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.”
Defunding NPR must also include the multi-millons the Gov’t hands out to the local NPR stations and more multi-millions given for maintaining and upgrading their satellite operations. CPB must be thrown in for good measure. Let Stalinist Soros pick up the slack.
NPR’s list of human activities that produce CO2 left out breathing. If everyone who has ever used the term “carbon polution” would stop exhaling CO2, it might not cure global warming but the world’s average IQ would go up considerably.
I think NPR can demonstrate best how to reduce its carbon footprint by shutting down.
While we are defunding NPR; let’s not forget to have the FCC pull their non-competitive spectrum allocations – that will hurt more then the 2% funding.
Almost every program on NPR (at least in the past, I find them quite flawed now) has an obligatory note naming the Foundation that partially funded the programing. Seemingly most are funded by some of the most conservative entities around. Do you think the Rockefeller Foundation ( They own EXXON) or the Ford Foundation is really liberal? They just control both sides of an issue. Sorros is a conservative defense contractor. Who cares what he says he is? Look at actions not words.
Great thread, glad to see the NPR funding shell game exposed.
As far as cool aid drinking references go, well, those usually come from gatorade drinkers.
Personally, I’ll be voting Constitution Party again until I ever see the control grabbing extremists thrown out of the big two or one or t’other. John Kerry, please resign!
Nor will I ever wish to see this country turned into a Libertardian Paradise like Somallia. Don’t think libertarians realize what being a libertarian is even fully about.
Damn those Whigs for creating a politically powerful caste of rich aristocrats who’s aim, to subvert democracy. Historical note: they had to change colors after ‘Bloody Kansas’ and the slavery issue (kicking off a civil war) and largely because of Franklin Pierce. What recent president is directly related to Pierce? Hint, he has a new book out.
I see the “Ultras” still insist on blaming Bush… Pathetic.
tj says
“Do you think the Rockefeller Foundation ( They own EXXON) or the Ford Foundation is really liberal? They just control both sides of an issue. Sorros is a conservative defense contractor. Who cares what he says he is? Look at actions not words.”
YES they are liberals – EXXON was heavily vested in cap and trade. Soros controls much of the media, specifically MSNBC, CNBC and NBC. Yes, I looked at their actions. And all would profit hansomely from any cap and trade or tax based on carbon.
The Rockefeller Foundation is pretty liberal. Weren’t they a big mover behind the UN?
The Ford foundation has escaped control of the Ford family decades ago, being infiltrated and captured by its progressive administrators. Ford family members sued to try to get it back on track and aligned with the wishes in Ford’s will, but the courts sided with the administrators (I suspect recognizing them as fellow-members of the anointed class, whose preferences must prevail).
PS: The Rockefeller Foundation doesn’t own Exxon, not remotely.
I have seen several times it stated that CO2 follows temp change… not the other way around. Excuse me for stating the obvious, but isn’t that a silly statement on it’s own? CO2 dumped into the atmosphere heats up the atmosphere, and then more heat realeases more CO2. I am one of the biggest uneducated skeptics out there, and I’m not quite clear why the ‘heat precedes CO2’ argument is trotted out. Someone help me?
Jason S,
Rises in CO2 follow rises in temperature:
400,000 years
12 months
If the temperature of your beer rises, you get more CO2. That’s what the oceans are doing.
From the article: Inglis says: “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.”
Just to clear up an error that many people on all sides make: TR was no conservative, in fact he was about as far from conservative as a politician could get. He was a leader of the progressive (left) movement and ran as the candidate of the progressive party (popularly called the “Bullmoose” party) because Taft had failed to live up to progressive expectations.
Calling Roosevelt a conservative is one of those 20th century historical errors that the left continually gets away with, like calling Wilson a great president because of his championing the League of Nations, or even better calling Hitler a “conservative” when he was the leader of the NationalSocialists! A quick reading of the Nazi party platform reveals the socialist nature of their agenda. A more modern comparison would be calling Arlen Specter or Michael Bloomburg or Olympia Snowe conservative.
Smokey:
You know, I have put versions of that graphic up numerous times, but the warmists always come up with some way to minimize it. I even found it on a warmist site once (don’t remember where) that was using it to forward their argument, somehow.
What I find compelling about it though, is not the CO2 issue at all. If one looks at the temperatures for the last 400,000 years, I find it striking that the vast majority of the time is spent in the -4 to -10 degree range, and only a very small amount of time in the +2 to -2 degree range. And, we have been in that range for a very long time (about 10,000 years). It would seem to this non-scientist that we are do for a little cold weather in the next, oh, 10,000 years or so. Also, the maximum temp of the last 10,000 years was at the beginning of the cycle of warm and not at the present time.
Here is an article by Frank Lansner in WUWT from 1-30-09. It is one of my favorite references to throw at these nutcases who can’t seem to understand that a little warming is a good thing. The really hard part is going to be adapting when Chicago is under a mile of ice. But somehow they have spun that to be “climate change”. I think it’s a leftist thing.
“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.”
Huh, I didn’t realize that the Republican heritage consisted of people who left the party to run against their sitting president.
Or whack job protectionist jingoists who played the game of destroying business they did not like and protecting those they did, ie the “good trusts” and “bad trusts”.
Wolfman:
Re: Your NASA numbers
If the opportunity ever presents itself, have a quiet off-the-record chat
with John Glenn about the recent history of NASA funding and the various
Executive branch-ordered changes in programs and priorities.
Also, please recall that NOAA was reorganized into the Department of
Commerce…
I can’t believe anyone who posted here would give money to National Public Radio expecting unbiased and objective reporting, NPR is about as unbiased and objective as Time, Newsweek, and the New York Times are ( Which is to say it isn’t objective at all ) . Just because NPR gives on air time to non-leftists for Op-Eds doesn’t mean it isn’t nonetheless very pro-left in general, The NYT occasionally gives Op-Eds to non-leftists but that doesn’t detract from the fact that almost all of their reporting and newspaper editorials have a left-wing slant. A 99% leftist story reporting slant ( Which constitute the bulk of the papers pages ), 97% leftist newspaper editorials, and a 85% leftist Op-Ed pieces mix don’t come close to adding up to 50/50 balance overall, and that is exactly what NPR is like, a radio version of the NYT. I have listened to NPR on and off over the years because they are one of only a handful of radio news programs in the US that cover news in-depth, but that doesn’t mean I don’t take their editorializing or the spin that accompanies a large majority of their stories without a very big grain of salt. It’s actually not hard, because virtually all of the major newspapers, magazines, wire services, and radio and TV networks ( With the exception of course, of Fox News. ) have a very strong left-wing slant in the US. This has only worsened over the last generation because of the retirement of “Old Guard” reporters ( Who often didn’t attend colleges and had other real world jobs prior to becoming journalists. ) and their replacement by more left-wing “Baby Boomers” ( Who often went straight from college into journalism ) whose “political consciousness” was formed in the sixties and seventies during Vietnam and Watergate. These boomers are now running most major news sources in the US because a lot of them are now in management and/or supervisory positions within their respective organizations.
What I love is how the media is going around claiming that the vast bulk of NPR’s money doesn’t come from the Federal Government, fine, if that is the case then they won’t miss the lack of government money when it’s cut from their budget. My guess though, is that a sizable chunk of their money does come from Uncle Sam directly or indirectly and the pledge drives which they periodically bombard their listeners with. NPR should not be getting any government money anymore than than it’s TV equivalent PBS does, both are pretty consistently left-wing in their outlooks and even a lot of their programming that is hailed a middle of the road really isn’t. PBS not long ago was hailed for it’s Frontline documentary on pharmaceuticals and the drug industry, but I watched the program and it was objective and unbiased for only the first half hour and then completely one sided ( On the left ) for the last half hour. So I guess in public broadcasting land 75% left/25% right and 100% left the last half hour ( Which is what most people who watched it will remember the most strongly. ) is considered ” objective ” and ” unbiased “. The really sad fact though is that there are some people in public radio broadcasting in the US who consider NPR insufficiently left-wing and instead listen to Pacifica Radio who makes NPR look like a bunch of right-wingers by comparison.
nofate,
You’re right about cold being the real threat, and a little more warmth being something we’re supposed to be frightened about.
Andrew,
Thank you for pointing out that the Progressive Party was an offshoot of the Republican Party. Teddy Roosevelt, William Taft and Woodrow Wilson [the original incompetent president that Carter patterned after] comprised the Progressive era in America.
There is a reason that TR is on Mount Rushmore – and Wilson isn’t.
And speaking of whack jobs who destroy businesses they don’t like, Obama takes the cake, no? Being in the coal power or oil drilling business now would make anyone nervous with this guy in charge. I’ll take a patriotic jingoist any time over a naive incompetent who kisses up to royalty.
Smokey:
From the Lansner article I referenced above: {Assuming CO2 is NOT the driving mechanism behind large changes in average temperature}
““What is the mechanism behind ice ages???”
This is a question many alarmists asks, and if you can’t answer, then CO2 is the main temperature driver. End of discussion. There are obviously many factors not yet known, so I will just illustrate one hypothetical solution to the mechanism of ice ages among many:
First of all: When a few decades of low sunspot number is accompanied by Dalton minimum and 50 years of missing sunspots is accompanied by the Maunder minimum, what can for example thousands of years of missing sunspots accomplish? We don’t know.
What we saw in the Maunder minimum is NOT all that missing solar activity can achieve, even though some might think so. In a few decades of solar cooling, only the upper layers of the oceans will be affected. But if the cooling goes on for thousands of years, then the whole oceans will become colder and colder. It takes around 1000-1500 years to “mix” and cool the oceans. So for each 1000-1500 years the cooling will take place from a generally colder ocean. Therefore, what we saw in a few decades of maunder minimum is in no way representing the possible extend of ten thousands of years of solar low activity.”
How can anyone thinking logically, knowing what we know about terrestrial, solar, and celestial cycles and their incomprehensible lenths (to humans), not allow for the possibility of a thousand or 10-thousand year long solar minimum? Just in terrestrial terms, the Siberian Traps lasted for a million years or so, and the more recent Deccan Traps laste “only” about 30,000 years or so. In “The Chilling Stars”, Svensmark points out the vast celestial time periods as he also theorizes that the terrestrial cooling/warming cycles are related to solar cycles and their interaction with cosmic rays streaming through the galaxy.
There is another graph (which I can’t find the link to at the moment) that shows a similar pattern from ice cores in Greenland. Same pattern, several thousand miles apart. Proof? No. Coincidence? Not likely.
The pattern is for ice ages, with warm periods like the current one that started about 10k yrs ago being the exception. We’d better learn to adapt, but knowing the progressive penchant for blaming everyone but themselves for whatever ills befall mankind, I don’t see it happening.
Smokey:
On the other subject, i.e. progressives, I would consider the most successful of the whole 20th century to be the vaunted Franklin Roosevelt. He came out of the Wilson administration and while I can’t remember the exact phrase he used, he subscribed to the Rahm Emmanuel philosophy of not letting a good crisis go to waste. When MacArthur went into the Hooverville and killed a few of the protesters, Roosevelt commented something like “We have just been handed the Presidency”.
Unfortunately, Obama appears to be Roosevelt on steroids.
Smokey-“And speaking of whack jobs who destroy businesses they don’t like, Obama takes the cake, no? Being in the coal power or oil drilling business now would make anyone nervous with this guy in charge. I’ll take a patriotic jingoist any time over a naive incompetent who kisses up to royalty.”
Basically agreed on all counts, Smokey.
What NPR did to Juan Williams
by ThinkAsTheyDoOrElse
Dark humor involving a bird, a wind turbine, and funny music
Similar to video posted in tips and notes but quote puzzle angle is missing.
NPR:
Not
Presently
Rational