People send me stuff.
I’m sure readers remember the billboard put out by Heartland that didn’t go over at all well with many. Here’s another asking “Who do you believe”?
It’s a tough question for the pro AGW side, and an easy answer for everyone else. You can choose your answer in the poll.
This billboard was done by CFACT.org
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Science isn’t a belief system. It is what it is. Neither of these guys have a clue about real Science. To them, data is something they would like to ban on the internet. We annoy them both.
In this case, Obama is telling the truth. Don’t worry, he will snap out of it.
On an OT, but slightly related topic, in that it deals with the perception of ostensible authority, here’s a short quiz that asks you to identify from photos alone whether the individual is a college professor or a hobo. I missed a couple.
http://individual.utoronto.ca/somody/quiz.html
For the billboard the question would need to be reformatted
!) Prominent politician
2) Bozo
3) All of the above
As Paul Harvey used to say, “here’s the rest of the story.”
Below is the “billboard” Obama quote in context, given in response to a question by New York Times reporter Mark Landler at Obama’s recent post-election press conference:
“You know, as you know, Mark, we can’t attribute any particular weather event to climate change. What we do know is the temperature around the globe is increasing faster than was predicted even 10 years ago. We do know that the Arctic ice cap is melting faster than was predicted even five years ago. We do know that there have been extraordinarily — there have been an extraordinarily large number of severe weather events here in North America, but also around the globe.
“And I am a firm believer that climate change is real, that it is impacted by human behavior and carbon emissions. And as a consequence, I think we’ve got an obligation to future generations to do something about it.”
I am cutting CFACT a little slack on their Bill Board, after seeing how they made fools out of UN delegates at Qatar COP 18:
“At COP 18 in Doha, Qatar, CFACT asked the delegates to the UN Climate Change Conference if they would be willing to wear a carbon capture mask that filters out the carbon dioxide (CO2) they exhale. You’d be surprised how many agreed to this ridiculous proposal. If the UN delegates are open to this, just think what they’d like to impose on the rest of the world!”
Delegates don’t even recognize the “CFACT CO2 Mask” (standard filter mask, minus cartridges) is designed to filter incoming air, not exhaled air.
The question “who do you believe?” is moot. I’m puzzled as to why they ask it. I believe they meant which one is correct, and in this case it’s Obama, so that is who I voted for. So what? He’s wrong on most other things he says about climate and energy policy.
They both lie. Gore is blatant. Obama uses his typical expertise of the English language. The key words are “particular” and “global warming”. He’s not denying AGW in that statement, and could be (and probably is) attributing all weather events to global warming.
Could not bring myself to say I believed Obama, even when he was right on that one item. He may
be one of the worlds all time biggest liars.
Chris G says:
“since we are seeing an increase in the rate of unusual events globally”
Do you have any evidence of that? Ever hear of the dust bowl, Johnstown flood, Great Hurricane of the Antilles, The Great Galveston Hurricane, or Hurricane Hazel? How do you think tornado alley got its name back in 1952, lack of tornadoes?
@ur momisugly Kindlekinser & Sam Yates (et. al.)
I’m afraid you’ve fallen victim to the manufactured urban legend that warmer = stormier. Temperature gradients are much more influential in storminess than the absolute temperature and since an enhanced greenhouse effect if influential at all would necessarily reduce temperature gradients thereby reducing the likelihood of storms like Sandy.
For quick reference just remember:
GW (Global Warming) = Good,
AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) = Better,
CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming) =Nonsense,
GC (Global Cooling) =Bad.
I don’t believe Obama’, I merely agree with him. I don’t look to him for guidance on this or any other issue.
Kindlekinser says…”Even if we don’t attribute individual weather events to “global warming,” it would still be true that storms such as Sandy are a “disturbing sign” of what would happen more frequently if the world does in fact get warmer.”
WRONG. Storms are caused by differing temperatures between the equator and the poles. Since it is only the poles,and most noticably the North Pole that is warming,less temp diff means milder,weaker storms. Basic Gr 7 physics. Of course,there is a lot more variables,but this is the main one.
I still can’t get a date, not even ballpark, for when the climate was stable/normal/non-extreme. Any ideas, anybody? I’m so disappointed when I’m told that such-and-such an event is the worst or most extreme in a hundred years. Being a redneck doofus, I assume that means we’ll have to wind the clock back further than a hundred years to return to the good old stable times.
A hundred years ago in my region of Oz we were setting monthly heat and drought records which still stand. If I roll back over 150 years, the Darling River had stopped flowing. If I roll back over 200 years, there was that horror El Nino of the early 1790s. (It was like this year’s heatwave but not relieved by rain after a mere few days. It went on and bloody on.)
Help! I have ordered my Time Machine but don’t know what year to set it for!
I’m sure Obama’s views on the subject are “evolving.” Just give him time (and a new crisis to exploit) and his opinion will change. It wasn’t that long ago that Senator Obama insisted that deficit spending was unpatriotic. Today he insists that putting any kind of reduction on deficit spending is unpatriotic. His flip-flop, I mean evolution, was merely 180 degrees. I can assure you that the next time a Republican is president, his views on deficit spending will evolve another 180 degrees making his evolution a complete revolution. But his worshipers and the media (sorry for the redundancy) will see absolutely nothing wrong with that or with any of his other evolving positions.
Given that politics is the art of lying, one begins from a standpoint that anything said is either a bald faced lie, or in the event of it being factually accurate, is being used to conceal a deeper more malignant lie. Equally, politics is about what is not said.
They are both lying, that is to say, neither man believes what he is saying.
The question is misstated: It should read, “Whom do you believe?” I believe neither one, and so I voted. As to the alternate question, “Which of the above statements is true?” I would have voted for the one that Obama spoke (albeit likely without believing it, or only believing it when convenient).
“Who” should be “Whom…” but the problem with this poster isn’t grammatical. It’s asking the wrong question.
How about a billboard that asks: “Who will pay?” Two profiles of Obama should appear beneath the question. One Obama opines:
“We can’t attribute any particular weather event to global warming.”, (Nov 14. 2012)
…While the other one pronounces:
“Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms.” (Jan 20. 2013, Second Inaugural Address)
The reason for the shift – or shiftlessness – of Obama’s outlook has everything to do with finding the money to pay for his neverending list of entitlement programs, so that when the most visible “entitlement” of all comes along – natural disaster relief – there must be visible backpeddling from the tiresome attribution of every weather event to global warming. Rhetoric to stem the disaster relief demands from New York and New Jersey constituents is one thing, but inauguration-day pablum is something else. Promise them anything, but give them alarm, and who cares if ever the twain shall meet?
Four years of Obama’s spending have generated a debt burden for the country of $16 trillion – nearly $35,000 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. today – and a legacy guaranteed by the fawning press.
But who will pay?
Suppose the billboard said
1. Smoking causes lung cancer
2. No individual cancer can be proved to be caused by smoking.
Which do you believe?
My answer – both – as here.
I’m very sorry to read the results of this poll. It is obvious that the Obama quote is incontrovertible, as all “lukewarmers”, skeptics and even “warmists” such as Trenberth or Mooney or others will admit. There is a real problem in the US between politicized actors, right and left-leaning people battling like cats and dogs and accusing each other of promoting their ideology. Science should be ideologically-proof (remember Lyssenko?). Now, I do admit that in the Anglo-Saxon world there is a strong discussion going on, one that is more or less suppressed in our French-speaking Press. But here, we have many left-leaning skeptics (including myself) who are wary of the attitude of the Greens. It is not, repeat not, a battle between left and right-wing ways of thinking. At one time, Left-wing was synonymous to “progress”; with the advent of Green parties, the word was deemed as gross, and our political parties (which in the US are described as “socialist” – as if the social-democrats could be equated with Bolsheviks… Just ask Swedes and Danes and even my good old bow-tie-toting Prime Minister will admit. For you, my dear Americans, Socialist is a S-word. Rest assured that it is not.) had to compete with the Greens to get elected. Science is neither D nor R, it should be Science. It should be something we could agree upon, even though fighting between ourselves (remember the fight between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics?).
I rest my case…
I’m still waiting for the truth to get its boots on…
neither…..
No sane person would call a 1/2 degree global warming………………..
Chris G says:
February 9, 2013 at 11:47 am
“The increasing level of energy in the system is creating more frequent unusual weather events”
Please provide a link documenting said increasing frequency. I don’t believe you.
You guys, you should read the fine print, “No one weather event can be attributed to Catastrophic Anthropogenic Cold-Hot Wet-dry, but all the other ones, yes, if I want to.
Why did Al Gore sell his failed TV station to the Sultan of Oman?
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Because Saddam Hussein was not available.
Yet another poorly worded poll.
A preferrable poll question would be “which statement do you believe,” which might have made it easier vote for the true statement by Obama on the sign. But as the question is worded, I can’t vote, because I swore an oath to myself to never for Obama. 😉