There are so many to choose from in this interview, I suppose I’ll just have to list them all. But #3 is the most profound.
From the Atlantic:
An Interview With Nobel Prize-winning economist Thomas Schelling, Part Two – Conor Clarke
#1 …And what I don’t know is whether Americans are really willing to understand that and do anything for the benefit of the unborn Chinese.
#2 It’s a tough sell. And probably you have to find ways to exaggerate the threat. And you can in fact find ways to make the threat serious.
…
#3 But I tend to be rather pessimistic. I sometimes wish that we could have, over the next five or ten years, a lot of horrid things happening — you know, like tornadoes in the Midwest and so forth — that would get people very concerned about climate change. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.
h/t to Tom Nelson
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This is distrubing stuff. Why would anyone want to proceed on the basis of terrible disasters. I read this shortly after having lunch with a friend. I expressed views of a sceptical nature about the evidence, or lack of it, for AGW and was subjected to an astonishing assault that likened those who took a contrary position to ‘holocaust deniers’. Naturally I was pretty upset. Taking an alternative view based on the best evidence available is the intelligent approach isn’t it? My freind advanced not a single intelligible argument or piece of evidence; just an argument along the lines of ‘all the leading scientists (no names) are in favour’ – in other words a pure appeal to authority. Now I read this frightening stuff about wishing for major disasters and “finding ways to exaggerate the threat”…
Can anyone advise what the best line of argumment might be to politely counter such ‘fundamentalist’ AGW enthusiast positions. I value my friends, but I also value my sanity and capacity to reason and weigh evidence.
More protests against the Climate Bill
http://wvgazette.com/News/200907180222
“I like my climate as it is”.
The real quote of the week about the Moral issue of CO2 by Christy.
Watch this short video.
http://www.co2science.org/education/truthalerts/v12/morality.php
Farmers reject Global Warming: And right they are….
http://universe.byu.edu/node/1029
How warm can it be if 1914 cold records in Michigan are broken…?
http://northern-michigan.ipjm.com/content/grand-rapids.html
#1 – What? Why? They “kill” opps, sorry – abort girls, don’t they?
#2 – Therein lies the logic of their position – they KNOW there’s no science backing them up, so they have to SHOUT propaganda. i.e., lies.
#3 – He’s “wishing” Americans die, so that…… ? we will save ourselves…. from what? A warmer climate? Or so more Chinese are born? Wow, I think he needs to get on the Yellow Brick road… in search of a brain.
OT, it’s noon on July 20th in Central Florida and the temp outside is 73F and the dew point is in the 40s. Low tonight will be in the upper 60s….
Yes, but…. The total of ALL weather IS climate.
Is the sun ramping up in the opposite direction?
9 days without spots now!
WAITING FOR THE ECLIPSE: On July 22nd, the longest solar eclipse of the 21st century will take place in Asia. Traveling photographer Olivier Staiger took this picture from Shanghai, where he is waiting for the lights to go out:
http://www.spaceweather.com
Michael Crichton vindicated.
Just for fun, Google flies you to the moon.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10290705-2.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
How a bout a single trip for our political entablishment?
Curiousgeorge (06:10:57) :
What is wrong with these people? Is it some kind of genetic defect?
There is nothing wrong in them and this is the scariest part. They have an absolutely clear agenda, of course they believe it is for the democratization and welfare of humanity, for the disappearance of poverty, for the convenient application of evolutionist “struggle for the survival of the fittest” (they, of course), etc.
Revolution their predecessors have been generously applying to humanity to make an ideally secular world, since the french revolution, an idealistic “New Brave World”, where we, those inferior and nasty people will be classified as “gammas” and be their faithful and forbade to think servants.
Perhaps the NOAA needs someone with a degree in divinity to keep this religious crusade going…
But, oh wait, They have one, Eugene R. Wahl’s last degree is divinity.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/cv/cv2-wahl.html
And this guy is running computer climate models.
It should be said in defense of the Nobel price, that there is no Nobel price in Economics, but the “Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics” given by a group of Swedish banks unrelated to the Alfred Nobel foundation. Even Nobel relatives are fighting to clear his name: http://tr.im/tbD6
Alas, I have no excuse for the peace Nobel price, which is given by the Nobel foundation
If you forget all about the bias nonsense that connects CO2 to the forming of
night clouds, this is a very interesting article especially because it contains video made from the Space Station
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/nightclouds/
If you really care about the “unborn Chinese” you’ll let there parents get rich having an industrial revolution.
But that would be bad for the PLANEEEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And of course note that he thinks we should, but utterly fails to recognize that without restricting the developing world, the dreaded AGW is supposedly unstoppable.
“…probably you have to find ways to exaggerate the threat.” Great idea. Perhaps if they could just get the MSM on board, touting every storm, hurricane, forest fire, etc. as being caused by (manmade) climate change, and be sure to say how much worse things can and will get, then they could get the populace sufficiently alarmed. Oh, and perhaps get rid of the MWP, to give the appearance of a sharp upwards spike in temperature last century. Also, if they could get a government scientist, perhaps working in the space field to work as an advocate for these exaggerated threats, lending much-needed credence to them. If at all possible, if they could get an international group together based on the idea of these exaggerated threats and how best to deal with them, that would be great too.
Yawn. What year is this anyway?
Wishing for manifestations (deadly ones, no less) to evoke an emotional, if not irrational response. Like images of slabs of ice falling off glaciers and cartoons of a 20′ sea level rise flooding Florida. Dramatic and terrifying images that prove nothing.
I guess this is how desperate AGWers are becoming. Wishing for people to die so they can be right.
Here you have them all together, projected at a nice map:
USA Temps: 868 Lowest Max temps and 651 Low temps recorded for week ending 19 July 2009:
http://globalfreeze.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/cold-us/
Even with the best and most honorable of intentions, the inescapable fact is that scientists are also human beings. Human beings are, by nature, incapable of being completely objective about something they believe in.
It follows that any scientist who believes in AGW is probably less than objective, and that the more passionately they believe in the hypothesis, the less objective they’re likely to be.
In the light of this, perhaps climate research should be left to the skeptics or, at the very least, all peer review should be carried out by skeptics.
Off Topic but too funny not to share, plus a potential quote of the week:
http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/the_vindication_of_a_public_scholar/
“The Vindication of a Public Scholar
Forty Years After The Population Bomb Ignited Controversy, Paul Ehrlich Continues to Stir Debate”
— gotta love it, I think the author’s next article is a vindication of Ptolemy.
–Best line in article
**In retrospect, Ehrlich feels that The Population Bomb was “way too optimistic.”**
Another Quote of the week, this time from John Kerry:
Dafur Crises caused by CO2!
http://greenhellblog.com/2009/07/20/john-kerry-darfur-crisis-caused-by-global-warming/
Michał Gancarski (07:09:45) :
Thank you for the Feynman video. My grandfather expressed the same idea in the following way: “Son, the world is full of people who know things that just aren’t true.”
By they way, I assume the “prize-winning economist’s” interview was “fear-reviewed” to ensure it contained the proper amount of AGW alarmism.
And here is another one from the Head of the IPCC:
“Expensive energy will make us rich!”
http://www.globalwarming.org/2009/07/20/ipcc-head-expensive-energy-will-make-us-rich/
I really hope all the members of the US Senate will take note of that quote.
Has anyone ever sat down with an economist and had a conversation? Everything is theoretical (a euphemism for made-up). Kinda like AGW and midwest tornados. Oh, wait. Tornados are real. It’s easy (guilt free) to wish hardship on your own people when your consuming thoughts are based in theoreticals.
There’s an old joke about a group of people stranded on a deserted island. They have canned food but no can opener. The economist says, “Don’t worry, I know just what to do. Imagine we had a can opener…”
Yeah, there wasn’t much laffer, I mean laughter, when I heard it 25 years ago either.