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
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Yeah Henry, there’s a lot of tundra under that ice cap for all those ships to walk accross!!! This is an example of the type of tyrannical government that Thomas Jefferson warned about. I suppose that Thomas Jefferson would be shocked at how stupid and socialistic his successors would be!
Call me mad, but instead of the “Waxman & Markey” bill, it should be re-titled the “Waxman is full of Malarkey” bill
Roger Sowell (10:50:13) :
Politicians speak in carefully chosen words (written by their staff) and (usually) only when their staff and advisors have chosen the time, place, and manner. Even a supposedly “spontaneous” Town-Hall type performance is just that, a well-rehearsed and practiced performance sometimes worthy of an Academy Award.
It appears to me that Rep. Waxman deserves a Razzy, for bungling his lines so badly. Or a better staff, who can actually write.
Hence a favorite tee shirt: “Elect Better Actors.”
Mr. Waxman doesn’t need to have any understanding of the science that justifies the massive regulation he is supporting for two reasons. First, his campaign contributors want it. Second, almost every major news publication and network says the science is settled and reducing carbon emission is the best thing that can possiblybe done.
What more does Mr. Waxman need to know? Go against the wishes of his supporters? Attempt to contradict the reporting of the LA Times? Or CNN? As stated above, Mr. Waxman is not a scientist.
Thank goodness we don’t have those aniti-science Republicans in charge anymore!
Mr. Waxman is merely lobbying on behalf of the new “culture of science” that President Obama so ardently wishes to establish in America. As opposed to the evidently very unscientific cultures that accompanied all the other presidents.
If you don’t like the good Congressman’s science, you’d better brace yourselves — because, friends, he’s just the “tip of the iceberg.”
(A nice touch, eh? Global warming, ice berg, get it??)
Repy: Iceberg, Goldberg, what’s the difference? ~ charles the standup moderator
Ever see Idiocracy? Doesn’t seem so far fetched now.
Craig from Belvidere (18:18:24) :
Finally a question I actually know something about. I have an advanced degree in economics and I am also a tax lawyer. I lurk here because I have always enjoyed science and find this blog both informative and entertaining.
I see the entire AGW movement as three-pronged with different people having different agendas.
In political terms, the cap and trade and most of the green “movement” is simply a grab for power. More government control equals more power.
In economic terms, the government is seizing control of the means of production, which is simply socialism in its purest definitional form, not meant to be an inflammatory term. Individuals, like Al Gore, are engaged in individual economic rent-seeking behavior. Economic rents are the returns that are being derived in the market above the equilibrium competitive level. Rent seekers like Gore either enter a market in which above equilibrium returns, are being earned, which tends to bring returns down to competitive levels, or they create economic rents by creating a market (carbon offsets anyone?).
In religious terms, Mother Earth, Gaia, or whatever other name is chosen, is sacred, and we are all sinners and defilers. Throw in more than a handful of doomsday cultists, and all rational discourse goes out of the window.
Some, like former VP Gore are in all three prongs, increasing the role of government, lining his pockets, and serving as the High Priest and First Prophet of the Gaian Temple.
This article reveals how much money General Electric has spend (is spending) on lobbying efforts to push for cap & trade.
GE is a big stakeholder and it explains why CNBC is one of the biggest pushers of AGW BS in the USA.
http://businessandmedia.org/articles/2009/20090427151312.aspx
(Via ClimateDepot)
Smokey (11:00:59) cautioned, “Calm down, Ted.”
Oh, I got the bubbling enthusiasm amply hedged with a well-padded If-Then structure. 😉
You’ll notice, guys, Obama stares right through Dr. James Hansen like he isn’t even there. Have you seen any indication that Obama knows the guy pulls air? He may have done so here & there – but I haven’t seen it.
Obama is a pragmatist, not a Kool-Aid salesman. He’s a politician who plays for keeps … but he’s also a lawyer, and a Constitutional lawyer, a Harvard intellectual … and an introvert. Introverts have their forms of weirdness, but they’re not strong on pushing Kool-Aid.
We note that the media are not fond of finding out they’ve ‘been had’ (as in being suckered into provide cover for Cheshire-cat AGW), and we are now standing watch to enjoy the moment when they begin smirking & wagging their head at the climate fairy-stories.
Obama is the same way. He isn’t going for the ‘build your house on a foundation of sand’ logical sleigh of hand that AGW-arguments have adopted.
Obama is happy to use popular support for greenhouse warming theories to promote a giant tax-scheme and expansion of government, but I don’t think that he is going to use feather-headed confirmation-biased as a load-bearing structural element in the edifice he wants to build. He has shown a non-affinity for this stuff.
So yeah, some of the 3% will end up going to more fluff & folly climate science, but I’m not seeing enough to suggest to me that Obama is sitting in any Al Gore church sipping the Kool-Aid himself … calculating how much stained glass the billions will buy.
Obama wants to look like a sharp dude, and he wants his decisions to stand the test of time.
Always bear in mind, too, that Obama sits down with the Pentagon rep each day. He does not struggle to get good climate data the way we do. He gets the real deal, interpreted by hard-headed military analysts who’s opinion of climate-hysteria makes your’s & mine look downright soft-hearted.
I disagree with Obama’s general program-philosophy (pallet-loads of cash airdropped out the back of C-130s), but there’s hope in the view that he’s actually a thinking person’s person. [Still, I voted for the Wasilla winsome and her white-haired sponsor. ;]
Hold it up as a reminder:
Oh, I don’t know. After the eight years of REAL stupidity we’ve just had, this actually doesn’t seem all that bad. I mean, what do you want these guys to sit around and say? Cobalt’s an element? 2+2=4? Is THAT the kind of science you’d prefer? Just the well-established facts, ma’am?
I have been researching this subject (“global warming”) since the mid-1980’s and writing on it since ~2002. In the beginning we so-called “climate skeptics” did not want to talk politics – we just wanted to debate the science.
The warmists repeatedly tried to intimidate and shut down that debate, insisting “the science is settled” – one of the BIG LIES of our time.
The truth is, the warmist side refuses to debate because it has no scientific case. Recently, they prevented Monckton from testifying beside Gore. The warmists know that any time they have attempted to debate global warming in an open forum, they have been routed.
The warmists have predicted catastrophic warming, but Earth is now cooling. In their predictions, the warmists were wrong about the magnitude, and they were even wrong about the sign (+/-). Many skeptics, this writer included, have predicted global cooling, because there is overwhelming evidence that temperature change on Earth is predominantly natural and cyclical, not humanmade. That is the state of the science.
The warmists continue their blatant falsehoods, insisting that cooling is warming, and the President parrots this nonsense. Waxman and Obama are starting to make George Bush look good. That is the state of the politics.
[sermon/off]
zunedita373 (19:32:57),
Being ex-military, I really resented GWB’s misuse of the forces. And, we exacted a sickening toll from Iraq, on false pretexts. But this was the area of Bush’s main damage; not in the climate-field, Kyoto notwithstanding. There isn’t a good-enough link between the trespasses of Bush, and this post about the babble Waxman just spouted. Bush is a red herring, and off-topic, in this thread.
I don’t expect a Congressman Waxman to be a scientific Fred Astaire on his feet … or a Darwin’s Bulldog. The trick to handling scientific talk as a non-scientific person, though, is a trick that millions master quite handily, without Waxman’s experience in verbal pugilistics – which is normally a big help.
It’s no tougher than making reasonable religious conversation or commentary, as a non-religious person. Lots of people do it.
No, nobody is calling for Waxman to recite the Periodic Table, or prove the Limit Theorem. There is plenty of latitude to talk about scientific topics, without presuming to knowledge one doesn’t have, or, in Waxman’s case, resorting to Speaking in Tongues to avoid having ‘dead air’, which is what his statement sounds like.
Waxman’s quote was vacuous, foolish and unnecessary, and he deserves to be held up for a spot of ridicule. Presumably, he’s capable of better: I hope he makes a more realistic effort next time.
Anthony, Too important to ignore because there is NO TOMORROW:
Apr 29, 2009
Responding to the EPA Proposed Endangerment Finding
By Joseph D’Aleo
The Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act was signed on April 17, 2009. On April 24, 2009, the proposed rule was published in the Federal Register under Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0171: Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act (PDF). The notice in the Federal Register started the official 60 day clock for comments. Public comments on the proposal must be submitted to EPA by June 23, 2009.
Technical analyses developed in support of the Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act may be found here: Technical Support Document for the Proposed Findings (PDF)
Although the “cause or contribute” aspect of the endangerment finding was limited to GHGs from new motor vehicles and engines, it is widely understood that once the proposal is finalized, EPA can proceed to other sources regulated ( powerplants, refineries, manufacturing plants) under the Clean Air Act (CAA).
Although EPA did not propose any associated regulations at this time, the endangerment finding is EPA’s first step towards triggering a cascade of CAA programs that will effectively impose strict regulations on a large segment of the American economy. This may include regulations that will affect most all buildings including churches, schools, large and small businesses, the kind of fuels used, the car you drive and, taken to the extreme, how many times you can mow your lawn or blow away your snow or whether you can burn wood in your home stove. The regulations will be just as onerous as cap and trade legislation. The public is unaware that though not a direct tax, the costs of increased regulation and or “cap-and-trade” scheme (really ration-and-tax) will likely run at least $2000 for Americans according to this conservative Heritage Foundation study up to $3100 per family per year according to an MIT study, with increased government control over your entire life, increased job losses and energy shortages. Additional economic analysis showing impacts by state can be found here.
Write your two Senators, Representative and the President, write a letter to your favorite newpaper or post on a blog discussing the EPA ruling or the government�s planned climate actions. Call in to talk radio and explain the dangers of these proposed actions and cap-and-tax legislation if congress feels pressured to act. You can use the Search ICECAP feature to find supporting info to address each one of the so called science findings which we know are wrong with evidence the fact that temperatures are cooling, sea levels are not rising, global ice is not melting, there are fewer heat waves, less drought, fewer global hurricanes and that CO2 is not a dangerous pollutant but a life giving plant fertilizer that has greatly aided agriculture. You can also address the fact that climate models are failing miserably in all these ways.
Both scientists and citizens can make comment on the EPA Endangerment Proposal and the ‘findings’ on which it is based. See the Technical Support document on which the findings were based. It is essentially extractions from the revised US CCSP and IPCC AR4 Summaries. A good selection of the comments filed on the initial CCSP report and the EPA ANPR can be found on Icecap here.
See the EPA web site for how you can submit a comment here. Instructions for filing comments can be found here. Read both documents and refer back to the referenced sections in the IPCC and CCSP. Choose an area (or areas) you feel most qualified to challenge and draft a challenge following carefully the instructions for formatting and submitting above. In your challenge, cite the section and page of the report you are challenging and where possible the quote. Wherever possible cite supporting peer review support for your challenge, including ideally in the case of publishing scientists, your own work. You can use insert topics or authors in SEARCH ICECAP or search tools in Climate Science[link],Climate Audit[link], CO2Science[link], Watts Up With That[link], World Climate Report[link], CEI[link], Heartland[link, link to NYC papers] or just Google. Feel free to contact us for suggestions or to ask about a draft comment you send us. The challenge does not need to be lengthy. Short pithy comments can be just as effective. When you submit comments please send a copy to us so we can put them into a library that is searchable and can be used as a resource in legal challenges.
In May, there will be public hearings. EPA requests those who wish to attend or give public comments, to register on-line in advance of the hearing. EPA will audio web stream both public hearings. The meeting information pages will be updated with this information as it becomes available. The hearings are scheduled at May 18, 2009, at the EPA Potomac Yard Conference Center, Arlington, VA; and May 21, 2009, at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center in Seattle, WA.
The Endangerment Finding and the Technical Support Document will become the US version of the IPCC 2007 report. If left unchallenged, there is no tomorrow.
Doesn’t anyoine reading this site actually *understand* climatology? Sigh! I guess that’s too much to wish for – informed discussion. So Waxman recited the scientific facts in very NON-scientific terms. So what? the Arctic ice *is* melting faster than in any time in human history. the tundra *is* melting, releasing trapped greenhouse gasses, that will only accelerate the warming.
The ONLY things not certainties are the exact proportions of the various causes (yes, burning fossil fuel DOES contribute to it), whether it’s going to reverse from natural causes (we’re sure not going to give up our civilization to save our lives) and whether there’s anything we can do to avert eventual disaster.
THAT the planet is warming is as much in question as whether the sun is warmer than solid oxygen at standard pressure – not the least bit. We still have less evidence that smoking causes lung cancer – FAR less.
John Klein:
When I’m being ridiculous, the way I usually phrase this is: “Black is white, down is up, evil is good, and global warming causes global cooling. Has a sort of George Orwell ring to it, no?
Of course if you weren’t kidding, then maybe you could supply us with some actual citations. Like these:
Arctic sea ice: click
And notice that Arctic sea ice extent is higher now than in any of the past eight years: click
And you must be aware that the Arctic is only one Pole. So what about the Antarctic? Well… click
See? There’s way more new ice in the Antarctic than in the Arctic. So the global ice extent — and we’re talking global climate here — is significantly higher than in the past. And the government folks you believe in have a nasty little habit of “adjusting” the sea ice extent in an alarming way: click
Have I convinced you? Answer: only if you’re a thinker. If you’re a believer, then all bets are off.
Most of the people on this site understand the difference between an hypothesis and the evidence for and against it. That is apparently not true of the ‘global warming’ alarmists.
No, he recited a garbled version of Alarmist propaganda, which the media mistake for ‘scientific facts’. Unfortunately for the propagandists and the media, most of the ‘facts’ you mentioned are not true, as Smokey illustrated above.
There is no evidence, beyond an increasingly spurious correlation in the last two decades of the 20th century, to support the hypothesisthat CO2 affects global temperature at all. The hypothesis has been falsified by a variety of evidence, including paleo-climatic data, tropospheric temperature measurements, and the last eight years of cooling.
The planet has clearly been warming, overall, since the end of the last glaciation, though it has mostly leveled off over the last millennium (warmer than now during the Medieval Warm Period, cooler than now during the Little Ice Age). There is no evidence that the disappearance of the ice sheets in the northern hemisphere had anything to do with CO2, nor that any of the temperature fluctuations since then had either.
Nor, BTW, is there any evidence that a little more warming (and a little more CO2) would be at all detrimental to human civilization. It certainly would be good for agriculture (plants love CO2!).
Science consists of more than rhetorical talking points; it is more than a catechism. Wake up and take a look at the data.
/Mr Lynn