the Antarctic. Western Greenland is the major iceberg source area in the Northern Hemisphere
Quick question – have you ever seen climatologists talk about “the other side” as “rotten capitalists”, right wing wackos, etc.? I haven’t. They talk about the science and never about politics. While plenty of “arguments” from “the other side” are purely political. Like your blatantly politically motivated rant above.
It is our responsibility to vote. If you enjoy this kind of rhetoric vote him back in. If you do not like this kind of rhetoric vote him and his kind out. Do not forget to vote.
In think Mr. Markey should take a two week vacation in Vostok, Antarctica, where right now it is…
-100 °F
Clear
Good news, though. By Friday, it ‘ll warm up to -51 F during the daytime!
Due to congressman Markey the Black Hawk Down tragedy, the hurricane Katarina, and the Darfur conflict (an area that btw will have more precipitation from AGW) was all caused by AGW…
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=32291
Repent (i.e. pay higher taxes, and get your personal freedom abolished) now!
GM says:
August 8, 2010 at 6:21 pm
“[…]
So can someone explain to me what mechanism is currently present in our society that will make sure that action is taken on time in such a situation?”
Currently? Brute force. Over the long haul? Darwinism.
Please, please don’t send me to Markey’s Island.
I’ll be good, anywhere but Markey’s Island.
Oh the humanity!
Fascism usually comes from the Left.
It is probably the most ugly statement I’ve ever seen from a politician regarding a group of people with ideas that disagree with the politician’s own view.
That’s funny, I see worse almost every day.
If it were a race or class issue, he’d be vilified.
No, he wouldn’t. He’s a liberal Democrat. American politics, Rule 3: liberals can say and do anything they want, any time they want, and never pay any political or legal price for it.
Quick question – have you ever seen climatologists talk about “the other side” as “rotten capitalists”, right wing wackos, etc.? I haven’t. They talk about the science and never about politics. While plenty of “arguments” from “the other side” are purely political.
Now that is funny, I would say that your statement is absolutely refuted by the facts on the ground. The alarmist side is vastly more political that those of us who don’t believe the science is as solid as they think. For that we get branded with names like “denier” etc. Its shameful. You post is just too naive for me to take seriously.
I am sure we “deniers” could do better on that piece of ice than the U. S. Congress does in the country it destroys.
The house of representitives passed the cap and tax bill and I let my rep know it was wrong. He answered my e-mail trying to defend his vote. I will respond by voting against him this fall and hope it doesn’t get passed by the lame ducks.
It was tried by the first Democrat-it was called “Indian Territory”-Oklahoma.
My Granma would not take a $20 in change..
Cong. Markey: He has a long public track record in congress going back to the 70’s. Even then he was an extreme oddball regarding energy issues and his ideas never made sense or were impossible to implement. He’s always despised the oil and natural gas industries; but the level of vitriol and strange public positions he took early on in congressional testimony made him an impractical laughing stock to both government regulators and congress. He rarely contributed to positive legislation regarding the o&g industries. His odd-ball so called public interest record speaks for itself. These guys never change.
Americans who trust their government are living in a dream world.
The worst part of your comment is the fact that Marlarky is still a Congressman, 26 YEARS LATER!!!
Hello? … Massachusetts … what the hell is wrong with you people?
My representative too, I regret to say. Apologies to the rational people in this country for inflicting this self-aggrandizing fool upon you.
He will have opposition this year, with two Republicans competing in the primary, Tom Tierney and Gerry Dembrowski.
Tierney is a liberal who will be indistinguishable from Malarkey in most things; he’s probably brighter (being an actuary) but is currently campaigning by declaring how much he likes and agrees with Ed Markey. Dembrowski I think is a chiropractor who is much more conservative, and thus is likely to take a more careful look at the claims of the Alarmists, and is not likely to vote for Crap and Tax.
So if you’re in the 7th Congressional District of Massachusetts, I recommend voting for Dembrowski in the primary and in November.
/Mr Lynn
Ah, thanks for clearing that up for me. I feel much better now. Because this kind of rhetoric has happened before makes it perfectly acceptable now. Whew … it is all clear to me now. You know, murders have happened before too, lots of them, I suppose those are ok now too then huh? Bank robberies were almost common places some decades ago (not too uncommon now), but it’s all ok now, since they have happened before I am sure the judge will see it my way … “your honor, this kind of thing has been common place in the past, therefor, there is nothing wrong with it”
sheesh .. get a logical clue, would you?
Wow, talk about taking a throw-away bit of ribbing utterly out of context and making into a crime against humanity! Why so touchy? Finally realizing you are wrong?
You can not support someone who is a chiropractor and claim that you are on the side of science and reason. You simply can’t. Being a chiropractor should automatically disqualify anyone for any position of authority, power and/or public service, because chiropractic is on the same level of scientific legitimacy as astrology and Christianity. I can see absolutely no way in which you can be supporting and understanding science and reason and vote for such a person. But if you are politically motivated and you don’t care at all about science, then it is very much understandable…
squid2112 says:
“Hello? … Massachusetts … what the hell is wrong with you people?”
I live in the People’s Socialist Soviet of Mexifornia, so I feel the need to respond. [BTW, I never vote for anyone to the left of Attila the Hun, at least regarding fiscal matters. ☺]
The problem is the politicians and special interests have learned to game the system. Like this:
When a pol gets elected, he doesn’t speak for the constituents any more. He immediately goes to [and is approached by] intermediaries of special interests who can deliver voting blocks: unions, eco-alarmists, tenured faculty, mainstream media interests, etc.
The leadership of these special interests and the pols have an implicit agreement: votes for cash. But not just any cash. The politicians trade the taxpaying public’s money for the votes necessary to remain a perpetual incumbent.
The majority of the taxpaying public is not part of these special interest groups, but their money is extorted to keep the incumbents in office and the special interests paid off with their loot.
This doesn’t just happen in Massachusetts or California. The same shenanigans go on in every democracy — all of which have been similarly rigged.
So have a little sympathy for those of us trapped into being extorted by these organized thieves. Folks like us didn’t vote for a single one of them. But we pay the freight, in return for …absolutely nothing, except more ravenous shakedowns by these scoundrels.
In my younger days, the older generation was fond of saying “America, love it or leave it”.
Congressman Markey is old enough to remember those words, being born in 1946.
They didn’t say “Nixon’s America, love it or leave it”.
Why would they now say “Congress Markeys America, love it or leave it”?
Nope, sorry, there are no guarantees in life. That is the way the universe works. As for your examples, they are rubbish. There is no AGW, and there is no “peak oil”. Even if I were to suppose they existed, there isn’t anything you could do about either. It is a rough and cruel universe out there, and you will perish at some point, like it or not.
“Deniersberg”
I’m all for moving there.I think it would be a great place to live.
Smokey,
My question to all the people of this country, we have a mechanism in place to guard against this, why are we not using it? (votes). Come on, we know the problems here. The vast majority of people in this country know and understand the problems. We absolutely can, and at this point in time, we must root this evil out of our system. It has been done before, and we must do it again, this time with even greater vigor. There is a simple choice here. Do you want liberty, or do you not? Those are your only choices. It is time that the people of this country (including myself, and I have), get the hell off of their lazy fricken asses and fight for the very freedom and liberty that has made this country the greatest civilization on Earth. Think about it. Where did the car come from? the plane? Typewriters, Computers, phonographs, iPhones, toaster ovens, televisions, telephones, and on and on and on. We not only invented and developed all of those things, in the past, we actually produced all of those things for the rest of the world. Without our freedom’s, liberties and free market, none of these things would have ever come about.
Is not your very way of life worth fighting for? And for the rest of you people from other parts of the world, you had better pray to what ever God you pray to, that the American people get off their asses and save this country, for your very livelihoods depend upon it as well. America always has been, and continues to be, the very engine that drives this entire world, however, this engine is in disrepair and needs to be fixed now!
[snip- ott]
squid2112,
We’re on the same page.
Smokey,
My point being, it doesn’t matter if the system is “rigged”. It’s only rigged because we have allowed it to be rigged. We can, and we must, un-rig this system. It not only can be done, it can be done quite easily if we just band together, ignore and disregard these feeble attempts to tear us apart (from climate to racism). Resist these distractions, stay focused and remove the rigging. Know your representatives and do your research, then vote. Get your friends, family and neighbors to do the same. We are all in this together.
At the end of the day, there is no rigging but what we allow. This is our country and we shall restore our freedom, for we are the people!
squid2112 says:
August 8, 2010 at 8:19 pm
Smokey says:
August 8, 2010 at 8:24 pm
Without comment.
Maybe Congressman Malarkey should read this!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/7933235/Commodity-spike-queers-the-pitch-for-Bernankes-QE2.html
With respect to this question yes. I can ask another one – do you want you grandkids to live or do you want your lineage to end there (or before that)?
The “greatest civilization on Earth”? A country of morbidly obese dimwits half of who think the Earth is 6000 years old and a third of which think the Sun rotates around the Earth and who spent their time sitting behind desks, eating junk food and watching TV? I think the “lazy fricken ass” description fits you very well, because you seem to not have bothered yourself with actually looking around you and understanding what’s going on.
Europe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile#History
USA.
Europe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typewriters#History
Europe
US
squid’s, right. Well put.
Barry
I very strongly disagree!
Let us wait and see who is right.
Observation is the only final arbiter of a dispute:
After human emissions of CO2 for 60-years, there was no change in the global warming rate in the period from 1970 to 2000 compared to that in the period from 1910 to 2000. As a result, according to the data, according to the science, human emissions of CO2 has NO effect on the global warming rate.
GM: You are out of your league. Back to Poli-Sci class, the SDS or wherever you’re from. And out down the bottle or weed because, frankly, it’s kind of embarrassing.
someone’s probably said this before me. (no time to read the deluge of comments) but…I think it’s Mr Markey and his alarmist friends that are on thin ice…that’s why they sound so shrill!
Keep up the good work.
GM wrote:
“Let’s step back for a second from the global warming issue and look at the way our society works in general. Say we have the following situation:
– there is a real and very serious crisis that requires taking action well in advance before its effect become apparent;
– it is of such nature that once those effect are there to see by all, it is too late to do anything to prevent it; the only way to prevent is significant sacrifices by the general population, which makes preventive action highly unpopular;
– not only that, the majority of people so not understand why we should be worried about it, because they are too scientifically (and generally) illiterate, and it is only a small group of scientists who understand it well
– those scientists are seen by the masses as belonging to the self-appointed intellectually arrogant “elites”
…snip…
So can someone explain to me what mechanism is currently present in our society that will make sure that action is taken on time in such a situation?”
Assuming you’re not just trolling and this is an honest question, you rigged it by saying the majority of people are too illiterate to understand the issue. That’s not true, if the science is done correctly, carefully, and transparently. The people may not understand the science exactly, but, in general, they understand when they are being told the truth. And then, action will be taken. Of course, the scientists must act like scientists, and not like activists.
GM says:
August 8, 2010 at 8:48 pm
“With respect to this question yes. I can ask another one – do you want you grandkids to live or do you want your lineage to end there (or before that)?”
Why are you so worried by a purported 0.6 deg C rise in temperatures?
Girma says:
“After human emissions of CO2 for 60-years, there was no change in the global warming rate in the period from 1970 to 2000 compared to that in the period from 1910 to 2000. As a result, according to the data, according to the science, human emissions of CO2 has NO effect on the global warming rate.”
Girma is exactly right.
What I find interesting is how ice has become the poster boy of AGW.
To put the volume of ice in perspective from the original article –
Converting the standard US areal unit of a “Manhattan” into SI units is 59km2 * 4 = 236 km2
= 236 000 000 m2
assume it is half an “Empire State Building” thick (another unit of measure I was unfamiliar with) which is 220m, we get
= 51 900 000 000 m3 of ice
= 47 300 000 000 m3 of water
= 45.3 hours discharge of the Amazon river at 209 000 m3 / sec
It is hard to work out, but this calving appears to occur every 10 years to so.
Therefore the glacier is flowing at the rate of 0.0005 Amazons.
Of course a river of ice must be different than a normal river, as it seems to AGWists they don’t ebb and flow.
PS When I did my engineering degree we were told if you wish to hide inconvenient data always express it in the most inconvenient unit. For example express the speed of light in furlongs per fortnight.
[snip – funny indeed. but trolls will misconstrue this simple humor and make an issue of it, since they have no humor themselves ~mod]
In the 1960’s, the Vietnam War became a political wedge issue. It divided brothers, generations, even parents from parents.
It ended when the politics could no longer drive a wedge with it. Reality had set in.
So too will Global Warming as a wedge issue end.
Right now, that is what the Congressman and his followers are trying to do, drive a wedge with a label.
And I understand he is quite sore over the failure of his bill.
This too shall pass…. the wedge issue…just as soon as America wises up to what is going on.
We got more important things to do, like rebuild the place.
I didn’t rig the question, this was part of the initial conditions. And it is very much true in real life – 1/5 of people in the world are completely illiterate and even in a developed country like the US, the level of scientific and math literacy is abysmal (and it’s not just those areas that are affected).
You can not claim that “the people will understand if they are told the truth” because we have many examples in which they were have been told the truth, it has been explained to them with great patience many times again and again, and they still refused to accept it, the best example being evolution. The majority of people in this country are creationists, and this is not because the scientists haven’t done their part in educating the public, it is because they are running against people’s religion.
And it is much worse if we define scientific literacy the way it should be defined, i.e. as a working understanding of the methodology of science, rather than just the ability to recite a laundry list of facts learned in school.
So yes, the people are ignorant and illiterate. And there is no mechanism to fix that in the system either
Using blanket dismissal of your opponents position without actually providing any arguments against is often a sign of mere inability to provide them. You don’t win any points for that post
Perhaps useful as a mobile research station alla “Fletchers Island” from the 1950s…
Around Pole on Iceberg
http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/27133618
phillychuck says:
August 8, 2010 at 9:18 pm
GM wrote:
“[…]”- those scientists are seen by the masses as belonging to the self-appointed intellectually arrogant “elites””
“[…]So can someone explain to me what mechanism is currently present in our society that will make sure that action is taken on time in such a situation?”
Assuming you’re not just trolling and this is an honest question, you rigged it by saying the majority of people are too illiterate to understand the issue. […]”
Yeah, very good, GM has set up his strawman in such a way that the answer must be “A strong and righteous leader; and a temporary suspension of democracy Lovelock-style”. Very good, GM; would you keep yourself available for this position as a strong antidemocratic leader in case we need one? TIA.
Markey is a typical product of his time, an ignorant politician with lots of power that has gone to his head. The truth doesnt matter and reality matters even less, all that matters is the excersise of power and influence combined with his own socio political ideology.
Markey has made his mind up, he knows in his own tiny mind that he knows everything, he exhibits the certainty of the idiot and as usual with that kind of politician he has allowed his base instincts to rule what is left of his rational mind.
Arrogance combined with a sense of self importance is a poisonous mixture and in a politician it is dangerous, the fact is that Markey is losing the argument to his hated enemies and he feels his efforts are being destroyed by his enemies. Such is his sense of self importance he is getting angry at those he perceives to be to blame, they become his enemies.
We in the western world have allowed our political classes too much power for too long, they have been allowed to remove themselves from the lives and wishes of ordinary people and they now exist in a kind of bubble sealed off from the reality we ordinary people face, these political classes now feel superior and born to rule, it is the usual result of a degenerating democratic life and it is happening right now.
The gap between ordinary people and the political classes widens, the political classes believe in their own self inflated importance and they are starting to feel that only they should be allowed to rule, only they have the keys to the future. We in the west have allowed our political representatives too much power for too long, we have allowed them to build their power bases and inflate their egos, they are simply following a well known psychological path.
Democracy is like a garden, it must be tended with the utmost care, plants must be trimmed constantly and weeds dug up, the work must never end. The political classes have become the out of control weeds and its time they were evicted or at least trimmed down to size, it always happens when a small group of people are left to their own devices in charge, they have formed a society that looks after their own interests first and they now look down on those they see as inferior beings.
GM says:
August 8, 2010 at 9:38 pm
“[…]And it is much worse if we define scientific literacy the way it should be defined, i.e. as a working understanding of the methodology of science, rather than just the ability to recite a laundry list of facts learned in school.
So yes, the people are ignorant and illiterate. And there is no mechanism to fix that in the system either”
You are heaping abuse on abuse. Maybe you are rather well suited for the role of a benign, righteous strongman. Keep working on your attitude and we’ll get back to you.
Dear moderator, your point is well-taken. I thought the well-known “how many politicians would it take to screw in the light bulb” joke was not only humorous, but a fine exemplar of Congressman Markey’s baleful comedic stylings. Certainly, there was no harm intended on my part. As with Congressman Markey, I’m sure, I was only kidding.
REPLY: I agree with his decision, but no worries on your part. There are crazy people hanging on every word printed here, looking for some “gotcha” to exploit. -Anthony
wow, I can’t believe that politicians would make this sort of statement anymore. This can be taken as an attack on our liberty and free speech, since if we don’t believe in global warming, he wants us to leave instead of debate. How Un-American can you be. Denying free speech to people by telling them to leave in a nation that is know for their free speech policies
What a typical ‘it’s a hot year up here this year in Mass, so the whole world is hot too!’
Go look at: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/cag3.html
to see the US picture. If you select ‘Year to date’ you will see the SE of the US is cooler this year, the NE is warmer, the rest is middling.
Mr Congressman, stop playing God and stick to the USA. The data for you is: ‘situation normal’.
Buster.
I would creat an imaginary bird for my birdfeeder called the Markeybird, but I already have one. It’s called the Cookoo?
leftymartin: August 8, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Markey told high school students, from the World Wildlife Fund’s Allianz Southeast Climate Witness Program, gathered at Capitol Hill on July 10, 2008, that “in Somalia back in 1993, climate change, according to 11 three- and four-star generals, resulted in a drought which led to famine…
Name them Congressman.
Oooooh, you can’t.
Because it didn’t happen.
GM says:
August 8, 2010 at 9:38 pm
“So yes, the people are ignorant and illiterate.”
Kuz that’s why I like the Smart Grid and the
Smart Meters… kuz I’m smart too.
We must increase the energy tax so we can give
it to GE immediately, if not sooner.
Act now, before the rainbows Attack!
The “greatest civilization on Earth”? A country of morbidly obese dimwits half of who think the Earth is 6000 years old and a third of which think the Sun rotates around the Earth and who spent their time sitting behind desks, eating junk food and watching TV?
Whereas the highly educated sophisticates of Western Europe appear to believe that a 5% tax hike results in 5% greater revenues.
I’m not sure which point of view is more dimwitted.
But I am fairly certain that the latter view is, from a purely practical standpoint, equally false and immensely more destructive to human lives (and freedoms).
“An iceberg four times the size of Manhattan has broken off Greenland, creating plenty of room for global warming deniers to start their own country,” Markey said in a statement.
That’s nice congressman. But since you’re the icehugger isn’t the climate on the iceberg more to your liking?
—>
………..
Don’t Be a Sucker – Don’t Be Suckered. THINK! We are all members of many minorities. Think and protect your natural born rights to freedom! Protect yourself from ANY politician regardless of party affiliation who wants to split people apart like Markey does.
GM thinks anyone who believes in chiropractic or Christianity is unfit for public office, but that Wikipedia, where anybody can post anything or alter any article (unless one is taking a skeptical position concerning AGW), is a reliable source of historical information on who invented what.
This comment is revealing:
“The ‘greatest civilization on Earth’? A country of morbidly obese dimwits half of who think the Earth is 6000 years old and a third of which think the Sun rotates around the Earth and who spent their time sitting behind desks, eating junk food and watching TV? I think the ‘lazy fricken ass’ description fits you very well, because you seem to not have bothered yourself with actually looking around you and understanding what’s going on. ”
Then there is this:
“The majority of people in this country are creationists, and this is not because the scientists haven’t done their part in educating the public, it is because they are running against people’s religion.”
So GM is an American who hates the USA, is ungrammatical, uses Canadian punctuation, and flat out lies. A majority of people in this country are not morbidly obese dimwits, are not creationists, and do not believe the Earth is 6,000 years old. GM manufactures statistics out of thin air–standard operating procedure for AGW believers–and then uses them to trash an entire nation and its people, backing up his superior self-view by citing Wikipedia entries. (Note I am using “he” and “his” in the generic since, as I do not know GM’s gender.) Does he qualify as a troll or just as an egomaniacal bonehead?
BTW, I am not a Christian or chiropractor, am not obese, and do not spend my time watching television while eating junk food. I also do not know a single person who fits GM’s description of the typical American. If he really hates America and Americans so much, why does he live here? Isn’t this indicative of some kind of masochistic neurosis?
[SNIP. Baseless name-calling.]
If global warming skeptics were an ethnic or religious group, Markey’s suggestion would definitely qualify as hate speech. And my sarcastic response would be: Ethnic cleansing, anyone?
Nevertheless Markey’s gaffe is quite revealing. There are a number of political movements uniting under the Climate Alarmist banner. One thing that most of them have in common is a lack of tolerance for free speech. Edward Markey, thanks for reminding us of that fact.
“GM says:
August 8, 2010 at 9:41 pm”
GM, you are way way way behind the curve. Ipcc CAGW Climate Science is not using the Scientific Method. Familiarize yourself with the contents of this blog. You will be seriously awakened. It’s worth it.
“If ye love wealth better than liberty,
the tranquility of servitude
better than the animating contest of freedom,
go home from us in peace.
We ask not your counsels or your arms.
Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.
May your chains set lightly upon you,
and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”
When I see garbage like Markey, and the venom he spews, I’m reminded of a Thomas Jefferson quote.
“The tree of liberty, from time to time, must be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”
I am so tired of people like Markey who make a mockery of the sacrifices of our forefathers. I’m tired of people like him who spit in the face of our heritage. How long will we have to endure such maniacs? When will the people of Massachusetts remember their roots? Why do they insist on inflicting the worst of their worst upon the rest of us? Are they in a competition with California? What’s wrong with these people?
GM:
[Post Normal Science, “begging the question”, ~Precautionary Principle, blah blah blah….]
– those scientists are seen by the masses as belonging to the self-appointed intellectually arrogant “elites”
The above description fits very well global warming, peak oil, and our global ecological overshoot in general, but I am not talking about those right now, I am talking in general, there can be plenty of other such scenarios.
So can someone explain to me what mechanism is currently present in our society that will make sure that action is taken on time in such a situation?
Well, GM, I can actually think of an infinite number of such scenarios, and “support” them, simply by using Post Normal Science’s own [anti-Scientific Method] method, which therefore brought us the totally unscientifically concocted CAGW controllist propaganda senario which you have apparently fallen prey to: simply use, as did the ipcc Climate Scientists, “Whatever is at all conceiveable as a possible imminent threat, is therefore an actual threat and even a burgeoning epidemic; and we must immediately do something really stupid – especially such as giving ultimate power over us to those who have concocted the senario, committing suicide, or returning to the Stone Age, etc. – or else we’re all gonna die.”
GM, the question is not what to do about the infinite number of scientifically untethered, psychopathologically disasterizing senarios made equally available by nearly anyone’s own imagination – and now concocted and backed by $billions in propaganda operations by would be Controllists such as the current Communists/”Progressives” and Post Normal Scientists themselves, in order to achieve their real ends, self-aggrandizement and control – and, of course, alleged meaning in life.
Because absolutely nothing should be done about those kind of senarios, except to first compare and expose them to the Scientific Method – again which in the case of CAGW has not been done by the ipcc Climate Scientists themselves, but instead finally by the “skeptics”.
So the real question, GM, is when are you going to recognize unscientific Propaganda for what it is, and face that very real threat?
Do politicians have a list of desired traits that enable them to do what they do? And if so, when did “cretin” become de rigueur?
Don’t get too wound up! The best thing to do in this situation is to laugh and let the evidence speak for itself. American politicians have a grand tradition of moronic utterances. Who can fail to be entertained by Sarah Palins nonsensical utterances and that past master of the foot in mouth gag Dan Quail, we miss him on this side of the Atlantic. Keep your science and politics apart, and don’t go over the top by comparing crummy jokes with racial persecution.
GM says:
August 8, 2010 at 11:11 pm
“[…]GM says:
August 8, 2010 at 9:41 pm
Using blanket dismissal of your opponents position without actually providing any arguments against is often a sign of mere inability to provide them. You don’t win any points for that post ”
Just repeats his stupid point… Stubborn… Very good leadership quality there; combined with the refusal to accept the fact that the Alarmist Congressmen are, unfortunately, mentally challenged…
So, GM-bot, are you programmed to answer this question: What is it about democracy that you don’t understand?
“Congressman Malarkey”… I love it! I’ve been calling him that since he first came to my attention back in the 70s.
The Congressman has, for decades, been on the side of increased use of fossil fuels, and increased release of CO2 into the atmosphere. That is, he has been a consistent, absolutist opponent of nuclear power. (That’s the options: Carbon, or fission. At this point, there’s nothing else standing between us and a fast-track return to the 16th century.)
A high school friend of mine, after he got out of the Navy as a reactor operator on the Nimitz, said he considered working for Markey — that Markey desperately needed someone standing beside him to nudge him and whisper in his ear “Congressman, you’re saying something stupid again.” (If he applied, I’m sure he didn’t get the job.)
stevengoddard says: at 3:44 pm
“…This looks like one of those “collapsing ice shelf” stories which can be recycled by the press every couple of years.”
Yes, and it’s a British media favourite. They’ve even used the same pictures five years in a row because they think we are all too stupid to notice. They also forget to mention that the two reasons these lumps break off is because the glaciers are growing and forcing themselves into water, and it’s the weight of ice that snaps off the end section because no melting has occurred.
All these stories are doing terrible damage in the UK, and they will in the US, too, if the gang of climate change liars can get away with it. For example, a new law is being enacted to charge developers a £15,000 “green tax” on every new home they build. Part of this tax includes contributions to a “buy-out fund” to pay for the construction of wind farms, solar panels or geothermal technologies in the local area, which would supply the new development with “green” power.
The housing minister, Grant Shapps, said: “We are committed to being the greenest government ever, and an essential part of that is to ensure that all homes in the future will be built without emitting any carbon. This announcement is an important and very significant step in that direction because for the first time we have described in detail how developers might be expected to achieve zero carbon, by connecting developments to local energy schemes.”
The previous government, the most incompetent and corrupt in our history, which we’ve just kicked out, set the 2016 “zero-carbon” target in 2006 but did little to explain how it would be met, or even what the definition meant. Supporters of the tax complain that the coalition has reneged on a promise to set out a definition for a zero-carbon home “within weeks” of taking office.
If you don’t live in Britain, consider yourself lucky you don’t have to put up with eco-loonies like these.
Come on it’s an amusing comment – first sign I’ve seen that global warmers have one!
Having been awarded a ‘gate for their climate post-science science, the warmists are eager to return us a favour by awarding us skeptics with a big chunk of ice, proving that there’s a lot of it up there, not to mention the record sea ice cover down at the South Pole. They’re drowning in their own s…t and a drowning man will clutch at straws and icebergs too, but drown he will eventually.
I get the impression that many politicians are really failed professionals, having failed to make it out in the competitive world, then constrianed to join a politcal party for the gravy.
I m not american, but european and I thought this was an EU malady, but I m wrong, its international.
GM says:
August 8, 2010 at 9:38 pm
“And it is much worse if we define scientific literacy the way it should be defined, i.e. as a working understanding of the methodology of science, rather than just the ability to recite a laundry list of facts learned in school.
The Climategate leak shows that the ‘scientists’ working at the UEA CRU, purported to be one of the worlds top climate research facilities, do not understand the scientific method, or if they do, choose to ignore it. Any hypothesis must have tests for falsifiability built into it, but CAGW is nothing more than cargo cult science, as these tests for falsification are ignored.
The most interesting revelation came during a BBC interview with Dr. Jones who was head of the CRU before being suspended. During the interview he confessed that there had been no statistically significant warming for the past 15y. This falsifies the CAGW hypothesis – CO2 levels rose quickly over this period meaning that is a minor player in climate change.
Perhaps no surprise that fewer and fewer people believe in the CAGW myth!
Perhaps Markey should be the one to go since he is in the minority with his alarmist group.
GM,
You’ve chosen a very curious forum from which to pontificate about ‘scientific illiteracy’. Sounds like you’re not too familiar with WUWT, and the issues typically hashed out around here. Stick around, love to hear your ‘literate’ input moving forward.
Max Hugoson says:
August 8, 2010 at 3:42 pm
The head of the ANS, with an absolute “poker face”, when asked a question by Ted Kopple, responded by saying, “Before I answer those questions Ted, I’d like to address some of the points brought up by Congressman Malarky..”
Thanks, that is very funny Max.
Malarky Island, Malarkyberg, or Malarkyville would be a better name for the berg.
Maybe we should plant a flag on it so the press can properly refer to it with threat status reports for the next several years.
Oh and GM, for a hilariously literate distillation of the climate *science* debate, check out:
http://climateaudit.org/2010/08/06/mosher-on-gavins-frustration/
I’m happy living in England since the glaciers retreated after the last iceage because it warmed. I don’t fancy Greenland with the glaciers expanding as they’d push me into the sea. It’s also a bit cold up there like the soviet siberian gulags were. Lost the plot or what?
GM wrote: The “greatest civilization on Earth”? A country of morbidly obese dimwits half of who think the Earth is 6000 years old and a third of which think the Sun rotates around the Earth and who spent their time sitting behind desks, eating junk food and watching TV?
I don’t think it’s true that half think the earth is 6,000 years old. I think it’s that something like half believe that the human race is less than 6,000 or 10,000 years old. But never mind that. If your point is valid, it’s valid also with the latter claim. Trouble is, it’s not valid, because some great majority of the people who believe the “right stuff” are scientifically illiterate; their beliefs are about as stupid as the beliefs you’re talking about. For example, some of them believe in Lamarckian evolution (without knowing that’s what they believe), and most that believe in Darwinism think the explanation from mutation and natural selection is “obviously” correct, or unproblematical.
I presume those who appointed him to chair his committee will now dismiss him without delay due to his inability to at least give an intellectual assessment to both sides of the argument. And surely the people of Massachussets cannot really elect him again – if they do they themselves will be ridiculed for appointing a clown and buffoon. to represent them.
“When government doesn’t agree with the people,
it’s time to change the people”
Bertolt Brecht
I just think it so funny that in America and in the UK the political parties most enamoured of AGW are the strongest parties in the cold northern parts of the country. In both countries, with many local exceptions, southern = conservative and northern = left wing. In both countries the believers will and have been disproportionately affected by cold weather. Those who already have warmer weather seem less bothered than those who spend a part of the year in the freezer.
Have you lost your marbles? Probably the most ugly statement you have ever seen? Comparable to World War II atrocities?
Cringeworthy and embarassing. The man made a joke, a joke in bad state, but geez.
It’s completely innocent compared to the vitriol of the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Pat Robinson. Didn’t Limbaugh call American anti-war protesters who protested the Iraq-war anti-America protesters and tell them to move to France?
You have embarassed yourself big time with this.
[SNIP. Creationism is not the issue. At all. Please, everyone, stick to the facts. ~dbs, mod.]
[SNIP. Stop the creationists discussion. That goes for everyone. That is not the issue here. ~dbs, mod.]
In a week here, I already saw several posts that had huge holes in them that I with my non-climatology background could spot and posts that were obviously politically motivated. So I think I already have a pretty good idea what the level is.
[SNIP. Please stop referring to a tiny subset you refer to as “creationists.” Respond factually, or this is strike two. ~dbs, mod.]
being rather coy, aren’t we, GM?
specifics, dear boy, specifics!
so we can literally assess YOUR literacy………
George Lawson: August 9, 2010 at 2:42 am
I presume those who appointed him to chair his committee will now dismiss him without delay due to his inability to at least give an intellectual assessment to both sides of the argument. And surely the people of Massachussets cannot really elect him again – if they do they themselves will be ridiculed for appointing a clown and buffoon. to represent them.
Markey is spouting the party line — which may even be the reason he was appointed to his chair on the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which is a creature of the Obama Administration. Massachusetts placed Teddy Kennedy in the Senate for life, and John Kerry is a self-propelled gaffe generator — the Townies will overlook a Hibernian’s goofs unless he becomes actively treasonous…
So we count one for two, right? I wrote and submitted that post before you had butchered the first two, so there was no way for me to know that I shouldn’t be talking about creationism. Not that I care too much, I am perfectly aware that the chances of me not getting banned from here (and in the not so distant future too) are quite slim. But if you are going to do it, at least do it with some integrity
[Reply: Creationism is off-topic. ~dbs, mod.]
Hi Anthony,
Hope you had a great time in Australia while you were here.
I follow your work, and thank you for all the infomation that you provide, it is greatly appreaciated here, I would reply more often but, i get so involved in A.B. blog that i dont have the time to contribute as much as i would like.
Know that i support you in every way, and wish you all success.
Cheers, Scott
Well then……..does the break show signs of melting or is it sharp edged a la the antarctic “Rhode Island” sized floater a few months ago? Are we really talking about an unstable over extension of ice?
Congressman Markey needs to open his books………..was he unable to divest himself of carbon credits in time?
One thing that constantly amazes me, is how liberals, who constantly talk about the need for tolerance, have absolutely no tolerance towards anyone who dares to disagree with them. The more power they have, the less tolerance they show.
GM:
GM wrote:
“Let’s step back for a second from the global warming issue and look at the way our society works in general. Say we have the following situation:
– there is a real and very serious crisis that requires taking action well in advance before its effect become apparent;
– it is of such nature that once those effect are there to see by all, it is too late to do anything to prevent it; the only way to prevent is significant sacrifices by the general population, which makes preventive action highly unpopular;
– not only that, the majority of people so not understand why we should be worried about it, because they are too scientifically (and generally) illiterate, and it is only a small group of scientists who understand it well
– those scientists are seen by the masses as belonging to the self-appointed intellectually arrogant “elites”
…snip…
So can someone explain to me what mechanism is currently present in our society that will make sure that action is taken on time in such a situation?”GM wrote:
“Let’s step back for a second from the global warming issue and look at the way our society works in general. Say we have the following situation:
– there is a real and very serious crisis that requires taking action well in advance before its effect become apparent;
– it is of such nature that once those effect are there to see by all, it is too late to do anything to prevent it; the only way to prevent is significant sacrifices by the general population, which makes preventive action highly unpopular;
– not only that, the majority of people so not understand why we should be worried about it, because they are too scientifically (and generally) illiterate, and it is only a small group of scientists who understand it well
– those scientists are seen by the masses as belonging to the self-appointed intellectually arrogant “elites”
…snip…
So can someone explain to me what mechanism is currently present in our society that will make sure that action is taken on time in such a situation?”
Perhaps you missed your stop, GM.
WUWT is not about assuming a hypothetical, and then providing a solution to said hypothetical. That is a purely Warmist proposition.
(sorry for the duplication….)
GM,
As a stout defender of Congressman Markey’s position, to where, specifically, do you propose that the citizens disagreeing with him should be relocated? To Siberia? Or perhaps to the presumably fast sinking Kiribati atoll, where globaloney warming will quickly drown Markey’s hated opponents?
You sound exactly like one of those perfumed tenured drones of academia, drinking your Kool Aid along with your other layabouts in the ivory tower while suckling at the public teat, rather than working at an actual productive job.
But I could be wrong. If so, what business do you work in? Simple question. What is your answer?
Who said that I am a supporter of Markey? If anything, I think that Markey is a coward and what he whoever else had something to do with the bill did with it, is utterly despicable, because the bill was essentially promoting BAU while masquerading as doing as something about climate change. And not only did they do this, they never had the guts to come out and say “Look, we know the bill is weak and totally useless, but it is out of our control to actually do what’s needed”. No, they presented it as taking action…
Yes, I’m in academia, doing research. I guess this doesn’t qualify as “actual productive job” for you. I am interested to know what does. Moving imaginary money from one computer screen to another?
I am sorry to say that the western world has become a “blame world”. Before the thought process begins to figure out how to solve a problem, the finger and big mouth is already looking for someone/something to blame. It’s sad, but our society is very quickly being transformed into a bunch of whining wimps. I recently watched a program on an American salvage crew, whose head honcho was one tough no nonsense hombre, who got the job done – no BS. I remember thinking I’m seeing a dying breed. Tragically people like this congressman represent the leadership of the “free” world?? – What a joke, no wonder every tin pot dictator gives us the finger. Can we imagine how utterly pathetic we must seem to the Chinese??
Knew it! There is something askew about tenured academics who buy into CAGW globaloney. Maybe it’s your attitude expressed in statements like: “So yes, the people are ignorant and illiterate.” FYI, those ‘ignorant and illiterate’ folks pay your way through life.
So tell us about your ‘research.’ Physics? Engineering? Mathematics?
Or maybe… English Lit, or Sociology. Enquiring minds are curious.
And while you’re at it, maybe you could explain why tenure is not simply gaming the system at the expense of everyone else paying the freight.
neill,
So can someone explain to me what mechanism is currently present in our society that will make sure that action is taken on time in such a situation?”
None, the problem is the solution is too painful – not that the risk is catastrophic. If the answer to stopping the great plagues was a wholesale dislocation of society and economy – rather then a simple shot and killing some pests – people would still be dying. If AGW is real, and the results are truly horrible, then we need a better solution then artificial limits on energy use for the rich nations.
For Congresspersons to do what their constituants want, it usually takes a riot within the district one or more times in the same day. For Congresspersons to do what some special interest people want, it usually takes something in unmarked envelopes and the promise of more to come. Now, if Markey’s district didn’t “DEMAND” this action on his part, how do you think he got the idea? And the courage? And the time?
We don’t need term limits for Congress. We need voters in Massachusetts’ Seventh Congressional District who know a little something about human nature and don’t believe in the tooth fairy anymore. Oh! And it wouldn’t hurt for the rest of us to grow up too.
PS: You NEVER, EVER, NO WAY JOSE’ give either Party control of the White House and “”BOTH”” Houses of Congress with a Super Majority in the Senate!!!!!
That there is a correlation between level of education and support of climate change should tell you something. If, however, the conclusion you draw from that is something like “Those academics buy it, so it must be false”, then this is simply anti-intellectualism 101, and you are hardly to be taken seriously
For the record, I am not a tenured academic.
Genomics
Tenure is necessary so that you can’t have politicians and influential people with money shutting professors’ mouths. They are trying to do it now anyway, imagine what it would be like without tenure. The Soviet Union didn’t have tenure, for example, and it lost countless brilliant minds because of that.
Nearly 20 years ago I was experiencing recurring tingling sensations from my left shoulder to my left hand. There was a spot between my shoulder and neck I could press that would immediately cause the tingling. I went to a doctor and he referred me to a neurologist where they poked dozens of needles in me at various places from my shoulder to my wrist and sent jolts of electricity through the needles measuring how fast the current went from one needle to another. Not finding any problem between shoulder and wrist they concluded there must be a problem where the nerve enters the spinal column. The next thing they wanted to do was exploratory surgery at the vertebra. Total cost was about $2,500 and 8 hours of my time for no relief and no diagnosis.
A colleague at the office (laptop research & development) told me he knew of a good chiropractor I should see before committing to spinal surgery. Since it was just a tingling sensation that was not painful or incapacitating, just annoying, I was already averse to going under the knife over it. So I went to the chiropractor. The chiropractor spent 15 minutes examining me and said “Dave, you have a pinched nerve near the interior edge of your shoulderblade. The cause is a misalingment of your spine typical of people who are hunched over a computer keyboard all day long. The spinal misalignment causes all the surrounding bones and ligaments to be out of place. I’m going to shift everything back where it should be.”
So he did his realignment thing. Total cost $50 and one hour of my time. I was a bit stiff and sore for a day or two afterward then felt fine. So fine in fact I never went to back to the chiropractor again because he fixed the problem. Twenty years have passed and that problem never recurred.
I’m an engineer, GM. Theory is fine but results are what matter. I find your out of hand dismissal of chiropractic a bigotted remark from an ignorant person. You’re a legend in your own mind and a buffoon in everyone elses.
Most posts have said what needs to be said. Mr Markey doesn’t look as if he is exactly from the top drawer, but that is no excuse for such appallingly ignorant form, scientifically and socially.
I hope you realize that what you’re describing is not what people usually have in mind when they speak of chiropractic, and has a lot more in common with regular science-based medicine instead. I don’t know how familiar you are with chiropractic, but in its purest form is nothing more but a mix of witchcraft and mysticism, and it explicitly rejects the principles of science.
GM, you want to know what a productive job is? Productive work produces value and increases prosperity. Sitting at a desk moving imaginary money or doing “research”* generally doesn’t produce value.
If you want to do productive work then do what I do for a living. Build stuff. I produce actual value rather than leeching off others or just hawking the self-serving idea of “consensus” and then hiding behind it when people argue with me.
* Research that actually produces knowledge is a value proposition but most of the “research” I’ve seen on AGW and many other issues is nothing but make-work designed to grab grant money or “prove” a priori assumptions. Much of it is little more than data trawling meta-studies used to “prove” that substance X is harmful this week even though it was proven beneficial last week. Causation? What’s that?
You are assuming that there is a solution. There are no guarantees this is the case. In fact, switching from the hypothetical world posited in the question to the real world we live in, based on what the situation is right now, it will be a miracle if a solution different from organized retreat is found. Because it isn’t just AGW, it is global ecological overshoot that we have to deal with, and our global ecological overshoot consists of several interconnected issues (AGW, Peak Oil-Gas-Coal, Peak Uranium, Peak Phosphorus, depletion of many critically important minerals, fossil aquifer depletion, ocean acidification, general ecosystem collapse, etc.), each of which has to be tackled with the behavior of the whole system in mind, and for each of which there is no solution right now.
So yes, people will be dying, billions of them. But basically people here are telling me that billions dying and a global civilizational collapse are less worthy of consideration than their personal comfort….
TerrySkinner says: at 3:03 am
“I just think it so funny that in America and in the UK the political parties most enamored of AGW are the strongest parties in the cold northern parts of the country…”
Actually, both countries have the most useless forms of so-called “democracy” (which is effectively dead in the UK), and the most corrupt and politicians. In Britain, the malign and corrupting influence of politicians has poisoned just about everything they’ve touched.
British politicians have either intimidated or bought-up civil servants, broadcasters, publishers, and nearly every public platform of debate about “global warming”. For example, only yesterday, the BBC was forced to issue a groveling public apology for “aggressive questioning” when interviewing a CRU scientist on a radio show about the Climategate emails last year. As for British “climate scientists”, thanks to the AGW mafia, their reputations and paychecks depend 100% on supporting the global warming racket.
Very few of the British, American, and Australian public believe in the global warming propaganda being spewed at them daily, but almost every politician does.
Surely it is the global warming cult that should be moving to the cold regions.
@GM
Tenure is a double edged sword that cuts both ways.
It forces those on the tenure track to hold the same views as those who will be deciding whether they get tenure or not. It also forces those not on the tenure track to either hold acceptable views or lose their jobs. It also allows those who have attained tenure to become unproductive and not lose their jobs as a result.
Karl Marksey will be surprised to find out where that new country is after the next election
@GM
“I hope you realize that what you’re describing is not what people usually have in mind when they speak of chiropractic, and has a lot more in common with regular science-based medicine instead. I don’t know how familiar you are with chiropractic, but in its purest form is nothing more but a mix of witchcraft and mysticism, and it explicitly rejects the principles of science.”
So which kind of chiropractor is the guy running for public office in MA? A mystic or someone who actually knows enough anatomy to recognize legitimate problems and can correct them?
The point is that you don’t know. You just gave a knee jerk reaction based upon your prejudices. It is a logical fallacy called “guilt by association” and is a hallmark of bigots.
Why oh why does the politico believe these things have only ever happened now? Quotes like his remind us all that people who believe the world is only several thousand years old because a book says so are in positions of power all over the globe. Now there’s something to really worry about. Could there be anything worse for an evolving society than a theocratic politico bent on conforming all to their new religion? Bend a knee to the Church of Climatology or be castigated? Next I suppose the dust will be blown off of the Malleus Maleficarum. If these “deniers” are to be weeded out from society…
The guardian says, august 9th.
Out in the real world Russia is burning, Pakistan and China are grappling with floods and mudslides, and millions of people are starving after long droughts in Niger and the Sahel. The Arctic sea ice is reportedly melting at near record pace, land and sea temperature data show conclusively that the world is warming and 16 countries have experienced record temperatures already this year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/09/un-climate-change-cancun-mexico
Just in case you missed it this is how the MSM “Old boy network” works in UK to stifle proper debate – nice to know we live in a “free” country.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1301256/BBC-says-sorry-Climategate-unit-grilling-John-Humphrys.html
@gm
“So yes, people will be dying, billions of them. But basically people here are telling me that billions dying and a global civilizational collapse are less worthy of consideration than their personal comfort….”
Must be all those selfish genes we inherited from the blind watchmaker…
Seriously, there are many legitimate problems we face. You mentioned some of them. Excessive CO2 emissions don’t happen to be one of the legitimate problems yet there are those who want to make it center stage. Strangling the global economy to fix a problem that isn’t a problem is counter-productive, possibly catastrophically counter-productive. It takes away from economic resources vitally needed to solve real problems.
@Alan f
“Quotes like his remind us all that people who believe the world is only several thousand years old because a book says so are in positions of power all over the globe. Now there’s something to really worry about.”
Based on what? If you take a survey of all the nations on the earth those enjoying the highest standards of living today are those where the Protestant Reformation took hold.
Personally I worry more about people in positions of power who don’t have a source of absolute moral codes like these:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
GM:
Using blanket dismissal of your opponents position without actually providing any arguments against is often a sign of mere inability to provide them. You don’t win any points for that post.
———–
My post to you was not to win an argument or score points. I was not taking part in a contest, a pissing match, or a debate in front of a crowd freshmen and frat boys. It was written to get you stop pontificating and start providing verifiable facts: a Cher —”Snap out of it” —Moonstruck moment. As far as I’ve learned here on this site, there is no room for—or tolerance of—unsubstantiated claims or hyperbole. Yes, there are personal comments, quips, and satire, but if you state a point without foundation, you will hear from those who do the research. Sure, there are differing positions, but there is a decorum here and for the most part all views are given voice if one behaves. I wish I could say the same for the AGW sites, but they are heavily censored and preach to an ever-shrinking choir.
So what have I gleaned of you? Well, besides your declaration that you’re doing academic research, you are threatened by astrologers, Christians, chiropractors, the obese, C-word-ists (I don’t want to get snipped), office workers, junk food consumption, the ignorant and illiterate, dimwits and television viewers. There are probably many more (besides capitalists and right-wingers) but you have only provided a handful of posts (and if you don’t behave there won’t be any more).
From your responses I have posited that you are likely in your early to mid 20s and, because you believe yourself blessed with superior post-normal debating skills, you place yourself above all others who disagree. You feel helpless because no one is listening to (or obeying) your clarion call about the destruction of the planet, which you blame on those people listed above. You likely have strong Marxist leanings because the above list reveals a rigid intolerance of the proletariat. In four words: angry, elitist, frustrated and socialistic. Not a good combination, especially at house parties, bar rooms or on the dating scene.
I am likely twice your age and have seen and heard the dying planet claims before. So yes, I am skeptical when I see some of the same bad actors who warmed of the coming global freeze-up, oil shortage, population explosion (eugenics was the only solution for these social darwinists—perhaps this is what you are researching?) etc. in the ’70s return to the stage. Watermelons.
And in a few decades, similar characters will arrive from stage left with another crisis, just as shrill and calamitous as today’s, with the same goals—money and power—that will be just as false. I have also learned that the ideals of Marxism/socialism are a facade to gain power and control over people. It is slavery. If you manage to keep your privileges here, you may hear from some people who lived under that system and have very strong opinions of what that form of government is actually like. Do not debate with them.
While the arrogance of youth can get you started on the road of Life, it is the experience of age that will allow you to survive the journey with dignity and virtue.
GM sez…
“…but in its purest form is nothing more but a mix of witchcraft and mysticism, and it explicitly rejects the principles of science.”
Are you describing climate science??
BTW, speaking of science, let us know when you can prove that the coupled, non-linear partial differential equations and auxiliary relations used in climate models (including all source terms, boundary and initial conditions) actually constitute a well-posed mathematical problem that is solvable numerically…
@ Sean Peake
I am by no means a socialist, and your post, and the use of the watermelon metaphor speaks volumes about where you’re approaching the debate from. As far as I am concerned, the distance between right wing and left wing is much smaller than the distance between a reality-based world view and either of those, so it doesn’t really matter that the distance between reality and the left is somewhat smaller that the distance between the ultra-right and reality. They are both detached from it.
This is a position arrived at based on what works and what doesn’t. Free markets do not work (unless you define achieving the maximal amount of destruction of the life support systems of the planet as the goal; at that they’re very good). Totalitarianism done by people who are in it for the power does not work either. But the people who warn about the dangers of overshoot are not people who strive for power and money. It is totally moronic to claim that someone who advocates for the complete abolishment of “the economy” and money as something of importance and switching to quantification of value in physical and thermodynamic terms is in it for the power and money. The driving force behind these warnings is the survival instinct that’s so fundamental to our behavior as a species (and to every other species) – primitively speaking, the concept of the selfish gene – some of us happen to realize that if the species goes extinct, our genes go extinct too. The majority doesn’t see that far into the future so they think that maximizing the number of offspring and hogging as much resources as possible in the present is the best evolutionary strategy. In the short term, yes, but in the long term it isn’t. But this is not about power and money.
P.S. You still haven’t provided any serious argumentation. The “they were wrong in the 70s, they will always be wrong” canard doesn’t count
It’s not my area of expertise, why should I be doing it? And if you have better suggestion for climate modeling, why don’t you share them with the community and implement them in practice? Or maybe it’s because you don’t have anything better to offer…
It’s another logical fallacy closely related to the guilt by association fallacy. GM demonstrated the guilt by association fallacy when he accused a particular chiropractor of being a mystic based on no more than a knowledge that many chiropractors are mystics.
The related fallacy that goes hand in hand with guilt by association is honor by association. GM is a scientist who honors himself and by association honors others. Climatologists are scientists so he accepts their findings by the honor system rather than through the exercise of due diligence. GM likely has little education in engineering disciplines like statistical mechanics, which must be understood to make sense of atmospheric CO2 consequences, and would have to devote an inordinate amount of time to investigating the claims of others that he honors when their area of expertise is largely outside his own. So he just accepts their conclusions and by virtue of reciprocity expects they’ll accept his conclusions.
Why is to so difficult to understand that the only solution to overshoot is contraction? If you are in overshoot, it is inevitable that you are going to collapse. Collapse is very ugly and you end up with a much poorer support system than before the exponential growth phase because you destroy carrying capacity in the process of overshoot. So your ONLY choice is retraction. Other organisms don’t have that choice because they don’t have a way to know they are in overshoot (that’s not entirely correct, but for simplicity’s sake, let’s assume it is). We, in contrast, know it because we’re supposedly much smarter.
So the only thing to do is not just to strangle the global economy but to completely dismantle the whole system and replace it with something firmly grounded in biophysics. Otherwise it will get really ugly – bacteria in culture poison themselves and die, deer populations eat up all the lichens and then die, etc, in the end life goes on. We, in contrast have nuclear weapons
GM says:
August 9, 2010 at 7:05 am
“…(AGW, Peak Oil-Gas-Coal, Peak Uranium, Peak Phosphorus, depletion of many critically important minerals, fossil aquifer depletion, ocean acidification, general ecosystem collapse, etc.),…”
“So yes, people will be dying, billions of them. But basically people here are telling me that billions dying and a global civilizational collapse are less worthy of consideration than their personal comfort….”
I think we have achieved Peak Drama!
*Sean Peake August 9, 2010 at 7:52 am
Nice rant. Eloquent. I think the younger folks need to be cut some slack though. The following sums up why nicely:
If you are young and conservative you have no heart. If you are old and liberal you have no brain.
Idealism and cynicism both have their place. One moderates the other. We get in trouble when either is missing. Moderation is the key to success in most things.
Dave Springer says, “That’s nice congressman. But since you’re the icehugger isn’t the climate on the iceberg more to your liking?”
Excellent point! Logically, they should be finding us a desert island somewhere. Bring on the mojitos! We like it hot!
The next climate change jamboree should be in Guyana; there they will be happy driniking kool-aid.
@Kate:
“If you don’t live in Britain, consider yourself lucky you don’t have to put up with eco-loonies like these.”
I had to see it with my own eyes, so I tracked down this independent article covering what you mention:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/all-new-homes-to-run-on-green-power-by-2016-2046499.html
I actually put my face in both my hands after reading it. If true then our new Coalition government is certifiable. That means the domestic energy consumption of between 200,000 to 300,000 new homes every year would have to be met exclusively by renewable energy or have £15,000 (with no doubt an extra 95% corruption – sorry “admin” – surcharge to also be added).
@gm
“some of us happen to realize that if the species goes extinct, our genes go extinct too”
Those that go extinct deserved to go extinct. Darwinism in action.
Or maybe you can grok it by a tenure analogy. If old tenured professors never died there wouldn’t be room for aspirants.
But it really appears that genes don’t become extinct. They just get shuffled around.
Researchers find sea sponges share 70pc human genes
Of course I’ve always worked under the rubric that we share 50pc of our genes with bananas so the above is hardly surprising news.
This is just evidence of engineering at work. Genes are components like nuts and bolts, or transisters and capacitors. You can make lots of different things from the same set of component parts. Where there is engineering in evidence there is usually an engineer behind it.
GM
It’s not my area of expertise, why should I be doing it? And if you have better suggestion for climate modeling, why don’t you share them with the community and implement them in practice? Or maybe it’s because you don’t have anything better to offer…
Oops. Sorry! From your previous comments, I mistakenly thought that you knew it all…
Anyhow…I can understand if you are ill-equipped to understand the climate models you believe in…
GM:
bacteria in culture poison themselves and die, deer populations eat up all the lichens and then die, etc,
However your ideology advises “non reproductive behaviors” which will avoid this. Are you personally practicing those behaviors?
GM: August 9, 2010 at 6:20 am
That there is a correlation between level of education and support of climate change should tell you something.
And what study has shown that there is a correlation between level of education and support of climate change, pray tell?
So tell us about your ‘research.’ Physics? Engineering? Mathematics?
Tenure is necessary so that you can’t have politicians and influential people with money shutting professors’ mouths. They are trying to do it now anyway, imagine what it would be like without tenure. The Soviet Union didn’t have tenure, for example, and it lost countless brilliant minds because of that.
That’s what tenure was *intended* to be — it’s been gamed into a system by which it is now impossible to fire substandard or non-productive teachers. And the Soviet Union didn’t lose all those brilliant minds because it didn’t have tenure — it lost them because the state told them what they would think, dictated where they would work, and punished them for being either politically-incorrect or insufficiently-enthusiastic about the future of socialism.
The phrase, “politically-incorrect” — which the Libs are so fond of — was coined by Lenin, by the way. He stated that the children of parents who were “not politically-correct” could be executed without a trial.
Which horrified Stalin — he insisted that they should have a trial before they were executed.
For some strange reason words like burning, stake, and inquisition come to mind when I hear about public representatives making comments such as this…
GM: August 8, 2010 at 8:48 pm
A country of morbidly obese dimwits…
How nice. A believer in the junk science of Body Mass Index.
I’m six feet tall and weigh 187 pounds. I’m sixty-four years old, have a 34-inch waist, and I can still hoist 225-pound rocks chest-high and walk away with them.
And according to the BMI, *I* am morbidly obese.
GM:
That there is a correlation between level of education and support of climate change should tell you something.
GM, the fact that you fall for the word-gamed term “climate change”, then even “support” it, and furthermore use this essentially meaningless criterion as a way to allegedly verify your own allegedly superior mental content and functioning, tells me all I need to know about you: currently you are at least out of your league and way way way behind the curve – something which you could remedy; or at worst you are trapped in a fantasyworld “thought or word capsule”, perhaps so completely divorced from and actively protected against reality – i.e., delusional – that you might not ever emerge.
Seriously, GM, it’s your mind so the next move is completely yours. Forget about saving the World and save yourself instead. Save your mind.
Then perhaps you could at least assist in protecting people against the variety of Super Snake Oil Salesmen and Saleswomen who essentially want to control the World by way of their giant Propaganda Operations = Thought Control, such as the CAGW “climate change” concoction, and currently have you and many like you in their sway!
It’s all up to you and no one else can do it for you.
However, thinking it again, how will you call that new country? Because it would monopolize all thinking brains from the world, so the rest would become a nuisance.
I wonder if the esteemed congressman also recommends for warmists to buy farmland in central greenland.
I do not deny the sun caused global warming till 1998 when upon global cooling began to set in.
GM, you say you are by no means a socialist, but your points seem part of the Marxist doctrine. You say that to save ourselves we need to replace the global economy with an unswerving Orwellian belief in and obedience to biophysics or other form of science that determines what we, as a people, can buy, what we can make, how we can make it and how much we can earn. Who will make these decisions? Will they be accountable? Who will pay for this transformation to utopia and where will the money come from? When you can answer those questions I will show you why it is about money and power.
As for extinction, that has been going since since the earth cooled. My background, before I decided to find a more lucrative way to make a living was in Invert Paleo. I was fortunate enough to see Burgess Shale materials and watch students from Oxford and Cambridge evaluate the collection as they worked on their doctoral thesises. From that material I learned that many species, countless genera have vanished, most over 500 million years ago. (I always liked Stephan Jay Gould’s analogy that the evolutionary tree comes to a point—not an inverted one that branches out over time. The former can be seen in the geologic record. The latter arose out of an incomplete knowledge of that paleontological record.) Extinction happens. I have, however, heard your arguments before 40 years ago. And we survived. Mankind is quite clever and there are few things we can not overcome:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/matt_ridley_when_ideas_have_sex.html
@GM
That there is a correlation between level of education and support of climate change should tell you something.
The correlation between liberal politics and authority figures in universities should tell you something too.
GM,
You said, “The driving force behind these warnings is the survival instinct that’s so fundamental to our behavior as a species (and to every other species) – primitively speaking, the concept of the selfish gene – some of us happen to realize that if the species goes extinct, our genes go extinct too.”
In what manner, do you conceive, that even in the worst case scenario sounded by the most dire alarmist that CAGW/CC will cause the destruction of mankind? Your argument is quite humorous. Going back through the discussion you take many people in this country to task for being detached from reality and lament the fact that most in this country don’t understand the “science” behind the CAGW hoax. So with those thoughts in mind:
Can you point me to the literature that predicts the total annihilation of the human race in regards to climate change? If not, then many of your statements are simply ranting and ravings of a person that is either not well planted in reality or has a difficult time with the science.
Tell me, what is the tricky scientific method for collecting the world’s temps and then averaging the world’s temps to get a global mean? That’s not science, that’s fundamental math. The fact that the world’s climate tracking organizations can’t get it correct (GISS, HADCRUT, NOAA, ect.), paradoxically suggest you may have a point about most having difficulty with the science. (Until one realizes the errors by these bodies are too numerous to be inadvertent.) We could stop there with the science, and probably should because if they can’t get this base tenet of their argument correct, the rest falls to meaningless pontifications. Still, an average 9th grader can see this but some on this planet refuse to see. So, either you’re correct and the world is replete with morons that can’t see the worlds leading climate authority’s mathematical malpractice. Or, (and I believe this to be the case) many of the world is involved an a class-envy, self-loathing, grab for control of the earth’s populace. I would prefer the world be full of morons with good character as opposed to bright people of poor character.
So GM, find me the literature where we’re going to all die because of the 0.6C rise in temps. Or even 6C? Man has adapted quite well throughout his short history and there is no reason to expect he couldn’t even if the most dire prognostications of the CAGW theory were correct. Given the multitude of documented cases(here and many other sites) of the various climate tracking bodies of falsification of temperatures and altering of historical temperature, I maintain, no one can say whether the earth is warming or not. If you can’t prove either, 1) the world is getting warmer because of CO2 and other GHG, and 2) that the warming will be a total apocalyptic event can cause the destruction of mankind, then you are one of two types of people. One, would be a person that can’t understand base mathematics or two a person that simply ignores the base arguments because he/she wishes the world to conform to their belief systems and views. Earlier in the thread you lamented this nation’s (U.S.A.) contributions to the world as far as societal benefit. You entirely missed/forgot/overlooked or simply chose to ignore this nation’s greatest contribution. Freedom and the practical application of the principles of Liberty. While the Samuel Adams quote I posted earlier was apt, Patrick Henry also stated this fundamental truth in a similar manner.
He said “Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”
Did this statement simply provide a rallying call to war? Or does it give us insight to a basic principle of life? The greatest global and historical societal contribution of the U.S was delivered upon its inception. Patrick Henry was stating that existence isn’t the most base need of humanity, liberty is. Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell), years later expounded upon this basic principle and gave us some insights as to how the world would operate if ideas freedom an liberty were denied in favor of mere existence. Of course, it wasn’t simply Henry and Adams that were echoing this sentiment, the idea expressed was repeating in various terms by various people throughout our march towards independence. From Franklin to Washington to Jefferson, all stated the same sentiment.
GM, this is our heritage, this is our legacy, this is this nation’s greatest achievement and contribution. I’m heartsick to think a great many in this nation has turned their back upon our lessons of history and humanity and continue to contrive to take away our base reason for existence. If this nation can’t maintain even the facade of liberty and freedom, what hope is there for the rest of the world? While cynicism isn’t something I like to dwell on, Thomas Paine was correct, “When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.”
A note; GM, man has contrived to take the freedoms and liberties away from other men for time eternal, the CAGW theory is simply the same in a tired old guise of doing it for our own benefit. It’s too bad you can’t or won’t see this. Maybe, one day you will. I hope it won’t be too late by the time you do.
Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.——-George Orwell, 1984
I choose to guard against the above paragraph as opposed to an in imperceptible rise of mercury in a glass tube.
Dave Springer
I think the younger folks need to be cut some slack though.
——
You’re quite right Dave. And I wait for the time, which I hope is soon, when GM has his “Aha” moment of free thought. Then, perhaps, that young man will get out of the lab and into the real world where he can direct his passion to solving problems instead of railing against them.
@gm
“we’re supposedly much smarter”
Orgel’s Second Rule: Evolution is cleverer than you are.
Perhaps that’s what you meant by “supposedly”.
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.
Patrick Henry
James Sexton says:
August 9, 2010 at 10:01 am
An extraordinary piece!
Again, why waste time arguing with this GM dude or dudette? You’re not going to convince him/her or any of his/her ilk. Global Warming is a key ingredient in the nicely baked up World View of Collectivist Fruit Cake, which they all must partake of. Maybe when the, “Dear Leader,” doles out his portion he will get a leaky paper cup with some soy milk to gag it down with.
Anton says:
A majority of people in this country are not morbidly obese dimwits, are not creationists, and do not believe the Earth is 6,000 years old.
I did not bother to point this out, but I do, in fact, agree.
BTW, I am not a Christian or chiropractor, am not obese, and do not spend my time watching television while eating junk food. I also do not know a single person who fits GM’s description of the typical American.
Same here. I am also a liberal. I vote republican only because at this point in history, the GOP (far) more closely embraces the genuine principles of liberalism than does the democratic party.
CAGW is nothing more than cargo cult science, as these tests for falsification are ignored.
Unfortunately they bring no cargo, but instead wish to take cargo away.
William says:
August 9, 2010 at 10:48 am
Again, why waste time arguing with this GM dude or dudette? You’re not going to convince him/her or any of his/her ilk
That would be easy!, just tell him/her that Al Baby is the best argument against AGW. 🙂
lichanos says:
August 8, 2010 at 3:57 pm
“Oh cool it with the righteous indignation. I share your disdain for Markey’s bill in Congress, but the man was making a joke. A stupid joke, a joke based on his pseudo-science ideology, but nowhere near ACTUAL legislation to imprison Japanese-Americans, or anything like it.”
——————————-
I’m sorry lichanos, but I firmly believe that people give themselves away by the jokes they make. I also have disdain for those who think that history cannot and will not repeat itself.
Anyway, while not being an American, I certainly do believe that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. And that’s hard these days with so may TV/Media brainwashed, apathetic, disempowered, KoolAid drinking people about.
Anyway, lichanos, this is JUST like Ahmadinejad saying that Israel should relocate to Alaska.
Aw, quit the righteous indignation, he was only making a joke.
Yeah?
@Katabasis
“…I actually put my face in both my hands after reading it…”
It’s actually worse than I described. The swivel-eyed dribbling eco-nutcases that govern us are imposing a massive new tax on something they can’t define. They are so eager to slap the new tax on new homes that they forgot that they still have no definition for what constitutes a “zero-carbon home”, or any of the other tax bands covering new homes in this proposal.
See where our corrupt AGW-loving politicians are leading us? They don’t know what something is, but they are prepared to tax it anyway.
Enneagram says:
August 9, 2010 at 10:45 am
“An extraordinary piece!”
Thank you very much. I read your posts, too. I perceive your comment as quite a compliment.
William says:
August 9, 2010 at 10:48 am
“Again, why waste time arguing with this GM dude or dudette? You’re not going to convince him/her or any of his/her ilk..”
Ah, but we do William. Perhaps not GM, perhaps so. All one has to do is look at the hit stats of this site. While GM is just one, many, many more are reading. The free flow of ideas and thoughts is what is important here. GM has a right to his thoughts and Anthony has graciously allowed all of us fairly free expression here. GM has a right to be wrong. What a boring site this would be if it were only full of correct thinkers such as you and I. 😉
The “Greenest Government on Earth” is probably found in Somalia, or perhaps, Sudan. Is that what the Uk (and the US) greens want for us?
DR says:
August 8, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Al Gore said AGW has moved on from science (which is settled) to now a moral issue. Markey is carrying the torch.
——————– —————————
Very succinctly put, sir.
Praise to Mr. Markey . The first US-congressman showing real CO2-free speach talents . His lungs are transforming oxygen into a free regenerated gas-mixture capable to withstand the strongest attacks by deniers and other class enemies .
His physical energy-level is way above the energy from fossil sources he is forced to consume right now . He is sure he will live through the day that at least his hometown and Mass-a-shoesets will be a carbonfree in the future . The taxing of all evil will take care of a utopian future , to insiders known as Markey in Wonderland.
Big Al and Big Bill will be flabbergasted . Big Oil will cease to exist and paradise will nearer than the dahboard light .
Tenuc says: August 9, 2010 at 1:18 am
The most interesting revelation came during a BBC interview with Dr. Jones who was head of the CRU before being suspended. During the interview he confessed that there had been no statistically significant warming for the past 15y. This falsifies the CAGW hypothesis – CO2 levels rose quickly over this period meaning that is a minor player in climate change.
Perhaps no surprise that fewer and fewer people believe in the CAGW myth!
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And this gives the lie to GM’s notion that people are generally ignorant and stupid. They are not. They saw through the BS of these s called scientists at CRU pretty quickly once they knew what was going on. BTW does anyone know what rock does GM hide under?
evanmjones says:
August 9, 2010 at 10:59 am
Anton says:
“A majority of people in this country are not morbidly obese dimwits, are not creationists, and do not believe the Earth is 6,000 years old.
I did not bother to point this out, but I do, in fact, agree.
BTW, I am not a Christian or chiropractor, am not obese, and do not spend my time watching television while eating junk food. I also do not know a single person who fits GM’s description of the typical American. ”
I didn’t differentiate each individual’s comments because they seem to be echoing each thought.
I just felt obliged to contribute to that particular thread of the conversation. This should be viewed as to diversity of the backgrounds of skeptics. I know people like to paint skeptics with a broad brush, but as we see, it is quite the opposite.
I AM A CREATIONIST. As far as the actual age of the matter which the earth is made, I’m not certain, nor is anyone else. I am certain it doesn’t matter. While I use the traditional KJV, I’m not aware the other versions substantively change in their meaning regarding the creation of earth. “Genesis 1…. 1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” It doesn’t say how, or when. It doesn’t imply how or when. Belief in God isn’t contrary to science. Science exists because man’s desire to understand God. While some creationists do believe the earth is only 6000 years old, they are in a very small minority of creationists. This is much akin to calling all climate skeptics deniers of the temp rise in 1998.
In science, the word “system” is used often, from circulatory and respiratory to solar. In fact, in almost all of science we’ve one system or another. First, imagine all of the interdependent systems and cycles we have identified in our universe. Even the CO2-O2 conversion. The sun and other heavenly bodies and their functions relating to mankind. Then all of the flora and fauna of this earth and their functions and individual systems and the dynamics of said systems and flora and fauna. The wind and elements, and the water. Yes, you can believe this all happened out of a random act of some strange convergence of substances otherwise unknown to date or you can see that a “system” of any kind is a signature of design. Either way, it is a belief. The only difference is I find my belief more probable.
I’ll finish by offering a quote from one of the most prominent scientists in the history of mankind, (he is a bit more eloquent than I)……….
And for rejecting such a Medium, we have the Authority of those the oldest and most celebrated Philosophers of Greece and Phoenicia, who made a Vacuum, and Atoms, and the Gravity of Atoms, the first Principles of their Philosophy; tacitly attributing Gravity to some other Cause than dense Matter. Later Philosophers banish the Consideration of such a Cause out of natural Philosophy, feigning Hypotheses for explaining all things mechanically, and referring other Causes to Metaphysicks: Whereas the main Business of natural Philosophy is to argue from Phaenomena without feigning Hypotheses, and to deduce Causes from Effects, till we come to the very first Cause, which certainly is not mechanical; and not only to unfold the Mechanism of the World, but chiefly to resolve these and such like Questions. What is there in places almost empty of Matter, and whence is it that the Sun and Planets gravitate towards one another, without dense Matter between them? Whence is it that Nature doth nothing in vain; and whence arises all that Order and Beauty which we see in the World? … does it not appear from phaenomena that there is a Being incorporeal, living, intelligent, omnipresent, who in infinite space, as it were in his Sensory, sees the things themselves intimately, and thoroughly perceives them, and comprehends them wholly by their immediate presence to himself.
— Sir Isaac Newton Opticks, 2nd edition (1718), Book 3, Query 28, 343-5.
These leftist politicians continually remind us that they don’t understand science when they talk about global warming, then have the chutzpah to criticize the rest of us as “Anti-Science” when we correct them.
Arrogance and Stupidity are their wingmen.
James Sexton, I do not believe in the bible’s versions of anything, but I also don’t believe that time, space, and matter appeared out of nothing (an obvious impossibility), or that life spontaneously generated and became conscious. We are humans, so we cannot possibly accurately guess, much less factually know, how or why we are here. Our minds, and the brains that filter them, aren’t capable of acquiring or analyzing such information.
Therefore, I couldn’t care less if people come up with their own stories to explain the unexplainable, and I cannot understand why GM is hostile. Atheism is a religion, too, and every bit as dogmatic as any other. And how does he manage to throw chiropractic into the pot? Given a choice between religion and chiropractors on the one hand, and atheist fanatics on the other, I’ll choose something with my feet.
GM is very rude and taken with himself, but eventually he’ll evolve–if not in this lifetime, in a future one (yes, I DO believe in reincarnation; go figure). It’s unfortunately, though, that such windbags always turn up to spoil an otherwise interesting give and take between posters. I think there are some people on this planet who just hate the fact that others aren’t as bitter and miserable as they, and don’t live in perpetual terror of the world ending. What if it DID end? If GM is correct, we would never know after the event, so what’s the big deal? If living beings are just matter pretending to be more, the eradication of Earth and all life-forms on it would be no worse than the elimination of a sandcastle by an incoming wave.
GM says:
You know, the vast majority of Americans are smart enough not to make such a statement. Even less are so stupid as to believe it.
As far as “The Greatest Civilization Ever” goes, here is a link to things that Americans invented that Europe never got around to in it’s much longer history – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_inventions
Some highlights:
1805 Refrigeration
1857 Toilet paper
1888 Alternating Current
1891 Zipper
1903 Tea bag
1937 Digital computer
1941 Deodorant
1946 Cancer chemotherapy
1947 Transistor
1952 Polio vaccine
Don’t feel bad though, I’m sure you would have gotten around to inventing toilet paper within 1000 years or so without our obese and dimwitted help.
Well I would say that the people who elected this “politician” thoroughly deserve what they have gotten themselves.
So the path to “Energy Independence” is to shut down all the oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico; and the rest of the US Coast and inland sources of Petroleum and Natural gas.
Great thinking there Congressman; lemme see your Constituents also got you to shut down any free clean green renewable energy off Ted Kennedy’s ranch; or izzat “Compound” that you Massachusems build out there on those remote islands; well I guess they’re not so remote; almost within swimming distance.
I don’t think Ted is going to complain if you contribute to some “energy independence” yourself Congressman; or are you and your folk too good to get your own energy ?
If there ever was the epitome of the religiousity displayed by the street walker holding up the 10 foot sign declaring “The End Is Near! Repent!” it would have to be GM. He makes flat Earthers look like Einsteins.
James Sexton: August 9, 2010 at 12:25 pm
GM has a right to be wrong. What a boring site this would be if it were only full of correct thinkers such as you and I. 😉
As one of my Invisible Friends is fond of saying, “Everyone has an inalienable right to my opinion.”
Is it possible that a real crisis could satisfy GM’s conditions? My current intuition is that no possibly real crisis could meet them.
GM’s hypothetical crisis is preventable but “of such nature that once its effects are there to see by all, it is too late to do anything to prevent it”. Also “it is only a small group of scientists who understand it well”.
The first condition would seem to require either tipping points and positive feedback loops which on closer inspection seem never to exist (if they did, the crisis would have happened already) or something almost completely out of the blue, for example, a possibly preventable asteroid strike.
In any case, scientifically literate subsets of the population would be all over the thing p.d.q.. Pretty soon it would not be true that only a small group of scientists understood it well.
In fact, if an alleged crisis were retailed in ways which suggested it met GM’s conditions, I’d be pretty sceptical, and for just that reason.
dear GM:
Check out what Solzhenitsyn says about the “ignorant and illiterate” vs the educated when it came to facing up to what was going on in their Marxist utopia (it’s somewhere in the Gulag Archipelago).
Briefly, while the latter were able to convince themselves from the sophistical arguments of the Marxists that everything was happening for the best, the former couldn’t understand the arguments, but they knew in their “ignorant” way that what was happening was not right. From what I can tell, we’re in a similar situation now.
Desperation is setting in for the alarmists and the new age industrialists… who are desperately trying to have the western tax payer pay the alarmist’s way into economic nirvana.
As someone who made the mistake of not fleeing the people’s republic when I had the chance I can tell you that Markey’s words and attitudes are typical of what I have seen from him for almost 30 years. As to politicans getting way with murder the general attitude seems to be that they have that right.
GM seems to have disappeared, scared off by reason. But since I began this post after GM’s ‘idiocracy’ post and added to it throughout the day, I may as well run it up the flag pole…
GM says:
Tenure is necessary so that you can’t have politicians and influential people with money shutting professors’ mouths. They are trying to do it now anyway, imagine what it would be like without tenure.
Wrong. It is the tenured faculty themselves who are shutting down contrary opinions. Can GM name one politician ‘shutting professors’ mouths?’ Name just one, GM.
Why is there no tenure for newspaper columnists, or construction workers, or engineers, or business owners, or NBA players, or radio broadcasters, or any other profession? Answer: because tenure is a self-serving job protection racket created by the professor class by themselves and for themselves. But when someone can’t be fired, the result is rampant laziness, water cooler politics, and enforced group-think.
Tenure is not a government system, it is a classic “old boy” set-up that promotes a hive mind resulting in mediocrity, by allowing tenured faculty to become layabouts who use postdocs to do the actual work, while the tenured elite post endless blog comments during the workday. [There are many hardworking professors. But the least hard working tend to be the most political and the farthest to the Left.]
Every excuse attempting to justify tenure is bogus. It brings to mind James Hansen’s whining complaints that the Bush Administration was silencing him — which he cried about in some 1,400 interviews — during which the President never once lifted a finger to silence him, even though that was in the Administration’s power.
Next, this GM comment needed some surgery:
I don’t know how familiar you are with
chiropracticMann’s climate clique, but in its purest form is nothing more but a mix of witchcraft and mysticism, and it explicitly rejects the principles of science. [Surgery successful. “Mein Führer! I can walk!!“]Next, GM makes the ultimate strawman argument: …basically people here are telling me that billions dying and a global civilizational collapse are less worthy of consideration than their personal comfort… I am by no means a socialist…
Communists are just socialists in a hurry:
…the only thing to do is not just to strangle the global economy but to completely dismantle the whole system and replace it with something firmly grounded in biophysics. The only thing to do, eh? Dismantle everything.
Notice GM’s comments are not grounded in reality, or any kind of cost/benefit analysis, or in common sense. Dismantle the whole system over a minor and beneficial trace gas?? Earth to GM…
GM: …if you have better suggestion for climate modeling, why don’t you share them with the community and implement them in practice?
GM probably doesn’t know this, but climate modeling does not work. Models cannot accurately predict the future climate — yet they are always used as “evidence” by the alarmist crowd. Climate models are not evidence, they are simply tools, and not very good ones.
GM has a lot to learn about how the real world works. He can’t do better than reading the WUWT archives. But I suspect he won’t, having already made up his mind that Western civilization must be dismantled… while the Chinese, the Indians, the UN and the rest of the non-Western world watches us self-destruct and laughs about their great good fortune.
Great debate! Thanks GM for your input (and you really should go to the archives here…lots to learn).
One thing that has always interested me, and I don’t see discussed much by the CAGW crowd is the following:
Catastrophic warming will eventually make the world uninhabitable, we are trying to save the world.
…REALLY? C’mon, be honest. Is it even conceivable that there would be opponents to this proposition if it was true, if it was “settled” Who in their right mind? Car makers? Oil conglomerates? Politicians? John and Jane Doe? Who would oppose saving the planet…if it was true?
The fact is nobody would, with the exception of the mentally impaired. We would all pull together, and work together, and make the necessary sacrifices that had to be made to ensure our survival, hell, it would most likely unite the planet and put an end to boils and acne. Why, IMHO, do we have such lively and entertaining (and some times stupid) debates on the subject? Thanks for asking:
1. Fact – as pointed out on this site many times: specialized scientists and tenured professors alike, for all the knowledge and data we have amassed, still do not know all that we don’t know about the various systems we inhabit (that goes triple for politicians). Many never confront that basic fact.
2. Fact – Climategate, read the archives here and go to Climate Audit to do the same. Then go to the leaked emails and read ALL of them (especially ‘Harry the programmer’…he’s funny). That’s all I have to say about that.
3. Fact – Follow the money: do a modicum of research (it doesn’t take much) on our buddies Gore, Pachauri et al, and see where their loyalties really lie…you’ll find it is firmly situated in their wallets.
4. Fact – The majority of climate science pushed on us by government agencies and others have breached, and/or corrupted the scientific method.
5. Fact – making denegrating generalizations about people’s weight and personal habits TAKES AWAY from your argument and brings nothing new to the table.
Some people go too far, others not far enough. We on sites like this and others like it just want the truth, it’s out there and we know it.
Addendum to my last post, last sentence: ‘…it’s out there and we see it’.
Also: shouldn’t read ‘…got Climate Audit…’ (or do), but go to Climate Audit.
Sorry, I’m a stickler in a limited capacity 😉
Smokey says: August 9, 2010 at 4:13 pm
GM seems to have disappeared, scared off by reason. But since I began this post after GM’s ‘idiocracy’ post and added to it throughout the day, I may as well run it up the flag pole…
———————————————————————————
Smokey. Well it was well worth while ‘running your post up the flagpole. You sorted it out pretty well and it was good to read your comment.
God knows that the Western economy is in a bad enough mess already without this mindless attempt by some to destroy it completely by chasing the carbon bogey. Yup China and India must be laughing out loud. But if nothing else, GM provides us with an example of how people like him can be so blinded and bereft of reason.– they’re out there ain’t they and he and Malarkey are not alone! They can’t see the real train coming and it ain’t driven by Co2. Maybe Patchy is at the Wheel!
Cheers
I am afraid to tell you folks that you will not convince GM of anything, his career depends on it.
You are assuming that people will accept it. They will not because most people believe what they want to believe, not what is true. It takes a lot of training to successfully get rid of this bad mental habit that we all share, and few people go through that kind of training. Sure, it would be nice if global warming was not a problem, but that’s not the case. Yet, people still refuse to accept it. As they refuse to accept the much less contentious issue of global ecological overshoot, which, as I will not stop pointing out, is just as true without AGW as it is with, and which is pretty much irrefutable, backed by rock solid data and plenty of historical examples of the growth-overshoot-collapse cycle on local scale.
Again, denial is a very strong force, which, does exactly that – impairs the minds of people. If it is too hard to accept the truth, you will find a way to deny it, simple as that.
The politicians are utterly ignorant of basic science for the most part, and just as utterly uninterested in it. Humans are a political animal, not a scientific one. Sad but true
Denial was rampant long before Climategate. Climategate simply found fertile soil. And, on top of that, there wasn’t anything to worry about in those e-mails, at least if you are actually working in science and know how things work
Yes, follow the money.
1. Where is the evidence backing up what you;re claiming?
2. Why don’t you follow the money when it comes to “sceptics”?
Really? See, it is very nice to be able to do perfectly controlled experiments the way physicists so. Once you get to chemistry, things become a little bid more difficult, when you get to biology (what I work in), it is getting harder to even seriously claim that you have control over the experimental system. There is one planet and no way to control the atmosphere, so by the very nature of the field, there will be a lot of uncertainty. No way to get around that. This doesn’t mean that the scientists in the field are shady
Those generalizations (backed up by stats, ruthlessly deleted by the mods) were not made in the context of my arguments, this was a separate discussion.
So just because I don’t sit in front of the screen 24/7, I absolutely must be missing because I’m scared, right? Great logic…
Hansen comes immediately to mind. I am not sure whether he has tenure at Columbia or not.
Because other than newspaper columnists, none of those professions need protection of their ability to exercise free speech. Which doesn’t mean they would get past the agenda of the editors and owner of the newspaper if they were trying to publish something contradicting it.
Most professors in science work very hard until the very end. I am not sure how many departments you have actually seen, but I have been in several top universities and have detailed observations about more than one science department in each – I can think of only 1 case of someone who got tenure and stop working (that’s out of a few hundred). And he spent his time writing textbooks, which are among the most widely used textbooks in his field, so it’s not like he didn’t contribute anything to science.
By necessity, there will be an inverse correlation between research activity and speaking our on public issues. There are 24 hours in a day.
You are very confused about the motivation of people who go into science – it is not “the power and the money”, the majority of people who have the abilities and the drive to make it to tenure and after that are genuinely dedicated to what they do
Read the accusation he made more carefully.
As I repeatedly pointed out, we do not have a problem just with AGW (it is not even the most pressing issue), we have a problem with global ecological overshoot. It has to be solved in its entirety, on the global system level. Organized contraction is the only solution to overshoot
Nobody is using models as evidence. Models are used a models, they represent the current state of the knowledge of the system. It is a common tactics to attack models as if the whole of climatology depended on them. That’s simply not true. And again, this is not my field, so the only sensible thing I can do is trust the people who work in it. Because it makes a lot more sense to do that than to believe in a vast conspiracy involving thousands of PIs, graduate students, postdocs, computer programmers, in dozens of countries all around the world.
Who said that the Western civilization has to be dismantled? Why did I spend so much time stressing the importance of global system-level thinking. Everything I said is with the whole globe in mind.
GM, you can’t really mean what you just wrote.
I warmed you that making sweeping statement without support (citations, please) will attract the attention who can back up their claims with actual work. I’m glad you’re back, though. You’ve made this thread quite interesting.
OK boys, help set this young man straight… assuming he’s open to learning a few things
“Physics is the only real science. The rest are just stamp collecting.”
— Ernest Rutherford
He must be thinking like Congressman Hank Johnson
Bill Tuttle says:
August 9, 2010 at 9:12 am
GM: August 8, 2010 at 8:48 pm
“A country of morbidly obese dimwits…”
How nice. A believer in the junk science of Body Mass Index.
I’m six feet tall and weigh 187 pounds. I’m sixty-four years old, have a 34-inch waist, and I can still hoist 225-pound rocks chest-high and walk away with them.
And according to the BMI, *I* am morbidly obese.
Oh oh, I’m 65 and quite fit, but at 5′ 11″, 215lb. I reckon that would mean I have an official Gov’t BMI about equal to “dead meat”! The last time I got down to even 185lb., people seriously thought I had Cancer.
Obamacare makes it mandatory that everyone’s BMI be recorded in their electronic Medical chart – on pain of denial of Medicare reimbursement to the Provider – and which, of course, would be accessable to the Central Committee. Now also fondly recall Obama’s overall stated metric in providing Obamacare’s care, and in justifying it: ~”We [regal] are partners with God in matters of life and death.”
I’m glad GM is back, too. His post at 5:31 pm above is a textbook case of cognitive dissonance and psychological projection: “…most people believe what they want to believe, not what is true.”
That is pure projection. Skeptics are looking for the truth here — but GM indicates he already knows what the truth is.
According to the scientific method, skeptics have nothing to prove. The job of skeptics is to question a hypothesis in order to shoot holes in it. In that way we arrive at accepted science; only those facts that survive sustained attack can become part of an accepted scientific theory. Since the catastrophic AGW hypothesis has been repeatredly falsified [not least by planet Earth itself], CO2=CAGW has been reduced to a conjecture.
It is the rash statements of cognitive dissonance-afflicted folks who claim they know the truth, and that their “truth” is the post-normal science idea of a vague, undefined and un-cited “global ecological overshoot” that are questionable.
It probably never occurs to folks like GM that technological progress and increased standards of living — based primarily on fossil fuels — have resulted in an ever cleaner environment. The wealthiest countries are the cleanest countries. GM should simply step across the border from San Ysidro, California to Tijuana, Mexico. Night and day: from clean to incredibly filthy.
I recall in my youth when we couldn’t see across Pittsburgh’s rivers, the air pollution from the mills was so bad. There were constant warnings against eating fish from the rivers. Today, the air and the rivers are clean and clear. Those observations falsify GM’s claim of looming ecological disaster. The situation is the polar opposite of what he believes it to be.
I think GM is sincere, which is scary. Many, if not most believers in the conjecture that catastrophic AGW is right around the corner suffer from Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance: just because the flying saucers didn’t arrive on time doesn’t mean there are no flying saucers. It only means that their arrival was delayed. And when they fail to arrive again, and again on schedule, Mrs Keech finally revealed to her acolytes that the aliens were so impressed with the essential goodness of her followers that they decided to spare the Earth, and therefore they didn’t need to appear after all.
The proof that her followers suffered from cognitive dissonance was revealed when, rather than accepting the evidence that their belief system was wrong, Keech’s followers argued even more forcefully than before that there really were flying saucers.
Believers in runaway global warming and climate catastrophe caused by a tiny trace gas still claim, against all the empirical evidence, that even though the planet has not warmed as they predicted, and even though there is little correlation between a rise in CO2 and a subsequent rise in temperature, that CO2-caused runaway global warming will begin any day now.
It is easy being a believer, and it is hard being a skeptic. Skepticism requires much more mental energy. But it is worth the effort. As the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius observed:
The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
In 179 A.D., the cognitive dissonance-afflicted people were the insane.
GM,
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/al-gore-the-worlds-first-carbon-billionaire/19220501
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/10/03/al-gore-getting-rich-spreading-global-warming-hysteria-media-s-help
http://tribes.tribe.net/globalwarming-thelie/thread/c1d0714b-56b3-4e1d-9d11-08b491857e34
http://www.greencitizens.net/news/article.php?n_id=7954151548
It took all of 5 minutes to find the above: bing search, enter ‘*name* net worth’. Being a private citizen Anthony’s net worth does not come up on searches but if I had to guess my number would be well below the $100 million mark for Gore and astronomically lower than the $$billions of Pachauri.
Really? Nothing in the emails? I’m not going to do all of your homework for you. Read them, find the comments from ‘Harry’ about “…Oh yea, I’ll just make them up…” concerning climate data for CRU and how he was given the leeway to do so.
Again, go into the archives here and at CA, there are plenty of direct links provided to the data sources and claims made.
Your comment about ‘ control of the experimental system’ is almost exactly the point. The difficulty is that it is almost impossible for the scientist to remove bias, this is done many times inadvertantly in disciplines that are much more well known than the relatively new sience of “climate change”, like biology.
Like I said: we don’t want ‘may’, we don’t want ‘could possibly’, we don’t want special interest groups pushing an agenda (see above links). We want the truth in whatever form. We certainly don’t want to have billions of dollars of our tax monies going to mitigation funds that will not produce results. The now infamous ‘Stern Report’ said that it would take over $400 billion GDP annually to confront CAGW. 10 years ago the UN reported that we could eradicate Third world poverty conditions on the globe: sanitation, disease, water shortages, food supply, etc with an investment of $175 billion. I’m sorry but this is not brain surgery (or rocket science). Where do you think we should spend the money? On an unproven theory currently in midst of controversy and debate, which may well be entirely debunked over the coming years (probably sooner than later) due to the predicted affects of the solar minimum we are watching occur, along with other climatological factors?
Hey, I want to save the world too. But lets use hard facts…well established, and lets use it where it will do the most good…for everyone. Not where the underpriviledged suffer and priviledged get richer, which is what will happen with a Cap and Tax mitigation plan.
Oh, sorry about you statistics, but I’m fairly certain they did not include the terms “morbidly” or “dimwits”.
Thanks King!!!!
That was awesome! … need that little shot in the arm!
Thank you!
GM says:
August 8, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Sorry GM, you missed the point. I was not suggesting that they were ALL invented here, merely that we produced those things like nobody else in the world. We didn’t event the car, but can you show me who produced it more than Ford did at the time? Who has brought all of these things to the most remotest parts of the world? eh? … you get YOUR facts straight!
D. King says:
August 8, 2010 at 10:49 pm
King! … your killing me here … ROFLMAO … hahahaha!!!!
No term limits for Markey. This guy can do for global warming what the Hindenburg did for the zeppelin business.
I think that he should be “Congressman for Life”. In that way Massachusetts can be forever punished for having elected him.
Smokey says:
August 9, 2010 at 5:43 am [ … ]
GM wrote:
Smokey, you are good! … I’ve known it all along. You nailed that on the head straight on. I had a gut feeling myself, but man, you nailed it!
Brilliant!
Personally, I am sooooo sick of academic idiots. I have had to deal with so many of them throughout my career. Always thinking they know everything but can’t seem to tie their own shoes in the real world. No concept of reality, not concept of “real” problem solving. Post-normal, that’s all they have. Simply put, making crap up as they go along to sound as if they have the answers. In my own field, I have so easily exposed every one of these that have crossed my path. It is pathetic. The AGW issue as a whole, and this Malarky type of business just doesn’t shock me at all anymore. The key to all of this, is ignore it just as you should the fender-bender you drove past on your way home from work today. Both are just a wreck you should ignore.
Dave Springer says:
August 9, 2010 at 6:28 am
As a long time computer programmer who has spent thousands and thousands of hours sitting in front of a computer, I too could have probably diagnosed your problem. I of course could not have fixed your problem myself, as that takes someone with … wait for it (listen up GM) .. experience .. and real-world knowledge and expertise. But certainly, my own experience could probably have been of use to you as I have suffered the same.
It simply amazes me how little academic’s understand the value of experience. That is, practical, real-world, hands-on personal observation. It is as if they believe, if it doesn’t exist in a book, then it simply doesn’t exist. Or that everything must behave the way the book says it does, my calculations tell me so. I cannot count the number of times, for me in my career, that observation and experimentation has totally obliterated literature produced by the “academics”. I believe that climate research is a perfect example of this phenomena. It seems that the bulk of academic climate scientists tend to believe their literature, computer models, book-works and papers by other academi, rather than empirical, observational information sitting right under their snobby noses. It is truly amazing to me. Now I know, these people aren’t stupid, and I am not suggesting so. But I have often asked myself “how stupid can they be?”. Human nature and human thought can be an amazing thing from both ends of the scale. Just think back to the number of inventions and discoveries accomplished by the “non-academics” in the world. Truly astounding! In fact, most of the technologies that you are using to read these messages and post here, were either invented by non-academics, or in a lot of cases, failed-academics (dropouts, etc..) The very foundation that runs the AGW world (running computer models, statistics, etc…) have all be invented and/or developed by non-academics. Why? Because the academics weren’t/aren’t capable of such. Either by knowledge, knowhow or ambition. I have also found that most academics that I have known, are academics because they are … wait for it … lazy .. As a child, my father (MIT graduate engineer) had a friend and colleague (nuclear physicist) that had acquired 4 Phd’s in various physics disciplines. Knew not a thing about the real world, and consequently was also one of the laziest people I have met (strange and interesting to talk to however). Seem a typical theme in my experience.
What is that old saying? “Those who can’t, teach” … there’s some truth to that.
Smokey says:
August 9, 2010 at 7:10 pm
======================
A blog post tour de force
WOW … you have illustrated precisely what I was just describing. Man oh man. Talk about taking a long walk off a short pier … hahahaha … GM .. this reply was so good, I had to show to my 18yr. old daughter (studying Constitutional (no case) law). She about pee’d herself with laughter.
Thanks for the roll on the floor … hehe .. can hardly get through this reply … hahaha
See folks, this is what academia can do for you! … “and this is your brain on academia” .. ahahaha…. killing me…
Smokey says:
August 9, 2010 at 7:10 pm
It is easy being a believer, and it is hard being a skeptic. Skepticism requires much more mental energy. But it is worth the effort.
====================================
Repeated for effect.
That’s right up there with your typical anti-intellectualism 101 right-wing rant. In fact it may very well be one. It has every stereotype covered – the pointy-headed academic that’s helpless in real life, the “value of experience” (that only applies to everything else but not to what the area of expertise of the academics), etc. Pure BS. You simply can not accuse academics of being lazy because the vast majority of people in academia are working their asses of 18 hours a day to get funding, produce and analyze results, write papers, teach, and if they are at a P.I. level, sit on countless committees and write countless reports and fill mountains of paperwork. It is simply ridiculous to say that it is an easy life for lazy people. Lazy people do not survive in academia, period.
I guess your father graduated from MIT a long time ago, and if it was an engineering discipline, it is not entirely surprising that you haven’t had the primitive distrust of intellectuals educated out of you. It also happens to be my alma matter and it was possible to find that kind of people there too, although not in large numbers at the time. That’s why it is always important to make the distinction between engineers and scientists when the argument from authority is used
Squidly says:
August 9, 2010 at 9:00 pm
=============================
Gettum.
Do you have anything to say to refute my position, or your are just going to continue rolling on the floor laughing? If you don’t, then you will be treated as intellectually inferior, as you have given plenty of justification for that so far. This is the third or fourth time in this thread I have to point out that simply laughing at someone because you disagree with him while having zero solid arguments to refute him is hardly a respectable practice.
And I have to remind you again that anti-intellectualism howlers of the kind your last sentence belongs to by no means help you raise your credibility. That’s kind of thing one would expect from your archetypal IQ-below-60 redneck
GM, you’ve got to lighten up and lose the buzz-kill attitude. Life is too short— you may have noticed that time goes faster with each passing year. Enjoy the gift. Do something positive. Make a difference in someone’s life. Start living. I mean, if there was ever anyone who needed to get laid, it’s you, bud.
GM says:
August 9, 2010 at 9:10 pm
=========================================
The onus (LOL) is on you to produce the evidence.
You won’t becuase you can’t.
You see….laughing is cool….when you are laughed out of the court.
Regardless…all of your horrific ad hominems are duly noted.
The main thing is that you can not produce the argument.
The burden of proof is on you.
But, as true to form, no one should expect much because you can only resort to vicious ad hominem fallacies.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I humbly disagree that this is a waste of time. While I agree we will not convince GM of anything, it doesn’t matter for me, I am learning soooo much from these discussions. I personally don’t give a rats rump about GM, he’s just one of the problems, but, unlike GM, I am not afraid or ashamed to admit that there are many who post here that possess far greater knowledge than I. That is the reason why I frequent here. I love to learn from others, from the “real world”. By-in-large, the vast majority here (99.995%) are some of the most fantastic and thought provoking people I have ever encountered.
Truly grand and amazing thoughts spewing forth from these comments. Great stuff!
This blog, these people and the thoughts, experiences and revelations they share, are exactly why I am so incredibly optimistic, that, in the end, everything will be alright. You see, we are ALL in this together. Makes me proud, and makes me proud to be an American!
Do you have anything to say to refute my position, or your are just going to continue rolling on the floor laughing?
============================
He is rolling on the floor laughing (and appropriately so) because there is absolutely nothing to refute.
Vacuous. A void.
GM says: August 9, 2010 at 5:51 pm
‘As I repeatedly pointed out, we do not have a problem just with AGW (it is not even the most pressing issue), we have a problem with global ecological overshoot. It has to be solved in its entirety, on the global system level. Organized contraction is the only solution to overshoot.’
——————————————————————————-
So AGW is not even the most pressing problem – How about recognizing it as the red herring that it is. CO2 is not going to cause Catastrophic Global Warming. GM you are really a Malthus adherent. How do you propose to ‘solve’ in its entirety this ‘ecological overshoot on a global level. Are you perhaps really a Marxist in drag? World Government led perchance by yourself?
————————————————————————————-
‘And again, this is not my field, so the only sensible thing I can do is trust the people who work in it. Because it makes a lot more sense to do that than to believe in a vast conspiracy involving thousands of PIs, graduate students, postdocs, computer programmers, in dozens of countries all around the world.’
—————————————————————————-
GM, What makes you think that the only alternative to believing the handful of so called climate scientists is to believe that there is a vast conspiracy involving thousands?
Doug
I am just going to continue to laugh …
I need not reply. You have illustrated plenty by this.
I have written computer programs demonstrating a larger degree of creativity.
You have no clue. You began your rants inferring that I am a morbidly obese dimwit who believes our planet is 6,000 years old, I am a creationist, that I believe the Sun rotates around the Earth, I spend my time sitting behind a desk eating junk food and watching TV. You think, and I quote, “I think the “lazy fricken ass” description fits you very well”
And now you are call me “intellectually inferior”. Or, I’m sorry, to quote, “If you don’t, then you will be treated as intellectually inferior, as you have given plenty of justification for that so far.”
I believe I have tolerated your personal attacks, your rudeness and your outright insults long enough.
It is YOU who will be “treating” ME as an intellectual inferior? You have these powers do you? Bring it on cream puff. You have absolutely no clue who I am or what I am about. Step into my arena and I will gladly mop the floor with your flagrant arrogant ass.
To others here, this is a grand demonstration of what you are in for should Pol’s like Malarky be allowed to continue to take us down this dangerous road. Do you want arrogant jackasses like this, proclaiming that “you will be treated as intellectually inferior”. You know, sit down, shut up and be a good little useful idiot. If this doesn’t open the window and show you the light into exactly who GM is, then heaven forgive, you have got to be blind. GM, or may I call you Alinsky Jr.? There is no way your are going to succeed with this tactic, not with me. I may not be the sharpest tack in the drawer, but I didn’t fall of the turnip truck just yesterday.
You have simply expressed and illustrated to me, just how intellectually challenged you really are. You have much to learn dear boy. Be cool, stay in school, it may be the only place that will accept you.
GM says: August 9, 2010 at 5:51 pm
‘As I repeatedly pointed out, we do not have a problem just with AGW (it is not even the most pressing issue), we have a problem with global ecological overshoot. It has to be solved in its entirety, on the global system level. Organized contraction is the only solution to overshoot.’
——————————————————————————-
So AGW is not even the most pressing problem – How about recognizing it as the red herring that it is. CO2 is not going to cause Catastrophic Global Warming. GM you are really a Malthus adherent. How do you propose to ‘solve’ in its entirety this ‘ecological overshoot on a global level. Are you perhaps really a Marxist in drag? World Government; led perchance by yourself?
———————————————————————————
‘And again, this is not my field, so the only sensible thing I can do is trust the people who work in it. Because it makes a lot more sense to do that than to believe in a vast conspiracy involving thousands of PIs, graduate students, postdocs, computer programmers, in dozens of countries all around the world.’
—————————————————————————
GM, What makes you think that the only alternative to believing the handful of so called climate scientists is to believe that there is a vast conspiracy involving thousands.
Doug
Sorry folks, I am done for the night. Unlike GM, I have to go put in my 14hrs. at work tomorrow at a real job .. you know, working in the real world. Nothing spectacular mind you. Just the usual mindless computer programing tasks, systems integrations, source control management, data architecture, process control systems, routing, security and other miscellaneous mundane tasks that us intellectual inferiors do from day to day, just to be sure that the $150mil./year website, commerce system and supporting main frame systems are able to take real money from real customers so we can feed our real employees, their real families and the support of a $billion/year corporation. And yes, I do this almost single handedly, with a very small crew, responsible for a company employing more that 1,000 direct employees with more than 1200 stores and outlets nation-wide, plus outlets in every Target store, Home Depot, Sears and Costco in the nation, besides fully 2/3 of the malls in this country (more mouths to feed).
Again, GM, step in to my world and I will mop the floor with your ass, one had tied behind my back while taking practice swings with my new driver! Your a rather pathetic pooch.
Sean Peake says:
August 9, 2010 at 9:34 pm
GM, you’ve got to lighten up and lose the buzz-kill attitude. Life is too short— you may have noticed that time goes faster with each passing year. Enjoy the gift. Do something positive. Make a difference in someone’s life. Start living. I mean, if there was ever anyone who needed to get laid, it’s you, bud.
======================
Repeated for effect.
Right on!
GM:
And I have to remind you [Squidly] again that anti-intellectualism howlers of the kind your last sentence belongs to by no means help you raise your credibility. That’s kind of thing one would expect from your archetypal IQ-below-60 redneck.
Tut tut, GM, it’s really quite simple: Squidly was simply supporting his previous argument on the basis of your own statement, which Squidly reproduced, such that res ipsa loquiter – the thing speaks for itself, your “thing”, which then constitutes one more case tending to substantiate Squidly’s “this is your brain on academia”
howlerpractical model.And you just did it again, GM, via your defensive appeal to the “archetypal IQ-below-60 redneck”, as though repeatedly defeating your own archetypical fantasy foe proves anything in the real world.
GM: August 9, 2010 at 5:31 pm
You are assuming that people will accept it. They will not because most people believe what they want to believe, not what is true. It takes a lot of training to successfully get rid of this bad mental habit that we all share, and few people go through that kind of training.
That’s an appeal to authority, with you self-selecting as an authority. It’s also self-contradictory, because despite your claim to “a lot of training” and despite a lack of any proof (or even of any convincing evidence) that AGW is real, you obviously *want* to believe it’s true
Sure, it would be nice if global warming was not a problem, but that’s not the case.
No one has ever succeeded in making the case that warming is a problem — it has been significantly warmer during several eras just in *recorded* history, and the catastrophes the CAGW keeps predicting did not occur. Excessive global *cooling* is the killer.
Yet, people still refuse to accept it. As they refuse to accept the much less contentious issue of global ecological overshoot, which, as I will not stop pointing out, is just as true without AGW as it is with, and which is pretty much irrefutable, backed by rock solid data and plenty of historical examples of the growth-overshoot-collapse cycle on local scale.
What is this mystical “global ecological overshoot” to which you refer? I’m sure it has been talked about previously, but I’m unfamiliar with the buzzwords. It reminded me of the kerfluffle raised by the Army Aviation Directorate of Evaluation and Standardization (DES) during the ’90s when examiners would come to various units and ding instructors on our knowledge of aerodynamics because we didn’t mention “overshoot-rebound” in our classes. They were referring to the simple mechanical action of the rotor blades in a fully-articulated rotor system which had *always* been termed “lead and lag” in the textbooks — but someone who was educated beyond his intelligence convinced the DES commander that it was more-properly termed “overshoot-rebound.” All he succeeded in doing was turning DES into a bigger laughingstock than it had been.
So — what is “global ecological overshoot” and what are some rock-solid, historical examples of it?
“Deniersberg”!
LOL!!!!!
GM: August 9, 2010 at 9:05 pm
…it is not entirely surprising that you haven’t had the primitive distrust of intellectuals educated out of you.
Primitive people have pretty good instincts. It’s how they *survive* in the real world, rather than the artificial one in which everything is provided by the efforts of others.
That’s why it is always important to make the distinction between engineers and scientists when the argument from authority is used.
So, does your guru, Raj Pachauri, know you’re dissing him like this?
I agree completely with Arn Riewe said in the 4th comment (August 8, 2010 at 2:59 pm).
The beauty of AGW is that it’s soooooooooo hard to disprove. How do you prove to Chicken Little that the Sky ISN’T Falling?
We might as well save our breath! Besides, the AGW psyentists will only blame us for making everything worse by talking and typing so much.
Hmmmm. Just Googled “global ecological overshoot” and found
Area demand can exceed area supply. For example, a forest harvested at twice its regeneration rate appears in our accounts at twice its area. This phenomenon is called “ecological overshoot” (14, 15).
Thus, the ecological impact of humanity is measured as the area of biologically productive land and water required to produce the resources consumed and to assimilate the wastes generated by humanity, under the predominant management and production practices in any given year. Not only human demand on nature, but also nature’s supply changes over time because of innovations in technology and resource management, changes in land use, and cumulative damage of past impacts.
http://www.pnas.org/content/99/14/9266.full
That explains the elitist attitude and failure to provide references for his statements — GM’s a Malthusian.
GM, re: “global ecological overshoot”:
Yet, people still refuse to accept it. As they refuse to accept the much less contentious issue of global ecological overshoot, which, as I will not stop pointing out, is just as true without AGW as it is with, and which is pretty much irrefutable, backed by rock solid data and plenty of historical examples of the growth-overshoot-collapse cycle on local scale.
So, as a result of the local creation of excess wealth compared to an alleged unsustainability of same, local ecological overshoot results, which when generalized necessarily produces “global ecological overshoot”? Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, given these deeply held presuppositions, which also place an immediate limit upon the possibility of further true wealth creation, I hereby present Western society’s Academia as exampled by, say, GM and the “armchair” ipcc Climate Science as cases in point: the effete ecological niche we of the “overdeveloped nations” have artificially created to sustain such activity, which in itself even tends to be a counterproductive force to boot, will “collapse” locally and perforce contribute to “global ecological overshoot and collapse”, unless we do something to abort this local niche immediately!
But, fortuneately, “we” don’t have to do much of anything in this case because we seem to have some very dedicated and willing volunteers to effect what their “irrefutable” ethical and factual beliefs demand of them = suicide, a win-win solution for everyone!
Careful, there, JPeden — you’re cruising into knuckle-dragging, IQ-of-60, primitively superstitious suspicion of progressively-enlightened highly-trained intellectuals, morbidly-obese creationist territory!
‘Nother words, “Rat own, Bro…”
I’ll supply the feathers and hot tar; anyone else want to supply a little muscle power to escort Markey out of our country?
And GM, as an MIT alum redneck engineer PhD, I find your cultural and racial bias, bigotry, and insensitivity as only oh too typical of your “intellectual ilk”. But there were plenty of obnoxious east coast “intellectuals” at the ‘tute, so no surprise.
Hope you don’t mind if I borrowed your ‘new country name’. See: “The iceberg treatment: The congressman, the iceberg, and a PBS freeze-out” http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/08/the_iceberg_treatment.html
Excerpt: “Skeptic blogger Anthony Watts has already named the iceberg “Deniersberg.” We could simply laugh at this, if only the far greater problem Markey personifies weren’t so serious: anyone who questions the idea of man-caused global warming needs to go someplace where they can’t be heard. That would include ordinary citizens just like me.”
Warming deniers should start their own country? They already have started one . . . China! (cue snare drum rim shot)
Bill Tuttle says:
August 10, 2010 at 2:49 pm:
Careful, there, JPeden — you’re cruising into knuckle-dragging, IQ-of-60, primitively superstitious suspicion of progressively-enlightened highly-trained intellectuals, morbidly-obese creationist territory!
ah clings to muh trusty Jon Carray 10 gage just in case theyall don’t onry that there bargan of theirs…it ain’t nothin personal, rules is rules, thats all…
You forgot “bitterly” — we cling “bitterly”…
ah’m too dumb to be bitterly..
we can tell him where to shove the iceberg at.
Spain’s plan to have 2,000 electric cars on the road by the end of 2010 have been dealt a blow as figures showed just 16 have been sold.
That is not a typo. 16 cars have been sold since the electric cars went on sale in 2009. The government’s REVE electric car and wind power project had announced a rather bold investment in the vehicles:
In April, the government said it would invest …$775 million In the production of electric cars. It aims to have 250,00 electric and hybrid cars in circulation by 2014.” (ibid BBC)
This is what gubment energy intervention looks like in Eutopia.