More than anything else, even the misrepresentations themselves, the collective willingness to overlook bad policy arguments unsupported (or even contradicted) by the current state of science while at the same time trumpeting the importance of scientific consensus is evidence of the comprehensive and pathological politicization of science in the policy debate over global warming. If climate scientists ever wonder why they are looked upon with suspicion among some people in society, they need look no further in their willingness to compromise their own intellectual standards in policy debate on the issue of disasters and climate change.
Follow the link for the details. Roger Pielke, Jr. directs the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research and is an associate professor of environmental studies.
I think you might need to close a tag there, kate! :)
The trouble with science is that it's full of nuance and subtleties. There's a lot of "to the best of our knowledge" and "we're not entirely sure" and "it's complicated."
This makes for bad press and bad politics. Complication and equivocation do not work in these arenas. Thus scientists who wish to take debates public face a nasty choice - do they wish to be effective or accurate?
Don't forget Canada got the dubious distinction of being the Fossil of the Day at the 2005 Kyoto meeting back when the Liberals ran the show. http://www.weeklyholiday.net/2005/161205/env.html
Of course the media didn’t care much about it then like they do now. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20061113/ambrose_conference_061113?s_name=&no_ads=
Paul Wells (MacLeans) has an interesting story about how Canda selected its Kyoto targets. Basically in the early 90s Chretien found out that the US, under Al Gore as VP, was going to propose a 3% below 1990 target by 2012. Furious at being beaten by the US, he told Stephane Dion to propose 4% for Canada. Al Gore heard and went to 5% so we went to 6%. Apparently when they heard the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources had an internal revolution at targets they knew we couldn’t meet. Clinton decided that there was no way to US could do this and then nixed the whole thing unless the 3rd world like China would sign on (GW Bush just carried on with the previous Democrat administration’s stance lets not forget regardless of how the press seems to have immediately forgotten with its labelleling of Bush as Chimpy etc., in fact under GW Bush the US has been decreasing its output by 18% which is what they said they could do).
Stepane Dion admits to Paul Wells that “if the Liberals had won on January 23 2006, he would have had to admit that Canada’s targets couldn’t be met” !!! (“Right Side Up”, Paul Wells 2006 page 299)
No wonder Rona Ambrone looks like a deer about to be run over by a 18 wheeled tractor trailor hauler. She probably cannot understand why the media is so dumb, or maybe she’s just too dumb to realize how politics and the Liberals work – Libs say they’ll do something but they don’t, however they are the ninjas or realizing how to make themselves sound good. Eventually to CPC will learn this little trick about how to boff the electorate as well. In the meantime I really wish the media would start waking up and do some honest research on Kyoto.
The fashioners of Kyoto themselves say that the protocol will only reduce the INCREASE of global temperatures by 4%. That’s four percent. In other words temperature is going to rise by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees by 2100 and Kyoto will only reduce that rise by 0.02 to 0.28 degrees.
In other words it’s a waste of time, like bailing out a swamped BC Ferry with a coffee cup..
Why isn’t anyone taking a hard look at Kyoto?
Please...don't confuse anybody with anything that would articulate a contrary view to the status quo...(ie the sky is falling )
Many years ago read a great book by the former governor of the State of Washington (Dixie Lea Rea...I think )...titled (interestingly ) "Trashing the Planet " It was a great expose on junk science from a woman who had ( I think ) a number of earned degrees in the sciences.
Anybody else out there read this book?
Stephen Taylor has great article on his blog re:the media's hate-on for Rona,and how they have given a pass to Dion/Libs.
I wonder ....does this make Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr. a FOSSIL?
Yes Sammy I read that.....I have this message for our Media Twits :
http://ommag.blogspot.com/2006/10/ultimate-role-model-for-todays-media.html
langmann - many thanks for your comments; you've outlined the situation perfectly.
Canada under Chretien set arbitrary and unreachable goals - and - did nothing to even start to attain them. Kyoto is, in my view, nothing to do with climate change, since it leaves out most of the heavy polluters, such as the developing countries. Air does travel, to my knowledge and what goes on in China does affect the climate of the rest of the world. But, the UN, which has set up Kyoto, just as it set up the Oil-for-Fraud in Iraq, has an agenda. That agenda is to harm the economic viability of the developed countries. That's the only agenda of Kyoto. It has nothing to do with clean air.
The MSM are currently attacking Ambrose and Harper - because the MSM (eg CTV, CBC, Global, Globe and Mail, Star) are staffed and run primarily by Liberals and NDP. They will do anything to denigrate and attack Harper and the Conservatives; it's endless, it's relentless, it's unprofessional.
Why- I just heard, before I turned it off - CTV and Jane Gibbles Taber - and Craig Oliver - talking about 'Human Rights in China' and attacking Harper. Taber's agenda was to denigrate Harper and claim that he is harming Canada. Of course, the Liberal Media are in a pickle, because you can't attack human rights - but - they are doing their best, trying to say that we must 'do it calmly', that we must 'not harm our trade' and so on. For once, Oliver was actually on Harper's side, praising him for his defense of human rights, but Taber was relentless - noting that Harper's foreign policy is not 'studied', that it is created 'on the fly', that it is without value and so on.
CBC - the same - trying to attack Harper for harming our economic links with China, chastizing him for 'his' contacts with the Dalai Lama (conveniently forgetting that was Paul Martin, oh well)...and so on. It's relentless.
But, the causes of global warming are not scientifically proven. All we know is that temperatures are rising - however, they have risen before, long before industrialism. Therefore, whether this warming is part of a regular cycle or whether it is due to and only due to industrialism - is something we don't know.
The hand-in-hand alignment of industry with methods to lessen pollution is the only viable tactic; you can't destroy your economy and above all, a clean air agenda has to involve all countries, not just the developed world. It has to involved the big polluters such as China and India.
I wonder ....does this make Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr. a FOSSIL?
Yes Sammy I read that.....I have this message for our Media Twits :
http://ommag.blogspot.com/2006/10/ultimate-role-model-for-todays-media.html
I wonder ....does this make Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr. a FOSSIL?
Yes Sammy I read that.....I have this message for our Media Twits :
http://ommag.blogspot.com/2006/10/ultimate-role-model-for-todays-media.html
I've largely given up on trying to educate people about the science behind global warming. It's also getting too personally risky career-wise. My conclusions, reposted from a couple of days ago...
Asserting anthropogenic factors as the dominant mechanism of climate change is scientifically indefensible.
"Global warming" is a carefully manufactured tool used by entrenched interests to distract a foolish and shallow populace. It is simultaeously the new enemy and the new heresy. National and religious prejudice in new clothes...
Yeah ET, just saw that Harper bashing on CTV/CBC-Pravda. Unbelievable, you'd think they'd go look for the real story which is that the CPC has been working on trying to get China to deal with Canada regarding one of our own citizens, Huseyin Celil who is currently being held in the quagmire of Chinese detention due to from Amnesty International accounts - hardly reliable but hey, that he was spreading dissent by advocating religious freedoms - Muslim in this case. (I'll give CTV the credit that they mention it buried in one of their stories online). http://www.amnesty.ca/archives/open_letter_huseyin_celil2.php
That has been creating a lot of friction.
But anyway as to Kyoto, even if one believes all that crap, Kyoto's reductions towards temperature rise is so small a drop in the bucket we may as well not even bother.
ET, I agree with all of your comments completely and am so angry and frustrated with the media that I could just burst!! I've emailed them many complaints (on deaf ears, I'm sure).
My real concern is that the average Canadian has no clue about the truth on Kyoto (and lots of other issues I might add) because of the media bias and now a Decima poll comes out today saying that the Libs have pulled ahead (I know, polls mean very little right now..)! Are Canadians too clued out to realize that they are being had by the leftists in this country and the Liberal Party (with its media "helpers")who will do anything to get back into power, regardless of what is good for the country??!! I was hoping that we (collective "we") were smarter than that!!
I feel terrible for Rona Ambrose, she came out with legislation (after 13 years of nothing) which not only, logically and in an attainable fashion, reduces CO2s but also helps clean the air - not one positive word on this has been reported, only personal attacks and calling her a "failed" minister - they sure have nerve these talking head idiots! My stomach twists in knots just thinking about it!! It's absolutley disgusting and I'll have to move to Alberta (from Quebec) if the Libs get back in power again (where there is a little common sense at least). I can't stand this ignorance anymore and I am concerned for the future of this country for the first time in my life (I'm 43)!!
What can we do, really do, to get the truth out there?
If we prove that global warmingis from sunspots instead of industrialization then the suzukis of the world will have no more funding. Thats the real reason they lie and lie and LIE!!!!
Why has no one ever mentioned the money transfer from the industrialized nations to the China for credits. Where is that money coming from and to who is it going. My guess, your taxes to Strongs pocket and his lib leftists. Remember the Oil for Food Scandal.
Mark Steyn is currently making the point about "groupthink" amongst MSM, American and Canadian.
Since they both cleave to the left, the mass hysteria is overwhelming and so in-depth objective discourse on the ramification of the Kyoto agreement on the economies of developed nations is never broached. Only in blogs in the US and Canada is it explained.
The likes of Al Gore in the US, Taber, Mansbridge etal in Canada use the word Kyoto as a bludgeon as though it were fact and an immediate cure all and Harper in Canada is to blame.
I keep harking back to the Y2K computer hysteria that had airplanes about to fall from the sky come the year 2000.
MSM "groupthink" talking to each other, even if misinformation is involved.
Buyer beware!
As the Myths created since the last collapse of scientific certainly, at the begging of the last century. Expect more fantastic claims.
Those scientists not suborned by politics will flourish, as the old fossils with there absolutism crumble.
Already the predictors for all sorts of disciplines have been shown to be compromised. The Nova fracas , just the latest nail in the old chronologies.
Last century at the beginning they thought r5ocks falling was impossible from the sky. We lived in only one galaxy. Quantum physics where little regarded as magic.
We face another quantum shift in thinking. If these new myths fit facts the other models did not foresee.
Global warming is a superstitious faith proclaimed by an organization known mainly for abetting genocide. Its a form of Gia worship.
This plan is a socialists dream for Western extinction economically. Without benefit to the environment. With monies going to our enemies, who can pollute to there hearts content. Being paid by us with guilt money for the privilege of existing. A world money transfer scam. Eating away at any real solutions to urban pollution.
No wonder Koffin Annan loves it. That with UN over ship would bring billions into a select few families of totalitarians. Some monies would go to fishy leftist organizations, proclaiming there environment hysteria. Of course the usual research junkies would have life time work.
All this. While real science degenerated into a political morass.
Today’s science, is always tomorrow’s rewrite.
Well we've just wrapped up the whole Intelligent Design fracas. I suppose that was those darn biologists getting all uppity and political again.
The original article seems more than a little dimwitted to me. There's a big problem with the right's narrative on this issue. The United States is the front and centre in research supporting the anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis. And that research has been performed and communicated at great cost to the careers of many scientists. Yet somehow the contrarians claim to somehow have been the persecuted minority all along. And there's a good dash of communist conspiracy theory for good measure. This is a prime example of the "we create our own reality" paradigm.
Someone should do a tally of the number of people involved in conspiracies against the christian right in the North America. We have muslims, gays, secularists, lefties, the chinese, latinos... heck except for Israel it's just about everyone. That's several billion people. Don't suppose it might just be paranoia/consensual reality thinking?
Hmmm....does anyone know what publication has shown that MARS is also getting warmer?
Strange that Taber or Mansbridge have never mentioned it........
I wonder how many SUV's on Mars?
The Real Climate Change Catastrophe
Townhall ^ | 10/21/06 | Paul Driessen
Every snowstorm, hurricane, deluge or drought generates headlines, horror movies and television specials, demanding action to avoid imminent climate catastrophe. Skeptics are pilloried, labeled “climate criminals,” and threatened with “Nuremberg-style war crimes trials.”
Britain’s Royal Society has demanded that ExxonMobil stop funding researchers who say global warming is primarily the result of natural forces. Meanwhile, scientist James Hansen received $250,000 from Teresa Heinz-Kerry for insisting that warming is due to humans, and “socially responsible” investor services refuse to list or recommend corporations they deem insufficiently sensitive on the subject.
Not surprisingly, companies from Wal-Mart to BP, GE and JP Morgan have brought climate activists into their board rooms, lobbied Congress for climate and ethanol legislation, and retooled to produce new product lines intended to boost tax subsidies, favorable PR and profits. ...
Studies by National Academy of Sciences, NOAA, Danish and other scientists continue to raise inconvenient truths that question and contradict catastrophic climate change theories, computer models and assertions.
The “hockey stick” temperature graph (which claimed 1990-2000 was the hottest decade in 1000 years) was shown to be invalid;
the Southern Hemisphere has not warmed in the past 25 years;
the US is yet to be hit by a major hurricane in 2006;
interior Greenland and Antarctica are gaining ice mass, not losing it;
and Gulf Stream circulation has not slowed, as claimed in 2005.
Other recent studies conclude the sun’s radiant heat and cosmic ray levels affect planetary warming and cloud formation more strongly than acknowledged by climate alarmists. That’s logical.
Why would natural forces that caused climate change and bizarre weather in past centuries suddenly stop working?
Why would we assume (as many climate models do) that energy, transportation and pollution control technologies will suddenly stagnate at 2000 levels, after the amazing advances of the previous century? And can we afford the Quixotic attempt to stall or prevent future climate change?
Just the current Kyoto Protocol could cost the world up to $1 trillion per year, in regulatory bills, higher energy costs and lost productivity. That’s several times more than the price tag for providing the world with clean drinking water and sanitation – which would prevent millions of deaths annually from intestinal diseases.
Over 2 billion of the Earth’s citizens still do not have electricity, to provide basic necessities like lights, refrigeration and modern hospitals. Instead they breathe polluted smoke from wood and dung fires, and die by the millions from lung diseases. But opposition to fossil fuel power plants, in the name of preventing climate change, ensures that these “indigenous” lifestyles, diseases and deaths will continue. ...-
3w.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1723443/posts
I wonder if there is a link, a person, between the misguided pressure on our Mona in Nairobi AND the China/Canada snub ?? Anyone know that person ??
Spam bombardment -- sda must be causing some to loose sleep. Powerful people I suspect. For Kate is hitting a nerve. First Big-Time nerve-hitter since the Printing Press was invented 500+ years ago.
Amazing, almost all the posts on this subject are from like minded brained-washed clones. All in total denial. It saddens me that the global warming discussion is split between the right wing knuckleheads (consistent nay-sayers) and the left wing (whole hearted believers). I don’t agree with a lot of things that the extreme right and left wings expound on but with global warning, I am truly worried, worried at the fact the debate still goes on when in fact it should be over with and a global effort be made to take the steps within our power to counter act the conditions that advance global warming.
You choose to listen to the paid for science whores, supported by money from the big corporations (oil, coal). And what is most disgusting is that the right wing Republican Knuckleheads along with their Harper Conservative puppets stand united against common sense and the reputable scientists who have agreed on the serious problem evolving, a problem caused my human activity.
How short sighted. You choose to believe the lies, I choose otherwise.
charley - the only polls that the MSM report are the ones that show the Liberals ahead; they don't report the ones that show the CPC ahead.
For example - Nov 3; Ipsos Reid
CPC 37; Lib 29; NDP 19; Bloc 9: Green 5.
That poll, which showed the Conservatives ahead by 8 points, was never reported - not a whisper, not a word - in the MSM. I wrote Canada Press - why didn't they report this? I suggested they were biased; they wrote back that 'indeed they were not biased'; they only report on polls that they commission, and informed me that they couldn't report on the Ipsos Reid because they didn't know the questions. I asked them why didn't they ask for the questions from Ipsos Reid, and did they have them from the other poll? And wasn't it their duty to report the news? And I also suggested that their write up was biased - which it was, almost gloating that the CPC were not ahead. No reply.
A Decima poll of Nov 05
CPC 31; Liberals 28; NDP 18; Bloc 10; Green 9
Environics Nov 6
CPC 33; Liberals 32; NDP 19; Bloc 9; Green 5
Go to a web site, the usual triple w. Then canadawebpages dot com. Then slash pc-polls dot asp. You'll see all the polls.
The CPC remain ahead; the polls depend on the questions asked, and the interpretation. Notice how these polls, all essentially in the same time phase, vary - and that shows the the polls depends on the questions.
But - the CPC remains ahead. The NDP can't seem to break the teens - and the battle is between the Liberals and CPC.
What makes it so difficult for the CPC is that the Liberals have a mighty propaganda arm - paid for by the taxpayer. That's the CBC; it is relentless in its anti-Harper attacks. These include its news programs, its Fifth Estate, its 'Passionate Eye' and so on. Program after program.
Then, the other MSM stations and newspapers all have journalists brought up in the Trudeau deadbrain mentality; they are brainwashed into thinking of the Conservatives as Evil; into thinking of the US as Evil. You know - a mullah or imam in Iran or a communist propaganda machine in China, is no different than our MSM. The rejection of dissent, the constant barrage of criticism - a criticism that has nothing to say other than relentless hostility, sneers, attempts to denigrate.
And in the midst of all this cbc Get Rona campaign,lo and behold the Fifth Estate tonite trots out the anti-global warming "fossils"..couldn't stand to watch,but the dingbat on Newsworld this aft.was preaching for all to watch tonite!
I too enjoyed watching Taber reaching..or was it wretching",when the old seagull Oliver praised Harper's stance on China.I love to watch her squirm when Harper is honestly recognized for something positive.Notice how she tries to dig to get some dirt,any dirt,when things don't go her way!I would LOVE to see someone confront her on her blatant Lib.bias..especially when she has Thoren Hudema on..Jane gets almost orgasmic,when she thinks TH makes a hit on cons.pundit.I wonder how many of these so-called journalists have even read,or understand the Kyoto commitment,and could point to any movement(other than a money shuffle),on the part of the Libs.Or,if they have really looked at the Cons.plan,rather than parrot the suzuki,greenpeace,green party,mumbo-jumbo.Idiots ALL !
Would it surprise anyone here to learn that Roger Pielke Jr. also believes (and has stated in writing) that climate change is in part the result of human influence, and that the reduction of industrial greenhouse gas emissions is a necessary environmental strategy within the international community?
Or that the Kyoto Protocol in general is not a bad idea, only that it (and with other domestic and international environment policies) should focus also on adaptive--rather than simply mitigative--solutions?
Or that "a fundamental transformation of the global energy system" may in fact be needed, given the magnitude of the climage change problem.
Or that the problem isn't the science behind human-induced climate change, but rather the fact that the science has been politicized and thus warped (by both sides of the climate change debate)?
Thank you Canuckguy.
I think people are even ignoring the fact that there are localised harmful effects of pollution just because of their political belief.
I bet Canuckguy also fell for;
Y2K
DDT ban
Global Cooling
Ice Ages Coming
Martians
Malthus Food Shortages
Bermuda Triangle
Climate Hockey Stick Graph
Crop Circles
Perpetual Motion Machines
Oil For Food
Ontario Hydro's Costa Rican Rain Forest
Franken Foods
Fountain of Youth
Chain Letters -- nerve ??
Flat Earth Society
Lost City of Atlantis
Earth Charter
One World Governance
SARS Scare
West Nile Scare
Roswell NM Space Ship
Super Milage Carburators
But do not feel bad. If the MSM would have asked a couple of questions, none of the above would have seen the light of day. Including Kyoto.
MONA is in the process of busting the World's biggest Scam.
Thank you Canuckguy.
I think people are even ignoring the fact that there are localised harmful effects of pollution just because of their political belief.
Canuckguy,
I just got back from carpooling for hockey with one of your "sisters". We were listening to Climatoligists on QR77 (Rob Brekenridge on The World Tonight )discussing Global Warming and the long and the short of it was their contention that man-made C02 emissions have so little effect on the climate that they would be negligible. Your "sister" mocked them as being bought and paid for by big corporations. I asked her that if she was shown irrefutalbe evidence that was contrary to her position; would she change her mind. Her Answer:No!... because she Knew in her heart that she was right. So much for informed debate. I am not sure if the transcipts of the show are available but they would be benificial for any skeptic.
A, you seem to be rejecting the possibility that "scientists" would bend their results, mangle their experiment designs and pretty much lie like a bunch of Persian carpets for a political end.
I'm no expert on climatology, so I can't say for sure this has been done. But I am an expert on another Leftist hobby horse, gun control. I can say for sure it was done there. In prestigious medical journals to boot. I'll give you references if you want. Dozens of 'em.
Therefor it would surprise me if they -weren't- lying about anthropogenic climate change. That's what Leftists do. Lie, distort, and lie.
I'm not a proponant of intelligent design, but I am bemused at the assertions of biologists who state only they know enough about the nuts and bolts of genetics and evolution to truly understand that no such thing can exist.
One wonders how much time they spend with those at the cutting edge of quantum physics - and their theories about the existence of multiple dimensions.
langmann writes: The fashioners of Kyoto themselves say that the protocol will only reduce the INCREASE of global temperatures by 4%. That’s four percent. In other words temperature is going to rise by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees by 2100 and Kyoto will only reduce that rise by 0.02 to 0.28 degrees. In other words it’s a waste of time, like bailing out a swamped BC Ferry with a coffee cup.
If Kyoto is a waste of time, then what's a 50-year "made in Canada" environmental plan that's far less rigorous than Kyoto?
ET writes: But, the causes of global warming are not scientifically proven. All we know is that temperatures are rising - however, they have risen before, long before industrialism. Therefore, whether this warming is part of a regular cycle or whether it is due to and only due to industrialism - is something we don't know.
True, the science isn't conclusive. Forecasting into the future, even short-term, is always fraught with uncertainties. The planet is full of unknowns that throw off even the most sophisticated of climate modelling programs. Nothing can be claimed with 100% confidence.
Then again, the same could be said for, say, medical advice. When your doctor says you should stop eating those Krispy Kreme donuts or you'll eventually die of a heart attack, you pay attention even though your doctor can't guarantee the outcome.
As for scientific consensus regarding climate change, well, there'll always be dissenters. The majority of environmental scientists agree that humans contribute to global warming; a minority disagree. Most of the literature supports the majority view, but no definitive evidence exists to end all debate. Does the fact that some dissent mean we should disregard the claims of the majority? Consider the analogy of HIV/AIDS. The vast majority of medical scientists agree that HIV causes AIDS; a minority disagree (google 'Duesberg and Farber' for starters). Again, most of the literature supports the majority view, but no definitive evidence exists to end all debate. Does the fact that some dissent mean you're now going to have unprotected sex with an HIV-positve partner? No, of course not. Even if the science is inconclusive, you take precautions, because while it's possible that those proactive precautionary measures are unnecessary, boy, would it suck for you if it turns out the science was right all along.
It's also true that while the science on global warming is still a work-in-progress, the science on greenhouse gases and environmental air pollution as harmful to human health is quite conclusive. We can all agree that wrapping our lips around a car muffler with the engine running is unwise, just as we can agree that having a picnic atop a smokestack of a coal-firing plant is a Very Bad Idea. Shouldn't that alone be enough to warrant urgent collective action towards the reduction of industrial emissions?
That's fine Canuckguy, if you believe in human caused climate change, I have no problem with your belief.
The real point is that according to the Kyoto summits itself, by following the agreement we'll only reduce as a global community, the increase by 4%. In other words instead of temperature rising by 5'C in 2100 A.D. it will only rise by 4.8'C.
Now how is this effective? And that's if China and India join in which, honestly, is highly doubtful considering China has the excuse that they produce less CO2 per capita therefore should be allowed more...
My point is Kyoto is just hot air itself. Its not going to do anything. So if one believes the disaster is coming, we're screwed.
Secondly I'm sure Canuckguy, you're a good supporter of the Lieberal Party of Canada. Stephane Dion admitted to Paul Wells (who's not a conservative hack) that if the Liberals had won on Jan 23 2006, he would have had to admit Canada couldn't fulfill its commitments.
Canada made agreements at Kyoto purely based upon whim and not upon any science produced by the Ministry of Resources and the Ministry of Environment, causing dissatisfaction within the public service's ranks let me tell you. Its disgusting that we did this, like this. Liberals stink like day old baby diapers.
Sure, lots of "Scientists" believe in the doomsday man-made GW theory. I would dare say most of those rely on gov't $$$ or seek donations using Preacher type scare tactics. Think Gore, Suzuki. No Problem = No Funds
Right on, Canuckguy. The "right", and Conservatives, just don't get it. Climate change is so obviously, so unquestionably man made, and the growing worldwide political consensus is the final proof. Those 15,000 "scientists" who signed a petition condemning the science behind the Kyoto protocol, who said is was "political" and not based on science were unquestionably all being paid off by big oil corporations. It's pretty obvious.
What I find really laughable is when people call Kyoto supporters ignorant; I am personally a case where there's no ignorance at all, being a very well-read individual including on climatological matters. For example, I know that the prairie provinces were under a shallow tropical sea at one point; I know that during the last ice age, ending just ten thousand years ago, all of Canada was underneath three to four kilometres of ice. And I am also fully cognisant of the fact that during the "Little Optimum" in the early middle ages, Africa was three degrees celsius warmer than it is today, and that during that same period (900 to 1300 A.D.) subtropical plants, including fig trees, grew in Germany.
But here's the thing that doesn't often get mentioned: humans on earth didn't really reach any sizeable population until around the start of the last ice age; so what does that suggest about the cause of the ice age, and the Little Optimum, and so on? Right? Perhaps people like myself and Canuckguy have more ability to connect such dots when it comes to the causes of climate change, but that can't explain why the commenters here seem unable to, event when political consensus has already connected the dots for them.
What's different between now and 1000 A.D., or the last ice age, is that today we have the political will to realize that the cause of global warming is cars, and SUVs, and prosperity in general, and that we absolutely have to put a stop to these causes before we destroy the planet.
The bottom line is this: if you look at the changes in temperatures in the last twenty years, there is clear data, right? No question. Well, back in 1300 A.D., they didn't have that kind of data. So....what should that teach us? See what I mean? Okay? I would suggest that some of the commenters here should turn on their TV's for a change, and watch the news, to find out what's really happening to this planet. You all might learn something.
@ A:
Other than the 2012 targets, Canada's 50 year plan is Kyoto and was identical to those of the Liberal leadership contenders.... start by learning the facts not the rhetoric.
Your analogy about HIV is merely a strawman argument (however as a doc I do believe HIV causes AIDS). For a long time we thought ulcers were caused by only overactive proton pumps in the stomach. Now, after much fighting by a very few underdog scientists against both established scientists and drug companies we know that H. pylori is responsible for a good number of those ulcers. Science has been wrong before as it has also been right... one cannot use this as a basis for supporting an argument that science is always right or always wrong.
The real thing to note is that many scientists when interviewed tend to be very cautious regarding climate change, much of their findings like in anything are blown up by the media and special interest groups.
Phantom writes: A, you seem to be rejecting the possibility that "scientists" would bend their results, mangle their experiment designs and pretty much lie like a bunch of Persian carpets for a political end."
No, I'm not. I just found it interesting that so many commenters here have used Kate's post regarding Mr. Pielke Jr.'s piece about science-as-politics as a launching point to claim that the science of global warming itself is a fraud. Which is weird, for two reasons: (1) because Mr. Pielke Jr. himself would disagree with the commenters who claim that the climate change research literature is fundamentally misguided; and (2) because the commenters here are committing precisely the sin that Mr. Pielke Jr. lamented in his critique--that is, they're politicizing the science.
That's what Leftists do. Lie, distort, and lie.
Now, is that your scientific opinion?
Oh, and I'd love those references on gun control.
Libby can type with toungue firmly in cheek. Gore can do it while talking !!!
Langmann: Other than the 2012 targets, Canada's 50 year plan is Kyoto and was identical to those of the Liberal leadership contenders.... start by learning the facts not the rhetoric.
I'm quite aware of the substantive content of the proposed plan (thanks for the patronizing dig, though). You claimed in an earlier post that the objectives of Kyoto are exceedingly modest and thus a waste of time, equivalent to "bailing out a swamped BC Ferry with a coffee cup." Your implication seemed to be that what's needed is a much larger bailing bucket.
Now you claim that the current government's Clean Air Act is equivalent to Kyoto, except with a longer timeframe. Since you state this uncritically, one assumes that you support the Tory plan. Yet, how is a repackaged Kyoto (only with less pressing deadlines) in any way a bigger bailing bucket? If anything, it replaces the coffee cup with a thimble. (Incidentally, a 50-year plan is a rather bizarre--and exceedingly rare--policy creature, equivalent to John Diefenbaker implementing an environmental policy agenda with an end-date of somewhere around today. To be fair, the Liberal's utter inaction on Kyoto through the '90s meant the 2012 targets were doomed anyway.)
Your analogy about HIV is merely a strawman argument (however as a doc I do believe HIV causes AIDS). For a long time we thought ulcers were caused by only overactive proton pumps in the stomach. Now, after much fighting by a very few underdog scientists against both established scientists and drug companies we know that H. pylori is responsible for a good number of those ulcers. Science has been wrong before as it has also been right... one cannot use this as a basis for supporting an argument that science is always right or always wrong.
Claiming that science is "always right or always wrong" wasn't my argument at all. Also, the HIV denialist analogy was just that--an analogy. It was neither presented as--not is it in fact--a "strawperson" argument. My actual point was that, in the absence of conclusive scientific evidence (which is usually the case), we all take preventative or therapeutic measures given what we know at the time, and what the bulk of existing evidence--however tentative--suggests is the ideal course of action. Take your own H. pylori example. As you know, prior to the work of Marshall & Warren, a standard treatment for peptic ulcers was proton pump inhibitors, which was justified based on what was known at the time. Certainly, the ulcer-proton pump science was incomplete (and, we now know, largely off-target), but that didn't stop physicians in those days from treating their patients anyway, based on what the existing literature suggested needed to be done. With new knowledge came new treatments.
In the same way, the current climate change science may be incomplete, but that shouldn't stop policymakers from implementing better environmental policies now, based on what the present literature--which firmly suggests that GHGs do the environment no favours--indicates needs to be done. New knowledge in the future will undoubtedly suggest new approaches, but until that literature emerges, the current politicization of the existing science, and the partisan poo-pooing of Kyoto, only serve to delay and undermine much needed action.
Kate "I am bemused at the assertions of biologists who state only they know enough about the nuts and bolts of genetics and evolution to truly understand that no such thing can exist."
I think that's a subtle misinterpretation. Biologists have demolished Intelligent Design "hypothesis". They've done this by refuting the Intelligent Design case point for point. Most of these points are simply IDers misquoting or misinterpreting exsisting studies (and it's hard not to get the impression that the IDers are basicaly fraudsters by the manner in which they've done this). And in some cases they've done this by demonstrating the contrary (in one case they reverse engineered a molecule that was deemed to be "irreducibly complex" and demonstrated how only two simple mutations were necessary.
That's not the same as refuting ID on principle.
Libby "
What's different between now and 1000 A.D., or the last ice age, is that today we have the political will to realize that the cause of global warming is cars, and SUVs, and prosperity in general, and that we absolutely have to put a stop to these causes before we destroy the planet."
It isn't certain that Global Warming will destroy the planet. It may be catastrophic for Africa and South America but not for Europe and North America and therein lies the rub.
Note that the main objection to Kyoto consists of decrying a transfer of wealth to the developing world. The truth is that the wealthy north doesn't want to make a massive capitol outlay or lifestyle sacrifices to forestall a disaster in the developing world.
I don't buy Lovelock's doomsday Global Warming scenarios but he's right on one score when he says "The developing world isn't our problem. We're theirs".
Kyoto is purely an empty gesture it's signatories have done next to nothing to meet their targets. Carbon trading won't work because just about every country involved is dishonest about their emissions anyways.
Unlike the CFC/Ozone layer crisis the costs of remediation are huge and the people being asked to foot the bill aren't facing harsh consequences. A lot of countries actually stand to benefit from Global Warming (The English wine industry is experiencing a boom). The hypothetical prospect of a few million starving brown people a few decades from now is inspiring a lot of hand wringing but won't amount to any real action on the issue.
The only reason why Global Warming is an issue is because people think they're personaly threatened. Once they realize it's an African and South American problem I expect the hoopla to fade.
In the Sunday Telegraph, Christopher Monkton wrote an article, "Climate chaos? Don't believe it"
It's a shocker, however not unexpected coming from criminals.
Starting with the hypocritical scenerio of 6000 delegates being brought to Kenya on jumbo jets...
Essentially it proves lies and purposful climate change omissions and errors by the UN, aided and abetted by the former Canadian Liberal government.
It fully exposes the use of an environmental smokescreen created by the UN/left in order to redistribute wealth.
telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/05/nosplit/nwarm05.xml
I think the key is that Kyoto has a crushing effect on developed industry. And it throws money towards one part of a problem that might not be a problem at all.
I'm for a more balanced and fiscally managable approach to environmental improvements. In order to reach Kyoto targets in the given timeframe, we'd essentially have to shut down industry, and retool it entirely. Gee, that's not going to cripple us economically.
Plus the average Joe doesn't think that Kyoto would effect them. It's just a "big bad industry" thing. They're the ones responsible, make them pay for it.
There are other more pressing environmental issues, that should be addressed alongside of CO2 emmision issues. Other issues that we can have a marked effect on, as opposed to portions of a percentage point changes. As we combat the more pressing issues, the natural effect is that we will deal with the CO2 issues as well. Try to make things cleaner in general not just CO2 cleaners.
Plus I'm against anything that requires money for this issue to go outside of Canada. If it's supposed to be for cleanup and putting us right then fund it here, and not spend it on "carbon credits". Either it's about environment or it's about global redisribution of wealth.
@A:
That's my point. If you think GHG is causing Global Warming than you should be rallying against the stupidity that therefore Kyoto is, as its final targets (aside from 2012) are essentially the same thing contained within the CPC Clean Air Act.
Since I haven't heard any complaining about this by the media or many environmental groups even on their sites or pamphlets my only assumption is that they are behaving similar to anyone else with ulterior motives.
(Left out by all the whiners is the substantive actions on other pollutants that apparently no-one cares about except a few environmentalists and physicians who are concerned about air quality and its effects on lung diseases - but those people are left out in the wilderness in the media self-righteous scream).
Hey some of these crack-pots say we should introduce LIONS and ELEPHANTS here in NORTH AMERICA frankly i think their out of their minds
Attn: B. Hoax Aware
Regarding your list of world dangers, you left out
Global Wobble - with the movement of heavy materials from the southern hemisphere to the developed nations of the northern hemisphere,is a weight shift which will lead to a planetary wobble which will affect the orbit and thus the climate. No doubt about it. (see Nov 16 Globe& Mail)
A, you wanted references? Ok.
Start here: (add the http etc.) www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=10881
Its the blurb fron the US National Research Council on their meta-analysis of the existing literature on gun control. Their careful, politically intelligent statement begins:
"The role of guns in U.S. society is a subject of intense policy debate and disagreement. However, current research and data on firearms and violent crime are too weak to support strong conclusions about the effects of various measures to prevent and control gun violence..."
Now, to see the reason why this is so despite hundreds of studies extant in the medical and criminological literature on the subject, go read this:
Arthur Kellermann and Donald Reay. "Protection or Peril? An Analysis of Firearm Related Deaths in the Home." The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 314, no. 24, June 1986, pp. 1557-60.
I'll leave you to discover for yourself the various shortcomings the study has, and to perhaps wonder how it made it into the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.
After you chew that one down I've got about 40 more just like it. In JAMA, NEJM, CMAJ, BMJ, The Lancet, Sci. Am., lots of big name journals.
So just to reiterate my previous point, don't be telling me about the sanctity of science and the purity of peer review. I'm not buying.
And that, in a nutshell, is why I am 99.8% sure that global warming is crap. Lying liars lie. I give it a 0.2% chance of being true anyway, even though they are lying about it.
But just to show y'all what a tolerant red neck I am, I refrained from head butting the Green Peace wanker who showed up at my door at dinner time today.
Guess I'm mellowing.
Hey Spurwing Plover! Guess what, they have elephants and lions at the African Lion Safari right outside Hammilton. And guess what else we have around here now!
Elephant bot flies.
Like a horse fly, but the size of a June bug. They have an unsavory life cycle too. How great is that?!
A few years ago 17000 to 18000 scientists signed a letter urging us to reject the kyoto treaty and the fact is the U.S. Senate have refused to vote on the treaty becuase its based on junk science and unreliable computer simulations and just what happened to the new ice age we were suppost to be having back in the 70s?
Read Pielke Jr. carefully. (He's the author Kate quoted.) In fact, read him at all, and you'll probably get it, better than many commenters here. As commenter A pointed out, Pielke Jr. takes climate change seriously. Pielke Jr. takes greenhouse gas emissions seriously as a cause of climate change. And Pielke Jr. is not categorically critical of the Kyoto Protocol. A quote from Pielke Jr.: "Does this mean that the Kyoto Protocol is in general a bad idea? Of course not." (From his Guardian Op-Ed on Adaptation, with the headline "Climate Change is serious, but we have to have a realistic response".)
I am happy to see debate about both the policy and the science. What disturbs me is to see commenters' persistent repetition of snippets of apparent contradictions to the science (Mars is warming, sunspots affect climate, my hometown is cold this year) as if these little tidbits are all that an individual needs to know. The policy discussions have huge stakes, and deserve a lot deeper study than just finding a tidbit that is more comfortable to believe in.
More importantly: we as citizens should lead and direct our government, not the other way around. Why would we willfully sedate ourselves by chanting anti-science? When you repeat one of these snippets, do you really help avert a policy disaster? Or do you keep your friends and neighbours laughing at Kyoto while they rev their engines and crank up their thermostats, so that government and industry are forced to take even more drastic measures to cut CO2 emissions and clean the air?