And in an unbelievable gaffe, he’s told a whole group of people exactly where they can go:
It is probably the most ugly statement I’ve ever seen from a politician regarding a group of people with ideas that disagree with the politician’s own view. If it were a race or class issue, he’d be vilified. He apparently has lost touch with what it means to be an American.
From The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room:
“An iceberg four times the size of Manhattan has broken off Greenland, creating plenty of room for global warming deniers to start their own country,” Markey said in a statement.
And I thought we were past things like this.
AP, Boston Globe, and WBZ-TV confirm this story. Here’s the story on the calving I broke before any MSM where I said “watch the media” I should have said “watch the politicians”.
Markey, who chairs the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, co-authored the House version of the climate change bill that’s currently stalled in the Senate.
h/t to Luboš Motl
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I think we, as Americans, with rights to free speech, should all remind Congressman Markey of what that actually means, especially those in Massachusetts who voted this man into office. His email contact form is here.
Below is the contact info from his web page:
Rep. Markey’s Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. Offices:
Rep. Markey encourages residents of Massachusetts’ Seventh Congressional District to contact him via e-mail, by phone, or through a visit to one of his three offices.
His Medford and Framingham District offices can assist individuals on a more personal basis with questions related to federal agencies such as Social Security, IRS, or the Veterans Administration. In addition, they can help with grant applications, service academy nominations, flag requests, scheduling requests for the district and visits to Washington, D.C.
His Washington, D.C. office handles questions related to legislation, agency oversight and general federal policy.
When leaving a message, include your full name, address, city/town, zip code, phone number, and e-mail address. Please understand that Ed receives several hundred letters and e-mails every day.
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 |
| Medford
5 High Street, Suite 101 Medford, MA 02155 781-396-2900 |
Framingham
188 Concord Street Suite 102 Framingham, MA 01702 508-875-2900 |
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| Washington, D.C.
2108 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 202-225-2836 |
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The “Greenest Government on Earth” is probably found in Somalia, or perhaps, Sudan. Is that what the Uk (and the US) greens want for us?
DR says:
August 8, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Al Gore said AGW has moved on from science (which is settled) to now a moral issue. Markey is carrying the torch.
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Very succinctly put, sir.
Praise to Mr. Markey . The first US-congressman showing real CO2-free speach talents . His lungs are transforming oxygen into a free regenerated gas-mixture capable to withstand the strongest attacks by deniers and other class enemies .
His physical energy-level is way above the energy from fossil sources he is forced to consume right now . He is sure he will live through the day that at least his hometown and Mass-a-shoesets will be a carbonfree in the future . The taxing of all evil will take care of a utopian future , to insiders known as Markey in Wonderland.
Big Al and Big Bill will be flabbergasted . Big Oil will cease to exist and paradise will nearer than the dahboard light .
Tenuc says: August 9, 2010 at 1:18 am
The most interesting revelation came during a BBC interview with Dr. Jones who was head of the CRU before being suspended. During the interview he confessed that there had been no statistically significant warming for the past 15y. This falsifies the CAGW hypothesis – CO2 levels rose quickly over this period meaning that is a minor player in climate change.
Perhaps no surprise that fewer and fewer people believe in the CAGW myth!
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And this gives the lie to GM’s notion that people are generally ignorant and stupid. They are not. They saw through the BS of these s called scientists at CRU pretty quickly once they knew what was going on. BTW does anyone know what rock does GM hide under?
evanmjones says:
August 9, 2010 at 10:59 am
Anton says:
“A majority of people in this country are not morbidly obese dimwits, are not creationists, and do not believe the Earth is 6,000 years old.
I did not bother to point this out, but I do, in fact, agree.
BTW, I am not a Christian or chiropractor, am not obese, and do not spend my time watching television while eating junk food. I also do not know a single person who fits GM’s description of the typical American. ”
I didn’t differentiate each individual’s comments because they seem to be echoing each thought.
I just felt obliged to contribute to that particular thread of the conversation. This should be viewed as to diversity of the backgrounds of skeptics. I know people like to paint skeptics with a broad brush, but as we see, it is quite the opposite.
I AM A CREATIONIST. As far as the actual age of the matter which the earth is made, I’m not certain, nor is anyone else. I am certain it doesn’t matter. While I use the traditional KJV, I’m not aware the other versions substantively change in their meaning regarding the creation of earth. “Genesis 1…. 1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” It doesn’t say how, or when. It doesn’t imply how or when. Belief in God isn’t contrary to science. Science exists because man’s desire to understand God. While some creationists do believe the earth is only 6000 years old, they are in a very small minority of creationists. This is much akin to calling all climate skeptics deniers of the temp rise in 1998.
In science, the word “system” is used often, from circulatory and respiratory to solar. In fact, in almost all of science we’ve one system or another. First, imagine all of the interdependent systems and cycles we have identified in our universe. Even the CO2-O2 conversion. The sun and other heavenly bodies and their functions relating to mankind. Then all of the flora and fauna of this earth and their functions and individual systems and the dynamics of said systems and flora and fauna. The wind and elements, and the water. Yes, you can believe this all happened out of a random act of some strange convergence of substances otherwise unknown to date or you can see that a “system” of any kind is a signature of design. Either way, it is a belief. The only difference is I find my belief more probable.
I’ll finish by offering a quote from one of the most prominent scientists in the history of mankind, (he is a bit more eloquent than I)……….
And for rejecting such a Medium, we have the Authority of those the oldest and most celebrated Philosophers of Greece and Phoenicia, who made a Vacuum, and Atoms, and the Gravity of Atoms, the first Principles of their Philosophy; tacitly attributing Gravity to some other Cause than dense Matter. Later Philosophers banish the Consideration of such a Cause out of natural Philosophy, feigning Hypotheses for explaining all things mechanically, and referring other Causes to Metaphysicks: Whereas the main Business of natural Philosophy is to argue from Phaenomena without feigning Hypotheses, and to deduce Causes from Effects, till we come to the very first Cause, which certainly is not mechanical; and not only to unfold the Mechanism of the World, but chiefly to resolve these and such like Questions. What is there in places almost empty of Matter, and whence is it that the Sun and Planets gravitate towards one another, without dense Matter between them? Whence is it that Nature doth nothing in vain; and whence arises all that Order and Beauty which we see in the World? … does it not appear from phaenomena that there is a Being incorporeal, living, intelligent, omnipresent, who in infinite space, as it were in his Sensory, sees the things themselves intimately, and thoroughly perceives them, and comprehends them wholly by their immediate presence to himself.
— Sir Isaac Newton Opticks, 2nd edition (1718), Book 3, Query 28, 343-5.
These leftist politicians continually remind us that they don’t understand science when they talk about global warming, then have the chutzpah to criticize the rest of us as “Anti-Science” when we correct them.
Arrogance and Stupidity are their wingmen.
James Sexton, I do not believe in the bible’s versions of anything, but I also don’t believe that time, space, and matter appeared out of nothing (an obvious impossibility), or that life spontaneously generated and became conscious. We are humans, so we cannot possibly accurately guess, much less factually know, how or why we are here. Our minds, and the brains that filter them, aren’t capable of acquiring or analyzing such information.
Therefore, I couldn’t care less if people come up with their own stories to explain the unexplainable, and I cannot understand why GM is hostile. Atheism is a religion, too, and every bit as dogmatic as any other. And how does he manage to throw chiropractic into the pot? Given a choice between religion and chiropractors on the one hand, and atheist fanatics on the other, I’ll choose something with my feet.
GM is very rude and taken with himself, but eventually he’ll evolve–if not in this lifetime, in a future one (yes, I DO believe in reincarnation; go figure). It’s unfortunately, though, that such windbags always turn up to spoil an otherwise interesting give and take between posters. I think there are some people on this planet who just hate the fact that others aren’t as bitter and miserable as they, and don’t live in perpetual terror of the world ending. What if it DID end? If GM is correct, we would never know after the event, so what’s the big deal? If living beings are just matter pretending to be more, the eradication of Earth and all life-forms on it would be no worse than the elimination of a sandcastle by an incoming wave.
GM says:
You know, the vast majority of Americans are smart enough not to make such a statement. Even less are so stupid as to believe it.
As far as “The Greatest Civilization Ever” goes, here is a link to things that Americans invented that Europe never got around to in it’s much longer history – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_inventions
Some highlights:
1805 Refrigeration
1857 Toilet paper
1888 Alternating Current
1891 Zipper
1903 Tea bag
1937 Digital computer
1941 Deodorant
1946 Cancer chemotherapy
1947 Transistor
1952 Polio vaccine
Don’t feel bad though, I’m sure you would have gotten around to inventing toilet paper within 1000 years or so without our obese and dimwitted help.
Well I would say that the people who elected this “politician” thoroughly deserve what they have gotten themselves.
So the path to “Energy Independence” is to shut down all the oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico; and the rest of the US Coast and inland sources of Petroleum and Natural gas.
Great thinking there Congressman; lemme see your Constituents also got you to shut down any free clean green renewable energy off Ted Kennedy’s ranch; or izzat “Compound” that you Massachusems build out there on those remote islands; well I guess they’re not so remote; almost within swimming distance.
I don’t think Ted is going to complain if you contribute to some “energy independence” yourself Congressman; or are you and your folk too good to get your own energy ?
If there ever was the epitome of the religiousity displayed by the street walker holding up the 10 foot sign declaring “The End Is Near! Repent!” it would have to be GM. He makes flat Earthers look like Einsteins.
James Sexton: August 9, 2010 at 12:25 pm
GM has a right to be wrong. What a boring site this would be if it were only full of correct thinkers such as you and I. 😉
As one of my Invisible Friends is fond of saying, “Everyone has an inalienable right to my opinion.”
Is it possible that a real crisis could satisfy GM’s conditions? My current intuition is that no possibly real crisis could meet them.
GM’s hypothetical crisis is preventable but “of such nature that once its effects are there to see by all, it is too late to do anything to prevent it”. Also “it is only a small group of scientists who understand it well”.
The first condition would seem to require either tipping points and positive feedback loops which on closer inspection seem never to exist (if they did, the crisis would have happened already) or something almost completely out of the blue, for example, a possibly preventable asteroid strike.
In any case, scientifically literate subsets of the population would be all over the thing p.d.q.. Pretty soon it would not be true that only a small group of scientists understood it well.
In fact, if an alleged crisis were retailed in ways which suggested it met GM’s conditions, I’d be pretty sceptical, and for just that reason.
dear GM:
Check out what Solzhenitsyn says about the “ignorant and illiterate” vs the educated when it came to facing up to what was going on in their Marxist utopia (it’s somewhere in the Gulag Archipelago).
Briefly, while the latter were able to convince themselves from the sophistical arguments of the Marxists that everything was happening for the best, the former couldn’t understand the arguments, but they knew in their “ignorant” way that what was happening was not right. From what I can tell, we’re in a similar situation now.
Desperation is setting in for the alarmists and the new age industrialists… who are desperately trying to have the western tax payer pay the alarmist’s way into economic nirvana.
As someone who made the mistake of not fleeing the people’s republic when I had the chance I can tell you that Markey’s words and attitudes are typical of what I have seen from him for almost 30 years. As to politicans getting way with murder the general attitude seems to be that they have that right.
GM seems to have disappeared, scared off by reason. But since I began this post after GM’s ‘idiocracy’ post and added to it throughout the day, I may as well run it up the flag pole…
GM says:
Tenure is necessary so that you can’t have politicians and influential people with money shutting professors’ mouths. They are trying to do it now anyway, imagine what it would be like without tenure.
Wrong. It is the tenured faculty themselves who are shutting down contrary opinions. Can GM name one politician ‘shutting professors’ mouths?’ Name just one, GM.
Why is there no tenure for newspaper columnists, or construction workers, or engineers, or business owners, or NBA players, or radio broadcasters, or any other profession? Answer: because tenure is a self-serving job protection racket created by the professor class by themselves and for themselves. But when someone can’t be fired, the result is rampant laziness, water cooler politics, and enforced group-think.
Tenure is not a government system, it is a classic “old boy” set-up that promotes a hive mind resulting in mediocrity, by allowing tenured faculty to become layabouts who use postdocs to do the actual work, while the tenured elite post endless blog comments during the workday. [There are many hardworking professors. But the least hard working tend to be the most political and the farthest to the Left.]
Every excuse attempting to justify tenure is bogus. It brings to mind James Hansen’s whining complaints that the Bush Administration was silencing him — which he cried about in some 1,400 interviews — during which the President never once lifted a finger to silence him, even though that was in the Administration’s power.
Next, this GM comment needed some surgery:
I don’t know how familiar you are with
chiropracticMann’s climate clique, but in its purest form is nothing more but a mix of witchcraft and mysticism, and it explicitly rejects the principles of science. [Surgery successful. “Mein Führer! I can walk!!“]Next, GM makes the ultimate strawman argument: …basically people here are telling me that billions dying and a global civilizational collapse are less worthy of consideration than their personal comfort… I am by no means a socialist…
Communists are just socialists in a hurry:
…the only thing to do is not just to strangle the global economy but to completely dismantle the whole system and replace it with something firmly grounded in biophysics. The only thing to do, eh? Dismantle everything.
Notice GM’s comments are not grounded in reality, or any kind of cost/benefit analysis, or in common sense. Dismantle the whole system over a minor and beneficial trace gas?? Earth to GM…
GM: …if you have better suggestion for climate modeling, why don’t you share them with the community and implement them in practice?
GM probably doesn’t know this, but climate modeling does not work. Models cannot accurately predict the future climate — yet they are always used as “evidence” by the alarmist crowd. Climate models are not evidence, they are simply tools, and not very good ones.
GM has a lot to learn about how the real world works. He can’t do better than reading the WUWT archives. But I suspect he won’t, having already made up his mind that Western civilization must be dismantled… while the Chinese, the Indians, the UN and the rest of the non-Western world watches us self-destruct and laughs about their great good fortune.
Great debate! Thanks GM for your input (and you really should go to the archives here…lots to learn).
One thing that has always interested me, and I don’t see discussed much by the CAGW crowd is the following:
Catastrophic warming will eventually make the world uninhabitable, we are trying to save the world.
…REALLY? C’mon, be honest. Is it even conceivable that there would be opponents to this proposition if it was true, if it was “settled” Who in their right mind? Car makers? Oil conglomerates? Politicians? John and Jane Doe? Who would oppose saving the planet…if it was true?
The fact is nobody would, with the exception of the mentally impaired. We would all pull together, and work together, and make the necessary sacrifices that had to be made to ensure our survival, hell, it would most likely unite the planet and put an end to boils and acne. Why, IMHO, do we have such lively and entertaining (and some times stupid) debates on the subject? Thanks for asking:
1. Fact – as pointed out on this site many times: specialized scientists and tenured professors alike, for all the knowledge and data we have amassed, still do not know all that we don’t know about the various systems we inhabit (that goes triple for politicians). Many never confront that basic fact.
2. Fact – Climategate, read the archives here and go to Climate Audit to do the same. Then go to the leaked emails and read ALL of them (especially ‘Harry the programmer’…he’s funny). That’s all I have to say about that.
3. Fact – Follow the money: do a modicum of research (it doesn’t take much) on our buddies Gore, Pachauri et al, and see where their loyalties really lie…you’ll find it is firmly situated in their wallets.
4. Fact – The majority of climate science pushed on us by government agencies and others have breached, and/or corrupted the scientific method.
5. Fact – making denegrating generalizations about people’s weight and personal habits TAKES AWAY from your argument and brings nothing new to the table.
Some people go too far, others not far enough. We on sites like this and others like it just want the truth, it’s out there and we know it.
Addendum to my last post, last sentence: ‘…it’s out there and we see it’.
Also: shouldn’t read ‘…got Climate Audit…’ (or do), but go to Climate Audit.
Sorry, I’m a stickler in a limited capacity 😉
Smokey says: August 9, 2010 at 4:13 pm
GM seems to have disappeared, scared off by reason. But since I began this post after GM’s ‘idiocracy’ post and added to it throughout the day, I may as well run it up the flag pole…
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Smokey. Well it was well worth while ‘running your post up the flagpole. You sorted it out pretty well and it was good to read your comment.
God knows that the Western economy is in a bad enough mess already without this mindless attempt by some to destroy it completely by chasing the carbon bogey. Yup China and India must be laughing out loud. But if nothing else, GM provides us with an example of how people like him can be so blinded and bereft of reason.– they’re out there ain’t they and he and Malarkey are not alone! They can’t see the real train coming and it ain’t driven by Co2. Maybe Patchy is at the Wheel!
Cheers
I am afraid to tell you folks that you will not convince GM of anything, his career depends on it.
You are assuming that people will accept it. They will not because most people believe what they want to believe, not what is true. It takes a lot of training to successfully get rid of this bad mental habit that we all share, and few people go through that kind of training. Sure, it would be nice if global warming was not a problem, but that’s not the case. Yet, people still refuse to accept it. As they refuse to accept the much less contentious issue of global ecological overshoot, which, as I will not stop pointing out, is just as true without AGW as it is with, and which is pretty much irrefutable, backed by rock solid data and plenty of historical examples of the growth-overshoot-collapse cycle on local scale.
Again, denial is a very strong force, which, does exactly that – impairs the minds of people. If it is too hard to accept the truth, you will find a way to deny it, simple as that.
The politicians are utterly ignorant of basic science for the most part, and just as utterly uninterested in it. Humans are a political animal, not a scientific one. Sad but true
Denial was rampant long before Climategate. Climategate simply found fertile soil. And, on top of that, there wasn’t anything to worry about in those e-mails, at least if you are actually working in science and know how things work
Yes, follow the money.
1. Where is the evidence backing up what you;re claiming?
2. Why don’t you follow the money when it comes to “sceptics”?
Really? See, it is very nice to be able to do perfectly controlled experiments the way physicists so. Once you get to chemistry, things become a little bid more difficult, when you get to biology (what I work in), it is getting harder to even seriously claim that you have control over the experimental system. There is one planet and no way to control the atmosphere, so by the very nature of the field, there will be a lot of uncertainty. No way to get around that. This doesn’t mean that the scientists in the field are shady
Those generalizations (backed up by stats, ruthlessly deleted by the mods) were not made in the context of my arguments, this was a separate discussion.
So just because I don’t sit in front of the screen 24/7, I absolutely must be missing because I’m scared, right? Great logic…
Hansen comes immediately to mind. I am not sure whether he has tenure at Columbia or not.
Because other than newspaper columnists, none of those professions need protection of their ability to exercise free speech. Which doesn’t mean they would get past the agenda of the editors and owner of the newspaper if they were trying to publish something contradicting it.
Most professors in science work very hard until the very end. I am not sure how many departments you have actually seen, but I have been in several top universities and have detailed observations about more than one science department in each – I can think of only 1 case of someone who got tenure and stop working (that’s out of a few hundred). And he spent his time writing textbooks, which are among the most widely used textbooks in his field, so it’s not like he didn’t contribute anything to science.
By necessity, there will be an inverse correlation between research activity and speaking our on public issues. There are 24 hours in a day.
You are very confused about the motivation of people who go into science – it is not “the power and the money”, the majority of people who have the abilities and the drive to make it to tenure and after that are genuinely dedicated to what they do
Read the accusation he made more carefully.
As I repeatedly pointed out, we do not have a problem just with AGW (it is not even the most pressing issue), we have a problem with global ecological overshoot. It has to be solved in its entirety, on the global system level. Organized contraction is the only solution to overshoot
Nobody is using models as evidence. Models are used a models, they represent the current state of the knowledge of the system. It is a common tactics to attack models as if the whole of climatology depended on them. That’s simply not true. And again, this is not my field, so the only sensible thing I can do is trust the people who work in it. Because it makes a lot more sense to do that than to believe in a vast conspiracy involving thousands of PIs, graduate students, postdocs, computer programmers, in dozens of countries all around the world.
Who said that the Western civilization has to be dismantled? Why did I spend so much time stressing the importance of global system-level thinking. Everything I said is with the whole globe in mind.
GM, you can’t really mean what you just wrote.
I warmed you that making sweeping statement without support (citations, please) will attract the attention who can back up their claims with actual work. I’m glad you’re back, though. You’ve made this thread quite interesting.
OK boys, help set this young man straight… assuming he’s open to learning a few things
“Physics is the only real science. The rest are just stamp collecting.”
— Ernest Rutherford
He must be thinking like Congressman Hank Johnson
Bill Tuttle says:
August 9, 2010 at 9:12 am
GM: August 8, 2010 at 8:48 pm
“A country of morbidly obese dimwits…”
How nice. A believer in the junk science of Body Mass Index.
I’m six feet tall and weigh 187 pounds. I’m sixty-four years old, have a 34-inch waist, and I can still hoist 225-pound rocks chest-high and walk away with them.
And according to the BMI, *I* am morbidly obese.
Oh oh, I’m 65 and quite fit, but at 5′ 11″, 215lb. I reckon that would mean I have an official Gov’t BMI about equal to “dead meat”! The last time I got down to even 185lb., people seriously thought I had Cancer.
Obamacare makes it mandatory that everyone’s BMI be recorded in their electronic Medical chart – on pain of denial of Medicare reimbursement to the Provider – and which, of course, would be accessable to the Central Committee. Now also fondly recall Obama’s overall stated metric in providing Obamacare’s care, and in justifying it: ~”We [regal] are partners with God in matters of life and death.”