Cambridge Conservative: Kerry Emanuel speaks out against the anti-science GOP

I’ve been called a conservative once (among many other things).
Does that count?

Texas Tech atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe is an evangelical Christian who travels widely talking to conservative audiences and wrote a book with her husband, a pastor and former climate change denier, explaining climate change to skeptics.
The pocketbooks must be opening to us now, just grit your teeth when you smile as all you see in the photos and say… I am now a warmist, I love warm, no, I hate warm, no… now what DID that contract say I think?

Even conservatives can be wrong if they believe in AGW.

Christopher Hanley says: (January 6, 2011 at 11:04 pm) A person can’t be an “oxymoron”.
A “silly cow“? (Ausralian slang.)

Hmmmmm. Well, ok, maybe he has a couple of conservative views…gay marriage and strong military….but the obvious conservative argument is the overarching planning and controlling of the US economy. Industrial planning is much more of a sore point, not to mention the picking of winners and losers (can you say”volt”?)
my general rule is that until these guys who say that they are paniced start lobbying for and embracing billions of US dollars for research, implentation of nukes, then I can’t take them very seriously
if they really want to be heroes and help the world, they need to educate the country on why the nuke fears are hollywood hype, brought to you by crazed eviros.

Sometimes my customers call me a cow, doesnt mean I give milk and moo though does it?
The BBC likes to label the current senior partner of the UK coalition ‘conservative/right wing’ when by any rational critical observation they are nothing like that description. The Nissan Leaf was awarded an international prize when in fact the old USSR Lada was more deserving of an award. Al Gore was awarded a Nobel prize for lying and deceiving the viewing public. The met office rewrite the past even when caught red handed. The UK government increases spending while claiming it is cutting it and the MSM peddles the lies, they promise we cannot afford a valid navy while spending far more on foreign aid to nations that do not need it.
Its a mad mad mad world, its Alice through the looking glass and getting worse with a madness infecting the upper echelons of the great and the good. The wrong things are being praised, the wrong fixes applied to non existent problems, people are rewarded for lying and the innocent are condemned and the guilty not only go free but are rewarded with generous abandon.

Sonic Frog’s comment impelled me to look at RC (I hate going there, it feels like walking through a very dubious neighbourhood that has a resident team of bullies) and the cobbled-together attack on Bell is still there, in all its malignant glory.

I’m currently writing a book called ” As bad As Each Other: Comparing stupidity on boths sides of the fence” – Who made up these arbitrary divisions anyway? Why can’t we vote on every single issue via computer? We have the technology

[also, a note to RealClimate: Larry Bell was absolutely correct about global tropical cyclone activity record lows. You owe him an apology.]
[Follow up note to Ryan: RC’s apology really doesn’t matter, since nobody is paying attention to them anymore anyway, see below – Anthony]
_____________________________________________________________
Not exactly sure what page hits has to do with objective science.
I mean like why don’t you add YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, and Conservapedia to your chart?
The Forbes article strongly implies the Atlantic hurricane season and never mentions “global tropical cyclone activity” per se.
Here’s a link to the Forbes article, which you left out of this post;
http://www.forbes.com/2010/12/23/media-climate-change-warming-opinions-contributors-larry-bell_print.html
“Record Low 2009 and 2010 (methinks GLOBAL TROPICAL would have been placed right aboot here) Cyclonic Activity Reported: Global Warming Theorists Perplexed”?
Cyclonic Activity? Tropical? Polar? Extratropical? Subtropical? Mesocyclone?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone
“Remember all the media brouhaha about global warming causing hurricanes that commenced following the devastating U.S. 2004 season?”
Hurricanes?
U.S. 2004 season?
What happened to the proported GLOBAL TROPICAL cyclone activity which isn’t mentioned in this sentence?
“Subsequent hurricane seasons returned to average patterns noted historically over the past 150 years, before exhibiting recent record lows with no 2010 U.S. landfalls.”
Hurricanes?
2010 U.S. landfalls?
I could have sworn that the Forbes article was aboot GLOBAL TROPICAL cyclone activity (oh, I forgot GLOBAL TROPICAL cyclone activity hasn’t been mentioned, yet, nor will it be for the entire article).
Not even sure why you mentioned the above two […] which have nothing to do with Kerry Emmanual’s op-ed unless you count the use of the word “hurricane” in the body of the op-ed piece and go off the deep end, like you’ve done here.
Finally, if this doesn’t get posted, as over half of my posts don’t get through either your “SPAM” filter, your mods, or you yourself, I’ve taken to cutting and pasting everything I do try to post here, just for my own piece of mind, and to thoroughly disprove your specious claims to the otherwise with respect to WUWT vs other climate science blogs proported censorship.
REPLY: Oh gosh, I’m quaking in my boots! Here’s the deal: you have 241 comments posted on WUWT, you are well represented. You are in the company of many of the half a million comments on WUWT. Yes, like every poster, some of your comments may end up in the SPAM filter due to keywords or excessive links. Some of those get deleted. This has happened to almost everyone here at one time or another. In your case though, since you have been so rude and caustic in the past, every one of your posts now automatically gets flagged for inspection. That’s right, Junior, you get special attention. It boils down to what I’ve written on the policy page.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/about-wuwt/policy/
Welcome to my home on the Internet. Everyone who visits here is welcome to post, but please treat your visit like you would a visit to a private home or office. Most people wouldn’t be rude, loud, or insulting in somebody’s home or office, I ask for the same level of civility and courtesy here.
So, the question is Junior, would you continue to invite somebody into your living room who insults you every day?
Sometimes, I’d toss that person out on their ear. My wife would probably beat me to that task. Yes, some posts of yours don’t meet the criteria for civility or content and thus get snipped. Other commenters have met the same fate. Some blogs don’t allow dissenting comments at all.
There is a light of hope for you though. Commenter Phil. ( a professor too timid to use his name) was placed into the inspection que. After a few months, he learned not to be so rude, and phrased things differently (though he’s still a bit caustic at times) and was put back into the general population, unfettered.
You can earn that honor too.
Do I care that you are upset? Not in the least. Will I get into a long drawn out pointless discussion with you about it (like your pixel fiasco) ? No. I’m not going to waste any further time with you on it, my position on moderation isn’t going to change. Will some of your comments in the future not make it? Possibly. It is up to you.
Behave, be nice, and you’ll always be part of the general discussion. Be rude, insulting, and condescending and you’ll continue with your status quo. There’s an old saying:

“You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar”
– Anthony

@Bob of Castlemaine says: January 7, 2011 at 1:45 am
Yeah. “Emanuel said. “The parallel to that is saying, ‘You won’t buy property insurance unless I can prove to you that your house will catch on fire right now.’”
As you say – but actually it is even worse. More like “Pay ten times the value of your house as an annual premium but we’ll only pay out when you can prove those pesky pixies have started the fire using their moon-beam guns.”
And as far as the “right wing brains” piece, they don’t seem to have a result for an analysis of “greenie brains”. Still looking for one?

These days there are lots of people out there claiming to be “conservative” and grabbing the media spotlight in criticizing all the “right-wing zealots” now in the party. “Such wonderful and thoughtful centrists,” we are all supposed to think.
Kerry is turning into the next James Hansen – a complete political hack and enviro-wacko. There, I’ve said it. .

“Emanuel said. “The parallel to that is saying, ‘You won’t buy property insurance unless I can prove to you that your house will catch on fire right now.’”
The precautionary principle……..AGAIN! I think history has shown that fire is a real danger. AGW is a fairytale. Why not buy insurance for meterotites hitting your house, or Sasquatch attacking you while you sleep, or sea monsters attacking you at sea. Belief in fairytales has no parallel to provable events like house fires.

I, too, fail to understand the shouty political definitions attached to whether one is sceptical of CAGW or not. As a Kiwi living temporarily in the UK, I am frequently surprised at how thoroughly ‘tribal’ and nastily personal UK politics are and how roughly similar they are to politics as they were back in the 1950s in my country, before we grew up a little as a nation.
I don’t wish to be a grump or to be hurtful of anyone’s delicate sensibiities, but my elderly mind tries to jump the sprockets of reason when I attempt to follow Ms Thorpe’s soliloquys – does her latest tell us she once defied her parents to take a ‘coloured’ friend to their country club and buy her a drink, and as a consequence daringly changed political ‘sides’ from that of her parents and her dumb but moneyed and priveledged peers ? Wow!
Like Rhett Butler in ‘Gone With the Wind’, ‘I just don’t give a damn!’.

Dr. Emanuel has become the equivalent of a trained monkey in Cambridge and for liberals everywhere.

“Not touching this one with a ten-foot pole — just wondering what the motivation is for yet another Emanuel article, which get more and more political.”
It very simple, really. Consider the timing – a new Congress has been sworn in which will (hopefully) be ending the Climate Ca$h gravy train these guys have been riding for the past decade or more. Academics like Emanuel are getting nervous that government funding for his (and his colleagues) pet projects may soon be curtailed or come to an end. The problem now for people like Emanuel is that we can no longer consider their advice to be unbiased with regards to climate change as they have firmly stepped into the political arena (as have Hansen, Schmidt, Mann, etc.).
Expect more climate ca$h-funded scientists (and their allies in the leftist enviro special interest groups) to start “speaking out” in more strident and shrill tones as the new budgets are debated in Congress.

Money perverts lots of things, huge government grants to prove what government wants proved is the worst. Something like $30 billion has been given in government grants to make the case that governments must regulate people’s action because of people breathing too much.
There is a trap there.

Re: Whether a person can be an “Oxy-moron”…
Yes indeed, they can be! Former Governer of Minnesota, USA – – – Jesse “The Body” Ventura. Definitely an OXYMORON…
Max

“Kerry Emanuel is among a rare breed of conservative scientists”
Yawn. So what.

Great the bring out a bunch of posers to convince us they are just like us. No, no they’re not. They still don’t have a clue about what’s driving the skeptical bus.
They can call themselves what ever they wish. It doesn’t make it so. A repub that voted for Bambi? You probably don’t meet the definition. An evangelical that believes mankind can control the weather? Uhhm, yeh, ok, I buying that. I’m really superman too, I just don’t wear it on my sleeve. ……..whatever.
They can call themselves whatever, I just want to be clearly separated from them. If he’s a republican that voted for bOwbama, then I’m a libertarian that votes republican. If an evangelical believes man can control the weather, then I’m a Baptist that believes we can’t. Label what you will.

“Emanuel said. “The parallel to that is saying, ‘You won’t buy property insurance unless I can prove to you that your house will catch on fire right now.’”
Where I come from that would class as a direct threat against me, mine and my house. It would label the speaker as a thug with a gallon of gas in his car and a lighter in his pocket. And my next move would be (at the least) to run him off with a shotgun.

“Political views may be hard-wired into people, according to a study that suggests those with right-wing views have a larger area of the brain associated with fear.
Scientists have found that people with conservative views have brains with larger amygdalas, almond-shaped areas in the centre of the brain often associated with anxiety and emotions, London’s Daily Telegraph reports.
They also have smaller anterior cingulate, an area at the front of the brain associated with courage and looking on the bright side of life, than those from the opposite end of the political spectrum.”
Absolutely opposite of the positron brain scan results (UCLA) of “hard core partisians” done in 2004 before the election. The areas of the brain associated with “emotional response” lit up like a Christmas tree when shown pictures of Kerry and Edwards. Fear areas lit up when hard core (Democrats) were shown Bush/Cheny pictures.
There was “normal brain processing” for images of both Kerry/Bush in the “hard core conservatives”.
I think I’d trust the “live observations” more than the speculative “brain volume assesments”.
But then because of the potential “politiziation” of this matter, I’d rather have some “quality assurance” done on the researchers too! (Maybe like vote counting, one Democrat matched with one Republican..)

Heh – I’m always amused by political generalizations.
Look, nobody (that I know) ever said that left/right = belief/disbelief in cAGW. What does tend to happen, though, is that the left tend to believe more easily that we mere humans are damaging the planet and (here’s the important part) WE NEED TO CHANGE EVERYTHING TO FIX IT.
Any discussion about political affiliation is going to deal in generalizations. Not unlike your astrology sign (I’m a Scorpio). I don’t believe that horoscopes can predict, however my personal experience is that people tend to follow their signs, whether they like it or believe it or not. We Scorpios think that way, you see.
The very definition of left/right varies by region. Different states/provinces/districts of different countries/continents will have a different set of priorities, but overall the left/right difference can be summed up, somehow. Sometimes a group will all be so far off in one direction that the only difference is the degree.
My personal simplification:
The left emphasizes feelings and emotions, and collectivism.
The right emphasizes thinking and self-reliance.
Obviously, the left feels that they think more than the right, which eliminates their ability to critically analyse that simplification.
Anyway, the real issue is single-issue. Anyone who defines their belief system and their entire life on a single issue is going to see the world in a bizarre black/white left/right up/down way. One example is gay people, who tend to define themselves more as gay (as opposed to straight) than male/female/white/black/asian/intellectual/artist or whatever else we use to define ourselves.
I’m firmly on the RIGHT in my political outlook, but it wasn’t always that way. I also recognize that many people who associate themselves with the Right (or conservative, or Republican, or whatever) really have no idea what they stand for. Just because you agree with one or two policies or ideas that you think are “conservative” doesn’t mean you ARE a “conservative”. Heck, I like a few of the things that the left endorse, but I wouldn’t be caught dead associated with any leftist/democrat I’ve yet met.
Oh, and those who think the zeroBama “health care” thing is a good idea are really not well-informed on the subject (although I think you feel you are). I’ve lived most of my life watching the dismal failure that the canadian system has become. You really don’t want to screw up your country this way. Really.

Jakers said -but “no 2010 U.S. landfalls” is not relevant- seemed very relevant to Gore.

Benjamin P. says:
January 7, 2011 at 8:38 am
Ben, I guess you do not know many conservatives.
As for the left/right = AGW/Skeptic comparison. That is usually caused by the prominent solutions being proposed to the (non-existent) problem. For conservatives that do believe in AGW (or A any of the other names they have come up with), taxing is an anathema, but taxing is the lifeblood of the left. Conversely, those on the left that are skeptics may very well support another tax – but for purposes of raising revenue, not treating a problem they do not believe is one.
For those that are well versed on the subject of AGW, ACC, or AGCD, the ancillary issues of taxes or restrictions is secondary to the science. So left and right do not matter in that respect.

I think a person’s political principles will (if a person is logically consistent and has some rational discipline) be based on that person’s ethical premises. The weirdness starts to occur when, for whatever reason, a person does not have consistently rational thought processes; randomness of political affiliation (independent of ethics) would occur then based on emotion, belief systems and/or herd instinct. This weirdness would be the expected case for followers, but not likely for the leaders of an ideology like CAGW. The leaders may actually have relatively consistent ethics and politics . . . does anyone know of an individual leader of CAGW like this? I do not know of any.
All that aside, a person could also be purposely attempting misdirection (for whatever motivation) regarding their actual ethical and political principles. In my view that is one of the likely cases for some key leaders of an ideology like CAGW; based on the issues surrounding climate science credibility.
This is all wonderful to consider as we blog about MIT professor Kerry Emanuel. Is he a leader or follower? I think it is likely that he is a reactive follower; leadership does not spring to mind when discussing him.
John

I’m a Liberal sometimes, I’ve voted for Liberal Prime Ministers in Canada (sometimes). I think CAGW is a follow the money scam, many of my sometimes Liberal friends also think CAGW is a scam (not all of them). CO2 alarmism and skepticism is not politically orientation specific.

I don’t care if he thinks he is a conservative or not. I am not. Heck conservatives have lots of really dumb ideas too. I have a much bigger problem with referring to Kerry Emanuel as a scientist. We have now long passed the point where a scientist, that is at all current on the issue, can still support a CAGW hypothesis as anything other than a mental exercise.

“[Follow up note to Ryan: RC’s apology really doesn’t matter, since nobody is paying attention to them anymore anyway, see below – Anthony]”
You know Watt? That was just rude! It was also factual and deserved!! 8>)

Here is a crash course on the difference between liberals and conservatives:
Conservatives want freedom;
liberals want control.
Conservatives want to decide their own fate;
liberals want to decide everyone else’s fate.
Conservatives believe in the power of the individual;
liberals believe in the power of the State.
Conservatives want laws repealed;
liberals want laws passed.
Conservatives believe a higher authority is possible;
liberals believe THEY are the higher authority.
Conservatives know agw is a wealth redistribution scam;
liberals pretend agw is about the magnaminity of a trace gas.
Conservatives point to historical data as proof that climate change is natural;
liberals point to gigo computer projections as proof that climate change is manmade.
Get the picture?

…waking to coffee (in my WUWT mug, of course) and reading these comments from truly OUTSTANDING ‘Real Scientists’… I keep forgetting to bring along my ‘biro’ (blue Bic pen, for Americans) and writing pad…
I enjoy scooping up ‘truly life giving & inspiring’ quotes that you guys post. Some from yourselves – some from other truly great humans from the past. Like, Voltare. (I personally enjoy that guy who traveled America and said ‘she is Great because she’s good…’ he was cool because he was HONEST.)
Do any of you know of a book that ‘in a nut shell’ gives Voltare’s ‘best thoughts’?
There’s also a plethora of great stuff from Einstein, that most of you know – and over the past few weeks I’ve already read a couple of books on Jefferson because of what ‘Smokey’ shared months ago…
Geez! Who KNEW that by reading ONE WEB SITE that ‘one’ (being ME in this case) would be privy to such mind expanding stuff? Perhaps (now, this is JUST a Theory – so please cut me some slack…) ‘as individuals’ – when we come together – this…this ‘Synergy’ happens and I leave this computer better off than when I first sat down to it…?
‘Wowie Zowie’ she so ‘scholarer-ly’ exclaims.
No wonder governments in 2011 want to regulate this thing! Does that mean that Cass Sunstein has been wantin’ to keep all this good stuff to himself?
Com’ on, Cass! (is that short for ‘Cassity’? as in Butch, mebbe? where’s… Sundance?)
You wouldn’t want the rest of us to go ‘without’ would you??? she ‘skeptically’ inquires…
I just BET that all of our government’s ‘collective individuals’ so very much need a ‘real boost’ from great places like Watts Up!!! So… I heartily suggest that they log on and read on… but you ‘government-types’… if you do that – AT LEAST promise you’ll keep the Marxist/Behaviorist/Skinnerism-ing crap to yourselves. Jus’ for our continuing enjoyment – you understand. I mean, jus’ cause I like to smoke…doesn’t mean I’m so rude as to blow it in YOUR faces…like you guys foist your secularist garbage in our faces all the time…
Ohhhh… Why waste a great mood? – I’m currently writing down James Sexton’s quote from Voltare and then goin’ out to tend the sheep… p.s. the weather in the Southeast is overcast and cool… Have any of you thought of getting fellow Scientists
to just ‘check thermometers outside their homes to ‘accurately’ log this ‘climate change’? …Methinks it’d be a whole lot more ‘accurate’…or mebbe lickin’ one’s finger to test just which way ‘the wind’s gonna blow’…? A Farmer’s Almanac, even…???
Inquiringly – your lil’ Sis in the Southeast –
Cynthia Lauren

A conservative in Cambridge is a Marxist radical when viewed from South Carolina and the most of the rest of fly over country that make the world work.
His views on Global Warming give you a hint of what the rest of his political views are.

Oh, an’ to Alexander K the New Zealander ‘in the UK’…
Sorry if you don’t enjoy my ‘soliloquies/rants’ – I’ve gotten a lot out of yours .
I’m also currently ‘displaced’. An American business woman learning to live ‘in the Outback’. It’s ‘tough’ at times – culturally speaking. I somehow ‘found’ WUWT which ‘for me’ is a forum within which to read and to conscientiously debate with others on a myriad of germane topics.
When ‘ranting’ about Country Clubs – I was just demonstrating that I came from a privileged Conservative background (showing I wasn’t just talking ‘outta my a**, you understand) that ‘I knew of which I had spoken’… – and when I sniffed ‘hipocracy’ (which one can find ANYWHERE) – I left and kinda did a young ‘David Horowitz’y thing – became a ‘useful idiot’… till life’s school of ‘hard knocks’ brought a tried and true Conservative into being. That’s all. ‘No Dramas’, Alexander.
And, now, I’m even a Capitalist, too!!! So, the next time I go into a Country Club it’ll be under my OWN merit…NOT my ‘folks’…and, I’ll bring anyone of ANY COLOR I so choose, ’cause that’ll be ‘my right’ if I am paying ‘the dues’. C apish?
But, your ‘Gone With the Wind’ thing intrigues me… ’cause I loved Rhett’s character and thought Scarlett embodied all that was truly FATAL in females…
Be Blessed and KEEP WARM – my Kiwi Bud…
Cynthia Lauren
io’debatebate us’ don’t don’t read them.
[Careful now. Ya gotta watch out for them there “hipocracies” all the time – particularly when making observations about their weight. 8<) Robt]

hahaha….thanks Robert!
hahaha…gotta make Ian’s ham sandwiches!
Here he comes now………ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

Charles S. Opalek, PE says:
January 7, 2011 at 2:43 pm
Here is a crash course on the difference between liberals and conservatives:
Conservatives want freedom;
liberals want control.
Conservatives want to decide their own fate;
liberals want to decide everyone else’s fate.
Conservatives believe in the power of the individual;
liberals believe in the power of the State.
Conservatives want laws repealed;
liberals want laws passed.
Conservatives believe a higher authority is possible;
liberals believe THEY are the higher authority.
Conservatives know agw is a wealth redistribution scam;
liberals pretend agw is about the magnaminity of a trace gas.
Conservatives point to historical data as proof that climate change is natural;
liberals point to gigo computer projections as proof that climate change is manmade.
Get the picture?
I get the picture. You. Clueless.

LOL @ “JK”
Care to expound on your brilliant summation of those facts? Really? Prove any two of those points wrong (I’m giving you that because one is wrong).

Understanding the genesis of a Kerry Emmanuel may be helped by the remarks of Richard Lindzen:
“…I wish to point out some simple truths that are often forgotten by our
side of this issue. First, being skeptical about global warming does not, by itself, make one a good scientist; nor does endorsing global warming make one, per se, a poor scientist. Most of the atmospheric scientists who I respect do endorse global warming. The important point, however, is that the science that they do that I respect is not about global warming. Endorsing global warming just makes their lives easier.
“For example, my colleague, Kerry Emanuel, received relatively little recognition until he suggested that hurricanes might become stronger in a warmer world (a position that I think he has since backed away from somewhat). He then was inundated with professional recognition….” [from his presentation at the March, 2009 ICCC]
http://www.heartland.org/events/newyork09/pdfs/lindzen.pdf