These last few years have not been kind to the climate flat-earthers. Their patron political party got drubbed in the mid-terms, the IPCC demolished their favorite talking points, numerous post-IPCC scientific results make the IPCC look conservative, and the impetus for action on climate change is growing at breakneck speed everywhere outside the U.S. executive branch.
This last couple weeks has been particularly humiliating.
In the Vermont trial wherein the automakers sued to block California's emission standards (ultimately losing), famed climate change denier Patrick Michaels was called to testify on automakers' behalf as an expert witness. As part of an affidavit, Michaels submitted a financial statement disclosing his sources of funding. But when he found out he might have to make that statement public ... Michaels withdrew as a witness.
Now why do you suppose he wouldn't want to reveal his funding?
Then there was the hubbub over a paper by "medical researcher" Klaus-Martin Schulte that purported to show that, contrary to the work of Naomi Oreskes, there is no consensus about climate change among researchers in the field. Who cares about a random paper from a medical researcher? Well, it was going to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. Sure, it was notorious crank haven Energy & Environment, but hey, at least it was something.
Only, uh ... it was nothing. Turns out the paper couldn't even meet the desiccated standards of that journal. It won't be published in any peer-reviewed journal at all, it turns out.
So much for that.
Of course, these serial humiliations do nothing to stop the flat earth movement. The Schulte paper has already entered the "skeptic" pantheon and will bounce around the dipshitosphere for all eternity, just like its repeatedly debunked forebears.
After all, these people are desperate. Earlier this month they went into a full hair-on-fire tizzy over a statistically insignificant adjustment of U.S. temperature data. This week they're freaking out because research they (wrongly) thinks predicts global cooling was done using a tool developed by James Hansen, which allegedly shows that Hansen is a hypocrite, or ... something.
Nothing embarrasses them at this point. The scraps they're clutching are more and more threadbare, but the volume of their screeching hasn't gone down a single notch.
Luckily, the wider world seems to have figured out how to ignore them. Finally.
What to make of the new climate poll
Comments
View as Flat
Delay And Deny Posted 7:44 am
24 Sep 2007
Yes, the balloons have surely flown high for AGW pseudo-science the past few years, just like the real estate bubble.
Let's see who benefits from the bubble:
Al Gore
Hillary
AGW Think Tanks
Eurocrat IPCC members
Apple Computers
But every bubble must burst...and science can then be restored to rational discourse rather than shrill histrionics.
John Bailo
Sutext:
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Sam Wells Posted 10:32 am
24 Sep 2007
That said, there are many aspects of global warming that are not fully understood, or are subject to extreme speculation. The melting of the Arctic is still not really predicted well in the models, for example, and all those super-hurricanes never really started happening.
Just because I believe in global warming does not mean I accept a bunch of the wilder hypotheses, but that's not denial - it's called being smart!
Onward through the fog
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Craig Allen Posted 11:38 am
24 Sep 2007
Ha! Keep it coming, I need the laughs cos my hometown is dieing from a never ending drought. And those damned climatologists are bringing me no good news.
-> My home town bites the dust.
-> Followed closely by the rest of southern Australia.
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tico89 Posted 12:26 pm
24 Sep 2007
Definitely, it's not a good idea to attack them in the way you are. Heavens knows I believe in anthropogenic global warming, and I live in hope that my suspicion of what will happen to this world doesn't come true. And some trolls I could mention (about 3 posts higher up, hint hint) deserve to be insulted. But, frankly, it doesn't help, and just gives them ammunition. Use science, not violence.
If I share initials with 'Global Warming', is that a sign?
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Sam Wells Posted 1:48 pm
24 Sep 2007
I did sound a cautionary tale in my post. I worry about the group-think and the unscientific journalism. But my caution was because I support the effort, and not the other way around. /sam
Onward through the fog
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trock Posted 11:39 pm
24 Sep 2007
I read the fiction book, "State of Fear" by Michael Creighton. What a bunch of crap. The philosophy in the book is what I call "Rumsfeld incompetence" just a set of the stupidest ideas in combination I had ever read. If all you read is the good stuff, you forget how bad the bad stuff can be.
One of the points he tries to make is 'fear mongering', that the global warming group are just trying to make you scared for scared sake. What is completely forgotten is what if there is something to it, then they are doing what is important work. The biggest 'fear mongering' I have seen is from deniers and delayers who say if we do something, we'll wreck the economy, it's to hard. Bunk. It's what needs to be done, and in some situations it can be a benefit.
It is the delayers and deniers who are the head in the sand, scared to do what is right and haven't got a clue as to what is real and important. One of the deniers even wrote that to do something about climate change you would have to "dismantle modern industry." Nothing could be futher from the truth. But if all the deniers and delayers listen to is each other, that's just how far gone they are.
This is a street fight. If it wasn't about turning around the attitudes of a majority of public opinion, it wouldn't matter. This isn't science that doesn't have to affect and persuade, like an improved design on an intergrated circuit, where if they implement it, 99.999 percent of the people wouldn't know a thing about it. This is something where the science has to affect and persuade. This is where people have to change their thinking on a range of subjects, and that means we have to go after bad philosophies as well. We don't have to just change the minds of the science world, we have to change the minds to the general public.
We don't have decades to do something, we've got to do it now.
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PolluteLessDotCom Posted 5:40 am
25 Sep 2007
Be it as it is, I find it makes more sense to change our behavior and develop sustainable habits JUST IN CASE the folks who predict disaster if we do not change are more right than those who say nothing is going on or we can't do anything about it. It certainly can't hurt to develop civilized and far-sighted attitudes toward other human beings and the environment we share. This is a conclusion any rational person can follow.
Unless of course you believe in aliens coming to the rescue, or that a supernatural power exists and cares about humans, or in a not yet discovered infinite energy source. But then anything is possible and nothing can be maturely discussed. Mental child play.
Karsten
http://www.polluteless.com
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lorna salzman Posted 8:33 am
25 Sep 2007
Lorna Salzman
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PolluteLessDotCom Posted 2:21 am
26 Sep 2007
You will have to help yourself. It is very simple: If you can find the "one" solution to "the" problem, you may be able to find what "they" have to say about it.
Karsten
http://www.polluteless.com
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trock Posted 3:47 am
26 Sep 2007
I made the comment "this is a street fight." Well, what does that mean? Am I going to go out and knife somebody? No. But I was trying to say is that it's more important than most subjects. Sometimes we have to go after peoples philosophy of thought, not just advocate the science, which many times isn't very interesting.
Why doesn't the policy makers go stronger after global warming problems? Because they don't have the votes. If someone gets elected, they can vote on what to do. If the votes aren't a majority, they can't get the bill passed. Feeling really, really, strongly about an issue doesn't give you more votes.
What works best in politics and some other ways of life in my humble opinion? Fantasy. An example would be many of the people advocating tax cuts in a economy and great revenues come from that, more than making up the tax cuts. Well, then just eliminate all taxes, that will give a boost to the economy. Oh, I see, then we couldn't pay for the troops, bombs, cops and other things we need for a society. Ah. So it's only a certain level of fantasy that's permitted.
But eliminating all coal plants in 5 years isn't the answer either. Most people would object to that, because the value of the electricity service now it greater than a future generations possible needs.
We have to find solutions that are politically possible. Some felt before December 7th, 1941, we should be in a war against Japan and Germany, but couldn't convince enough people to do it. after that date, there was a tipping point that made it happen. Global warming won't have any tipping points like that. A person and a movement has to know their limitations.
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