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There will be a story featuring Al Gore and his climate views on CBS 60 minutes this weekend. Normally I don’t pay much heed to this program, but Gore is publicly calling those who question the science “…almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat…”.
To me, a person who has at one time been fully engaged in the belief that CO2 was indeed the root cause of the global warming problem, I find Gore’s statements insulting. In 1990 after hearing what James Hansen and others had to say, I helped to arrange a national education campaign for TV meteorologists nationwide (ironically with CBS’s help) on the value of planting trees to combat the CO2 issue. I later changed my thinking when I learned more about the science involved and found it to be lacking.
I’ve never made a call to action on media reporting before on this blog, but this cannot go unchallenged.
The press release from CBS on the upcoming story on Gore is below. You can visit the CBS website here and post comments:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/27/60minutes/main3974389.shtml
See the video clip here
But let’s also let the producer, Richard Bonin, know (via their communications contact) what you think about it, as I did when Scott Pelley aired a whole hour long special telling us Antarctica was melting. They did no follow up.
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For the record, astro, my IQ is NOT around 65, its around 23 … but in dog years.
so much bigger
Basing energy policy on reducing fossil fuel use is not insane. Now you’re being disingenuous, Rico. Shame on you. I said “Basing energy policy on reducing C02, which not only isn’t a pollutant, but is a beneficial gas is nothing short of insanity.” Big difference there, Rico.
I am arguing that even if you ignore the CO2 emissions part, nothing much changes in terms of shaping energy policy.
If nothing much changes, then why even consider C02?
Your understanding of the science refuting AGW is laughably pathetic, Rico, so your basis for criticism is nonexistent. You might try this paper for a start: Editorial: The Great Global Warming Hoax?
Rico:
“…coal kills more people than oil does, and oil more than natural gas.”
And lack of coal, oil, or natural gas kills even more!
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Bruce Cobb (12:08:09): If nothing much changes, then why even consider C02?
Uh…. I thought that was my point. Who exactly is being disingenuous?
As far as your suggested reading goes, I’m too stupid. Can you guide me? Or maybe, if you’re as interested in science as you state, maybe we should talk about the science, rather than editorials about the science. In that regard, could you explain to me why my comments about the Miskolzi paper were off-base? For someone with your stated certainty, that should be as easy as falling off a log — if, in fact, I don’t know what I’m talking about. But if you can’t, then again I must ask… who exactly is being disingenuous?
McGrats (12:11:23): And lack of coal, oil, or natural gas kills even more!
It certainly would — if there were no other alternatives. But there are. The question is… at what price? Can you answer that in some sort of coherent manner? Talking points don’t work with me. I want to see numbers. Lots of them. I’m a geek.
Evan Jones (19:30:47): Do you have a specific example in mind; perhaps I am missing a trick, here?
No tricks really. Only cold, hard logic. Think Socrates.
I still can’t think of an example where a nation cleaned up its environment in any real way while remaining poor. The only cases that come to mind are successful postindustrial societies.
I am also not sure what specific examples you want me to adduce to support the notion that when oil prices go up it makes sense to increase exploration and that prohibiting exploration in vast areas industry very much wants to explore, and that failure to do so makes prices higher and the US more dependant on imports. It seems to be somewhat a truism.
hy don’t we lift all restrictions and let the market do as it will? If alternate fuels will pay off, fine. I am in favor of whatever will pay.
And I don’t care so much about imports vs. non-imports. I just want as much wealth creatd as quicky as possible. (I am concerned with production. Overconsumption is a different question entirely.)
Larry Grimes,
Let me tell you a story about men and their past credentials. I trust it won’t bore you. In my first real job, the boss was never in the office, so I reported to MAC, a retired wirey 06 with 10/20 vision and a cackling laugh I will never forget. Every day he would yelp my name and I came running to his office for some random task. I was fresh meat, the new guy. One day my cubical mate, a wild weasel, pulled me aside and said “kid you need some slack in your chain MAC is just yanking you around like a puppy.”
But I didn’t want slack in my chain. MAC had it. Whatever IT was. He had the right stuff.
Every sunday we played golf at the Long Beach Navy Course. He was the ultimate sandbagger, moaning about how long I drove the ball. Every Sunday he took my money, religiously. Ok it was a dollar a side. And then we would go to his house for sunday dinner. The kid, the colonel, and his lovely wife.
I never asked about his past or the pictures I saw on the den wall with him next to airplanes. He never made it a point to talk about war stories. Even at work, when other guys regaled me with tales of valor over thud ridge, Mac sat silent and smiled. Sandbagger.
Then one day while driving by the Hawthorne airport, I spied an F86 and asked my friend, “what’s the name of that plane? ”
“Saber”, he said ” MAC flew one in Korea.”
And then I asked my friend this: “What kind of plane is a thunderbird?”
“Thunderbird isnt a plane you idiot”
” Why does everyone kid MAC about thunderbird then?”
” Mosher, are you a total effin idiot, you spend every weekend golfing with the boss . He has you over for dinner with him and his wife every sunday , and you have NO IDEA who he is? do you know? Tell me you know? he’s an orginal thunderbird!
He is the first slot man”
So when I got back to work I snuck into his office and I found the
history of the thunderbirds book on his shelf and I sat there reading it
until he came in and found me. He yelled at me pretty loudly so everyone could hear.
“Is that you?” I said pointing to a picture in the book.
“that’s history kid, you owe me one more stroke on the front nine this weekend” and then he cackled ,kicked me out of his office and made me fetch coffee.
Next Sunday on the course I brought up the matter with him at the turn.
Bad coffee, cold hot dogs, I was down a stroke after giving him 4 on the front.
I figured I could shake him up.
We sat there, MAC, me and the couple we always golfed with:Chuck Knight and his wife.
“MAC, how come you never told me you were an orginal thunderbird,
you designed the patch for christ sake”
Mac, ” ask chuck why he never told you he was a blue angel”
“Chuck…you were a blue Angel ?”
Chuck: ” one of the first. It’s history kid, get over it”
Their lesson to me, what you did yesterday, what you shot on the front nine doesn’t matter one whit. See you in the clubhouse.
See you in the clubhouse Mac and Chuck. First round is on you.
That’s what I think of Phds. in an odd sort of way.
(Did Plato’s Republic have an EPA?)
The question is… at what price?
Oh, I agree.
Rico
very thoughtful stuff, and I agree with a lot of it, especially about energy and national security. We clearly have to develop new strategies, no question.
All the same, I think you’re too easy on the AGW movement. If things are polarised, the Gore contingent largely started that, by attempting to enforce a ‘debate now closed’ policy, and by doing what Anthony is criticizing on this post, ie insulting sceptics as ‘flat earthers’. Your quote from the Russell Seitz article is puzzling. He finds asymmetry between Gore’s Hollywood effects and ‘corny’ lines which ‘seldom face scientific criticism’, with its ‘token opposition, chosen for political reliability rather than scientific acumen’, finishing with a sideswipe at ‘well-funded’ right wing media, as though Gore and the left wing media were struggling along on dry crusts. The asymmetry is that AGW is the gravy train, isn’t it? Politicians here in Europe certainly think so, and seem determined to strangle our industries and force taxes up. And the media thinks so too, which is why it puts out endless features about polar bears and ice shelves. I understand that you think that adaptation should be gradual, not economically damaging. But most AGWers don’t, as far as I can see. They are trying to bounce us into an economic dead zone, and the truth is, I bet you, 98% of them really don’t give a f**k for the climate or the environment. They are lying about that. Either they are hip posers, or their reasons are political.
Why the reasons matter is, lucidity matters. You seem to be saying, if the end is ok, then ‘science without questions’ is ok too. Well, what if, one day, the end is not ok? What if the science nobody was allowed to question said that people with large ears were inferior, and needed to be sterilised, so they couldn’t reproduce? These things can happen, and have, in countries as apparently enlightened and (sort of) civilized as ours.
Concerning Miskolzi, I believe I have the right to refer to theories, and the physicists who advance them without being a physicist myself. You may publish a refutation of Miskolzi. We either pay attention to what scientists say or we ignore them. Which would you prefer? All interaction between specialists and politics is painful. Live with it.
Sorry no numbers, as you know, I am not a geek. But I respect geeks, and get my numbers from Lucia at rankexploits. She still believes in AGW, but her numbers a levelling off a bit. I trust her to tell the truth.
Evan Jones (13:45:03): I still can’t think of an example where a nation cleaned up its environment in any real way while remaining poor. The only cases that come to mind are successful postindustrial societies.
Huh? I think you might want to rephrase that. Regardless of their concern for their environment, how does a nation (or society — I presume you are equating the two) become a successful postindustrial society (or nation) while remaining poor? It seems like a contradiction in terms.
Evan Jones (13:48:47): The question is… at what price? Oh, I agree.
Well then, answer the question.
Has anybody following this thread seen Stephen Schneider’s talk for the Annual Dempsey Lecture,
“Global Warming: Is the Science Settled Enough for Policy?”
http://www.cctvsalem.org/dempsey.php
About 80 mins in length.
Any comments?
Anyone notice that the CBS commercials for 60 Minutes are only about Bill James (the stats guy for the Boston Red Sox – for those of you that don’t follow sports). I find it a bit odd that they wouldn’t be talking up the Gore interview or the ex-detainee that says the US tortured him. If any of you have seen different ads in your part of the country, let us all know.
Rico:
A: That’s the point. Societies that are poor are very hard on the environment. Why? Because they are too worried about survival of themselves and their kids to care about niceties like cleaning up. Non-modern farming is terribly destructive to the environment. So is hunting and gathering, which is only sustainable when popultions remain tiny and life expectancy is extremely low.
People clean up their environment only when the value of being clean becomes “worth it” to them. And the only time it becomes “worth it” is when they are a wealthy, postindustrial society.
So let China and India and Africa get to that point as quickly as possible without the west tripping them up. At that point they will clean up and the “brown cloud” will be a smelly memory.
B.) A price that equates to a wise investment that will pay off just like any other business venture. Without any influence from the government. Furthermore, i think that when we move on from fossil fuels, this will be how it happens.
“Elephant, n.: A mouse built to government specifications.”
Rico- You said “Radiative flux equals total gravitational potential energy? That seems a bit odd to me. How about you? It’s an important question because, as indicated in Sect. 3.1, the assumption is key to his entire treatise.”
This seems reasonable to me. The atmosphere’s average height is controlled by a balance between gravitational attraction and thermally-driven expansion. Radiative flux results directly in changes in temperature, which affects this balance. I have not gone through the paper carefully yet. However, I expect a model that uses finite boundary conditions at the top of atmosphere (as opposed to the original semi-infinite boundary assumption previously relied on) will be more accurate.
There is a powerful reason to continue using fossil fuels that contribute CO2 to the atmosphere. CO2 is an excellent aerial fertilizer, resulting in a greener planet with more food production.
I don’t imagine we’d burn fossil fuels just for the sake of burning them. But burning them is an exponent and enabler of wealth creation. Wealth is the key. I’d even go so far as to say inceased wealth is better for plants than inceased CO2.
Back in the day, Bill James lost his job as a night watchman in a bean factory because he was too engrossed thinking about statistics to make his rounds and punch all the machines he was supposed to punch to demonstrate that he was making his rounds. Probably not apocryphal.
=============
Hi,
Here is “Joe Bastardi responds to Gore’s Comments”
http://global-warming.accuweather.com/2008/03/joe_bastardi_responds_to_gores.html#comments
I think he may have a PhD.
In the words of Frederick Douglass when ask by a young man how to further the cause, his answer was “agitate agitate agitate”.
[…] If you wish to write letters to CBS New regarding the issue, see my post on the same subject here. […]
Has anyone here read Gerlach’s piece (http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.1161) on how Climatology is basing the notion of a “Greenhouse Effect” on a violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
Every (at least the IPCC) Climate discussion always revolves around “how much does CO2 contribute?” when the real question should be “Is there such a thing as a Greenhouse Effect?”
For Astro (since you’re a Phd physicist), please explain how CO2 can violate the 2nd law of Thermodynamics by “reflecting” long wave radiation back to earth causing a forced reheating. (Also, please show your formulas that actually do the energy to heat conversion since energy radiation heat.) Also, be sure you maintain the whole “closed system” and not start re-adding the sun’s energy post facto to satisfy your claims like the google and wikipedia definitions do.
I WANT TO SEE SOME PROOF THAT YOU KNOW HOW THE EARTH WORKS BEFORE YOU TELL ME HOW IT WILL REACT.
As far as your suggested reading goes, I’m too stupid. Can you guide me?
What part of Jim Peden’s paper, written in laymaen’s terms, didn’t you understand, Rico? I assume you read it.
The curse of ManBearPig strikes again.