Climate skeptics are gaining ground.
Zack Colman, E&E News reporter
There’s always been a vocal subset of conservatives who cast doubt on climate science, but what were once fringe views among broader Republicans — like warming’s a hoax — are enjoying a growing acceptance in the GOP, worrying academics, scientists and sociologists.
“They have taken over the [U.S.] EPA,” Naomi Oreskes, a professor of the history of science at Harvard University who has studied climate denier groups extensively, said in an email. “A very sad state of affairs.”
The groups sowing climate doubt are more emboldened than ever before, sociologists and historians said. Their effectiveness in the era of President Trump is a reflection of a deepening polarization in U.S. politics and a normalization of climate skepticism on the right, they said.
Democrats and Republicans have never been further apart on climate change, according to public opinion polling released last week by Gallup.
The results illuminate the anti-science sentiment within the GOP. The poll found that 82 percent of Democrats believe global warming has already begun compared with 34 percent of Republicans (Climatewire, March 28).
That rift has contributed to major differences between the Republican administrations of Trump and former President George W. Bush, said Riley Dunlap, an environmental sociologist at Oklahoma State University. Bush’s government internalized climate skeptics, but the groups scoring victories were largely silent when policies went their way. Now, however, those same organizations like the Heartland Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute boldly proclaim success — and then push even further.
“It’s like they sense victory. They are proclaiming victories, and they keep pushing,” Dunlap said. “This extreme radicalization of the Republican Party means they don’t have to hide it. They don’t have to dress it up like Bush 43 did. They can be in-your-face deniers.”
That’s materialized in recent weeks. EPA said it would no longer use science without publicly available data to craft regulations, honoring a long-sought industry goal (Climatewire, March 19). The agency also instructed employees to use skeptic talking points when describing its climate change research, according to a leaked memo obtained by HuffPost.
Organizations like the Heartland Institute had fought for the “secret science” initiative when it was introduced by House Science, Space and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas). It never got through Congress. Opponents argued it would prohibit use of hallmark public health studies that rely on confidential patient data (Climatewire, March 26).
But EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has invited those ideas into the building. He set Smith’s bill in motion within the agency. And climate skeptics were there to celebrate some of those victories, like when Pruitt banned scientists from serving on EPA’s independent advisory panel if they received agency funding. The move hollowed out years of expertise, critics say, and Pruitt installed a number of industry researchers in their place (Greenwire, Nov. 3, 2017).
That emboldened the far right.
“We’d love to have that debate with Obama and the left on the science because we’re going to win,” Heartland Institute President Tim Huelskamp said in a recent interview.
Less climate, more Russia
In some sense, using Democrats as a foil contributed to the rise of climate skeptics. They fought against President Obama’s climate policies for eight years. But it began even before then. “Traditionally, we get social movements because they’re not in power,” Dunlap said.
He explained that skeptics ramped up activity under President Clinton while the Kyoto Protocol was in play. That trajectory continued under Bush when former Vice President Al Gore’s Academy Award-winning climate documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” elevated climate change in the cultural zeitgeist. Obama doubled down on that with actual policy initiatives — a failed push for cap-and-trade legislation, regulations to curb power plant emissions and playing a key role in the Paris climate accord.
Read the full story here
I don’t know about you, but I feel empowered, especially when Naomi Oreskes starts whining about it.
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If you are an old fart engineer in your 80’s, and have lots of time to collect climate data you come to one simple conclusion. The differentials are decreasing: Arctic-Tropical temps, Winter Summer temps, daily local Hi-Low temps. This tends to reduce severe weather events. The natural temp trend currently is up providing more suspended moisture, while lower differentials would seem to reduce air movement and trend to less precip. All in all with increased CO2 it may provide a more climate comfortable world with longer and larger growing seasons.
Should have added Higher temps provide higher dew points that decrease daily differential temps.
Except it isn’t warming. Winters are reverting back to how they were in the 60s and 70s. I’ve noticed colder winters over the last 10 years. Longer duration as well. Thriving ski industry in my area, after we were told 20 years ago “the inevitable end of the ski industry”
The Nenana Ice classic and their 102nd year of data may have a record early breakup this year. The earliest date for breakup is April 20th. The Tanana river near Fairbanks Ak.
http://www.nenanaakiceclassic.com/
The ice and snow at Nenana look real solid at this point. No signs of any melting, just cold, hard ice.
If you go to the Ice page you see break up in years 16, 15, 14, were 23, 24, 25 April and with ice thickness >35 inches on 6 April. this year it is at 26 inches on 6 April. We shall See.
The risk of constructive expropriation may be lower in Russia than it is in the U.S. or the EU.
Here is the world’s largest owner of hydrocarbons (proved reserves, audited by DeGolyer & McNaughton are 4× those of ExxonMobil):
http://www.gazprom.com/
That is one interesting whine by that reporter/activist.
So to sum up,Public policy must NOT be made with all relevant evidence available to the taxpayer.
Demands to see all supporting evidence for public decisions/policy is Undemocratic and anti-science..
Threatening persons on the public payroll with enforcement of the stated rules and procedures is bullying..
Asking to “see your servants work” is voodoo..
I wonder at the willful ignorance of my Progressive comrades.
these people are almost beyond parody.
As a side note I see some cartoon network is reworking Chicken Little, shaping the gullible fool as the hero of the tale.
Soon the Emperors new clothes, such wonderous fabric ..so fine ,so smooth..What colours..
I am sure the above “reporter” will fully agree, not only ignore the message,but shoot the messenger.Then go back and erase or corrupt history.
It is high time for skeptics to have more empowerment, especially after going thru the last administration. The writer of the article tries to compare the Trump and Obama admin. take on global warming/climate change to past administrations, but yet I don’t recall any that went as far left as Obama. Granted, I can only really remember back to the elder Bush’s only term (and maybe a little of Reagan’s last term) because before that I was a teenager and I didn’t really pay much attention to politics. Even so, I don’t remember there being much talk about any of it, especially in the MSM, until Al Gore’s sci-fi fantasy hit theaters.
I hate to say it, but I almost wish I could go back to my youth when the cold war was really the only major existential fear most everyone had. And at least it was a very real fear…..unlike “climate change”. Back then Hollywood movies of the sci-fi, horror and disaster themes had plots based upon nuclear war and its after effects, instead of silly opuses about CO2 caused climate disasters. True, there were films back in those days premised on environmental disasters,but those were due to pollution, toxic waste, nuclear meltdown, radiation leaks and the like. And again, those were very real fears, even though some of them (nuke disasters) are very rare. Not saying they will literally create monsters, but they do indeed cause quite a bit of environmental damage when they happen. That’s one reason why I don’t watch much tv or movies these days in my favorite genres – because I am sick of these “global warming” disaster and environmental proselytizing themes that they tend to be full of.
That said, it makes me wonder if writers of the above article (and so many like it) ever go back and re-read what they write, not to proof read but to seriously think. I can just imagine if you substituted weather, meteorology, climatology, etc, with another unrelated branch of science and based such arguments around it. And I can also imagine how silly it would sound!
Just imagine that paleontology (one of my keen armchair interests) being so politicized. One hundred years ago almost no scientists believed that dinosaurs are closely related to birds, and the idea that some had feathers would have been heretical. The sluggish dino-lizard theory persisted well into the middle of the 20th century, and even into my own childhood. Sauropods went around in swamps with their necks held high and t-rex dragged its tail like Godzilla. Today most all scientists believe that is not true and accept that modern birds are dinos that never went extinct. But imagine if the bird/lizard dino debate still raged on, and also imagine all of the fudging data, erroneous study conclusions, improper data cataloging, and worse, academic hostility and ostracizing of those with opposing views going on. Imagine how laughable it would be if you had a “ruling” faction of paleontologists who got all of the tax payer funding to push the idea that dinosaurs are not related to birds. Imagine some altering fossils to fit their narrative, and wrongly interpreting other fossils. Worse yet, imagine those scientists black listing and driving out the pro-/dino/bird paleontologists so they couldn’t get funding to carry out their work. And then non paleontologists would go to museums, most of which are publicly funded, and see dinos mounted in their old tail dragging, neck arching poses. Non paleontologists with an expertise in animal anatomy could plainly see that the skeletons were not mounted correctly, and some of the poses are physically impossible, but, oh well….there is nothing they can do other than shake their heads and know that what they are seeing is wrong. And of course, anyone who dare criticize the “settled dinosaur science” or offer up more concrete evidence of the bird link, is called a denier, a fringe element, anti science and whatever else. And then you have a few of the most radical pro-lizard faction demanding that pro-bird scientists and their defenders be arrested and jailed!
Such a dino/bird scenario is totally comical to imagine, but this is exactly what is going on with climate science, and sadly the warmists don’t see how ridiculous they appear!
But then again, paleontologists’ findings (or lack of) don’t allow politicians the excuses they need to try and rule the world and create much human suffering and death.
This side continues to present it as righteous them with the settled science and those that oppose them as blocking their authentic cause to save the planet using politics.
They go thru a history of recent presidents and how deniers behaved until Trump made them feel more empowered and embolden…………….as if we/they were waiting for the right time and were suddenly able to climb out of the denier sewer because the president of the US has lifted the lids for us…………..making it possible.
Overlooked is the fact that the vast majority can be wrong about something and the minority right. In most realms, as the truth/realities are reconciled with 2 opposing positions, the power and number of each position no long matters……………..the truth/observations of the reality do.
One group is slipping and one group is gaining more traction based on the truth/observations of the reality.
It’s been happening slowly over the past decade. Trump has created a political environment that pushes the US away from the damaging climate change politics of the previous administration………withdrawing from the absurd Climate Accord, for instance.
However, Trump is not causing the weather/climate to obey his commands. He is not causing the earth to massively green up. He is not causing the average global temperature to go up slower than the broken models. All those things were going to happen and expose the weaknesses of one side’s CO2 science.
Under President Clinton, the authentic science and real climate would not have changed……….politics can’t change this. The politics would be much different though.
We can only guess on what that might mean. Trump may be a climate realist but because of the “block Trump at any cost” belief system for many, his position on climate WILL be rejected by millions, just because it’s HIS position.
Clinton, having the opposite position, may have resulted in some of her supporters being able to see the problems/becoming climate skeptics because they wouldn’t have the “accept everything Clinton” belief system which brainwashes them to think with tunnel vision(as they do when opposing Trump).
As is obvious, too many people connect the science with politics…………..with one side aligning against the other with the objective being to win………not discover the truth or authentic science.
The longer the battle goes on between the 2 groups, the less weighting the marketing schemes get(dying polar bears as climate change mascots), the less weighting the speculative and too warm global climate model projections get, the less impact the exaggerated weather events get, the less impact the politics get……..regardless of the person who is president.
Let the authentic data/observations keep leading the way.
While the truth SHOULD work to undermine the AGENDA, unfortunately, it doesn’t get the job done adequately. 12 years without a major hurricane hitting the U.S. and all you heard was crickets from the “media.” Then, one active season and the “media” gives us the “all climate change, all the time” BS to attempt to “blame” so-called “climate change” for the “bad” WEATHER.
And FAR TOO MANY otherwise intelligent people still “believe” in human-caused climate catastrophe. Because it’s a matter of “identity politics” for them, and the only information they consider to make their judgments about it IS the media hype everyone is bombarded with 24/7.
Here’s hoping that the truth does indeed awaken the AGW faithful from their politicized pseudo-science induced coma, but I’m getting impatient and another progressive Eco-Fascist administration could quickly re-establish the economic catastrophe of “climate” policy all too quickly if we don’t get a lot more traction a lot faster.
Rarely in Earth’s recent history (the last 2.5 million years or so) has the climate been so stable or so benign. Combined with our recent usage of fossil fuels and other benign technologies that we invented (discovered) this had led to a population of 7.5 Billion people. The only scary thing to me (bedsides political instability creating unnecessary havoc arguing this and that) is a major cooling event out of left field that deals humanity a temporary crippling blow. If you study history, it is usually such a cooling climate catastrophe that has caused such mayhem in the human record the last 5000 years. There is no real evidence in our collective history the last 5000 years that any warming period caused any major detrimental issue with humanity…on the contrary, there is plenty of evidence that sudden cooling events led to the downfall of many civilizations. Warming is good, cooling can be very bad, especially our current civilization, as we have never been recently stress tested to a major sudden global cooling event in our modern technological world. Why is this never discussed by the rabid marxist CAGW crowd? Or even us so called ‘deni@rs’?
Actually…I just read the next post here this Am on Easter Island, and I see much of that post was about exactly my paragraph above. I should have made my comment above there…although it is applicable here too. Catastrophic Global Cooling (CGC) would be more applicable to what we would should really be worried about, if we are serious about really understanding what the word catastrophic means.
I agree with your sentiment and have expressed a similar sentiment on many occasions, although not in any specifically dedicated post. But I have also said this – I can virtually GUARANTEE you that the Eco-Fascists will come up with some pseudo-scientific “explanation” of how the COOLING is ALSO the “fault” of human activities, specifically the burning of those “evil” fossil fuels. Just like they did last time during the ’70s “Global Cooling” scare. This is because at the end of the day their objective is CONTROL of energy, which by extension provides CONTROL of EVERYTHING.
I’m reminded again of a great and apropos movie line – “The arrogance of man is assuming that man is in control of nature, and not the other way around.” – Ken Watanabe (as Dr. Serizawa), Godzilla (2014)
I’m no expert, but wasn’t Climategate the opportunity to go on the offensive? Instead the big lie of AGW was reasserted by the globalist media with no sufficient offensive. Yet the facts are entirely on our side.
And the majority of Americans are unconcerned about AGW and open to the ugly truth, but it’s just not addressed, so no one is stirred to action. And the ugly truth is that AGW is the foundation of a fascist world government. Profit is secondary and sounds no alarm bells. The demonization of carbon dioxide is pure evil genius – ‘peaceful’ compliance with a world government of draconian regulations, austerity and restricted movement, while ‘elites’ live as they always have.
Straight from the horses’ mouths…
“We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis.” – David Rockefeller, Club of Rome executive manager
“The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.” – emeritus professor Daniel Botkin
“We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” – Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.” – Club of Rome
“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.” – Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation
“It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.” – Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace
“No matter if the science of global warming is all phony, climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.” -Christine Stewart, fmr Canadian Minister of the Environment
“Climate change is real. Not only is it real, it’s here, and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new global phenomenon – the man-made natural disaster.” – Barack Obama
“The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed a sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation.” – UN Commission on Global Governance report
“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable. Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” – Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme & architect of the UN Oil for Food Scandal
“Maurice Strong was a pioneer of sustainable development who left our country and our world a better place.” – PM Justin Trudeau
“A keen and anxious awareness is evolving to suggest that fundamental changes will have to take place in the world order and its power structures, in the distribution of wealth and income.” – Club of Rome, globalist think tank that includes members of the Trilateral Commission.
“All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.” – Club of Rome
“Now is the time to draw up a master plan for sustainable growth and world development based on global allocation of all resources and a new global economic system.” – Club of Rome
“The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.” – Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund
“Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today’s problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time.” – Club of Rome
RENEWABLE ENERGY IS THE CARROT – SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IS THE STICK:
“The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.” – Jeremy Rifkin, New York Times journalist on climate change
“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.” – Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University
“Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.” – Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute
“Effective execution of Sustainable Development will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced – a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level.” ~ United Nations Sustainable Development/Agenda 21
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.html
“UN Sustainable Development is the action plan implemented worldwide to inventory and control all land, all water, all minerals, all plants, all animals, all construction, all means of production, all energy, all education, all information, and all human beings in the world. INVENTORY AND CONTROL.” ~ Rosa Koire, liberal CA activist & former supporter of AGW
http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com
Overpopulation & eugenics:
“A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells, the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions.” – Prof. Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb
“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.” – Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies
“[T]he resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion.” – Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind
“One America burdens the earth much more than twenty Bangladeshes. This is a terrible thing to say in order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it’s just as bad not to say it.” – Jacques Cousteau, UNESCO Courier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones
The Georgia Guidestones is a granite monument erected in 1980 in Elbert County,Georgia, in the United States. A set of 10 guidelines is inscribed on the structure in eight modern languages, and a shorter message is inscribed at the top of the structure in four ancient language scripts. In June 1979, a man using the pseudonymRobert C. Christian approached the Elberton Granite Finishing Company on behalf of “a small group of loyal Americans”, and commissioned the structure.
1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2. Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
4. Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
9. Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
10. Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.
https://www.wired.com/1997/02/the-doomslayer-2/ The Doomslayer
The environment is going to hell, and human life is doomed to only get worse, right? Wrong. Conventional wisdom, meet Julian Simon, the Doomslayer.
That was straight from the horses other orifice I think.
““Maurice Strong was a pioneer of sustainable development who left our country and our world a better place.” – PM Justin Trudeau”
Ole Justin is completely out of touch with reality, isn’t he. Canada is like a ship without a rudder, with Justin at the helm.
No, Canada has a rudder. It’s just that Captain Trudeau is using it to steer the country into the rocks.
Fortunately, it looks like the crew are going to mutiny and replace him with a new captain at the next election. And the Carbon Tax is one of many reasons for that.
“I’m no expert, but wasn’t Climategate the opportunity to go on the offensive? Instead the big lie of AGW was reasserted by the globalist media with no sufficient offensive. Yet the facts are entirely on our side.”
Climate Gate was quite educational.
An amazing contrast between public and private messaging.
Especially the five inquiries.
Certainly exposed the rampant corruption in our little kleptocracies..
Credibility is a strange thing, once it is lost, it does not grow back..
Climategate exposed what many suspected, our bureaucrats are lying to us.
Our media is complicit in promoting this mass hysteria over the weather.
Could be that this exposure paved the easy acceptance of President Trump and his “Fake News” dismissal of media venom.
When the young adults finally wake up,civic institutions are going to suffer.
being deliberately sold propaganda, in place of education erodes trust in authority.
And “trust our authority” is all the Alarmed Ones have.
Or is that “Respect Mah Authority” ala Southpark.
The Doomslayer link corrected: https://www.wired.com/1997/02/the-doomslayer-2/
Another view of history …
https://youtu.be/ySnk-f2ThpE
https://youtu.be/0wlNey9t7hQ
Good news AJB, You are free to boycott “Big Oil”. No one is taking your money out of you paycheck and sending it to them. If enough people feel like you do, they will lose their power. You are also free to advocate to others that they should boycott “Big Oil”. That is the difference between providing a product or service, which requires that you compete for customers, and having the government take money you earned and give it to an organization that you disagree with. The former is why we don’t have to work the fields everyday to produce enough food to live on. The latter is why revenues go up consistently, but it is never enough to satisfy the hunger for OPM.
Rob: The federal government is buying a product for people that they have determined can’t afford it. They are not giving your money to the oil company. They are buying a good from that company on behalf of a person that needs it, but can’t afford it. There is a difference between buying something, and transferring wealth from someone to someone else. They are transferring the wealth to the entitled person, but requiring that it is used for heat. It is the same as food stamps. The entitled person gets the benefit, the store sells the food.
But Russ, I have no desire or the freedom to boycott “Big Oil”. It is how the world works, for now at least. Nor, I would suggest, does the producer of these videos. As he repeats several times, it has nothing to do with oil but everything to do with monopolization, governance and control. The resource grab continues to accelerate as population increases. I would call that inevitable.
AJP – It has everything to do with oil, because that is what people are willing to pay for. If I had a mini-nuclear reactor at home, and an electric car, I would have no need for oil, and if enough people did that “Big Oil” would become a bit player that produced oil for the chemical properties it contains. And then you would would still be worried about “Big Whatever” that produced products that people want and are willing to pay for. And there is no monopoly on oil. There is a market for oil that is not a free market, but is much closer to free, than to monopolized.
Rob – Your tax dollars are going to entitled citizens. If they heat with Natural Gas, nothing goes to oil companies. If they heat with electric nothing goes to the oil companies. Your tax dollars go to the recipient of the product. Are you saying that your tax dollars go to Big Food when a person buys food with food stamps?
The PRODUCT goes to the entitled person. The government pays for the PRODUCT. Which means far more of it goes to Natural Gas suppliers, since more people heat with gas than oil. I know you are not this stupid, so you must have a disorder when it comes to admitting you are wrong. You would do better arguing that the government gives your tax dollars for all the oil products it buys to run naval ships, aircraft, tanks, and vehicles of all sorts. But that would only be slightly less wrong than the dumb argument you are currently failing to make. The government buys all kinds of “stuff”. Whether they use for their own operations, or transfer it to “entitled citizens” does not matter. Your elected officials decided it was an appropriate use of public funds. And the remedy is to vote them out of office. If enough voters suffer from BODS then that will happen.
Now you’re being silly, virtually all facets of modern life are dependent on oil. Demand is very different from dependency. Forget ideological concepts of capitalism versus socialism, you would never be permitted to have a mini-nuclear reactor at home. It’s about control Russ.
AJP – I could list far more things that are not dependent on oil, than those that are. Oil is a source of energy that has characteristics that make it good for many things, BUT if a better alternative comes along consumers will choose the better alternative. We are dependent on oil, because we choose to have great demand for a product that has helped lift us out of the drudgery of manual labor. We are free to go back to that any time we choose to, or are forced to by idiots with power.
You could replace mini-reactor with solar panels if it makes you feel better. I spend my hard-earned dollars on the best alternatives available to me. I don’t have unlimited choices because you, and me, and Rob, and everyone else has failed to give me better choices than I have. Removing the best choices because you don’t like being dependent on them does not improve our situation.
Like most trolls, Rob makes a big deal about pennies, but completely ignores other programs that are costing big bucks.
Rob – You don’t get anything out of most of the money you send to the government. That is a relationship that is defined by “being forced to send” money to some entity and getting nothing in return. The government takes your money and gets a PRODUCT in return. There is a difference, but it takes a modicum of IQ to identify it. It seems that is a step to far for your ability.
You prove yourself wrong Rob!!
There is a difference between being taxed, and getting nothing in return, and the government or anyone else buying a product, where they get something in return. Because they have the choice of what they choose to buy, or they can choose to buy nothing and save the money.
Can I choose to not pay my taxes and save the money?
The government can certainly choose not to buy heat for those they are currently buying heat for. And if they do, will you save the money, or will they? And what does that say about whose money it is, that they are spending?
NO!!!
They take money out of your paycheck and GIVE it, or spend it, on whatever they want to. They GIVE it to foreign governments. They GIVE it to entitled citizens. They GIVE it to grant recipients. They GIVE it to universities.
They do NOT GIVE it to big oil.
They buy products.
They buy oil, aircraft, ships, staples, paint, desks, computers, tanks, bulletproof cars, guns, chairs…..
And if they paid for your education, they should get a refund.
And the implication is that by “sending your money to them” the government was not expecting anything in return. That in essence they were “GIVING” your money to the oil companies against your will, in order to expressly benefit the oil companies.
That is not the same as buying a product. And you know that, but you obviously have no intention of acknowledging your error.
If you want poor people to freeze in the dark, so Big Oil will sell 0.00000001% less oil, put that on a bumper sticker and run for office. You have made your case for what is important to you, and I am sure you will get some votes from other people that can’t see the world because their colon blocks their view.
Originally you said
Now you say
We never discussed my paycheck which has actual earnings. We were discussing YOUR paycheck, which is just a figment of your imagination. You have made errors, and you continue to do so, while stating the opposite. It is no wonder you are obsessed with criticizing successful businesses. They do so much to provide what people want. And your special skill is to irritate, and that does not provide compensation.
I am done digging. It was a grave for you. I know that someone that has nothing better to do than argue semantics on a blog, might as well lie down and take a dirt nap. Take my advice and find something better to do with your time, or just get it over with.
So, Obola’s national government TAKES money from my pocket too (47% pf my money is taken by the government) and GIVEN to the “deserving” voters (of largely democrat politicians). Now, the LIHEAP welfare program – like many welfare programs) pays more to those who have more people in their household, who have lower incomes, and who are already receiving local, state, and national aid. And YOU’RE the one complaining because this somehow benefits oil companies because now people can get more money to pay for heating bills? ?
By the way, notice that the “more people in household” = “more pay” does NOT correspond to “How much do the welfare receivers actually spend on heating oil”? Instead, each additional person “qualifies” that household an additional $6,000.00 in annual income. All money that the government takes from me.
Now, the government takes more money than this for wasting on “art”, eco-fantasties, renewables for such politically-connected companies as Solyndra, solar-powered pavements, windfarms, $60,00 dollar per gallon green fuels, etc. Do you complain about those wastes?
The projection and reverse autopsychology in that piece are so thick you could stab it with a fork.
I don’t know too many people who use the “warming is a hoax” strawman to make their point except when an eco-warrior is telling me I probably believe it is. I reply that warming is as real the observations prove but the anthropogenic causation theory is too loosely knit for me to cross that bridge to confident assumption. The political activism and circular thinking displayed by those who claim consensus is dangerously unscientific to the point of being deliberately deceptive.
I am not anti-science. I just don’t believe in the conclusions of climate scientists and their close relatives – astrologers. Both have models that appear to predict all events – after they have happened.
The predictions made before the event are more likely to be true in the case of astrologers, but I still don’t believe in them. In both cases, their work is not peer reviewed by skeptics. The other sciences do permit and publish research that indicates other answers.
““It’s like they sense victory. They are proclaiming victories, and they keep pushing,” Dunlap said.
In most sports , in most countries, you cannot proclaim victory without scoring goals. Nice to know that the sceptics are putting the ball in the back of the net sufficiently often to frighten the opponents.
And on the subject of Radicals , no less an authority than the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm speaks warmly of
“the perennial Radicals demands, such as parliamentary reform, the fight against high taxes, tithes, placemen and sinecures and the whole system of Old Corruption ” in his preamble to the chronology and causes of the “Captain Swing ” machine breaking and rick burning riots of 1830 in southern England.
Ref: “Captain Swing” : E J Hobsbawm , G Rude , (1969).
“Pruitt banned scientists from serving on EPA’s independent advisory panel if they received agency funding.”
What part of ‘independent’ do the warmists not understand?
What is the confidential public health data that impacts global warming studies?
Where are the claims by the author of this propaganda that the current climate is similar to those “projected” by the climate models??
Where is the claim that the hot spot has been measured in the tropical troposphere and it is in agreement with the predictions of the AGW conjecture??
Where is the claim that Trenberth’s “missing heat” had been found and it is approximately what would be expected under AGW conjecture ??
Where is the science to support this political agenda, and how does it actually support the requirement for “urgent action before it is too late” to avoid tipping points from a destabilized climate ??
Frankly I am amazed that so many can still cling to the hope that global temps that are well within the range of historical normal variation, will start showing evidence that it is outside that range. They are still living in a mindset that passed down knowledge from ivory towers to the unwashed masses. The unwashed masses are not beholden to the analysis of those that are beholden to grant application acceptance. And there are still more questions than answers for “settled science”.
I also don’t like to bet on the wrong horse, especially when it is my money I’m betting with.
Pruitt is still too lazy or stupid to reverse the endangerment finding on CO2.
Pruitt is living in a snake pit, that is surrounded by packs of starving hyenas. The stupidity part was throwing them red meat with his personal decisions. The endangerment finding took a lot of political capital to get it enacted, and it will take just as much to reverse it. That does not mean he can’t do it, or won’t do it. I just means it will require some momentum, that he does not currently have. He is doing a good job of ignoring it, and that alone is a start. The tide is turning, but it does not turn at the rate most of us would like to see. A major source of AGW support got hammered again this winter. Making the case that it is “expected” is wearing a little thin for those that carry water for Libs, but are no longer getting any pork.
There are people who actually believe that the president has the power to re-shape the world with a mere utterance.
Remember, Obama and all of the Democrat leadership wanted single payer, yet even with super majorities in both houses, Obama Care was the best they could come up with.
Nirvana Fallacy, aka making the perfect the enemy of the good.
Coke contains CO2. You should be able to heat your house simply by putting bottles around the walls. But don’t shake them or they’ll overheat. You should be able to grow hot house tomatoes in conference halls, and power generators from gymnasiums. Heat no longer just goes up – it apparently goes down as well (from the “greenhouse ceiling” over the earth). It is the new reality of science..
What makes me bolder is not the science, but the socialistic demands of those who are attempting to use climate scaremongering as an excuse to usher in the long sought, but totally unsustainable, Progressive Utopia.
The science is settled: the climate is changing and always will be changing. In fact, something would be very wrong if the climate stopped changing. The issue was never really change, but the extent to which the change was going to harm our biosphere.
I don’t deny that less than 25,000 years ago northern Illinois was covered by more than mile of glacial ice. I don’t deny that less than 12,000 years ago mammoths were flash frozen in Siberia with fresh grasses still in their stomachs. I don’t deny that 1,000 years ago Vikings in Greenland were cropping barley so they could use the grain to make beer. I don’t deny that millions of Europeans died in the Great Famine of 1315–17, caused by cold and wet conditions. I don’t deny that the Thames River froze solid to such an extent that during 26 separate winters from 1408 until 1814, Londoners were able to hold a Frost Fair on the ice.
Up until now, advocates of “climate change” demand solutions that converge far more on socialism than on anything else. This is a means to an ideological ends having nothing at all do do with protecting the biosphere. It is intended to advance the long awaited secular Utopia.
It seems with every passing day the one constant in the debate about this issue is far more about how socialistic the policy solutions must be than any other factor. That tells me that the “settled science” involved is far more Scientific Socialism than any real science.
1+
Best summary on board.
It’s rooted in socialism not science.
You have done well I always tell warmanistas to look at history and they will see that climate always changes over time, from cold to warm then back again to cold.
NASSA/RSS data shows global average atmospheric water vapor (TPW) has been increasing 1.5% per decade for at least 30 yrs. Rational extrapolation looks like 8% increase since 1960. This added ghg is countering the cooling that would otherwise be occurring. The WV increase must eventually stop and might have stopped already.
Hitran output (using quantum mechanics) corroborates that CO2 has no significant effect on climate.
Agreed co2 has no significant effect on climate. google “The Greenhouse Effect at the Molecular Level” by Michael Monroe . He compares the water vapor molecule to the co2 molecule by integrating the heating effect over the absorption spectra of each molecule and concludes that the water vapor molecule is 10^17 more of a greenhouse gas than the co2 molecule.b
You mean: The Greenhouse Effect at the Molecular Level, by Michael Monce PDF
RB – You take the word ‘database’ too literally. What Hitran produces is the relative probability of emission of photons by the selected molecule species as calculated using quantum mechanics. It demonstrates that photon emission from the thermalized energy in the gas molecules is about 1000 times more likely from WV than from CO2. An example of Hitran output is included at http://energyredirect3.blogspot.com . Yes, the output of Hitran can be used as input to other programs but that does not diminish the usefulness of its output
RB – Even when the link to the image is provided (which corroborates the six other examples of compelling evidence listed in my blog/analysis) you are apparently too fixed in your thinking to challenge the ‘consensus’.
RB – With any sort of interest in the subject most folks would challenge/verify the statements by following the provided links to the source data. You obviously did not which discloses that you have little interest, and perhaps little ability, to understand. Your complete failure to grasp what Hitran does corroborates that.
RB – It looks like you might have learned a tiny bit more but you are still profoundly both uninformed and misguided. Take the blinders off. Your preconceived notions are not serving you well.
To begin, photons emitted from the surface as Planck spectrum radiation which are absorbed by ghg are essentially all thermalized. They are thermalized because it takes about 5 µs for a molecule to emit a photon after it absorbs one (the duration is called relaxation time) but only about 0.0002 µs to start sharing the energy with surrounding molecules. The process of absorbing photons and sharing the energy with surrounding molecules (by gaseous conduction) is thermalization.
Hitran does the QM analysis to calculate the possibility and probability of photon emission at specific wave numbers for each specie of gas molecule being examined. The results are presented in numerical (for input to other programs, ergo, why it’s called a data base) and graphical formats (which I use). A useful graph produced by Hitran is included as Fig 2 in http://energyredirect3.blogspot.com . The ordinate, ‘scaled intensity’ provides the relative probability of emission at each wave number. Near the emitting surface, the emission from CO2 is barely discernable compared to WV. That is why ‘CO2 has no significant effect on climate’.
As to ‘vacuum wave numbers’. Think about it. If it were in a vacuum, there would be no molecules. Wavelength varies slightly depending on the medium. They are referring to the wavelengths as they are when the medium is a vacuum. (If it’s any consolation, early on I also misinterpreted this.)
Hitran corroborates other compelling evidence that CO2 has no significant effect on climate. Click my name to see what actually does explain average global temperature change.
RB – You ask a question that is clearly answered at the link above and/or the blog/analysis you get when you click my name. Apparently you are too stubborn to look or too set in your perception for any reality to get through.
You assert that I said “ghg are essentially all thermalized” which I did not say and wouldn’t because it is nonsensical. What I do say is that photon energy absorbed by ghg is essentially all thermalized. That is validated by the simple observation (from my blog/analysis) “A common observation of thermalization by way of water vapor is cloudless nights cool faster and farther when absolute water vapor content of the atmosphere is lower.” It is, of course, also validated by the observation that relaxation time takes tens of thousands of times longer than conduction time as described above.
I have debunked the pathetic link you provided before. Perhaps you noticed that it is a letter which requires no peer review or other corroboration. It is a classic example of confirmation bias. That is, they think they found what they were already certain was there. They cling to this phantasy and ignore multiple compelling evidences that CO2 has no significant effect on climate. I list six examples in my blog/analysis.
I’ve always been a “vocal in your face denier” to everyone when the subject comes up.
“Republicans are ‘anti-science’. Incorrect and a typical progressive twisting of the language. Republicans/conservative don’t buy “Socialist-Science” or the progressive mob science branded at the 97%. Republicans are “Friends of Science” and true supporters of data driven, verified and validated Science. Not the pseudo-science of the political activism and agenda driven scientism.
From the article (I don’t think I need to visit that site again):
There it is, ladies and gentlemen, in a nutshell. They announce it quite matter-of-factly. Actually requiring publicly available data to base regulations on is anathema to their way of thinking. They want the EPA to have the Power of Kings, believing it to be a divine right to rule by the personal political whim of EPA bureaucrats. Unfortunately for all the rest of us, that is what the EPA did in making the endangerment finding. In doing so, the EPA arrogated to itself the ability to punish at will, and so effectively rule, the US energy sector.
Being able to so rule the energy sector by institutional fiat alone, gives that institution the power to hobble or cripple the entire US economy. It is possibly the biggest single power grab in American politics since 1776, and this aspect of it went completely unremarked by the lame-stream media. No wonder people are now so unwilling to vote for whoever the media tells them to vote for.
The mainstream media is OK with American athletes being on permanent medication with substances known for their effect on performance and concentration, because there is a “medical justification” (excuse from a doctor).
A doctor is an “authority” and they will not question an “authority”.
The “intelligence community” is the “authority” on Russian meddling (whatever that is) in election. So whatever they conclude (even if they don’t trust their own conclusion) is gospel.
It works for every domain and anyone who doubt any of that must have “ideation”.
This Scientist has never been impressed by a “theory”. There is no AGW “science”.
To be a theory it must make predictions that can falsify the premise of the theory. AGW does not make predictions that can be tested and independently verified. It does not meet the requirements for a theory and therefor is merely conjecture.
AGW “science” used to make predictions. They all failed.
Which is why they now proclaim that being able to make predictions has nothing to do with science.
“…a vocal subset of conservatives…”
When I first began to notice something peculiar about the whole global warming movement, I considered myself a fence-riding independent with liberal pro-labor leanings. When I started reading here, I discovered that my skepticism and respect for critical thought puts me with both feet on the right side of the fence and about to dismount.
I believe that the non-vocal subset of (by his definition) “conservatives” put Trump in the office. The left is in classic-denial of the mass defection of free-thinking moderates who they have abandoned for the minority voters. The party has been couped by progressive socialist despots.
I certainly have no problem admitting that I have moved my vote in a conservative direction as a result of the assault on logic, science, and reason, by the cacophonous global warmers. Old-fashioned decent respect for opponents also seemed to be one of the early casualties, but environmental activism never seemed to have much of that in the first place.
While no side has clean hands, finding myself in the camp which is now regularly and loudly smeared and insulted by those on the left, who used to claim to be liberal, is currently doing nothing to make me consider voting for them again. The scientific and institutional corruption sailing under the flag of global warming alarmism has caused me to look more carefully at other points in the collective manifesto, and I don’t like what I see.The left (in the US and in the UK) need to have a complete generational clean out of their ‘Augean Stables’ before I could vote for them again.
Most of the time the only people who get wealthy from “pro-labor” policies are politicians and union bosses.