The best thing that can be said of this sad tale is that Griffin is in full retreat and is taking a brutal beating in the press.  Even the Bush administration is distancing itself from the comments.  This shows, more than anything else, how out of touch with reality the comments are.

Thanks, JMG, for that wonderful Orwell essay.  Obviously he was criticizing writers like me ...

It is curious that "grist for the mill" is one of the uncertainly understood metaphors that he wishes we would expel.

As for Michael Griffin, I guess he was the same NASA administrator who was talking to the press a lot after the recent space shuttle disaster; and he struck me then as somebody who would say or do anything to survive.  And perhaps that can be fit nicely into Hannah Arendt's category of "the banality of evil."

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

Holocaust metaphors and profanities do ring bells.  I am still in search for the metaphor before the Golden Age expires.

If business controls the government then business controls NASA.  Business has a choice.  Either they can make a profit from the price of carbon, or they can profit from no price on carbon.  Are we experiencing the seeds of a business civil war in Griffins, or is it just Griffins?

I think grist is wrong to characterize these comments as "stupid".  While I am an environmental attorney and advocate who recognizes the perils humanity faces due to climate change, I also have an anthropology background that often leads me to think in extremely big-picture terms.  It is indisputable that the climate has changed dramatically over the evolution of our species, and these changes have often been bad news for humanity.  Similarly, the anthropogenic climate change we are facing right now will likely result in numerous disasters, including mass casualties.  Having been a student of international environmental law, I do not have high hopes for a global solution to this problem.  As a student of anthropology and population dynamics, I also feel that this might not be such a bad thing for our species.  As grist discussed a couple weeks ago, the issue of overpopulation is not frequently cited in the enviro debate, but it is the true cause of our problems.  We are clearly over our carrying capacity on this planet, and the burning of fossil fuels that has allowed us to flourish may also be our undoing.  The bottom line is that the climate is always changing, and even if we were to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions there is no way that we can forever preserve the mild climate that we as a species have enjoyed for the last 10,000 years.    

I think grist is wrong to characterize these comments as "stupid".  While I am an environmental attorney and advocate

For every environmental attorney trying to help preserve some of that climate stability for a while longer, there's a battalion or two paid handsomely to explain why it's just not practical ...

It would help in understanding your position to know whether you one of the few or the many?

Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.

"There is no way that we can forever preserve the mild climate that we as a species have enjoyed for the last 10,000 years."

Imagine if we adopted the same attitude for everything in life: tuberculosis is natural, so there's no point doing anything about it; earthquakes are an act of God, so we shouldn't try to stop them from destroying our cities---even if we survive this one, a bigger one will eventually wreak havoc; I wasn't born smart enough, so no point studying for this math test, especially when Seinfeld is on!

There were naysayers at every time in human history, that this or that couldn't be done because it's too daunting or because we haven't done it before, or because we can't change the current course of events. Utter b-s!

You're right, frostica. Those comments were not stupid. They were perfectly rational. But it is also rational to be selfish and lazy.

But it's not even an arguement that "The climate is always changing"

Yes it's changing, but not nearly this hot, or this fast in any time in the last 6 ice ages.

There is no "natural" explaination for the warming we are experiencing.

Sh*t happens.

Climate change has happened in the past.  It will happen again.  Why worry?

Are these new talking points?

Embedded I smell the 'smart adaptable will benefit and evolve humanity'.

The final solution.   It is bullspit.

The folks in charge apparently feel it is inappropriate to question God's decisions. The entire human species, including several generations not directly responsible, will be punished for its sins. God does not worry about the collateral damage as other species suffer and go extinct, for they wil receive their reward in Heaven or do not matter since they have no souls. Those who stand in the way clearly do not have faith in God and are not worthy of protection from His wrath. Welcome to the 21st century.

I do hope Mr. Griffin can display the same spirt of accepting God's will when the rabble pick up their pitch forks and storm the citadels of power. After all, "... which human beings -- where and when -- are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate [or political system or economic system or social order] that we have right here today, right now is the best climate [system or order] for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position..."

Forward!

Hey, all:

I read such things and realize the echelons of government have been turned on their heads and those who rise to the top are in fact incompetent--which does not prevent them from being evil and dangerous.  

To extend the Orwell essay, which is actually timeless in its application, here in my opinion is one of the most frightening passages in all of literature:

"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself.  That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed.  Even to understand the word `doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.                   --  George Orwell, "doublethink", from "1984"

We are in the gutter of public discourse.  

Griffin is not stupid, but nearly so, and certainly a greatly tortured minor intellect.  But he is also the product of a cookie cutter corporate oligarchy industry that values precisely that product.  

Hell is much too good for all of us.

David
Sustainability For Life

Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!

>> I read such things and realize the echelons of government have been turned on their heads and those who rise to the top are in fact incompetent >>

only those at the top ?

well well, the incompetency goes all the way, top to bottom

and no one is concerned, because they are all looking in the same mirror.  Unaware is a better descriptor, blissfully unaware !

Mr. Griffin is actually correct even though he has no idea at all.  

Record breaking "air temperatures" are common, but  the records are only consistent with clear sky days, and recorded in seasons outside summer.  

Please list all the air temperature records measured in the middle of summer.

Please post this years list of record breaking rainfalls/snowfalls

World wide results would be nice, thanks.

So prove to me the world has a CO2 emission problem.

The only problem with Mr Griffin is that he is totally unaware that the world's climate is not heading towards semi tropical paradise

The world is hurtling towards a Snowball Earth.

JMG- I am definitely one of the few.  I work for a nonprofit, not for a law firm, and trust me, I am not paid handsomely. Nor do I argue that nothing can be done about climate change.  I merely said that I am not holding my breath for a global solution.  
My main point is that this entire movement to address climate change is a matter of preserving the status quo so that we can continue to enjoy the bounty that the earth currently provides us.  I am selfish just like all humans, so I would like to see the environment preseved so that I, and my descendants, can continue to enjoy its wonders.  I did not take Michael Griffin's comments as a suggestion that we should sit back and do nothing, but instead a recognition that there is a limit to what we humans can and should do to control our universe.  

It seems in my experience that as competition increases for a job two things happen, one, is that more and more people will do whatever it takes to get the job, and two, those who determine what that position is paid decide to pay as little as possible because they have the candidates.  NASA seems to have maximized this effect.  They have eliminated anyone with character and values and have only those who will do anything to get the top position.  Unfortunately, NASA has been in such a state for far too long.

Spacemen are a waste of money. Fire the whole lot of them and use that money for doin' somethin' useful, like securing our borders from invaders. The last time people explored a new world, the result was nothin' but trouble and more trouble. Now we're stuck here.

There should be an independent climate monitoring department with it own satellites and stuff so they don't waste money on Mars and Jupiter. Who cares what the weather is like on Venus. Nobody is going there anytime soon.

Enough exploring other planets and deep oceans. Try exploring your back yard. Nothin' useful will be learned in space. Read a book. We know everything we need to know. Build a house, grow vegetables, and have babies. No more to life than that.

I agree that manned space flight is a folly although some of the projects like the Hubble telescope are cool.  Spending a bazillion bucks for listening to possible aliens seems a tad ludicrous but there are some benefits from aerospace research.

But least understood part of our planet is the ocean.  While scientists continue kinding more alien-like residents of the great depths of the oceans, it seems that biodiversity density is much lowered - such as the near extinction of Bluefin Tuna.  Researchers are just starting to figure out that our impact on the oceans could have related impacts on the atmosphere as well.  The roles of upwelling, dead zones, and harmful algae blooms are not fully understood, and there is even some concern that polar ice-melt could have some very strange impacts that we had not anticipated.

Most ocean temperature data is taken at the surfave within 3 meters of the surface.  Mean temp departures show very warm Atlantic sea surface temperatures in the ITCZ, which could assist in forming hurricanes.  The extent to which this anomaly is related to Global Warming is not fully known.  The secrets are several miles down in the ocean, mon.  /sammie

Onward through the fog

Griffin is right, of course. Climate does change, has been doing so since the dawn of time, and will continue to do so long after we've driven ourselves extinct. And, it also is arrogant to assume what optimum climate is and decide to keep it that way. He's completely right.

This is also totally irrelevant.

I wasn't aware that anyone was arguing that climate doesn't change naturally, or that there is such a thing as optimum climate. I thought all this fuss was about human-induced warming exceeding normal climate cycles. Isn't optimum climate what the earth decides, rather than what humans decide? Isn't the truly arrogant viewpoint to say that the earth is just going to have to put up with what humans fire at it?

Damn, I must have been on completely the wrong track.

If I share initials with 'Global Warming', is that a sign?

I suppose he IS entitled to express his opinion. At least he is recognizing the existence of man-made global climate change. But I find the following collection of words rather annoying...

"... which human beings -- where and when -- are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position..."

Why is it "arrogant" to decide that we should put a stop to actions that are adding to global climate instability, but NOT "arrogant" to believe it is okay for humans to dramatically alter Earth's climate, ecology, and biodiversity? I find it problematic that Dubbya, Bush administration stooges, and their followers are quick to get all philosophical, teary-eyed, and wise when it conveniently supports the aristocracy, but are not willing to engage in a full intellectual discussion of ALL of our actions and whether they are wise, appropriate, and just.

Forward!

Why not?

And if not scientists, who?

Forward!