I don’ t know what sort of world NYT reporters live in, but I am now convinced that some like Paul Krugman have no clue about the real world people live in elsewhere.
‘This Week” with George Stephanopoulos debates ClimateGate – more here
Noel Sheppard over at Newsbusters provides some video and transcript of a debate between Paul Krugman of the NYT and Washington Post columnist George Will.
When I read what Paul Krugman said, I laughed out loud. He’s truly clueless.
Here’s the context:
WILL: Speaking of the marketplace, the biggest industry in the world right now may be fighting climate change. There are billions, trillions of dollars on the table, and when you say, well, they are academics and they are scientists and they talk in funny ways — academics are human beings, and the enormous incentive to get on the bandwagon on global warming, the financial incentive, the market driving this, is huge.
KRUGMAN: There is tremendously more money in being a skeptic than there is in being a supporter.
WILL: Hardly.
KRUGMAN: It’s so much easier, come on. You got the energy industry’s behind it. There are 20 times as many believers as there are skeptics in the scientific community. They get almost equal time in the media.
(CROSSTALK)
WILL: Is there a larger venture capital firm in this country than the Energy Department of this government, which right now is sending out billions and billions of dollars in speculation on green energy?
Noel Sheppard writes:
Skeptics get almost equal time in the media? Yeah, that’s why this appears to be the first time ABC addressed this ClimateGate issue.
As for there being more money in being a skeptic than there is in supporting this myth, the facts say otherwise.
The Science and Public Policy Institute issued a report on the money involved in funding the global warming debate in August concluding, “Over the last two decades, US taxpayers have subsidized the American climate change industry to the tune of $79 billion.”
By contrast, the same study found that the media bogeyman “Exxon Mobil gave a mere $23 million, spread over ten years, to climate sceptics.”
See the video and transcript at Newsbusters
UPDATE: Professor Don Easterbrook left this comment on the ABC news site:
I’ve spent 4 decades studying global climate change and as a scientist I am appalled at Krugman’s cavalier shrugging off the Hadley email scandal as ‘just the way scientists talk among themselves.’ That’s like saying it’s alright for politicians to be corrupt because that’s the way they are. Legitimate scientists do not doctor data, delete data they don’t like, hide data they don’t want seen, hijack the peer review process, personally attack other scientists whose views differ from theirs, send fraudulent data to the IPCC that is used to perpetuate the greatest hoax in the history science, provide false data to further legislation on climate change that will result in huge profits for corrupt lobbyists and politicians, and tell outright lies about scientific data.
Posted by: Don Easterbrook | Nov 29, 2009 1:57:05 PM
Truth is always best, someone always talks.
Krugman is a pure intellectual. Pure intellectuals live in a purely theoretical world where anything is possible.
I introduced myself on the last thread as being a new skeptic, but I’m not new to waging contrarian wars in the blogosphere. I’ve fought SCO (who accused Linux as based their code and basically saying they were owed billions of dollars) and Eclipse Aviation (a company claiming that they’d make cheap private jets and not uncoincidentally tangentially connected to SCO).
I say all this because I’ve seen what happens in the media as well as in politics. The MSM (even industry-specific media) will toe a line and keep it and politicians will get on board, but if the truth is on your side, the truth will come out. No matter what the subject is, don’t let yourself be bullied that you can’t understand what is going on so you have to take someone’s word for it. You don’t need a specialized PHD as no matter how seemingly complex the issue is, it can be boiled down to a combination of being able to analyze all the information combined with common sense. You don’t for instance have to know computer programming, statistics or biology if the explanation given appears to violate the scientific method (RealClimate turned me into a skeptic with the very act of their explanation to the public trying to persuade that nothing was amiss).
I’d get to know this (and be sure that you don’t violate it yourself):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
And especially these as I see these being used either by the CRU group to support their claims or used against contrarians to dismiss them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
CRU is doing Special Pleading with the “hide the decline”, the media and others are doing Appeals to Authority and Krugman for instance did the Strawman with putting contrarians as paid oil company shills.
If you are on the side of logic and openness, it’s hard to go wrong. David can defeat Goliath, even if it looks like the world is against you. If one side is fighting for transparency while the other side is fighitng disclosure (or is doing anything seemingly untoward with information), sooner or later it will raise doubts.
The fact that an economist is plugging big-buck mitigation for global warming suggests he’s placed his bets, just like (perhaps with) Al Gore. Ignore the LOL. Look closer and you’ll notice the sheen of sweat.
Near 50 million hits on climategate on Bing, about 13 million on google. You decide.
Hey, I’d like some of that mythical money being a skeptic of AGW please.
I would use it to provide REAL FACTUAL BASED EVIDENCE WHICH EVER WAY IT WENT!
Oh, wait I just said that I’d actually listen to the facts rather than “manNipulate” the data to fit a political agenda as the alleged scientists Dr. ManN, Phil Jones, et. al. clearly have from the evidence in the Climategate files.
I guess pursuing the facts of the objective reality of Nature won’t qualify me for funds from any advocacy group. It also seems to cut out government funding since they clearly advocate pro AGW agendas.
I’m still stuck on why she was bored for a minute.
Here’s fraud coming from the top of the EAU Environmental Department. This is from Trevor Davies who was then Dean of it:
“I now have a leaked document which spells out some of the research
councils’ thinking. I will get a copy over to CRU today. Please keep this
document within the CRU5, since it may compromise the source. NERC and
EPSRC are signed up. ESRC are not yet. Given the EPSRC stake, it will
certainly be be useful to get RAL etc involved. The funding might be
2million per year.”
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=104&filename=925823304.txt
This is a different type of misconduct than academic fraud that has been discussed, but I think it is very serious showing how the head of the department actively engaged in underhanded means and then had the CRU be a part of it with those in CRU knowing about it. Trevor Davies since then has been promoted from Departmental Dean to being a Vice Chancellor, which undermines not only CRU, but EAU as a whole. Given Davie’s high position within EAU, I would think this would undermine any internal investigation done by EAU into this. With this combined with what else has come out, it doesn’t look like you can trust either the science or the business practices of CRU to be conducted in an above-board and honest way.
joel (15:07:32) :
“Krugman is totally exposed as either:
1. A complete idiot.
2. A complete shill.”
Dim or dark? Hard to choose. (Maybe both?)
tarpon (16:30:54) :
“Near 50 million hits on climategate on Bing, about 13 million on google. You decide.”
Well I’m not going to go through them all to check for relevance, if that’s what you mean.
Google is a messed up org, but I have not experienced nor expect that MSN would be any better.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/stephaniegutmann/100018281/meet-the-new-climategate-counter-culture/
…So you thought you had to be on the Left to have fun with a guitar and a computer graphics program? Hah! Welcome to the new Climategate counter-culture. Here’s a video entitled “Hide the Decline”, put together by some clever young men called Minnesotans for Global Warming – http://www.m4GW.com:
😀
Having a degree in economics, I will assure everyone here that Krugman has left his senses ages ago. He deals in a make believe world.
It is increasingly looking to me like a lot of the UK media support AGW not because of the ‘settled’ science but because it is the message of Government. That is is the rational choice almost across the board to parrot the Government line rather than do a proper job. They are letting the Government and taxpayer funded lobby groups do their thinking for them by largely repeating press releases without question. Nice work if you can get paid for it!
Could Krugman be of the same mentality – a shill for Government much more than a shill for AGW?
(Any sort of answer excepting perhaps modern times would NOT explain how America/the US was built or how prosperous here people have become in the world.) _jim
Actually, the US has had THREE national banks, the Fed is the third. The US experienced rapid growth and overtook Great Britain between the War Against The States and the founding of the Fed in 1913 without a central bank.
The boom/bust cycle can produce progress of a sort but at an enormous price. Ben Bernanke admitted the Fed caused the Great Depression which led to WWII and 50 – 86 million dead.
Quit a few say we are in another depression. Who will deny that Greenspan and the Fed caused it? Let’s hope it does not lead to WWIII.
Skeptic Tank (16:20:12) :
[…]
“Krugman is a pure intellectual. Pure intellectuals live in a purely theoretical world where anything is possible.”
For an intellectual, Krugman sure isn’t thinking.
BTW, where’s my check?!?! Christmas is around the corner and I have an economy to stimulate, gol-ding-it! ;o)
_Jim (15:36:05) :
Just in recent years or has this been going on for centuries?
(Any sort of answer excepting perhaps modern times would NOT explain how America/the US was built or how prosperous here people have become in the world.)
Reply:
He is talking about Central Banking. Here in the USA we got stuck with Central Banking in 1913 and they have been defrauding us ever since. One study shows 100% of the taxes we pay goes to the bankers to pay the interest on the money they created out of thin air and then loaned to the US Government. The Federal Reserve has a checkbook used to loan money to the US government but no checking account or any money to back up the checks they write. So thank to a bunch of democrats who sponsored the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 we were sold into slavery to the central banks for 1/3 of our working lives.
Cap and Trade is just another banker scam being sold to use by the democrats… again. You would think we would check the teeth of that gift horse (the democratic party) after they sold us the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and the World Trade Organization but the gullible Political Activists fall for the party line every freaking time.
I am a member of a voluntry organisation the Association of British Drivers and our UNPAID reps have to fight toe too toe on TV and radio with politicians,Quangocrats and members of so called charities all of whom are paid.
A common slur against us is that we are in the pay of motor manufacturers.
In light of the current MPs expenses scandal and the money thrown at these doomsayers, I am hoping that our voluntary status will be like a badge of honour amongst the public.
Alex (15:40:57),
Thank you for the link to President Eisenhower’s farewell address. Very insightful. It reminded me of a quote from former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan – “We have not overthrown the divine right of kings to fall down for the divine right of experts.”
Increasingly that is precisely what we, and moreso our politicians, have done.
Of the ~ $50 billion pored into AGW study and promotion, how much of that went to skeptics?
Is Gore secretly funding skeptics?
Is Soros?
Are university research institutes bringing in millions per year in research on non-AGW theories of climate science?
Do prominent skeptics get frequent softball interviews in the MSM?
Is Krugman dumber than a sack of hammers?
Wait a minute, nobody told me I can get money for being a skeptic!!!! Hell if ya all pay me, I can start writing what I really think.
What kind of friends are you guys leaving me out of the money loop anyway. Who do I gotta call to get me some dat money. If Phil Jones can get 22 million and skeptics can get more, show me the light…
hahaha What a load of crap.
Mistake folks make is thinking these folks are clueless. They know exactly what they are doing.
Krugman’s apologies for the unethical implications of the whole mess at CRU indicate he is being paid to defend the perps or suffers cognitive dissonance. Either way a far better quote of the week is:
“I don’t think anybody can explain all of this and that is the problem the scientists have. Somehow or other the data doesn’t fully conform to the conclusions of global warming.”
Mort Zuckerman – Editor in Chief US News & World Report MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/vp/34146590#34146590
“Is there a larger venture capital firm in this country than the Energy Department of this government, which right now is sending out billions and billions of dollars in speculation on green energy?”
This is a waste. Energy Department? Green energy? How about the obvious cap and trade financial interests? Is there a defect in right wingers’ brains that prevents them from ever considering private business interests are the bad actors? Too much Ayn Rand reading methinks.
Totally OT … but Google now shows 13.4M hots for Climategate. It was a little over 12M this morning…. somethings spreading fast, and it ain’t H1N1.
Cheers.
The Daily Mail is reporting that the BBC (Paul Hudson) was provided with advance copies of some of the CRU emails – “. . .more than a month ago. . .”
To me, the appearance is more and more as if it was an inside whistleblower rather than the “hack” this is being assumed to be.
I’m just an average Joe – with a technical background. I have no association with climate “science”. All of this has absolutely nothing to do with the scientific method I learned in my studies. This whole episode is sickening.
Thank you Anthony (and all). I found your site a year ago. Your hard work and efforts are noticed and important. You are all doing the world a vast service in trying to stop this epic scam.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1231763/BBC-weatherman-ignored-leaked-climate-row-emails.html