I think this was directed squarely at Joe Romm and his band of TPers. One of Romm’s favorite put downs is “anti-science”, a label he uses with abandon. This opinion piece appeared in the Chicago Tribune today to wide circulation. It’s pretty strong stuff.
The real science trashers
Today I am writing about religion. Specifically, about those who worship in the Church of the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. More specifically, about those who, as a matter of faith, believe that the science of climate change is settled.
These believers preach that mankind is steering the planet onto an irreversible and cataclysmic course unless we do something. They have engaged in a clever ploy of labeling those who disagree with their dogma as “deniers” and “anti-science.” When actually they’re the ones trashing science.
Let’s take the latest scientific research that demonstrates, again, that the science of climate change is too complex to lend itself to simplifications and claims of “consensus.”
read the whole essay here
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The concept of a “science trasher” fits Romm perfectly, who is paid by a political organization (Center for American Progress) to spout invective daily.
I’m sure Josh can do something with this.
i believe we need a term for the panic-stricken CAGW believers, a counterpart to deniers.
I propose wetters.
Curious – nowhere in Byrne’s bio page does it mention him being employed by Big Oil…
Something I’ve noticed….
Articles like this tend to leave the comments open.
Irritable Climate Syndrome articles tend to have the comments closed…………..
[snip – will be misconstrued by YNW] And since science is the new god to many, it is only logical that “the science is settled” becomes a rock-solid principle. You don’t want to piss off your god by questioning his or her infallibility and you certainly cannot approach this god without a “fully illuminated” intermediary. Much too dangerous for the rabble- just leave your sacrifice and be off.
There is also a cadre of pay-per-trolls out there who pretend to be ordinary people making comments, but are really paid to deliver propaganda. Some pretend to be members of their opposition and say inflamatory, angry, stupid things to shift public opinion away from supporting their opponents. For example, a phony Tea Partier on a blog may pretend to be a religious racist in an attempt to marginalize people who may be religious, but not racist, who are taking action against government waste, over-control, and mismanagement. They get about a dime per post. It’s fun to expose them, if and when you have time to burn. I had one actually admit she was sorry she had to do it, but she needed the money. After that one post, she went right back to work.
“Demands that we all bow to some “consensus” that greenhouse gases cause global warming are as senseless as declaring that there is no evidence to support the theory of evolution.”
Good article. The final statement points out the importance of terminology and context. There are very few knowledgeable folks who would “deny” the evidence of evolution within species. Evolution from one species to another is still questionable to many. It boils down to what do we mean by “evolution”. Then what is theory vs proven facts? From single cell creatures to more complex organisms, theory. From brown bears to white bears, fact.
Here are hard cold facts very few even understand here in the real world on the planet Earth.
The two largest land masses on earth, Russia and Canada and the two least recorded by the AGW fanatics merely because both of us have a habit a lowering world temperatures the most, would be devastated without our climates changing. We count on ice roads in winter and summer construction seasons that have to use ice roads in both of our northern climates to reach our resources needed by the rest of the world. That’s just plain facts. Russia doesn’t apologize and all the EU nations greedily suck up Russian natural gas and oil. When the EU pissed off the Russians the Russians merely shut off their natural gas and Europe froze in the dark and European economies came to a screeching halt. And all the BILLIONS spent on EU “green” energy meant diddly squat to real Russian power that is real energy.
Believe it or not Canada has more than that power in North America. We are the single largest oil exported to the US, largest exporter of natural gas, our hydro powers much of the US east coast – recall when Quebec went down from solar flares years back the entire US east coast blacked out?
Most all that power in Canada is wrestled from northern climates as it is in Russia. Yes, we have to have climate change – we call that phenomena winter and summer up here. And NO none of oil, gas, or Hydro giants fund the so called scientist who write “denier” papers. We don’t need to fund such nonsense like the AGW side – if we really want to make a point about energy we have all the power in the world to make our point when ever we feel the need to shut down everything and send North America in the dark at our fingertips exactly like Russia. We’re not that stupid. The AGE side is!
Perfectly sensible article and words that have been written on this blog time and time again. When will the sheepies wake up? at the slaughter house ?
Maybe we should get them a grief counseling telephone number to call. It really seems hard for these cagw people to understand that we know very little. But any time people try to tell you something is a sure thing and insist we accept it, I push back because under those circumstances its much more likely to be a con job, especially with the stuff they seem to be willing to do to the economy to save us from ourselves.
“Wets” is a long-standing, overused term for a certain type of collectivist Statist, one who weeps into his soup, more commonly known as a “goo-goo.”
A better tag for street agitators such as Romm, Gavin Schmidt, in general the Green Gang of Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann, Trenberth et al. –not to mention their Grand Sanhedrin known as Albert the Gore– would be the more descriptive appellation “Mephite,” meaning “one who shines and stinks by moonlight.”
“As the mephitic Romm has said…” practically writes itself.
LeeHarvey:
‘Curious – nowhere in Byrne’s bio page does it mention him being employed by Big Oil…’
There may be a reason for that – he may not be. But even if he is, does it matter? I prefer to judge arguments on their merits – that’s what distinguishes rationality from religion.
Good article, well reasoned and very calm and sensible. Agood antidote to Romm’s rants.
Latitude says:
August 30, 2011 at 11:24 am
“Irritable Climate Syndrome…”
I LIKE it!!!
Why do we have to remind scientists on the uncertainty of science?
But somehow those who disagree with Byrne have found out. Just look at the comments on the linked site.
@jim G
Evolution and CAGW are not comparable in any sense. No evidence has EVER been put forward that brings evolution into question. In contrast, the existence of a MWP, the possible role of cosmic rays in cloud formation, lack of increase in OHC, low climate sensitivity estimates from direct measurements and poor model performance all bring CAGW into at least some kind of question.
The other big difference is the A in Anthropogenic. Evolution is not human-caused (in some places humans drive evolution, but evolution was around long before us and will outlive us). In other words, we don’t have a choice about “addressing” evolution. If AGW is true, we have the next debate, about to what extent to address it.
/rant
did you even read the article?
Byrne thinks that the CERN experiments are designed to work out if greenhouse gases are affecting climate, and that their ambiguity means that we still don’t know if there is a greenhouse effect. Yet he gets on his high horse to criticise consensus when he doesn’t know the first thing about the science. This is pretty much textbook ‘anti-science’ no?
glen martin says:
August 30, 2011 at 11:21 am
i believe we need a term for the panic-stricken CAGW believers, a counterpart to deniers.
COCO-Nuts
FredT is correct
FredT says:
August 30, 2011 at 12:52 pm
did you even read the article?
Byrne thinks that the CERN experiments are designed to work out if greenhouse gases are affecting climate, and that their ambiguity means that we still don’t know if there is a greenhouse effect. Yet he gets on his high horse to criticise consensus when he doesn’t know the first thing about the science. This is pretty much textbook ‘anti-science’ no?
—————————————————————————————————————————–
FredT: Did YOU even read the article? Because you blew it. Byrne thinks the CERN experiments are designed to test whether or not cosmic rays create aerosols. He specifically told you that the CERN scientists stayed away from the AGW debate. Then you got on YOUR hi horse and proceeded to make yourself look like the back end of your mode of transportation.
Yet he gets on his high horse to criticise consensus when he doesn’t know the first thing about the science. This is pretty much textbook ‘anti-science’ no?
Huh? Have you read the article?
He is quite rightly saying that consensus itself is anti-science.
Correlation is not causation, consensus is not proof, models do not produce data. We know three fifths of eff-all about how the global climate works and yet some are prepared to sacrifice entire countries (Australia, USA, UK) in order to appease the Climate Gods which is an exemplar of the idiocy to which apparently sane, logical humans can descend. The CERN results have guaranteed the eventual demise of the CO2 infatuation but we can only speculate as to what devastation might be wrought in its name before it dies.
CAGW reminds me of the ‘shook yong’ panics which have afflicted Hong Kong and Singapore with some degree of regularity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koro_%28medicine%29
Jit says:
August 30, 2011 at 12:50 pm
@jim G
“Evolution and CAGW are not comparable in any sense. No evidence has EVER been put forward that brings evolution into question. In contrast, the existence of a MWP, the possible role of cosmic rays in cloud formation, lack of increase in OHC, low climate sensitivity estimates from direct measurements and poor model performance all bring CAGW into at least some kind of question.
The other big difference is the A in Anthropogenic. Evolution is not human-caused (in some places humans drive evolution, but evolution was around long before us and will outlive us). In other words, we don’t have a choice about “addressing” evolution. If AGW is true, we have the next debate, about to what extent to address it.”
I never said evolution and AGW were comparable and one cannot prove a negative. The paper is about real science and not jumping to conclusions based upon weak, little or no real evidence. It’s about just doing the science and finding out what the answers might actually be. Evolution is only comparable in the sense that it is an unproven theory, at the top levels, where some people think it is a fact that all life evolved from single cell organisms. At this level it is an unproven theory just like AGW. Yes, IF, AGW is true we have a choice as to, IF we could do anything about it, IF we wanted to. Warm, is historically proven to be better than cold for life of all types.
“Anti-science”, FredT? And who do you see blocking the CERN CLOUD experiment for more than a decade?–the Deniers?
Heavens, NO!
And who are the people that wanted to stifle any constructive conversation about the recent results from the CERN CLOUD experiment–the Deniers?
Again, heavens, NO!
So quibble about this article if you want, but the bottom line is that the true deniers–those that rail on anything beyond their sole navel-gazing concept involving a trace greenhouse gas without any consideration for the myriad number of other contributing factors whatsoever–are those CAGW animals.
Have a few for breakfast and, as John Blake suggests above, you’d have a case of mephitosis.
Latitude says:
August 30, 2011 at 11:24 am
“Irritable Climate Syndrome…”
I LIKE IT TOO !!
I PLAN TO USE IT AGAIN SOON !