Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A number of stories have appeared recently, claiming that Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump’s position on Climate Change is inconsistent, because he used to support Climate Action. Apparently once you embrace the Climate faith, you are not allowed to become an apostate.
Donald Trump once backed urgent climate action. Wait, what?
As negotiators headed to Copenhagen in December 2009 to forge a global climate pact, concerned U.S. business leaders and liberal luminaries took out a full-page ad in the New York Times calling for aggressive climate action. In an open letter to President Obama and the U.S. Congress, they declared: “If we fail to act now, it is scientifically irrefutable that there will be catastrophic and irreversible consequences for humanity and our planet.”
One of the signatories of that letter: Donald Trump.
Also signed by Trump’s three adult children, the letter called for passage of U.S. climate legislation, investment in the clean energy economy, and leadership to inspire the rest of the world to join the fight against climate change.
“We support your effort to ensure meaningful and effective measures to control climate change, an immediate challenge facing the United States and the world today,” the letter tells the president and Congress. “Please allow us, the United States of America, to serve in modeling the change necessary to protect humanity and our planet.”
In every conceivable way, the letter contradicts Trump’s current stance on climate policy. On the campaign trail, Trump has said he is “not a big believer in man-made climate change.” Last fall, after Obama described climate change as a major threat to the United States and the world, Trump said that was “one of the dumbest statements I’ve ever heard in politics — in the history of politics as I know it.”
The 2009 ad also argues that a shift to clean energy “will spur economic growth” and “create new energy jobs.” But these days, Trump contends that U.S. action to limit greenhouse gas emissions would put the country at a competitive disadvantage. In 2012, he went so far as to claim: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
The Copenhagen conference that inspired the open letter was part of the same two-decade-long U.N. negotiating process that led to a global climate deal in Paris last year. But whereas in 2009 Trump supported the process via the ad, now he wants to sabotage it, promising recently to “cancel” the Paris accord.
Read more: http://grist.org/politics/donald-trump-climate-action-new-york-times/
So what happened in 2009 which might have changed someone’s mind about the urgency of climate action? One word – Climategate.
In late November 2009, WUWT posted one of the first notices about the CRU hack.
The details on this are still sketchy, we’ll probably never know what went on. But it appears that University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit has been hacked and many many files have been released by the hacker or person unknown.
I’m currently traveling and writing this from an airport, but here is what I know so far:
An unknown person put postings on some climate skeptic websites that advertised an FTP file on a Russian FTP server, here is the message that was placed on the Air Vent today:
Around the same time, journalist James Delingpole coined the word “Climategate”. The story started to topple the orchestrated feel good press releases supporting the Copenhagen Conference.
Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’?
If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU) and released 61 megabites of confidential files onto the internet. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)
Read more (note the original link has been purged by The Telegraph): http://jamesdelingpole.com/2009/11/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/
If the Climategate news broke in November 2009, why did Trump still believe in December 2009? The answer might be that he was listening to advice from people who didn’t want him to change his mind. As soon as the Climategate story broke, the Climate establishment went into frantic damage control, doing everything in their power to downplay the story, to reframe it as a “stolen email” story – presumably to protect the Copenhagen Conference (h/t James Delingpole and Bishop Hill).
Inquiry into stolen climate e-mails
Details of a university inquiry into e-mails stolen from scientists at one of the UK’s leading climate research units are likely to be made public next week.
Announcement of a chair of the inquiry and terms of reference will probably be made on Monday, a source says.
The University of East Anglia’s (UEA) press office did not confirm the date.
But a spokesperson said information about the investigation into the hack at UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) would be made public very soon.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8383713.stm
By February 2010, knowledge of the magnitude of the “problems” in the CRU was becoming widespread.
For the very first time, the Climategate Letters “archived” the deleted portion of the Briffa MXD reconstruction of “Hide the Decline” fame – see here. Gavin Schmidt claimed that the decline had been “hidden in plain sight” (see here. ). This isn’t true.
The post-1960 data was deleted from the archived version of this reconstruction at NOAA here and not shown in the corresponding figure in Briffa et al 2001. Nor was the decline shown in the IPCC 2001 graph, one that Mann, Jones, Briffa, Folland and Karl were working in the two weeks prior to the “trick” email (or for that matter in the IPCC 2007 graph, an issue that I’ll return to.)
Read more: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/26/mcintyre-data-from-the-hide-the-decline/
Dr. Phil Jones, director of the CRU, gave his BBC interview, in which he admitted there was nothing statistically special about modern warming.
A – Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?
An initial point to make is that in the responses to these questions I’ve assumed that when you talk about the global temperature record, you mean the record that combines the estimates from land regions with those from the marine regions of the world. CRU produces the land component, with the Met Office Hadley Centre producing the marine component.
Temperature data for the period 1860-1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage, than for later periods in the 20th Century. The 1860-1880 period is also only 21 years in length. As for the two periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming rates are not statistically significantly different (see numbers below).
I have also included the trend over the period 1975 to 2009, which has a very similar trend to the period 1975-1998.
So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8511670.stm
Phil Jones also admitted to in my opinion shockingly bad peer review practices in the climate community. Maybe climate scientists sniff the papers they are asked to peer review, rather than checking the calculations.
Jones conceded that he did not usually publish raw data from weather stations, which was often covered by confidentiality agreements, nor the computer codes he used to analyse the data. “It hasn’t been standard practice to do that. Maybe it should, but it’s not,” he said.
Asked whether other climate scientists reviewing his papers ever required such data, he said, “They’ve never asked.” In response to a specific question about why he had failed to grant freelance researcher Warwick Hughes access to data, he said simply, “We had a lot of work and resources tied up in it.”
Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18599-climategate-scientist-questioned-in-parliament/
And of course, we have the infamous nature trick email, and the in my opinion unconvincing explanations of why the email doesn’t say what it appears to say.
From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@xxxxx.xxx, mhughes@xxxx.xxx
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@xxx.xx.xx,t.osborn@xxxx.xxx
Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or
first thing tomorrow.
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from
1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual
land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land
N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with
data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.
Cheers
Phil
Read more: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/20/mikes-nature-trick/
Was it Climategate which changed Donald Trump’s mind? We won’t know unless Trump chooses to speak on this issue. I suspect though if you have a lot of money, and scam artists are always circling, you have to develop a pretty well tuned BS meter. There is a lot in the Climategate scandal, to shake the confidence of even the most committed climate activist.
Philip Mulholland points out that the term “Climategate” was first coined by commenter Bulldust
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The Grist articles goes on to point out that, “In 2014, Trump sent a $5,000 check to Protect Our Winters, a climate advocacy nonprofit for skiers and snowboarders…”.
And, more recently, “His golf course in Ireland is threatened by coastal erosion, so the company recently applied for a permit to build a seawall to protect the property from “global warming and its effects.””
If I wanted to protect vulnerable sea front property, I would probably cite “global warming”.
The world has warmed, and sea level is slowly rising – but not at a rate which justifies a panic response.
The precautionary principle.
Felix,
More like the “use whatever language will get the dunderheads in the bureaucracy to approve your project” principle.
I don’t necessarily think that everyone who applies for variances in zoning and environment law believe the global warming language they put in their applications. Some obviously do, but most lawyers in contract law would put just about any wording into a contract that they believe will get the other side to sign. They don’t need to believe a word of it when it doesn’t incur any cost or action on their part afterward.
A friend of mine wanted to build a dam on his property, but the local authorities didn’t want to allow it.
I told him to remove the word “dam” and substitute it with “erosion control structure”
He has his dam now.
The funniest thing, he submitted exactly the same proposal , with just the one change.
Felflames,
That story is a classic.
I’ve read some decent papers that have a blurb about how the study involves, or is connected to, or relates to Global Warming tacked onto the end, as a sort of genuflection of obedience. I have also noted it can be snipped off, if need be, without altering the paper itself.
The precautionary principle.
===================
A. When in doubt do nothing.
B. When in doubt do something, even if you are not sure of the result.
Which one of these truly sounds like the Precautionary Principle?
The McGovern commission on heart disease chose option B, and as a result tens if not hundreds of millions of people now are suffering from obesity and diabetes.
How can it be “Precautionary” to act when the result is unsure?
As a private citizen and corporate owner, you use the language that you know will allow you to do what you want. I would guess that had he chose merely to build a seawall, it would have been shot down on environmental grounds or horrendously delayed while completing exhaustive environmental impact studies. Yet by blaming it on “global warming,” the same project can sail through without regards to environmental impact studies.
>>If I wanted to protect vulnerable sea front
>>property, I would probably cite “global warming”.
If you cite global warming you get a grant. If you don’t, you don’t. Its a no-brainer, really.
R
Don’t know about sending $ to Protect Our Winters, but the request from the golf course in Ireland was probably just a ploy to make the issuance of the permit more compelling to whomever was in charge. And did Trump write the application or even know about it? Seems like a matter for the golf course manager instead of the big boss across the ocean.
Gary…the point of spending that money is the same as the business man who says “support any little league team” to his offices. Make friends. That’s the way anybody gets known as a “good guy” and the sort of person you can feel comfortable doing business with. Environmentalists have fund raised out the wazoo from people who should be their natural enemies by taking advantage of the “good guy” syndrome.
Hmmmm, yes “Trump666 is a believer in CAGW because a golf course manager in Ireland used the expression in an application for a permit for a $20k sea wall” doesn’t sound very compelling to me either.
Can you imagine this guy ringing up saying “Hoi there Mr Troomp, Seamus here – Oi just wanted to run boi you moi wording for this sea wall DA”? I don’t think he’d last long in the Trump organisation.
Well that stream or river or whatever you want to call it running past the golf course is clearly either man-made or man-altered.
http://www.postandcourier.com/storyimage/CP/20140211/PC05/140219895/AR/0/AR-140219895.jpg&maxw=800&q=90?ver=201402111725
Maybe that’s where the erosion problems are and not the beach
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/media/images/72904000/jpg/_72904989_hi020002347.jpg
The watercourse to the right of “The Donald” appears to be a tidal pool of some type. It seems visible in a google map of the area.
guy’s a master at getting others to pay for his projects, or so he claims.
When everyone else is broke that aint gonna fly though.
The land on the ocean side of the ‘pool’ is the beginning of a submerged bar caused by erosion. It is exposed due to low tide in the photo.
http://thebritishgeographer.weebly.com/coasts-of-erosion-and-coasts-of-deposition.html
I see a lot of that on Cape Cod (national park).
Michael Jankowski June 9, 2016 at 4:44 pm …
The property you linked to is not the same under discussion. Trump applied for permission to build a seawall on a golf course in Ireland. You linked to a property (not a golf course) he owns called Seven Springs in Bedford, NY.
I have noticed comments recently stating that Trump wants to build a seawall so I searched to see where the golf course was located. It just so happens that the golf course sits right in the middle of the only stretch of subsiding coast line in Scotland. It is up in the northeast of Scotland.
Endangered snails. While trying to repair the shoreline damaged by the winter storms which MET said were not climate change, the local council stopped progress. Only thing more powerful than the Endangered Species is Climate Change. Found the whole story on an Irish newspaper story from a year ago.
So? Trump has changed his positions on a good many issues, largely when he started following politics much more closely. The ability to evaluate evidence correctly is a good thing. Sticking to a position regardless of the facts is the mark of a fanatic. I rather doubt Grist intended to complement Trump, but they did.
+1
“Sticking to a position regardless of the facts is the mark of a fanatic” It is the mark of a fanatic or a climate “scientist”.
We have tons of predictions (don’t hand me the “projections” BS) that failed utterly. These failed predictions mean that the alarmist’s vision of CO2 frying the earth is invalidated. Only a fool, the ignorant, or a crooked person could continue to believe the CO2 delusion.
See this exercice of the French bac (session 2015):
It’s written “prevision” not “projection”!
For those that don’t speak or read French
================================
By 2100 in the worst scenerios, the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere could rise by 5.5C .
Moreover the volume of ice sheets affected by melting due to warming could reach 2.5×10(14) m2.
The evolution of the atmospheric temperature and melting ice sheets could lead to a rising level of oceans reaching nearly one meter.
I said this in the context of the UK’s EU Referendum: “You can usually tell who’s right in a debate. One side rants & the other is measured.”, but it’s also true of the climate debate. If Trump has taken a measured approach, examined the issue and now arrived at his current position, then all credit to him. I’m sure many current sceptics have travelled the same path.
Grist is trying to deny that the climate of scientific (or pseudo-scientific) ideas can change, has changed, and is changing faster.
We see the climate of ideas changing in unprecedented ways. I am sure the tipping point (cause there is such thing as a tipping point) has been reached.
History is full of tipping points.
I had been feeling kinda strange about seeing Mr. Putin as our best hope . . I’m glad he and Mr. Trump seem to respect each other ; )
Tipping points: The history of climate is not full of tipping points. The history of climate is barely known.
There many tipping points in political history. That is another matter entirely because people are fickle; nature is not.
There is no such thing as a ‘precautionary principle’ in nature. There are in human lives, precautions, but there is no principle in them because whatever caution that can be taken for a position equally exists to counter it. When logic fails and proof is lacking, when argument falters, hollow, and persuasion by fright is laughed off, a greasy new ‘principle’ trots out to take the stage. The precautionary principle is nothing more than an emotional, desperate ploy enwrapping a feeble thread of priestcraft.
“I direct you to act in spite of there being no worthy evidence you should.”
“Why?”
“Verily I have seen the signs and interpreted the meaning, and foretold of the calamity to come. In short, because I say so.”
“There are in human lives, precautions, but there is no principle in them because whatever caution that can be taken for a position equally exists to counter it.”
When the AH1N1 “pig” or “pandemic” flu panic stroked, the French health sinister, Roselyne Bachelot, bought enough to vaccinate the population with 2 doses of vaccine, as a precautionary measure.
Then she said 1 dose was enough.
Only ONE expert in France said that this in itself demonstrated that the vaccine was rushed with no safety testing at all, and that the vaccine wasn’t safe. So the precaution was to not get vaccinated.
“Precaution” was a pretext to push an untested product on the “market” (not a free market as the product was already paid by the State).
Later Roselyne Bachelot was criticized strongly for the relatively minor crime of useless spending, and not for the unforgivable crime of pushing an untested product – and making it almost mandatory for the general population. It isn’t possible to criticize vaccines even in the leftists medias. Even scientific studies showing the horrible side effects of a vaccine must do the mandatory “vaccination is recommended” genuflection.
Also, most of the “skeptic” (for climate) side isn’t ready to direct any skepticism to the government backed vaccine “science”.
Tom Halla said:
“Sticking to a position regardless of the facts is the mark of a fanatic. I rather doubt Grist intended to complement Trump, but they did.”
Yes and tying yourself in a pretzel to justify the vagrancy of conviction of one you support, is the sign of an apologist
It also indicates someone who is willing to change his opinions based on what those who’s support he needs want to hear.
my crazy neighbor still believes….
It’s a slow, but inevitable process
….”crazy” being the operative word there.
You presume that there is a mind inside Trump’s head to convince. I’d say he’s offered plenty of evidence otherwise. Anyone relying on Trump to stick to a position that doesn’t directly benefit Trump once he’s elected is naive. The best you could argue is that Clinton will continue to weaponize the EPA while Trump might not. But given Trump’s past love affairs with government intervention in private markets, I’d say you’re looking at Scylla and Charybdis. Choose your doom.
It’s plausible that politicians don’t usually have best guesses on anything regarding the natural world, only best guesses on what will help win votes.
However Trump changing his tune about climate can’t be used to illustrate that.
Let’s label that the Gillard strategy.
It’s the end by whatever means.
I remember Johnson swearing he’d never remove precious metal from coinage back in 1965.
i recognize this pattern.
Expect Trump to enact a carbon trading scheme.
The difference between the two: The Democrats would defend Clinton against impeachment even if she was shown shooting the Marine saluting her as she got off Marine One on national television, thus she can do what she wants to the constitution with impunity; Trump is hated or distrusted by just about everyone in Washington on both sides of the aisle, thus if he so much as sneezes at that Marine on national TV there will be article of impeachment drawn up.
“I’d say you’re looking at Scylla and Charybdis.”
Are we allowed to take our two choices and throw them both into the Straights Of Messina?
Making CAGW skeptics happy *will* benefit Trump.
I don’t agree with your psychoanalysis of Trump.
I think Trump is a little more of a common sense, caring man than you give him credit for, and I don’t see any evidence that he is excessively selfish. People assume rich people are selfish. Some are, some are not, just like everyone else.
Trump does have an ego. But that is different than being selfish and thinking only of himself.
Most high-powered individuals do have an ego. It’s what drives them to accomplish things, and Trump is definitely an Alpha Male with a big ego, but in a good way. He is a natural-born leader, and that alone draws some people to him.
I have significant doubt about Mr. Trump’s honesty/integrity . . But no detectable doubts regarding Ms. Clinton’s . . Throw me in that frying pan, please, I say ; )
A+
Didn’t many ecoloons change tune on “biofuel”? Are they allowed to change their guesstimates?
Who gets to change his analysis?
Do warmists get to change the cause of the “pause”?
Al Gore changed his tune on ethanol subsidies. But it wasn’t that he was wrong about it…he knew better but wanted to help the farmers in places like TN and IA.
Gore didn’t want to “help” anyone but himself! That was a change designed to buy a few votes.
“Was it Climategate which changed Donald Trump’s mind? We won’t know unless Trump chooses to speak on this issue.”
Indeed. This article is a stretch. There is no evidence that Trump ever heard of “Climategate”.
Not sure there is any evidence Obama, Kerry, etc, have heard of “Climategate,” either.
Even if they have, there’s no evidence they read any of the emails involved.
What does it matter, though? They’d just defend it all and pretend it doesn’t matter, just like you.
The timing seems to fit. But I agree it’s circumstantial evidence at best, hence the note of caution.
After all, correlation is not causation.
There’s nothing there on timing. In 2009 he was concerned about AGW. In 2016, seems not. I’d say the more significant timing event is deciding to enter Republican primaries.
Well Nick, you just don’t really know. But don’t let that stop you from making pronouncements.
Well, I haven’t pronounced on anything there – except saying that there is no evidence given Trump has heard of Climategate. No-one has produced any. There is an article in Politico about the huge and controversial seawall he wants to build in Ireland to protect his golf course against rising sea levels. It lists some of his tweets since 2012. Then he called AGW a Chinese hoax to undermine America. Later complaints that countering would be expensive, and then some complaints about cold weather. No mention of Climategate.
Actually IIRC he’s commented on it, but didn’t call it climategate, but something else. I doubt Hillary or Berne knows the term either, as they all live in bubbles.
We don’t have any direct evidence Trump changed his tune thanks to Climategate, but I have a model where this explains 97 percent of it.
Sorry Nick, Trump was a skeptic in 2010, so it is quite likely Climategate had much to do with his change, Trump in 2010: “With the coldest winter ever recorded, with snow setting record levels up and down the coast, the Nobel committee should take the Nobel Prize back from Al Gore,” the tycoon told members of his Trump National Golf Club in Westchester in a recent speech.
There are people alive who’ve never heard of Climategate? Whaddya suppose will happen when they do hear about it?
=============================
No evidence yet he did not either. Just sayin…
We certainly know where his competitor stands.
Everyone has heard about Climategate, but some choose to ignore it.
Maybe instead of Climategate being the trigger for Trump, it was just all those failed CAGW Alarmist dire predictions about the weather than never panned out over all these years.
The Alarmists have cried wolf too many times, and the majority of the American people and Donald Trump are now skeptical of the CAGW claims. Fool us once, shame on you; fool us twice, shame on us.
Or maybe just the carpet bombing of:
Unusual weather! (Hot, cold, rain, no rain, wind, no wind, high pressure, low pressure … dogs and cats living together…) That’s another undeniable proof of climate change!
I expect even children to be able to detect the propaganda.
Nick Stokes June 9, 2016 at 4:44 pm
There is no evidence that Trump ever heard of “Climategate”.
True Nick, but come national debate time he will “know all about Climategate”. And after that,
so will the general public, if they don’t know already.
michael
But Trump’s behavior is consistent with reading the Climategate emails, and that counts as undeniable truth these days.
Well, considering the massive coordinated effort by the press, the administration, and academia to shove the #$$! back up in the horse, it frankly depressing how few people have heard of it – and those that have seem to think that it was actually investigated rather than simply whitewashed and covered up.
Trump has commented, however, on the subject of Climate Change. He calls it ‘the weather.’
I, too, used to believe. Then I noticed “the dancing data”. It’s best described as “Creative Climatology”…
Question: What was the temperature anomaly for a given month/year?
Answer: What do you want it to be?
It is likely that many here believed the tale at some point; I know I did. What arose my suspicion was a conversation with a senior climate scientist who had made a career out of atmospheric modelling. When I asked him, with a somewhat shaky voice, how bad it really was, he smiled to himself, said something pretty non-committal, and then began to talk about carbon capture. Now, I was naive, but not naive enough to consider carbon capture realistic. So I wondered, if his solution is nonsense, what about his problem? I turned sceptic soon after.
Yes we don’t usually check the scientific “results” of any discipline unrelated to our jobs.
I don’t expect most people to be able to tell which statistical method is best for averaging the tree rings data and I don’t expect most people to be able to learn enough about statistics to be able to decide by themselves.
However, I expect most people to be able to tell that the:
– the temperature series in France before WWII have no commercial value, only a scientific value
– the way Météo France calculates average temperature doesn’t have to be a secret
– Mann’s tax-payers paid work isn’t “private”, and copyright has nothing to do with that (when you make a program open source, it’s still copyrighted and your name remains on it)
If it sounds like fraud, looks like fraud, smells like fraud, it’s probably fraud.
I just posted on “Grist” – “James Hansen once backed Global Cooling.”
That’s funny, DAS!
I believe that’s true. He made the about face without blinking in the 70’s.
John Maynard Keynes:
“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
What would you expect a man with an IQ of 156, higher than 99.99% of the population to do when the facts change?
Change the facts again, if you have the power to do so….. Sounds like climate research, no?
You’re not saying Trump has 156 IQ, are you? I couldn’t believe that.
“Given the usual requirements for admission to a top school like Wharton, I estimate that Mr. Trump has a 156 IQ at the minimum.
The standard description of this level of intelligence is “Genius – Exception intellectual ability and capable of looking beyond known facts.” However, the percentile rating is more revealing than the raw score. A 156 IQ is at the 99.9905490555 percentile. That means that Donald Trump is smarter than 99.99 percent of the people on planet earth. Not only does Trump qualify for membership in Mensa but he could join the Triple Nine Society.”
“Donald frequently says that he doesn’t plan what he is going to say. It is obvious that his strategy is to simply be authentic.” His refusal to use a monitor perhaps explains a lot of his sometimes rambling verbosity.
The remainder of the article based on Maslow is also interesting:
http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-conservative/2015/08/donald-trump-is-a-genius-but-thats-just-his-iq-3038790.html
And here’s Obama without a monitor:
If they were that intelligent – they’d know IQ is not a measure of real intelligence.
It is a generally accepted indicator of relative intelligence. What alternate measure do you propose / prefer?
Stop the presses. Someone who once believed the climate garbage realized that it was baloney after all. Don’t want to shock them or anything, but that describes many, many skeptics/climate realists, myself included.
True. I was just interested in knowing why this ‘warming’ was happening. After looking into it I was quite perplexed by why they were kind of ignoring the scientific method but still publishing these disaster scenarios. $$$$$$ was the answer. Now it’s just sad to see useful idiots duped by this stuff.
It was “State Of Fear” by M. Crichton (may he rest in peace) that initially hard-toggled me from a passive “OK, if they say so…” position to one of, “WTF! How DARE they!” skeptic. I haven’t seen any reason to look back …
Funny thing was the alarmist social sci didn’t dial back in light of this totally damning revelation but became even more strident, and prominent so-called lukewarmers, who were on the side of the angels before that time, even began striking out at sceptics and arguing the alarmist case every time a frantic alarmist paper came out.
I’m pleased to see Donald is a pragmatist and gets a message. After 8 yrs of lefty abandonment of American interest, following 8 of disastrous Bush foreign policy, following 8 of Clinton outsourcing of American jobs, immigration disasters, and give away of tech/space to China… Donald gets it. I think he’s even going to get the loose threads of his campaign together, too. It should be a cake walk if he does. The dilemma for the GOP leaders is not just to get Trump ‘on message’ but to shift their own thinking over toward Trump’s. After all he’s tied with Hillary all on his own with an often ugly and undisciplined amateur campaign. It’s the American people out there you GOPs!!
My wife recently read 2 of Dale Carnegie’s books, one of them “How To Stop Worrying And Start Living” She remarked that Trump seems to be following Carnegie. She wondered if he read the books or was just thinking the same way. Trump is not addressing issues; he is repeating emotional concerns that he is hearing from the public.
Sad!
Trump since Climategate on climate change:
“This very expensive global warming bullsh|t has got to stop.” -Donald Trump
“Surprise? 1970’s global cooling alarmists were pushing the same no-growth liberal agenda as today’s global warming.” -Donald Trump
“I call it weather. You know, the weather changes.” -Donald Trump
“Obama’s speech on climate change was scary. It will lower our standard of living and raise costs of fuel & food for everyone.” -Donald Trump
“Gore wants us to [take extreme actions because of ‘global warming’], when China and other countries couldn’t care less. It would make us totally non-competitive in the manufacturing world, and China, Japan and India are laughing at America’s stupidity.” -Donald Trump
“With the coldest winter ever recorded, with snow setting record levels up and down the coast, the Nobel committee should take the Nobel Prize back from Al Gore.” -Donald Trump
“Remember Cap-and-Trade? Obama outright admitted that his plan to tax businesses on carbon emissions that exceeded his arbitrary cap would drive energy prices sky high.” -Donald Trump
Trump at NH rally utilizes the conservative crowd to dismiss a leftist questioner:
It’s not just coincidence that the Chinese are spending a fortune on building islands and coal fired power plants with over 300 million in coastal cities. They don’t believe in AGW and their research is better than ours. They are playing us for suckers!
Gruber was right.
That’s why I supported Cruz over Trump. Cruz hasn’t flip-flopped on this and many other conservative issues. (Cruz understands the science on the CAGW issue). Trump could easily flip-flop on this and many other issues if elected. It’s in his nature.
But at this time he is better than Hillary by far on this issue. (energy, Keystone pipeline, fracking, opening up more drilling, understanding the outrageous extra costs of wind and solar, etc.
Here’s Trump seeing right through Ali G.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Trump+Ali+G&view=detail&mid=D63D176048815CB5803FD63D176048815CB5803F&FORM=VIRE
He’s the only one who did. Ali G got a lot of politicians to sit through hilarious sessions, but Trump? He gave Cohen a few seconds and then got on with his next appointment.
This is good. I often wonder about all the good people here who vote Democrat and have to resolve their love of science with today’s political realities and rhetoric. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander and guess what, nobody on earth has any idea how to calculate the climate.
Democrats don’t follow science on when life begins or what gender someone is associated with. They play politics 100 percent and portray it as science.
“Democrats don’t follow science on when life begins”
What science is that? Biblical science?
That’s easy. Life begins when the dog dies and the kids leave home. 🙂
You can’t blame Trump for the content of that letter, any more than you can credit Michael Mann with a Nobel prize.
I was the same way until I started reading in detail and doing my own math on it.
I’ve been a denier from day one and am smug about it.
I’m also a denier and my belief that AGW is a hoax was cemented in stone when the EPA declared CO2 a pollutant.
… and keeps the research and data secret.
Signing letters individually is a far different matter than being one of a group of many businessmen. As a group all I can conclude is that at the time he wanted to be seen as believing, in a general sort of way, with the statements in the letter. Kind of a group think thing.
Exactly. He was probably simply “going along to get along” in a tough world. Nothing to see here, IMHO …
Donald Trump changes his fuzzy mind about many things just like he changes his socks… and
probably for the same reasons.
A momentary lack of fuzzy socks does not qualify him for national leadership.
I kept my Kasich yard signs.
I kept my Kasich yard signs
http://www.renewamerica.com/images/columns/15/150626vernon.jpg
She sure doesn’t sugar-coat her opinions.
Gotta like that.
Kasich signs equal Hillary signs. Anyone who doesn’t vote for Trump, is voting for Hillary, regardless of what rhetorical knots you twist yourself into trying to deny the fact.
Of all the things I can hold against Trump, that isn’t one. To be fair, once upon a time, when I was busy establishing a career in geology and relying on mainstream media for my climate info, I thought AGW was probably a problem.
Then they published the hockey stick graph throwing out well documented climate history and convincing the media that climate would still be “stable” and “wonderful” if it wasn’t for fossil fuels.
The climate would still be stable. The climate would remain unchanging. The climate would forever be benevolent. And they have the nerve to call skeptics “deniers”.
If he supported Climate Action through personal conviction in the past and has now seen the light, that is a good thing.
If his personal convictions are still pro-CA, but he judges that the groundswell of opinion in the US voting population is tending toward anti-CA, that is a good thing as well, as it is a sign that warmist dogma is coming off the boil.
Many intelligent, honest people fell prey to government-induced climaphobia. The only cure, is research into the work of unbiased climate scientists, and other professional people, who have broken their silence, on globalization, and the role climaphobia plays in wealth redistribution. It is a scam, designed to empty the pockets of the masses, in Western countries!
Not a big fan of Trump. Sometimes trying to read what he’s really thinking is kind of an art. Nevertheless, I’m satisfied that he’s a skeptic based on his comments I’ve seen.
and as president, Clinton would be 100x worse….
Brian Mast running in Florida says it best:
“As the next Congressman from Florida’s 18th District I am proud to support and endorse Donald Trump for President of the United States.”
“Mast said he wants to run on the same ticket with Trump because Trump understands what needs to be done.”
“With anybody, you take the good with the bad. There’s things that I hate about him and there’s things that I love about him,” he said.
“You know, if you have an infestation of rats and rodents in your home and you need to call the exterminator, you don’t necessarily care about the personality of the exterminator,” he said. “You just care that he gets rid of infestation.”
https://www.longroom.com/discussion/97122/brian-mast-endorses-trump-when-you-have-rats-you-call-the-exterminator