Last night in the SOTU address, Obama made this pronouncement about climate change:
But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact.
To that, I say this:
There’s never been any assertion that climate didn’t change, the idea that somehow this is something new to the 21st century is absurd. For example, this graph illustrates just that fact:
Click image for a full sized print (3000 pixels wide, suitable for printing) or choose the PDF below. Note the blip in the top line at the far right, that’s our climate change today. Source: Andy May
Younger_Dryas_to_Present_Time_Line (PDF)
And, as science itself has demonstrated through history, it is never settled, it is always searching for new information, retesting, and sometimes discarding old ideas based on new knowledge.
Saying “the science is settled” is as ridiculous as this famous quote attributed to Lord Kelvin who reportedly said in 1900*
“There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement”.
* This quote is reputed to be Kelvin’s remark made in an address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1900). Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomson,_1st_Baron_Kelvin#Pronouncements_later_proven_to_be_false
Equally preposterous (now) is this statement from Kelvin:
In 1898, Kelvin predicted that only 400 years of oxygen supply remained on the planet, due to the rate of burning combustibles.[62][63] In his calculation, Kelvin assumed that photosynthesis was the only source of free oxygen; he did not know all of the components of the oxygen cycle. He could not even have known all of the sources of photosynthesis: for example the cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus—which accounts for more than half of marine photosynthesis—was not discovered until 1986.
Kelvin’s pronouncement, which he believed to be true at the time based on the facts he had at hand, were later disproved by new science and obviously discarded. But, imagine if there were a panic movement then to conserve oxygen, with “oxygen taxes” applied, massive government funded research implemented, and reams of NGO’s feeding on the frenzy demanding a host of new laws and changes in human behavior to avert the crisis.
They’d look pretty stupid to us in the context of science knowledge today, wouldn’t they?
dbstealey says:
January 30, 2014 at 2:44 pm
Gunga Din,
That’s why I specifically wrote “the courts”, and not the ‘Supreme Court’.
Anyway, it seems the central point is being ignored: the President is not the one who makes laws. That is the job of Congress [meaning both House and Senate].
The President cannot have that power delegated to him either, without amending the Constitution. The President’s job is to sign bills into law, or veto them if he wishes.
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Very true…but he acts like it isn’t.
Maybe it’s time for the Supreme Court to abandon precedent and tell the President just what his “Executive Odors” are full of? 😎
Perhaps the theme song for the GOP should go something like this (with apologies to Robert Palmer):
They tell such lies there’s no telling where the money went.
They’re simply irresponsible.
Do you really believe the globe has warmed uniformly since the end of the LIA? That would be an unskeptical stance. There is no global temperature.
Re: unemployment. The current rate is almost one-quarter of the population, not the fake 7% – 8% unemployment rate claimed by the Administration.
The cost of living is also rising faster than admitted. [To be fair, this Administration is not the only one that juggles the numbers in order to look good.]
Anyone who goes grocery shopping knows that prices are rising faster than the 2% – 3% claimed by the government. If prices are not rising fast in certain sectors, then manufacturers tend to downsize their product containers. Mrs. Smokey just bought a 36 oz container of oatmeal for the same price she paid a year ago for a 42 oz can. It looked to be about 4/5ths full. Maybe it settled. But if Wal-Mart’s CEO says that more inflation is in the pipeline, I would tend to believe him over the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
dbstealey says:
January 31, 2014 at 9:59 am
Mrs. Smokey just bought …
Who is Mrs. Smokey? ☺
The Pompous Git says: @ur momisugly January 30, 2014 at 2:16 pm
….It was interesting decomposing it with symbolic logic for my boss who really needed to know what it meant in reality rather than what the original intent was by those drafting the law. I’m afraid public servants don’t think the same way Pompous Gits do…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Full employment for lawyers! Ever notice most politicians are lawyers.
Tax laws are written to promote full employment for accountants.
wbrozek,
Someone I knew in a past life.