NPR helpfully weighs in on climate change and the upcoming election. Even though a certain party has had super-majority control of the Congress and the Executive branch for the past 2-years (and done nothing on energy/climate policy), NPR blames the real boogeymen and women: GOP candidates not-yet-elected and, of course author George W. Bush. Their arguments, aside from being of the typical straw man variety, go back to the age-old meme: if only the knuckledraggers and flat-earthers would get with the program and accede to the demands of the enlightened (NY Times John Broder summarizes that argument, dutifully). From NPR, which is known for impartial analysis:
The more carbon that gets released into the atmosphere, the higher the average temperature rises.
That’s a scientific fact.
Human activities, such as driving, flying, building and even turning on the lights, are the biggest contributor to the release of carbon.
That too, is a fact.
And yet the majority of Republicans running for House and Senate seats this year disagree.
Ken Buck, the GOP senate candidate in Colorado admits he’s a climate change denier. Ron Johnson, who leads in the polls of Wisconsin’s senatorial race, has said that “it is far more likely that [climate change] is just sunspot activity or something just in the geologic eons of time where we have changes in the climate.”
And when Christine O’Donnell, the Republican candidate for Senate in Delaware, was asked whether human activity contributes to global warming, she said, “I don’t have an opinion on that.”
Conservatives in Congress are turning against the science behind climate change. That means if Republicans take control this November, there’s little hope for climate change policy.
Today’s climate change denial trend isn’t new. Years ago, when President George W. Bush was in the White House, scientific data on climate change was censored, and some scientists and top-level policymakers resigned in protest.
Scientific Findings Dismissed
For 10 years, Rick Piltz worked as a senior official for the Global Change Research Program — the main governmental office that gathers scientific data on climate change carried out by U.S. researchers.
“It was an office where the world of science collided with the world of climate politics,” Piltz tells NPR’s Guy Raz.
In the spring of 2001, Piltz was putting together a major report for Congress. The report would include clear evidence that tied carbon emissions to a rapid shift in global temperatures.
Piltz says his team was told “to delete the pages that summarized the findings of the IPCC report. To delete the material about the National Assessment of climate change impacts that had just come out.”
The IPCC, or Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is the international body that collects climate research from countries around the world. The National Assessment was a similar report that covered research from U.S.-based scientists. In both cases, the result was conclusive: Climate change was happening and human activity was speeding it up.
But the Bush White House didn’t buy it.
“The expertise had come together to make pretty clear and compelling statements, and to say that you didn’t believe it was to say that you didn’t want to go along with the preponderance of scientific evidence,” Piltz says.
The science was being politicized. Over the next four years, almost every report Piltz and his team put out was heavily edited. References to climate change or carbon emissions were altered or even deleted.
By 2005, Piltz couldn’t take it anymore. He resigned and told his story to The New York Times.
A Conservative Who Spoke Up — And Paid The Price
It’s a big deal for Republicans in Congress to say they believe that humans are heating the planet.
“People look at you like you’ve grown an extra head or something,” says Rep. Bob Inglis, a Republican from South Carolina.
Inglis has represented South Carolina’s 4th District for the last 12 years, but this one will be his last.
In June, Inglis lost the primary bid to Tea Party-backed Republican candidate Trey Gowdy, who accused him of not being conservative enough.
For the longest time, Inglis says, education, health care issues and the environment have been Democratic issues, while taxes and national security have been Republican issues. Inglis says that’s not right.
“As a Republican, I believe we should be talking about conservation, because that’s our heritage. If you go back to Teddy Roosevelt, that’s who we are.”
Inglis paid the price for speaking out about the importance of conservation and climate change.
He admits he may have “committed other heresies,” such as voting for TARP and against the troop surge. “But the most enduring problem I had, the one that really was difficult, was just saying that climate change was real and let’s do something about it.”
Inglis, who also voted no on cap-and-trade, tried to make climate change palatable for conservatives. He proposed a revenue-neutral tax swap: Payroll taxes would be reduced and the amount of that reduction would be applied as a tax on carbon dioxide emissions — mainly hitting coal plants and natural gas facilities.
Inglis also tried to connect the issue of climate change with the issue of national security. “We are dependent on a region of the world that doesn’t like us very much for oil. We need to change the game there.”
Inglis even stressed the need to hold the oil and coal companies accountable for their environmental practices.
Accountability, he says, “is a very bedrock conservative concept — even a biblical concept.”
Even though Inglis won’t be coming back to the Hill to serve another term, he hasn’t lost hope in climate change policy. The choice, Inglis says, is clear.
“Do we play to our strengths? Or do we continue to play to our weakness — which is playing the oil game.”
Tackling Climate Change Takes Both The Left And The Right
Bill McKibben, scholar in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont and the founder of 350.org, says it is a tragedy that conservatives are turning their back on the science behind climate change.
“On this issue maybe more than most, we need that interplay of liberal and conservative,” he says. “Liberals are good at sort of pointing the way forward in kind of progressive new directions and conservatives are good at providing the anchor that says human nature won’t go along with that. That back and forth has been very useful.”
If Republicans take control of the House this November, McKibben says, he doesn’t see a future for climate change policy.
“Look, the Democrats — with a huge majority — couldn’t pass climate change legislation even of a very, very weak variety this year, so I doubt there’ll be any action over the next two years.”
That is, unless conservatives decide to team up with liberals.
“We desperately need conservatives at the forefront of the fight,” McKibben says. “The sooner that conservatives are willing to accept the science, the reality, the sooner we can get to work with their very important help in figuring out what set of prescriptions, what combination of market and regulation will be required in order to deal with the most serious problem we’ve ever stumbled into.”
I thought the “Let’s defund NPR” line, after the Juan Williams flap could serve as a distraction, with people moaning about losing “the arts.”
This blatant propaganda, with every scientific reality intentionally ignored in favor of AGW dogma, makes me think it might be a good idea after all.
For those of you disparaging Glenn Beck by calling him crazy…
What Glenn has done is expose corruption in government–both in organizations and at the individual level: He did it to the Repubs when GWB was president; that was fine with CNN because it fit in with their PC agenda so Glenn kept his job there. As soon as Glenn started exposing the lies and deceipt of the Obama Administration, he was no longer welcome at CNN but Fox News saw an opportunity and they hired Glenn because of his honest analysis.
Now Glenn is going after corruption and anything that would bring down our current Republic–including the likes of G. Soros and the marxists/communists that surround Obama. Glenn has made mistakes, like calling Obama a racist, but he apologized for that when further study indicated Obama really was a disciple of Black Liberation Theology as taught by Reverend Wright. Adherence to this social structure would destroy the Republic and foster World Governance, which is what Glenn’s been harping on for a couple of years now.
So rather than bash Glenn for what you think is crazy (unless YOU are a marxist/communist, too), I suggest going to his web site, look at the contents of his 40-day/40-night pledge in restoring faith, hope and charity on a personal basis. The founders knew the Republic couldn’t be maintained with a bunch of lying, thieving, God-denying people. Glenn basically says we have a choice–get back to work on the Republic, or roll over and let marxism or communism (it really doesn’t matter which) take over and control our lives. (It is the same approach of lying and stealing that drives global warming “climate scientists” today–they’re fine with the ideology that the Earth is more important than humans, hence the reason you can go to jail for destroying an eagle’s egg but you get federal protection for killing a human baby.)
Sure–nothing crazy about that!
That article, brought to you, in part, by our money.
I’m wondering how NPR would react to the fact that not all skeptics are conservatives and how some conservatives aren’t skeptics?
R.S.Brown says:
October 24, 2010 at 2:31 am
I had previously said:
Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and later, Henry David Thoreau, all
subscribed to the notion, “That government is best which governs
least.”
What in the phrase subscribed to followed by the noun
notion has confused you ? I didn’t attribute the quote
or the principle it encompasses to any one individual.
————————
My response completely destroyed your position. But this being the internet, you can still maintain it in the face of obvious defeat.
So, once again. Paine wanted public pensions & welfare. Jefferson, when president, made unconstitutional use of federal power to buy the Louisiana purchase, used federal power to map out the land for development and pursued a policy of federal expansion, supported public schools but not compulsory attendance, was heavily influence by Francis Bacon (public funding of science, actually, royal funding of science at the time), created the University of Virginia with state support so that science would not be locked up with the elites but would be more widely disseminated. Both Paine & Jefferson wanted big government projects but were wary of excessive power in a few hands. Only Thoreau, the darling of leftists everywhere and the environmental movement of the 70’s in particular, wanted to eliminated government as much as possible.
I don’t see how you can show up on this website and not see the similarity between Thoreau’s unreasoned romanticism of brutish living and the present day tendency to romanticize “renewable” energy. If Thoreau were alive today, whose side of this debate do you think he would be on?
I have listened to NPR for many years and will continue to do so. They have some talented and hard working reporters (the Planet Money crew is excellent) and do some nice in depth stories. HOWEVER, on the climate change issue they are just hopelessly lost, and it brings into sharp focus NPR’s lack of experience & knowledge of how science progresses. This is not unique to NPR, of course; how Revkin can claim he is a “science” reporter is beyond me, he doesn’t seem to know anything about the history of science or its workings.
NPR lost me a few years back, especially with their god-awful “Living on Earth” program, where every stinking story seems to find a global warming connection & where they love covering the psychology of climate change “denialists”. This psychological deficiency has been repeated a few times from NPR, almost always likening people who question the magnitude and danger of AGW with those who deny the connection of health problems with smoking.
A snippet from one of Living on Earth’s hard-hitting inquires August 7 2009 (the problem with the “denialist” camp HAS to be psychological):
HOST JEFF YOUNG: Now psychologists are turning their attention to the great divide between science and public opinion on climate change.
Professor Robert Gifford, at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, led a task force studying global warming attitudes for the American Psychological Association. Gifford sees a telling parallel between those who doubt climate change, and those who ignore health warnings about smoking.
(By the way, who are all these supposed people who didn’t know & admit the connection between smoking and health issues, besides known paid industry shills? I say this as a moderate smoker, I know it’s bad, I always did, & if it takes me down so be it; all other smokers I know have the same mindset)
The problem for NPR on the climate change issue is that their science reporters are ill prepared to judge the merits of scientific arguments, and their management is getting stories that they see no need to question. It doesn’t disqualify NPR as an overall news source (I listen to Beck & Limbaugh with equal trepidation), you just need to know where their weaknesses lie.
And also they were jerks to fire Juan Williams, but that doesn’t make them evil, they’re just another petty and paranoid management team…….
Like I said in a previous thread, I have (as a liberal thinking but now registered Independent) grown immensely sick and tired of catastrophe. I want democrats to start talking about tightening the belt around governmental departments and bailouts, and start rescinding job killing regulations that stifle small business entrepreneurship. I have even decided to add peptobismal to my daily regiment in order to stave off the upset stomach I get from voting for conservatives who also beat the drum of moral regulations and discriminatory rules and regulations (talk about your nanny government, jeesh). It’s hard to fall in love, co-habitate, fly to a state that allows couples of any creed to marry, find a caring doctor who will attend to your family planning needs, or find a state that allows you to have/adopt children, if you haven’t a job.
And WHAT IS WITH THE QUALITY OF PENCILS THESE DAYS???? They break as often as Democrats wax poetic about green jobs!!!! Have we regulated our Amercian made on American soil small businesses to the point that we have to suffer daily from foreign made pencils? What is up with that????? You know what? If Democrats would just do this one thing: lower the regulations on the cost of making a good pencil so that some savvy small business could start a series of plants devoted to making a quality wood pencil with a tough graphite/lead core, I would change back to being registered as a Democrat!!!!
Thoreau was a civil engineer by training. He worked in the family pencil business where he invented a better pencil and several machines to produce them. I doubt he would agree to the government subsiding wind farms and solar panels.
Jeff Alberts says:
October 23, 2010 at 8:19 pm
Some on this blog know more about this than I do, but I believe that steam is invisible. There may be conditions under which steam becomes visible, but steam that comes out of pots or water kettles on my stove has always been invisible to me for as long as I have been alive. I never forget the burn I got on my finger when I did not listen to my mom about 70 years ago and tried to detect that invisible steam that produced the little cloud a short distance from the boiling water kettle.
Certainly, the colour of smoke can be one of a wide range, depending on what is being burned and on the efficiency of the fire that burns. However, let’s concentrate on the photo that Evan Jones commented on.
I don’t know if the photo is of a power generating station, maybe not, but I see three smokestacks, four cooling towers (the low, squat structures in the background) and evidence of a fifth cooling tower (the third large plume of “steam” rising from behind the dark rectangular structure in the lower middle of the photo).
Cooling towers do not emit steam, they emit water vapour. The vapour may, and often does, condense, depending on the dew point of the air the water vapour emitted from the cooling towers is being injected into. Technically, the condensed water vapour emitted from the cooling towers is visible as a continuously forming cloud. That cloud eventually evaporates, although, depending on local atmospheric conditions, the length of time that may take will vary, and often the cloud may become a drizzle, light rain, fog or even snow or an ice fog.
That is all perfectly normal, harmless, just plain H2O, and it involves no pollutants, not even CO2 — the life-giving, blessed gas without which no life would be on Earth.
Things are a little more complex with what comes out of the three tall smoke stacks shown in the photo. I assume that they emit combustion by-products, but the photo does not provide supporting evidence for that. Such smoke stacks are tall to disperse the pollutants they spew into the air and to spread those pollutants over as wide an area as possible.
There seems to be no evidence in the photo that what comes out of the smokestacks is anything other than H2O. Note that the H2O that is being emitted is actually steam (it is invisible at first) that turns immediately after leaving the smokestack into condensed water vapour and then evaporates into the thin air. On very cold and humid days, those visible, white plumes of condensed water vapour that originate from the three smoke stack will extend for miles, sometimes perhaps to vanish somewhere over the horizon.
So, nothing of what we can see being emitted in that photo presents a danger to anyone. None of it is a pollutant, except to those who may want to make people believe that dihydrogen monoxide (a.k.a. H2O or plain water) is a danger that we must eradicate and learn to do without, just as they want to teach all plant life on Earth to learn to live without the essential, life-giving CO2.
CO2 is most likely a combustion product that is also being emitted by those three smoke stacks, provided that what the smoke stacks emit into the air results from the combustion of coal, natural gas, oil or any other hydrocarbon.
Air is most likely the source of the oxygen contained in the H2O and CO2 emitted by the smoke stacks, with both of those gases being the combustion product of hydrocarbon being burned. However, CO2 contained in the exhaust of the smoke stacks is and remains invisible, while H2O is and most often becomes visible at least for a short time, until the condensed water droplets visible in the emitted cloud evaporate again.
There are two more major constituents in the exhaust emitted by the smoke stacks. One of those is comprised of various nitrogen oxides, the source of which is the air used for combustion plus any nitrogen compound contained in the fuel that is being burned. In sufficient concentration, nitrogen oxides can be visible as a brownish haze and are a constituent of smog. Still, none of that is apparent in the photo.
The other major constituent of the exhaust gases is comprised of sulphuric oxides. Coal or hydrocarbons contain sulphur. When burned, sulphur combines with oxygen from the combustion air and is emitted through the exhaust for the combustion process. Most commonly, the major sulphuric oxide emitted is sulphur trioxide, but that almost instantly gets changed to sulphur dioxide and, if H2O is available in the ambient air into which it is being emitted, into sulphuric acid. In sufficient concentration, sulphur dioxide, or SO2, becomes visible as a yellowish haze and is a constituent of smog.
Neither nitrogen oxides nor sulphuric oxides are visible in the exhausts emitted by the three smoke stacks in the photo.
There is another component of the exhausts emitted by smoke stacks that is of concern. That is fly ash resulting from the combustion of coal. The major concern with fly ash is that it contains heavy metals, primarily mercury but also some heavy metals that are radioactive. The amount of radioactivity emitted by a coal-fired power generating plant creates more radioactive pollution in the vicinity of a coal-fire power generating plant than does a nuclear power generating plant of comparable generating capacity.
At any rate, fly ash can be visible as a whitish-gray haze when suspended in the air. However, no evidence of fly ash is apparent in the photo.
So, all that such photos draw attention to is condensed water, clouds, clouds of water. By insinuating that all of that water has something to do with CO2 that is not harmful at all, we have one of the most effective propaganda tools ever devised. Even Al Gore made use of clouds of “steam”. Does that make him a bit backward — by being steam-powered?
I love Car Talk on NPR, with Tom and Ray.
That program could be syndicated and make hefty profits. No reason to keep it hidden on NPR.
Oh, the AGW stuff? They suck! ;o)
The large short stacks are coolers and can only emit steam while the tall stacks are the process stacks and the emissions could contain particulates. There are requirements set by the EPA that limit the concentration of those particulates. The emissions are measured by instrumentation in the stacks and/or by visual inspection (smoke reading) The picture is not at the correct angle to determine if the plume is steam or contains more particulates. The correct method would be to look directly across the top of the stack 90 degress to the plume. If it is all steam there will be a small area right above the top of the stack that will be clear. Any percentage of obstruction from clear would be the opacity of the gas stream indicating the level of particulates. Again the permissible level is monitored by the EPA and periods on non-compliance usually result in fines.
I know this because I was in charge of the air handling system of a steel mill with an opacity limit of 3% which is undectable by the naked eye. We used special opacity monitors in the stack and daily visual inspection of the plume to meet compliance requirements. This task was not taken lightly and the cost was considerable. I maintained a curent smoke reading certification at all times while thus employed. I do believe in the necessity of cleaning emissions and unfortunately the levels set are more defined by the lobbying effort of the industry concerned than the science of air quality.
Hope this helps some,
Barry Strayer
Didn’t Paine say that society was a blessing, but government, at best, a necessary evil? I seem to recall something like that somewhere in Common Sense.
Paine favored certain governmental intrusions, or helping hands, so he had his feet on both sides of the fence. But since his starting point was skepticism about the state unless proven innocent/helpful on some certain topical area, he was not truly a statist. His attitude was pragmatic and evidence-based, which was the general American attitude until recently, when theoretical / rhetorical (sound-good / feel-good) European modes of political & social thinking have gotten ahold of us.
NPR is more biased on CAGW than any other topic (with the possible exception of Juan Williams).
NPR literally never, ever gives any credence to any argument which is the least bit skeptical of CAGW.
Often, their alarmist reporting is more absurd and more over the top than any other source.
If NPR can’t get the science right, it shouldn’t get public funding.
If NPR continually sides with a particular political party, it shouldn’t get public funding.
If NRP does both, it shoudn’t get public funding AND it should change its name to:
National___(fill in party name)___Radio
Pamela Gray says:
October 24, 2010 at 8:44 am
I have even decided to add peptobismal to my daily regiment in order to stave off the upset stomach I get from voting for conservatives who also beat the drum of moral regulations and discriminatory rules and regulations (talk about your nanny government, jeesh).
I am in the same boat, but in the opposite direction. I can’t stand voting for either side right now, but if either side would adopt normalcy and such, I would vote for them in a heartbeat. I think over time I have become more libertarian then anything, and its a shame to watch things unfold. (I am not a tea party member).
From the other side of the fence, I think Government should butt out of family planning in general, let the consumers live their lives in peace without interference. (at the same time, maybe echoing my libertarian views, they shouldn’t pay for family planning either…) Same with marriage, if two homoesexual people want the same misery as me in marriage, whats the harm?
Shrug, I would vote democrat in a heartbeat if they were sceptical of cap and trade, being thats what I am voting on…but only replicans are that way, so to vote for them I go. Sigh, we all lose our principals over cap and trade and economic concerns it seems. I have to vote for the evil R just like you.
The push is towards totalitarianism. Sorros is a defense contractor who supposedly leads his sheep from the “left” position. It is a ruse. The “leaders” on both the left and right are working towards a common goal. They have both sides covered and plan to get there from either or both directions. Total control is the endgame not communist or fascist politics. The same money is funding both sides/philosophies. You don’t fight the opposition you lead it! One way to combat this is for the average citizen to see through their games. They constantly set up phony scenarios that pit good citizens at each others throats. (Non-story: Juan Williams, but see how well it works.) If you can see through the AGW ruse you can see there are hundreds of other well coordinated plans out there to keep the masses at war with each other instead of united and free. Divide and Conquer is a time tested method.
“Manmade CO2 causes Earth’s temperature to rise and that is a fact.”
No it isn’t. It is a discredited hypothesis — the product of manipulated climate models that bear no relationship to the real world. There is no empirical evidence to support the contention that man-made increases in CO2 cause global warming (although, as Dr. Roy Spencer argues, such increases may “slow down” the cooling process). In fact, the opposite is true, with ice core samples revealing that rising CO2 levels follow temperature increases by hundreds of years.
CO2 is a convenient fall guy for global elites who stand to make billions of dollars trading carbon credits and promoting and manfacturing expensive alternatives to fossil fuel-generated energy. Driven by greed, they choose to downplay or banish from the public eye the natural causes of climate variation. In particular, they deliberately divert attention from the fact that modest changes of one to two percent in the Earth’s albedo brought about by small changes in cloud cover are sufficient to account for the observed average temperature changes of the last century.
Compared to the impact of the sun, man-made CO2 emissions have about as much influence on our climate as a few farts in a hurricane.
If the entire human contribution is less than 4%, how can anyone make this statement?
“Human activities, such as driving, flying, building and even turning on the lights, are the biggest contributor to the release of carbon.”
NPR report has all the qualities of a bitter teenage girl who did not get to be prom queen. If they were on the Titanic they would still be washing dirty dishes.
I watch NPR only for their British comedy programs such as Last of the Summer Wine and One foot in the grave. No wait, that is on AETN TV.
If you can avoid their attitude, they make a good case to vote GOP.
The caption under the NPR photo reads: Steam and smoke rise over a coal-burning power plant in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.
More specifically, it is the Scholven power plant in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, which emits about 10.7 millions tons of CO2 per year. Since NPR journalists (and probably most of their audience) believe that CO2 is the devil, the photo makes perfect sense.
Theo Goodwin says: October 23, 2010 at 8:27 pmI do not think that the word “fact” means what NPR thinks it means. NPR begins a broadcast segment with the assertion that “manmade CO2 causes Earth’s temperature to rise and that is a fact.” I will not rehearse the infinity of reasons for believing that this “fact” is not a fact. NPR is a propagandist for statist causes. It is nigh time that NPR be defunded. US citizens who choose to be communists are welcome to do so. But out government should not be in the business of funding communists.
I have seen quite a misuse of the term “fact” over the past two years. In many cases it was more applicable to replace that term with “opinion” or even “biased hope”.
John from CA says: October 24, 2010 at 11:01 amIf the entire human contribution is less than 4%, how can anyone make this statement?
“Human activities, such as driving, flying, building and even turning on the lights, are the biggest contributor to the release of carbon.”
NOM!
Maybe one of us should help the NPR people out since their press release is so easy to pick apart… How about:
“For the last 150 years (or so) humans have been increasing their release of carbon into the atmosphere. This is a fact – based upon the quantities of fossil fuels consumed.
For the last 150 years (or so), global temperature seems to be gradually rising. This is a widely accepted observation and backed up by many lines of evidence; assuming we can agree on what a “global temperature” means.
Many Republicans do not believe that the impact of releasing CO2 upon the environment at the current levels justifies deaconian measures that would reduce wealth and prosperity for most people, and would retard the development in third world countires keeping many people in poverty.
But what Republicans fail to realize, is that rising CO2 in the atmosphere is turning the oceans into steaming vats of PURE ACID which is killing all life on the planet and will soon lead to the mutation of iguana’s into HUGE VORACIOUS MAN-EATING MONSTERS AS BIG AS GODZILLA AND EVERYONE IS GOING TO DIE!!!!! Aaaagggghhhhh….”
I think I might have a career writing for them – please do not stop their public funding as it might impact my chances of getting hired. Its a lot more fun to write stuff that doesn’t have to be real than stuff that has to agree with data and fact.
If NPR did their basic homework on the atmospheric carbon cycle available on numerous government websites (which I am sure they did but had to hide) they would have to state that 96.73% of all Co2 is generated by nature, and only 3.27% is generated by man.
But why let real facts get in the way of a scare-the-hell-out-of-em pre-election piece?
Mark Twang says:
October 23, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Peter Pan says: “If only ALL the kids out there would get on board and say the magic words, Tinkerbell the Climate Fairy would recover!”
You forgot to add: “If you don’t frau Schiller will take THE RED BUTTON!
and blow up up!”