From half of the same team that brought you this classic video of di-hydrogen monoxide:
Climate change? Once more, ‘I don’t know’
By Penn Jillette
July 3, 2008
From: The Los Angeles Times
My partner, Teller, and I are professional skeptics. We do magic tricks in our live show in Las Vegas, and we have a passion for trying to use what we’ve learned about fooling people to possibly get a little closer to the truth. Our series on Showtime tries to question everything — even things we hold dear.
James Randi is our inspiration, our hero, our mentor and our friend. Randi taught us to use our fake magic powers for good. Psychics use tricks to lie to people; Randi uses tricks to tell the truth.
Every year, in Vegas, the James Randi Educational Foundation gathers together for a conference as many like-thinking participants as you can get from people who question whenever people think alike. There are smart, famous and groovy speakers such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. There’s lots of real science stuff with real scientists questioning things that a lot of people take for granted, like ESP, UFOs, faith healing and creationism. It’s a party.
Teller and I are always honored to be invited. We don’t wear our usual matching gray suits, and Teller doesn’t stay in his silent character. Teller chats up a storm. It’s not a gig; it’s hanging out with friends. During our loose Q&A period this year, someone asked us about global warming, or climate change, or however they’re branding it now. Teller and I were both silent on stage for a bit too long, and then I said I didn’t know.
I elaborated on “I don’t know” quite a bit. I said that Al Gore was so annoying (that’s scientifically provable, right?) that I really wanted to doubt anything he was hyping, but I just didn’t know. I also emphasized that really smart friends, who knew a lot more than me, were convinced of global warming. I ended my long-winded rambling (I most often have a silent partner) very clearly with “I don’t know.” I did that because … I don’t know. Teller chimed in with something about Gore’s selling of “indulgences” being BS, and then said he didn’t know either. Penn & Teller don’t know jack about global warming … next question.
The next day, I heard that one of the non-famous, non-groovy, non-scientist speakers had used me as an example of someone who let his emotions make him believe things that are wrong. OK. People who aren’t used to public speaking get excited and go off half-cocked. I’m used to public speaking and I go off half-cocked. I live half-cocked. Cut her some slack.
Later, I was asked about a Newsweek blog she wrote. Reading it bugged me more than hearing about it. She ends with: “But here was Penn, a great friend to the skeptic community, basically saying, ‘Don’t bother me with scientific evidence, I’m going to make up my mind about global warming based on my disdain for Al Gore.’ … Which just goes to show, not even the most hard-nosed empiricists and skeptics are immune from the power of emotion to make us believe stupid things.”
Is there no ignorance allowed on this one subject? I took my children to see the film “Wall-E.” This wonderful family entertainment opens with the given that mankind destroyed Earth. You can’t turn on the TV without seeing someone hating ourselves for what we’ve done to the planet and preaching the end of the world. Maybe they’re right, but is there no room for “maybe”? There’s a lot of evidence, but global warming encompasses a lot of complicated points: Is it happening? Did we cause it? Is it bad? Can we fix it? Is government-forced conservation the only way to fix it?
To be fair (and it’s always important to be fair when one is being mean-spirited, sanctimonious and self-righteous), “I don’t know” can be a very bad answer when it is disingenuous. You can’t answer “I don’t know if that happened” about the Holocaust.
But the climate of the whole world is more complicated. I’m not a scientist, and I haven’t spent my life studying weather. I’m trying to learn what I can, and while I’m working on it, isn’t it OK to say “I don’t know”?
I mean, at least in front of a bunch of friendly skeptics?
Penn Jillette is the louder, bigger half of the magic/comedy team of Penn & Teller.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Robert Wood said something about 20 years without cooling, and got fragged for it. I think I know what he was talking about. I happened to be reading climateaudit.org and found charts that pin point the global temperature 20 years ago, when Hansen gave his “famous” testimony, and compare it to today.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3231
The global average for June 2008 is fractionally lower than when Hansen first began to tell us that we were doomed if we didn’t follow his advice (at least as I read the chart). So Robert’s right.
wattsupwiththat (22:11:44) :
Let’s end the religion and science commentary please, I have nothing against either, but they are way off topic.
Jeff Alberts (16:19:31) :
Puh-leeeze, spare us. If we want to preached at, we’ll go to church. Religion and science just don’t mix.
“Thanks Bruce, my thoughts exactly. Trading one fairy tale for another isn’t the answer.”
Ahem.
Grant, I hadn’t read all the comments yet when I posted that, so get over it.
I under stand that there is around 0.04% CO2 in our atmosphere. What do AGWers believe is the correct amount?
Yes. At least the experts do. But for such a small amount to have a big effect, there has to be a “domino effect” of positive feedback loops. But the recent Aqua Satellite data indicates it’s just a lone domino. No positive feedback.
Glaciers – why are they melting and when did it start. Was there not a period when there were none? Same for the ice-caps (Polar ones)
Rather steadily, ever since the end of the little ice age (c. 1850). There have been a few time-outs (e.g., 1951-1976) and a few accelerated periods (e.g., 1920 – 1940).
Remember the proportions:
Antarctica: c. 80% of land ice
Greenland: c. 20% of land ice.
Everything else: c. 0%
Not to completely derail the discussion, but does it bother you that we just got 550 tons of uranium ore safely out of Iraq and into Canada?
I remember the story from 2003. We had to confiscate the empty barrels from the Iraqis (who were using them for water) on account of the contamination.
The media mentioned it once, commented on how it proved nothing, and ignored the story from that point forward.
I, however, did not forget it. But I find it surprising that it has come up again. (I predict it will again sink into obscurity.)
“Most of the downward adjustments were made this decade,…”
Hmmm…
I guess that will make it a little easier for them to show an upward trend in the next decade. Remember the RC bet.
Evan,
Are you sure about them ice proportions?
I hear it’s more like 90/9/1%
The fact is, you don’t have to accept Al Gore’s hype about “Global Warming” as a fact to want to conserve, recycle, etc. You just have to accept the precept that it is better to use trash to make new paper than cut down trees, and you shouldn’t piss in your drinking water.
It is a fact that the planet is heating up. The ice caps are receding and there is more CO2 in the atmosphere.
However, that planet is MARS. (And of course there is more CO2 in the atmosphere as it heats up — Martian ice caps are made of CO2.)
Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.
But don’t expect any Eco-Indulgences (ie, Carbon Credits) to be refunded…