People send me stuff.
Finally … finally! … a person trained by Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project agreed to face off in a public debate on global warming. As WUWT readers may know, trying to get one of these folks to debate a skeptic has been an impossible task…until now. Full video follows, running about 59 minutes.
While I don’t know the details, I suspect the video quality has to do with an apparent long standing policy of Gore’s presenters refusing to allow their presentations to be video taped. My impression is that this appears to be a clandestine recording made by an audience member.
From an email I received:
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Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project squared off against The Heartland Institute in a global warming debate January 8 in Tallahassee, Florida. More than 260 people attended the hour-long debate, which resulted in standing room only at the Tallahassee Elks Club Lodge, which hosted the debate.
Ray Bellamy, a Florida State University faculty member who gives public presentations on behalf of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, argued humans are causing a global warming crisis. Taylor countered that global warming activists have proven none of four important factors they need to show in order to demonstrate a human-induced global warming crisis.
“I am very happy that this debate is now available on the Internet so people can see the for themselves, without having to wade through media filters, who possesses and presents the best evidence in a fair and balanced debate,” said Taylor.
“I encourage people to watch the debate and then share it with friends, family and acquaintances. So long as people have access to the truth, I believe the truth will always prevail,” said Taylor.
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Source: Alyssa Carducci
The YouTube page says:
Heartland Institute Senior Fellow James Taylor debates Ray Bellamy, M.D., a Tallahassee Orthopedic Surgeon at the Elks Club Lodge at 276 North Magnolia Drive in Tallahassee, Florida on Jan. 8, 2013.
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Mike;
If you use FF on a PC, or Chrome, you can use an add-on called “Lazarus”, which saves every keystroke of every form Reply or Comment, along with the URL of said form. The file can be held for the default 14 minutes or much longer, and searched or used to recreate your exact posts, etc. I save mine for 54 weeks, but I may add a zero to that, since storage is so cheap.
I don’t know if it works on Macs, however. There was a version for Safari, but it’s withdrawn at present.
If you can use it, you will NEVER lose another post, regardless of WP’s peculiarities.
Ad homs from an AGW supporter? Who’da thunk it. It is so predictable. Why dont they wise up and realize that anyone on the fence and trying to give both sides the benefit of the doubt are going to be turned off by this non-intellectual tactic.
P.S.;
The “recreation” I mentioned consists of either a click on a context menu option (from a right-click in the form itself), or a “Copy” of the DB entry, which you can then paste anywhere.
Don’t you think we should begin referring to “Climate Skeptics” as ” Climate Realists”
Loved this. I’m going to email it far & wide.
James Taylor writes for Forbes, and is routinely harassed by Warmists for his assaults on the Consensus. He has learned to stay clam, clue, and corrected. Though he has issued, as he says, a license to respond to ad homs with sarcasm.
typo: issued to himself
“My impression is that this appears to be a clandestine recording made by an audience member.”
You have out gleicked Gleick. Congratulations.
Mike Jowsey says:
January 12, 2013 at 2:54 am
Man I hate this WordPress BS. I submit a well-worded, carefully edited and double spell-checked response, and lo, I get a WordPress page asking me to log in. So I do. And then…..
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If you use Firefox, just get the Form History extension. It automatically saves all textareas for a week, so if you lose a submission you just go to the field, right click, find form history, and there you are.
I felt embarrassed on behalf of Mr Bellamy. Badly briefed, badly presented. When he said that a major issue of warming could be cancellation of ball games because of lightning strikes I inwardly curled up. I am no expert and take a contrary view to Mr Bellamy but I could have put a lot better argument together in support of dangerous C02 than he did.
Joe on January 12, 2013 at 5:01 am
Sadly, for a lot of people (including most of that audience by the sound of it), the slow-speaking MD with his homespun anecdotes about lightning at football games will come across as far more trustworthy than the sharp executive type armed with facts.”
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I thought the same!
All you guys cheerleading and crying victory…I find the audience reaction generally disgusting. This is what we’re up against, ignorance, anger, and closed minds. That clueless physician should have been laughed off the stage.
Just to add, once again that risible 97 percent canard is used to good effect. That the lie is so precious to these people is seen in the audience reaction when the cherished consensus meme is challenged. I can’t get any of the leading skeptics to talk to me about trying to conduct a survey of our own. NOt sure why. I simply can’t see how that’s not something worth trying. Anthony? I’d be glad to dg deeply into my own pockets to help fund such an endeavor. Multiply me by thousands and you can see that we could easily afford it. Why don’t we do it?
With apologies to Dr Joyce:
An orthopaedic surgeon was seen approaching an elevator, the doors started to close just as he reached them. Bending forward he placed his head between the closing doors. “Why did you do that?” said a passing nurse. Holding his hands out, the orthopaedic surgeon replied, “I need these for my work!”
What’s the definition of a double-blind clinical trial? Two orthopaedic surgeons looking at an ECG (EKG for the N American readers)
Taylor wasted his question to Bellamy. The bet was a non-starter.
That being said, the debate was not educational in the sense that nothing new really materialized. One side presented facts and figures, and the other merely responded with ad hominems and innuendo. I can see why the GoreBull Warmists do not like to debate. They operate better when no one questions them and asks to see the man behind the curtain.
Joe says:
January 12, 2013 at 5:01 am
Sadly, for a lot of people (including most of that audience by the sound of it), the slow-speaking MD with his homespun anecdotes about lightning at football games will come across as far more trustworthy than the sharp executive type armed with facts.
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Unfortunately I am somewhat in agreement.
I recently put up those two charts, showing how the Met CRU changed their temperature forecast for the next fews years… within minutes, I had someone tell me ‘those charts have long since been debunked.’
…. seriously? Most people don’t have the First clue what is going on in the climate argument. That, despite our best efforts.
I dont understand why any debate should last more than 15 minutes. AGW proponents argue that co2 absorption of incoming radiation will lead to a positive feedback. Where is the physical proof of that given the immense magnitude of all the other factors involved? I know PHD’s who say that it could be a net coolant. Temperatures went on when we had an ice age at 7000ppm CO2. Point is, it’s either a non factor, or something that is so small its not worth the time or energy or economic cost. There is the problem. That would destroy an entire cottage industry in academics, and the economy. Perhaps generously we can say as many do that it may have some minute effect. But the sheer weight of other factors renders it almost useless. The 2nd item is simple presentation of sst and air temps against CO2, and then all the other facts (ex: heat trapping hot spots not showing up). Finally propose a test… where will global temps be in 2030, once we have had 20 years plus of cold pdo and cold amo. Force them to make a forecast that we can watch. This isn’t rocket science, though the other side wants to make it more complex than it is. Force them to defend and then compete, Its the last thing they want to do. I cant believe all this is still going on. Are we to believe if CO2 was not increasing then we would be heading into a natural variability ice age. Prove that this warming and feed back can take place beyond the magnitude of what this gas’s relationship to the entire system would lead one to believe. When you break it down, its amazing how small it really is not only to the air, but the entire ocean/land /air system..not even bringing in changes in solar which they also have ignored over the years. No wonder Bill Gray has used words like hoax and scam years ago.
My conclusion is that, if the analysis by climate scientists had been required to pass a typical engineering preliminary design review, the crisis theory would have never been passed on to the non-technical audience.
Steve Mc has been asking for this for maybe 5 or 6 years. No show !
I have to say that I don’t think this debate makes any difference. One that would, however, might be Slingo vs Lindzen or Betts vs Lindzen or Krugman vs Lindzen.
Holdren vs Lindzen with Oblarny at Holdren’s side. Yeh that’s the one. Ooh, add SteveMc with Lindzen to back him up.
Thanks for posting this debate. We’ve seen others over the years and our side holds up well. Time is winning the science argument for us and we have seen some hope in the media coverage. The battle royal is in the government sphere where Gore, Markey, and others created a Frankenstien’s monster of funding that rolls on year-in-year out. This whole mess started as a battle over nuclear power in the US and UK. In 1977 when Gore entered Congress he was 100% pro-nuclear. They were building a massive nuclear plant in Hartsville, TN and like his father before him he was all for it. Just entering the workforce at that time I can tell you that the economic impact in Gore’s congressional district was a game-changer. The pushback was from enviromentalists and the then new Union of Concerned Scientists. The TVA had to make a decision nuclear vs coal. At first it appeared that Gore and nuclear had won. 12 plants were planned with several going into construction. Coal and the environmentalists teamed up to reverse the decsion. The nuclear plants in construction were stopped and new coal plants were built. Coal was happy but nuclear and environmentalist were not. The enviros wanted solar, wind, etc… nuclear wanted nuclear. It took 30 years and years of mumbo-jumbo but in 2009 the enviro’s and nuclear cut a deal to stop coal. It’s raw political power and buckets full of money. Science has always been a victim twisted and tortured until it said whatever was needed.
It is nice to see this video posted on you website, Anthony. In the days leading up to the debate, Bellamy kept referring to me as “the denier” and a number of activist groups engaged in a full-court press to turn out their members for the debate. As a result, approximately 70 percent of the audience consisted of environmental activists. Of course, if there is anything I enjoy more than exposing the weak evidence and weak thinking of an Al Gore-trained global warming activist, it is exposing the weak evidence and weak thinking of an Al Gore-trained global warming activist in front of 200 of his friends and supporters.
Truth for truth’s sake,
– James
I am happy to say that whe have a new name.
From now on we are cold troll’s
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/you-idiot-course-trolls-comments-make-you-believe-science-less
Stephen Richards says:
January 12, 2013 at 6:54 am
It isn’t the players that are being showcased as much as the argument. While it would be instructive to see your list of combatants face off, the scientific arguments are what really matter. An appeal to popularity is no more valid than an appeal to authority, which is one of the few ploys they have left, and according to public polls, is failing.
What is the motivation? I don’t know what it is now but in the 1970’s the political science majors had to take a science course and the most popular course was Nat Sci 10 given by Stephen Gould. They learned about the interstadial periods and at the same time the environmental movement was beginning to take hold and needed a compelling arguement.They were learning about Thermasoclese in their political science classes. My observation at the time was that they determined that the correlation between CO2 and the interstadial temperature, CO2 and methane offered by the interstadial narrative and Vostok Ice cores presented an exceptional political opportunity. The technique is amazingly powerful, and presented huge political windfalls, everything we are is carbon based. Using straight forward political science techniques they have been manipulating dependence on CO2 and the the global warming trend to make the argument that we must have some political control on anthropogenic contribution and by ceding this control and power to them humanity will be directed into a better result in the future through care of our environment.
In the final analysis when confronted with the data they would regress to the Thermastoclese dilemma.” Is it ethical to misrepresent the facts in order to get the Population to do the “right thing”.” Tey would say emphatically YES!.
Once we get into the political realm an ad homenum attack and misrepresentation is fair game, scientists on the other hand are in a different reality and are at a disadvantage because usually one’s imagination is much more fertile for creating fantasy and the truth is generally [pretty boring.
My take on the response to “What is the motivation.”
james t,
Thanks for the video. Is there a chance you could post the presentation you had?
I also loved when the left tries shouting you down. I so dislike their non-science tactics.