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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:
============================================================
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.
=============================================================
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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The answer to the question of “what is the motivation is grounded in studying Thermastoclese and the political science question. “Is it ethical to misrepresent to the public in order to get them to do the “right thing .”Let no “crisis” go un used.’ This campaign represents a steady pressure toward a major political power shift. The public is being offered specious reasons and ABSURDLY fabricated alarm and asked to cede control and authority over carbon to the political establishment for the greater good.” The UN thinks that it should be the controlling body and any good political science student can see the possibilities. Exciting times!
Joe says… “AGW proponents argue that co2 absorption of incoming radiation will lead to a positive feedback. Where is the physical proof of that”.
You need proof? How about the draft AR5 IPCC model predictions plotted against current temperatures as seen at this link …
IPCC figure 2 with the following superimposed on the graph:
o WFT monthly values from 1986-2012.
o WFT Trend line from 1986-2012 projected to 2050
o WFT Trend line from 1998-2012 projected to 2050
http://s1.postimage.org/fmklky2bz/IPCC_Pic_2a.png
Oh wait, ummm…. never mind.
“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.””
Excuse me? I cannot believe anyone (and you were not the only one here) that thought this was a winner for the AGW side? The lightning football game was totally embarrassing.
On the other side, I would not make the bet argument again, which I say as the only downside to James argument.
As a side note, James sounded just like Kevin Costner, at least in this video. That has to be a good thing.
On the lightning strike before the FSU football game…
This was his con for why we should be afraid of the effects of global warming??? Because fans who travel from far away in their mobile home may miss a game because of a lightning strike within 10 miles of the stadium may miss the game or have it postponed. Are you kidding me?
My fear is that if that professor and his ilk had their way, the fans would not be allowed to own a gas guzzling mobile home and would be prevented from taking trips that were unnecessary, all in the name of saving the planet.
mbw says:
January 12, 2013 at 5:54 am
“My impression is that this appears to be a clandestine recording made by an audience member.”
You have out gleicked Gleick. Congratulations.
Huh? In what universe is videotaping an event equivalent to obtaining documents under false pretenses, forging another document and then ‘leaking” the results equivalent?
You Warmists just don’t get ethics, do you?
Long a fan and now a member of The Heartland Institute. (note to Glieck: feel free to use my name Jackbag 🙂
“Excuse me? I cannot believe anyone (and you were not the only one here) that thought this was a winner for the AGW side? The lightning football game was totally embarrassing.”
I don’t know about the commenter you’re directly referencing, but I’m talking about the audience reaction. Yes, you’re right the bumbling doctor was an embarrassing disgrace. Was there any real doubt he would be? The question is, was the audience swayed? Not to my ear, by a long shot. Which again, is an indication of what we’re up against
Well done James. Keep up the good work. Keep spreading realism. We have to stop
“Those who know what’s best for us must rise and save us from ourselves.”
These folks are everywhere pushing their hysteria and while they mean well they are extremely dangerous pawns in a political/religious power/money grab by those like Gore who pull the strings.
I think that it is unfortunate the audience was so misinformed, if not outright stupid. One only has to have heard the lady who said she thought the world was billions of years old or at least millions of years old to get a sense of who the audience was, and none of the other questioners convinced me that the general audience was much smarter.
Bruce Cobb,
I agree, there is no comparison between Gleick’s wrongdoing and simply recording a debate.
mbw is just unhappy that the alarmist side lost yet another debate.
mbw says:
January 12, 2013 at 5:54 am
“My impression is that this appears to be a clandestine recording made by an audience member.”
You have out gleicked Gleick. Congratulations.
Thank you. Everyone here is already well aware that CAGW proponents believe that their lying and deceit (Mann’s Hockey stick, IPCC grey literature, Gleick, Gore, Polar Bear scares, a “fixed” peer review process, “hide the decline etc. etc. etc.) is ALL justified because CAGW proponents tell themselves that the other side does it too and that anyway the “end (save the planet) justifies the means”.
The fact is that those who have orchestrated the CAGW fraud (not the pawns that believe it) are simply enriching themselves by having created global hysteria with significant related expenditures, increased taxation and onerous legislation – all from what is certainly a non-problem.
Tom Trevor,
I hope there’s a typo in your comment some place.
Gleick’s Pacific Institute needs an audit to ensure they are in compliance with federal contracting rules. This thing is played by “Chicago Rules” and it is played on several levels at once. The river of money pouring out of DC and into AGW alarmism has us playing wack-a-mole.
The strongest, most knowledgeable CAGWers need to be debated, certainly not a pitiful “activist” such as Bellamy. Someone above suggested that a debate between Krugman and Lintzen might be interesting. I don’t agree. Krugman clearly doesn’t understand the subject.
Lintzen and Gaven might be a lot more fun, or Lintzen and Betts (although I suspect that they would find plenty to agree on).
I think you misunderstand Steve McIntyre’s position. He’s stated, more than once, that he tends to accept the IPCC’s position on global warming.
James Taylor says:
January 12, 2013 at 7:00 am
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
*
Wow! James, you are brilliant. Also, thank you for posting the bit above, it makes me feel better about audiences in general. Great work, mate. Cheers!
The alarmist guy is just awful – I mean embarrassing. All he has is big numbers (a zillion tons of CO2 gets released every day, or whatever), non-controversial statements (“the world is warming”) – as if anyone has argued that it hasn’t done since the end of the little ice age – and the old “consensus” claim. CRAP! Is that really the best they’ve got?!
There is something that troubles me in the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) debate that I would like to bring to light and solicit remarks from others in helping me understand it. I used to believe in Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) when I first heard about it decades ago because it seemed plausible, but as I read articles skeptical of it I saw how I had been fooled. Being a skeptic I must dig in and get both sides of a controversial subject and then decide for myself. I’m a mechanical engineer and I understand physics and chemistry and energy a bit better than the average bear.
I compare the CAGW community to mainstream organized religion, in particular the Catholic church and its hierarchy, like a pyramid with the pope at the peak and below are bishops and then priests and then on the bottom are the laity. Obviously the pope of it is Al Gore, and below him are such names as Mann and McKibben and below them are priests (bloggers and pundits). On the bottom are many average citizens who are not active participants in the debate but if asked if they at least believe in AGW they respond yes, simply because the media bombard them with it daily, however they do not act on it beyond lip service and recycling because what can one do?
It is one thing for Al Gore, as wealthy as he is, to tell others to sacrifice and use less energy (i.e. to cause less CO2 output) and then himself use 37 times the amount of energy that the average American uses. Here I am not talking about Gore, but rather those many people farther down the pyramid, at the priest level, who collectively add up to far more than Gore. How can they daily beat the CAGW drum and then live the typical American (high CO2) lifestyle? That would cause massive cognitive dissonance with me.
A few years ago I was listening to a popular radio show, “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross on NPR, and she was interviewing a warmist whose name escapes me. I think he traveled around the USA on a university speaking tour, getting the word out about AGW, and when Terry gently reminded him that he was producing lots of CO2 by traveling on jetliners, he quickly countered “…ah, but I’m doing good work.” That revealed to me an elitist mindset; that it is okay to do what one is telling others not to do in order to spread the pearls of wisdom to the ignorant masses.
Taking that notion, I want to make an analogy. Imagine a scenario of miners who are trapped underground after a cave in, with apparently limited air supply. One miner begins to tell the others that they should remain calm and sit down and relax and conserve oxygen until help arrives, and then other miners who agree also go around telling everyone the same and soon every miner is running around frantically telling everyone else to sit down and relax but no one will do what they are telling others to do because they think it is doing good work. Later, after rescue they are told that the mine is so big that there was no danger of oxygen depletion anyway. What if everyone were to fly around on jets and preach to everyone else not to fly on jets? One could not even email others and tell them not to use their computers because it takes coal to make the electricity. It puts warmists in a wildly bizarre dilemma, so how can they justify it? I would say compartmentalized thinking.
I used to go camping on my friend’s hilltop property near Mt. Vernon, Ohio. Near there are Amish farms and I stopped at their roadside stands to buy their baked goods. I am agnostic so I do not agree with them on a theological level, but I have great respect for them because from what I can tell, their life style is consistent with their beliefs. They do not merely talk the talk, they walk the walk, and it is not an easy walk. They are not warmists; but for theological reasons they forego modern luxuries.
The CAGW faithful talk it but do not walk it (except Ed Begley jr.), and I really notice it at the priestly level, mainly from pundits and bloggers. They should give up modern luxuries because of their belief in CAGW. I never expect a politician to practice what he preaches, but I would think that if all these warmists really believe in their cause they would all band together live much like the Amish, not for theological reasons, but simply to avoid being flaming hypocrites. And if the oceans rise up to smite us skeptics, then the warmists, from their sea-walled enclaves can say, “We told you it would happen, so don’t blame us because we have lived like the Amish for 88 years!” (2100 – 2012 = 88) I use the year 2100 based on all their “by the end of the century” predictions.
The CAGW debate should be a purely scientific debate, but too often it is a political debate. Lefties (American partisan politics) are automatically warmists because for them it is politically correct to promote the CAGW meme. I fancy myself a skeptic, and within the skeptical movement is the famous Professor Robert Todd Carroll, of California who authors “The Skeptics Dictionary” (www.skepdic.com). I really admire this man, I have learned a lot reading his web site. However, he is a warmist, seemingly because he is a leftie. Many of my friends are lefties and I have no problem with that, but here is a stellar example of someone who is 99% skeptic, yet puts political fashion above evidence. Here I am, the student, observing my mentor doing what he taught me NOT to do, but I respect him so much that I do not want to call him out on it. In my view, a true skeptic should doubt the CAGW meme.
From the McKibbens down to the warmist bloggers, I would love to follow any of them around for a day and remind them not to use any carbon-based energy, lest they be elitist and hypocritical. Don’t you dare heat your house in the winter, or use an air conditioner or drive a car, or cook on the stove or use your computer, because that would make you look like a “denier” as they call my kind. If I were a warmist I would not be caught dead in a car or an airplane. I would set a golden example and walk or ride a bicycle or use a paddle boat. No phone, no lights, no motorcar, not a single luxury!
end
Not the first time an AGW person threw in an ad hominem zinger at the very end of a debate. See this NPR radio show transcript with anti-skeptic book author Ross Gelbspan and CEI’s Jonathan Adler from 1997: http://i48.tinypic.com/j833a9.jpg
as has been pointed out the warmists packed the audience with supporters, much the same phenomenon can be witnessed on any BBC discussion programme, it is a powerful tactic of the left
James Taylor has his act together – and the AGW proponents don’t, because their script lacks factual basis, and MUST rely on ad-hominem, call-to-authority, and fabricated consensus to claim credibility. If Al Gore really believed in the AGW case, he personally would be debating, along with his entourage of sycophants. For some reason (pangs of integrity perhaps?) he is nowhere to be seen. Thank goodness, Mr. Taylor is!!!
me2-” same phenomenon can be witnessed on any BBC discussion programme, it is a powerful tactic of the left”
Authoritarians of all stripes use this tactic. Once in power the Nazis systematically eliminated their opponents from civil society using a process known as “getting into gear” Science and academia were not excluded but rather given given priority. All scientific/academic societies were forced to make positive statements of support for the “concensus” of the people as expressed through The National Socialist Workers Party and it’s Fuhrer. You get the point.
To a non-scientist Liberal Arts Major like myself the similarities jump off the page. Neutrality is not acceptable in this anti-science anti-reason environment. This is why the BBC, National Science Foundation, Royal Society, AGU, and so many others have to make the statements they have made. Having made them they must defend them. German science is still recovering from this brutal but short period of political corruption which was far shorter than what has been done in our time.
Go Home says:
January 12, 2013 at 8:01 am
Excuse me? I cannot believe anyone (and you were not the only one here) that thought this was a winner for the AGW side? The lightning football game was totally embarrassing.
————————————————————————————————————
I think you’re misunderstanding my position. I agree totally that Taylor “won” the debate on facts but I’m also well aware that the vast majority of the population don’t care about facts. They care about their gut feeling about the person who’s offering the “facts”.
In this case, Taylor was efficient, professional and on the ball. He also “smelt” of successful business type – just the sort who are supposed to be financing the Big Denial Machine. So he would be taking that view wouldn’t he because he’s just the type who’ll benefit from business as usual.
On the othert hand, that old Doctor who’s devoted his whole life to helping people with their health, and reminds them a little of Dr Jones back in Hazard County, is obviously just as concerned about this as he is about his patients’ arthritis and has nothing to gain personally from it. Now THERE’S someone they can believe. Doesn’t matter that he hasn’t got all those high-falutin’ facts and figures down pat, he’s showing it in ways we ordinary people can understand like cancelled football games and wasted drives to see them.
None of that audience (or at least very few) will be going home and taking Taylor up on his suggestion of researching the facts themselves because they believe IN the good doctor more than in the executive. So it doesn’t really matter WHAT the doctor’s saying.because, whatever it is, it must be right.
Don’t forget, one thing the warmists are VERY good at is marketing – do you really think the selection of their person was a blundering accident?
The audience simply responded the way most audiences respond. Their emotional beliefs, beliefs which warm their hearts and souls, will trump cold hard facts and unbaked raw data any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Throwing more cold facts behind the cold ones they already discarded reminds me of a Bible verse about pearls.
We, on the skeptic side, would do well to remember this tried and true wisdom when presenting to a contrarian audience. Yes, I am loath to persuade with emotions, but unless we dress those cold hard facts and raw data with such garments, audiences such as those in the video will continue to deflect away what is cold (facts) and embrace what is warm (belief in fear).
If our purpose is to persuade, we MUST use emotion. If our purpose is to opine and debate under the blind rule of logic, by all means leave emotion behind. Choose wisely with your audience and intent in mind.
Bellamy clearly hasn’t done his homework. He seems to know little apart from the handful of set peices he brought with him.
Talyor was on that ball and seemed to have a good solid responce whatever was brought up.
I certainly wouldn’t Bellamy on my side. No wonder they don’t want to be filmed.