Image from WUWT reader “Boudu”
This QOTW is from Congressman Henry Waxman, who is pushing (or maybe bribing) the carbon cap and trade bill through congress. The statement made by Waxman can be corrected by a third grader; it is that bad.
From an interview on NPR as relayed by Tavis Smiley:
“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..”
That’s probably the scariest statement on “science” ever uttered by a Congressman.
Let me go on record by saying Waxman is stunningly and stupidly misinformed and intellectually inadequate for the tasks at hand that bears his name: The Waxman-Markey bill
This is what Waxman works on in Congress:
Committee on Energy and Commerce (Chairman)
* Subcommittee on Health
* Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality
* Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
Write or call your US representatives now.
We’are all lucky the tundra isn’t at the equator. The additional centrifugal force would be the demise of us all.
“Waxman would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle.”
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Very, very good. I think this should be the quote/comment of the week………………..
PaulH (16:46:00) :
“Has anyone actually confirmed this alleged statement from Congressman Waxman? This isn’t some goofy Internet misquote, right? I have a hard time believing that a thinking person would make such a nonsensical statement.”
Oh yeah! You can view the alleged statement and transcript on the PBS archives of the Tavis Smiley show. Here’s the link:
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200904/20090413_waxman.html
Enjoy the science lesson with voodoo economics thrown in for free!
I feel a small sense of satisfaction at your selection of Mr. Waxman’s statement for QOTW, since I think I may have been the first to quote it here, in a comment I made to the post on the EPA’s proposed CO2 rule. If you read the transcript of the whole interview, what strikes me as even more amazing than the abysmal ignorance displayed by Waxman, is the interviewer’s evident inability to recognize the stupidity of what he was hearing. Of course Mr. Smiley works at NPR, where no challenge or critique of any Democrat position is expected or even allowed. Since this interview, stories have emerged of Cong. Waxman trying to garner votes for cap and trade legislation by bartering offers of extra carbon credits to members whose districts would be adversely affected, which IMHO would be all of them. The Democrats are in a serious bind, since the funding they require to advance their agenda of socialized healthcare and gauranteed college education for everyone, including illegal immigrants, depends on continuing the successful demonization of the evil carbon, and events are conspiring to derail that demonization. They realize that if we get past September with Arctic ice still rebounding even the MSM’s uncritical cheerleading will not be enough to maintain the charade. Hence we have the rising crescendo of climate catastrophe stories to push their wobbling wagon over the finish line before the wheels fall off.
That is really possible: It is called Lyophilization🙂
lyophilization it is a means of drying, achieved by freezing the wet substance and causing the ice to sublime directly to vapor by exposing it to a low partial pressure of water vapor
From a native Californian:
I wholeheartedly apologize for the lunacy that my great state has brought forth. I am embarrassed to even say I was born in this state…
Yes, it is that bad.
HZ
Here’s this topic’s quote of the week on YouTube:
A banana for the first person who can establish a significant difference between “Precautionary Principle” and Cheney’s “One Percent Doctrine”…
I have a lot of faith in the intelligence and sincerity of WUWT readers so I ask y’all a serious question. Why does this man wants to destroy our country? What have we done that he wants to pass legislation with no basis in science or fact that is so detrimental to our way of life and our childrens’ future?
Thanks for helping me understand,
Craig
This charade is more like “Gullible’s Travails”.
John Edmondson (11:14:39) :
This man is a genius compared to our “primeminister” the one eyed scottish idiot.
As a person of Scottish heritage, I am offended, sir, at your lackadaisical characterization of Gordon Brown. “Scottish” should be capitalized, and “one-eyed” needs a hyphen.
.
Roy Spencer (15:45:19) :
NO…3% refers to the fraction of the greenhouse effect that is due to CO2.
It is also (coincidentally?) the percentage of CO2 contributed by human sources (IPCC 2001).
.
Bill McClure (10:44:47) :
We forget. Congressmen have lobbyists to tell them what to do. The rest of us depend on the newspaper.
Lucky for us that journalism majors have a better understanding of science than politicians. Since the only thing that can save us is an immediate and severe Maunder, the AGW crowd is right. We ARE doomed.
yeah, not hearing a lot about that.
But on “Savage Nation”, it’s speculated as being a terrorist plot. Great mind there.
NOT!
Anyone seen the movie Idiocracy?
Craig from Belvidere (18:18:24) :
The higher goals of the Obama Administration:
Why? Do some reading here: http://green-agenda.com
and here: http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/index.htm
I haven’t seen anyone refer to the pending bill as the ‘Waxman-Malarkey’ bill. Kinda jumps out when you think of it…
PolarBear (18:00:10) :
Direct from the horse’s mouth! Wow, what a maroon!
Craig,
I believe that there are many politicians who believe that this is the right thing to do. The problem that I have with this legislation is the same that I have with any law that takes more power and money from the people and delivers it to the government. In the world of the mind, this seems like a good, moral thing to do. However we live in the real world, a world of unintended consequences, a world in which taxes really hurts everyone, not just the rich. Where will you cut 4,000 dollars from your budget next year so that the promoters can have their cut of your money? How much will it cost you the year after that? Will it be 6,000 or 8,000 dollars? Will the small businesses in your community lay people off, will they shut down? Will you decide to just do without hot water when your water heater starts leaking? Will your kids wear hand-me-downs? Is the new menu rice and beans? Welcome to the new world.
I remember when Jimmy Carter decided to put a luxury tax on yachts of a certain size. The people that could buy them put off their purchases and there were layoffs, and we paid the unemployment taxes.
We were better off when the government concerned itself with defense and mail delivery and not much else. They must stay out of the science business.
I don’t want the government to do the right thing, I want them to let me do the right thing.
“You can’t give the government the power to do good without also giving it the power to do bad – in fact, to do anything it wants.”
-Harry Browne
“It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error.”
-Robert H. Jackson
“The worst government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.”
-Henry Louis Mencken
“Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.”
-Ronald Reagan
Ron de Haan (16:22:42) :
‘Unless we have to deal with Runaway Global Stupidity which will take place in Copenhagen, December 2009.’
‘Runaway Global Stupidity’ = New name for “CO2 drives the climate”
CO2 Tax/Cap and Trade, the new TEA TAX
This is one of the reasons that gave rise to the tea parties. Stupid, corrupt politicians.
Fax your representatives.
“they have lanes now where ships can go that couldn’t ever sail through before.”
Should be highlighted too.
Being born in 1944 my parents pointed out to me the story of the St Roch and I could visit the ship because I lived in Vancouver.
“Between 1940 and 1942 St. Roch navigated the Northwest Passage, arriving in Halifax harbor on October 11, 1942. St. Roch was the second ship to make the passage, and the first to travel the passage from west to east. In 1944, St. Roch returned to Vancouver via the more northerly route of the Northwest Passage, making her run in 86 days.”
The first ship to make it through was Amundsen’s in 1906.
Here is a map of the two routes.
http://www.athropolis.com/map9.htm
Here is a post on the MANY ships, boats, etc that have travel the route
http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2007/09/bad-reporting-about-northwest-passage.html
The lack of knowledge of history of people like Waxman and Tom Brokaw (who repeated this error in his latest documentary Global Warming – the new Challenge (or something like that )) is profound. And frightening that they have the ability to spread these misconceptions and are not challenged. They should all be required to go back to elementary school.
I doubt that Mr. Waxman consciously desires to “destroy our country.” As near as I can tell he is a career political hack, who faithfully espouses the extreme left-wing agenda of the limousine liberals he represents (without serious opposition). By some accounts he is not exactly the brightest bulb on what is already a fairly dim tree, but the electoral victories of the socialist Democrats have put ideologues like Waxman and Pelosi in positions of power, where they can wreak unthinking harm, all in the name of misguided and brainless “good intentions.”
Here is what he had to say about the EPA announcement about the threat “pollution” from “greenhouse gases”:
[My emphasis]
This is the litany according to Axelrod and Obama, for whom Waxman is just a pawn. Waxman long ago jumped upon the “global warming” bandwagon, but here he is just repeating the Administration cant that somehow taxing “carbon” will “transform our economy with millions of new clean energy jobs.”
Any rational person can see this is sheer poppycock, but the rationale here has little if anything to do with energy, or even climate: it is a way to get control of the entire economy and redistribute wealth, while enhancing their own rule as benevolent dictators. What of course they don’t realize (because they don’t care) is that it will destroy the wealth of the nation, until there is nothing left to distribute.
/Mr Lynn
“old construction worker (19:11:22) :
Ron de Haan (16:22:42) :
‘Unless we have to deal with Runaway Global Stupidity ”
I think we’ve reached that tipping point. 😉
Nah, they already moved the goalpost on that one. After prattling for years about ice extent, it’s no longer important. Ice volume is the new metric. A thicker and deeper ice cube is now more important than ice extent spreading albedo glory across the Arctic, because a thicker ice cube makes the water colder.
old construction worker (19:11:22) :
Ron de Haan (16:22:42) :
‘Unless we have to deal with Runaway Global Stupidity which will take place in Copenhagen, December 2009.’
‘Runaway Global Stupidity’ = New name for “CO2 drives the climate”
CO2 Tax/Cap and Trade, the new TEA TAX
This is one of the reasons that gave rise to the tea parties. Stupid, corrupt politicians.
Fax your representatives”.
old construction worker,
It was not my intention to make you mad!
Clearly as smart as he is handsom.
Recently we’ve had a number of threads on WUWT concerning scientifically-ignorant, but vocal, politicians (on topic), alarmist trumpeting (without number) and one, about a certain British viscount, discounted by US democrats as a contributor to a debate.
I refer, of course, to the debate sometimes paraphrased as – ‘the debate that is over anyway’.
No greater contrast could there be than between two groups of people than we have between the likes of Mr. Waxman, his fellow-travelers and, IMHO, intellectual giants such as Lord Monckton.
Yes, he is no scientist – in the formal sense anyway that only admits into the fraternity those who’ve been through the approved rites of passage. Even, if he had, when younger, decided to embark on a voyage dedicated to scientific study, would he now be accepted by his peers as one of them?
If he’d become a climate scientist then, unless I’ve badly misjudged him, he would now be a climatological pariah.
Peer-review when honestly, transparently and skeptically debated has proven to be an invaluable tool for progress and in areas of science untouched and untainted by subjective and political influences – it will remain so.
Conversely, when a field of study, scientific or otherwise, converges positively or negatively with shared subjective viewpoints then the peer-review process can become tainted by non-objective agendas!
Lord M is, I believe, a bit of a throwback. A throwback to the days when gentlemen, if bright enough, didn’t worry about conforming to received ideas and gave no heed to the double-yellow line, traffic-warden mentality that sought to impose a border-control mentality upon nature itself!
He is an anachronism, a most-valuable and rare anachronism to be sure – but thank God he’s with us – Given his ability to listen, to digest, to distill mountains of data into nuggets of gold and then convince his target audience of his logic then, if he was on the warmist side of the house, I’d be sending all my disposable cash to Messrs Waxman and Gore!
In short, how can a man who has no peers (or at least darned few- and they’re all dead) be peer-reviewed? Cleverness knows no bounds, truth has no frontiers and ignore the pack-baying of pedigreed professionals when a mongrel (however, high-born) picks up the scent!
If you think that I’ve overplayed the viscounts PR too much and, you also think, that 90 minutes of your life is too much to invest in discovering why I think as I do, then this is not the link for you
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5206383248165214524