This is from the Huffington Post. One can only hope that Kerry will follow through. For a quick primer on Kerry’s grasp of climate science, see this WUWT article: Kerry Blames Tornado Outbreak on Global Warming and a rebuttal Increasing tornadoes or better information gathering? I get a kick out of Kerry’s line “This has to stop”. Okay then, please debate Mr. Will, put a stop to it Mr. Kerry! – Anthony
John KerryFacts Are Stubborn Things: George Will and Climate Change-
To paraphrase the conservative columnist’s favorite president, “There you go again, George.”
George Will has been one of my favorite intellectual sparring partners for a long time, a favorite more recently because he had the guts to publicly recognize the disaster that was George W. Bush’s presidency.
But in his latest Washington Post column, George and I have a pretty big loud disagreement.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy to see Will embracing the idea of recycling, but I’m very troubled that he is recycling errors of fact to challenge the science on global warming.
I’m even more troubled that Will used his February 15th column not only to cast doubt on sound science, but also to denigrate the work of two fine scientists.
Let’s be very clear: Stephen Chu does not make predictions to further an agenda. He does so to inform the public. He is no Cassandra. If his predictions about the effects of our climate crisis are scary, it’s because our climate is scary.
Likewise, John Holdren is a friend of mine and one of the best scientific minds we have in our country. Pulling out one minor prediction that he had some unknown role in formulating nearly three decades ago, as Will did in his February 15th column, and then using that to try to undo his credibility as a scientist may be a fancy debating trick, but it’s just plain wrong when it comes to a debate we can’t afford to see dissolve into reductio ad absurdum hijinx. (A side note: The incident in question occurred in 1980, which, as I recall, was just about the time Ronald Reagan made the claim that approximately 80 percent of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation and that, consequently, we should “not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emissions standards from man-made sources.”)
Dragging up long-discredited myths about some non-existent scientific consensus about global cooling from the 1970s does no one any good. Except perhaps a bankrupt flat earth crowd. I hate to review the record and see that someone as smart as George Will has been doing exactly that as far back as 1992. And it’s especially troubling when the very sources that Will cites in his February 15th column draw the exact opposite conclusions and paint very different pictures than Will provides, as the good folks at ThinkProgress and Media Matters for America have demonstrated so thoroughly.
This has to stop. A highly organized, well-funded movement to deny the reality of global climate change has been up and running for a long time, but it doesn’t change the verdict: the problem is real, it’s accelerating, and we have to act. Now. Not years from now.
No matter how the evidence has mounted over two decades — the melting of the arctic ice cap, rising sea levels, extreme weather — the flat earth caucus can’t even see what is on the horizon. In the old Republican Congress they even trotted out the author of Jurassic Park as an expert witness to argue that climate change is fiction. This is Stone Age science, and now that we have the White House and the Congress real science must prevail. It is time to stop debating fiction writers, oil executives and flat-earth politicians, and actually find the way forward on climate change.
This is a fight we can win, a problem we can overcome, but time is not on our side. We can’t waste another second arguing about whether the problem exists when we need to be debating everything from how to deal with the dirtiest forms of coal as the major provider of power in China to how to vastly increase green energy right here at home.
“Facts are stupid things,” Ronald Reagan once said. He was, of course, paraphrasing John Adams, who could have been talking about the science on global change when he said, “Facts are stubborn things.”
Stubborn or stupid — lets have a real debate and lets have it now.
I know George Will well, I respect his intellect and his powers of persuasion — but I’d happily debate him any day on this question so critical to our survival.
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“. Peden (14:23:08) :
Kerry’s Purple Hearts were well covered during the campaign…
during which campaign the Post Office suddenly started publishing stamps with purple hearts on them. So I immediately “got me” some.
[Kerry as ethnic redneck during the campaign: “Where can I get me a huntin’ license?” He also alleged that he hunted deer by crawling around on the ground like a snake with his trusty 10 ga. shotgun! Well, it’s possible.]”
Actually, the ONLY gun (aside from black powder) that you can hunt deer with in Massachusetts is a shotgun.
JimB
re: Ed Scott (11:53:26) :
“Increasingly, government grants are used to defend dogma, not discover new truth: 28 percent of the scientists supported by NIH admitted recently to cooking data to support establishment theory, and 66 percent admitted to cutting corners to achieve the same end. I myself no longer trust the data claims appearing in the leading science journals.”
OK, I’m a skeptic (denialist?) but Tipler offers no citation for that particular claim. Who would admit to cooking data and who would they be willing to admit it to? (No grousing over my split infinitive, please!)
Hoystory (13:04:21) :
This just goes to prove that Al Gore is indeed smarter than John Kerry.
And Bugs is smarter than Elmer.
As a former Mass resident, I can only say in our defense we gave you JFK and RFK and you done shot them both, and Teddy was then controlled . Then JFK Jr’s plane went down in 1999 after he contemplated running in 2000. Barney Frank and Kerry are your curse, you didn’t fall for Dukakis or Romney, but maybe we will foist Patrick on you in 2016.
Seriously, when politics and science meet, you get pseudo-science and a secular religion where we must have faith in the high priests (scientists) or be deemed heretics (deniers). Just a matter of time before it will be against the law to question AGW, just like Holocaust Denial, which is a crime in Europe.
I though Kerry’s defense of the scientists was hilarious. Chu is a professor of physics and molecular and cellular biology, not a climate scientist, yet as a political appointee he can not be accused of having an agenda, because he is a scientist. Wow.
Isn’t the fact that a two buit politician is willing to debate global warming a proof that global warming is political, not scientific.
Thurston Howell IV and Lovey, enjoying their carbon footprint: click
JimB: “you’re about to be terrified. Wait till you see what happens to your 401k and your power bill.”
Wait? My 401K has already become a 201K, and I fear is heading to a 101K.
I think my power bill is safe though – Carbonless STNP supplies a big chunk of my electricity.
John Kerry, CFR member and Skull and Bonesman politician. George Will, former CFR member and ruling class journalist.
No thanks. I’m not interested in phony appeasement from a staged debate about the bogus problem behind a political agenda. Just the truth, sometimes discovered by the scientific method.
According to snopes.com, Kerry’s war metals were legitimate:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/kerry/service.asp
But that has absolutely no bearing on whether he is a right spokesperson for this debate. He’s not because he’s no scientist. Neither is George Will the right spokesperson for this debate. He’s no scientist either.
As a trial lawyer of thirty years, I have spent many hours of my time trying to get the bar to have a more scientific approach to law. It galls me to no end when lawyers play scientist in the courtroom. It galls me to no end that in many courtrooms, the customary means of attacking an expert is ad hominem rather than getting an expert to challenge the opponent’s expert.
A Kerry/Will debate would be the same thing. Possibly worse as the rules of debate and argument would be even less restrictive.
i don’t think it would be to any service for the public if a non-scientist with rather poor educational background discusses climate science.
if kerry is really concerned, he should privately brief lindzen, spencer, monckton, mcIntyre, watts etc. with an open mind.
you do not have to have an above average IQ to debunk michael mann’s hockey stick and close to everything al gore is talking about, you just need two ears and the ability to listen.
[snip – ad hom on Kerry]
Great news !
While posting about the debate I came across this…
http://climateprogress.org/2009/02/23/mit-doubles-global-warming-projections/
…from MIT, mentioning a “jaw dropping” 886 ppm CO2 by 2095.
Any comments ?
I hope one of our guys like Spencer, Michaels, Pielke, etc. invites Kerry to debate. Talk about fast exits.
The right wing tone mant of the posts here may make you feel good, but they are counter-productive.
I often refer people to this site as a place to find some good science. When they read all the political remarks, they dismiss the science.
I’m sure many of the readers here would feel the same if they went to a site purporting to have good scientific discussion and found it was full of left wing inuendo.
Anthony’s message will be better received if it isn’t linked to matters of war, taxes, media bias etc.
There is no way a good skeptic debater could lose. All that is required is to use the AGWers own charts and few other well accepted charts. … with a little perspective.
– Show Gore’s carbon chart and then zoom in to the truth.
– Show the history of Mann’s hockey stick and then what it would olook like by removing a a few BCPs .
– Show GISS charts 10 years ago vs. now that lower temps a 100 years ago.
– Show the actual polar bear situation
– Show the actual ice situation
– Show the number of deaths due to cold
– Show the increase in biological growth in the last 50 years.
– etc., etc.
Once people saw that they have been lied to again and again nothing else would matter. There would be outrage and the politicians would start looking for scapegoats.
If the topic of the post has to do with a politician, expect a political thread to ensue.
I also come here for the science, but can spot a political minded thread a mile away. Battling pundits are fine, but I’m in the camp willing to pay cold cash to see a hot debate by those who best represent their side.
We already KNOW one side can’t afford to be seen to debate, lest they get caught in even the smallest error or stumble, thus perhaps losing a considerable amount of future funding. Therefore, I don’t hold out much hope for an honest science based debate.
To whom it may concern:
The term “useful idiot” was used in the The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which was more commonly known as the Soviet Union, that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.
The implication “useful idiot” symbolizes, that the person in question was naïve, foolish, or in willful denial, and was being cynically used by the Soviet Union, or another Communist state.
The term is now used to describe someone who is perceived to be manipulated by a political movement, terrorist group, or hostile government, whether or not the group is Communist in nature.
rephelan (15:29:59)
Your question should be directed to Dr. Tipler. I believe he is the only one who can answer for his thinking and his statements.
As you may have read, Dr. Tipler is Professor of Mathematical Physics at Tulane University. Dr. Tipler’s email address is tipler@tulane.edu.
Cause and effects of global cooling Nature 1975
Guest editorial: The end of the present interglacial Quaternary Research 1972
Possible climatic impact of tropical deforestation Nature 1975
The natural breakdown of the present interglacial and its possible intervention by human activities Quaternary Research 1972
Background of a geophysical model of the initiation of the next glaciation Quaternary Research 1974
Insolation regime of interglacials Quaternary Research 1972
Physical Sciences: Atmospheric Total Ozone Increase during the 1960s Nature 1971
Climatic effects of increased industrial activity upon the world’s established agro-ecosystems Agro Ecosystems 1974
Changes in the poleward energy flux by the atmosphere and ocean as a possible cause for ice ages Quaternary Research 1974
Influence of aerosol cloud height on the change in the atmospheric radiation balance due to aerosols Atmsospheric Environment 1975
Influence of surface albedo on the change in the atmospheric radiation balance due to aerosols Atmsospheric Environment 1974
Dynamics of the ocean-cryosphere system: Barbados data Quaternary Research 1972
The application of computers to weather forecasting Physics in Technology 1973
The earth’s climate as seen from space Acta Astronautica 1974
Volcanic ash in the Antarctic ice sheet and its possible climatic implications Earth and Planetary Science Letters 1971
Holocene climatic variations-Their pattern and possible cause Quaternary Research 1973
Recent Climatic Change and Increased Glacierization in the Eastern Canadian Arctic Nature
Remote sounding from artificial satellites and space probes of the atmospheres of the Earth and the planets Reports on Progress in Physics 1973
Interglacial climates and Antarctic ice surges Quaternary Research 1972
Climates of the polar regions—world survey of climatology 1970
The salinity of the North Atlantic Ocean and the next glaciation Quaternary Research 1972
Can’t wait to hear what the “Almost French president” has to say about Global Warming, especially his take on “Windmills” off the coast of Nantucket!!
Does he know it’s an established fact that “Ketchup” produces a gas which leads to an increase in Global Warming? And, since Ketchup is used mostly on “burgers” and burgers come from cows an cows produce Methane )hence the EPA move to enact a “Fart Tax” on livestock, The Almost French President should reduce consumtion of Ketchup!! But Momma Heinz would get angry!! And might even cut off his allowance!!
Ayrdale (16:03:27) :
“…Any comments ?”
My comment: climateprogress didn’t make the cut: click
And if M.I.T. took this prediction [of 886 ppmv CO2 by 2095] seriously, no doubt there would be comments by the head of M.I.T.’s Atmospheric Sciences department, Prof. Richard Lindzen.
The fact that Lindzen doesn’t bother to comment, and that the climateprogress blog didn’t even make the top ten cut, must gall Joe Romm no end.
Smart folks read the “Best Science” site for a good reason: we each have only so many minutes in this life. Why waste them on minor sites like climateprogress, RC, etc.? This is where the action is.
What has to stop? The debate?
Not in international circles, it has not stopped.
It’s only stopped in a few places, where somebody decided to attach it to a bulldozer and put the hammer down.
Holden got it Icily wrong in the 70’s.
He’s doing it again, pulling the Fire Alarm this time.
Will is calling him on the rug.
Isn’t that what Freedom of Speech is all about?
If keeping quiet is so all-fired important, then Kerry can stow his argument too.
Else, let the contest begin.
Carl Zimmer at Discover blog says Will is wrong. Here’s an excerpt:
He now says his previous column was “citing data from the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, as interpreted on Jan. 1 by Daily Tech, a technology and science news blog.”
Citing data as interpreted by a blog…That’s some fine reporting. Neither George Will nor his employees did any more research than look at a blog. Now, blogs can be wonderful, but would it have been really so hard for Will and Co. to drop a note to the scientists themselves to do their own research? Pick up the phone? Apparently not.
And anyone who disagrees is apparently a “knuckle dragger”:
I’ve heard that line before…the one about how people can look at the same scientific data and make different inferences.
I’ve heard it from creationists.
Follow the Link.
George Will matching wits with John Kerry is taking advantage of the unarmed.
Once people saw that they have been lied to again and again nothing else would matter. There would be outrage and the politicians would start looking for scapegoats.
By next winter at this time, the people will know. And the politicians, they will have thier scapegoats all ready to toss into the AGW fire that was lit. Too much time has been spent at rock bottom Solar Activity for next winter to do anything but get screeching cold. There is insufficent time for the monumental force to stop & reverse direction.
Heck, last check of the sunspot activity looked mighty dismal.
No miracles brewing there.