Most global warming advocates (fanatics) have had their blinders on so long they don’t even miss their peripheral vision. They just keep right on down the parade route, never worrying about what’s causing all the noise on the sides of the road. They eat what they’re being fed, without questioning it. And they’ve gotten so used to the taste of rotten meat that they don’t even want the fresh cuts anymore.
Examples abound. These are from the comments at a recent God’s Politics post:
I suspect few of the people who post here have actually read articles about global warming in peer-reviewed science journals.
And if the statements of Dr. Heidi Cullen on the Weather Channel are any indication, the peer review process is worthless, because those peers wouldn’t take the time to look at the research of anyone who believes the current warming is natural. But they pretend that she’s no indicator of the scientific community:
My concern about what you wrote above is that I don’t know about any real quality research that is *opposing* the anthropogenic view. We’ve been around this topic before; the independent, peer-reviewed scientific journals carry very little, if any, evidence that counters this view. Those who are saying they aren’t sure humans are contributing to climate change are mostly those in the pay of the oil, coal, and other energy industries.
This is one of the worst straw-men I’ve seen in a long time. People keep saying this, but provide no names, no documentation, no evidence whatsoever to back it up. They just blame any opposition on oil money. Well, there are plenty of climate experts who are not in the employ of any oil or energy companies, but are tenured professors and department chairs at major universities. Here are some names:
David Deming an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma and an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA).
- Timothy Ball, PhD in Climatology — “Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn’t exist.â€
Thomas Sowell identified a half dozen a few weeks ago without working up much of a sweat:
- Dr. S. Fred Singer, who set up the American weather satellite system, and who published some years ago a book titled “Hot Talk, Cold Science.â€
- A professor of meteorology at MIT, Richard S. Lindzen
- A professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, Patrick J. Michaels
- A professor of climatology at the University of Delaware, David R. Legates
- Skeptical experts in other countries around the world include Duncan Wingham, a professor of climate physics at the University College, London, and Nigel Weiss of Cambridge University.
Obviously all lightweights (/sarcasm).
A few more, from the NRSP:
- Dr. Ian Clark, Professor of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa
- Dr. Tim Patterson, Professor of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, Ottawa
- Dr. Vincent Gray, Expert Reviewer for the IPCC and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of ‘Climate Change 2001′, Wellington, New Zealand
- Dr. Sallie Baliunas, astrophysicist and climate researcher, Boston, Massachusetts
- Dr. Fred Michel, Director, Institute of Environmental Science and Associate Professor of Earth Sciences, Carleton University
- Dr. R.M. Carter, Australia, Research Professor at James Cook University (Queensland) and the University of Adelaide (South Australia)
The “oil company funding” argument also ignores the fact that many of the scientists who are pushing the anthropogenic warming theory are on the payrolls of alternative energy companies.
One of the other arguments is how everyone could afford a Prius and how cheap they are compared to SUV’s:
The real problem is that there isn’t a real alternative, at this point, for most Americans. People can’t afford to purchase a Prius. Raising the gas tax isn’t going to make them any better able to afford a Prius.
Have you ever actually priced one? I have, and what I found is that the base price was around $20,000…The argument that the Prius is too expensive is patently and unequivocably false.
Most people can’t afford $20,000 (and they cost more than that). That is far above the average purchase price of an automobile. It is not as though one can go buy a used Prius anywhere.
you are correct, the starting price of a Prius is more than 20K. According to Cars.com, it is $22,175 – $23,070. This is still far less than the starting price for the average SUV–go to Cars.com and click on SUV’s–it gives you a list of the prices, and only a couple are below 20K, and not much below. Most are well above 25K. What’s my point? My point is that plenty of people find a way to afford SUV’s. If people can’t afford 20K for a car, then why are there so many SUV’s around? I doubt even a used SUV is much less than 20K. Your point was that the Prius is too expensive for people to afford. If people can afford a 35K vehicle and the gas to fuel it, they can afford a 23K Prius and the far less gas it takes to fuel it.
Another blantant unsupported lie by our resident Republi-Nazi. I just did a search of the internet and most new cars cost more than 20,000 and the average is well above 20,000.
a quick search on used SUV’s in the area I live in (and that is the dominant car driven) shows that even used vehicles don’t dip below 20K until they are at least three years old.
All of these posts ignore the actual facts of vehicle costs. The Prius starts at 22k. Here are the starting prices for several other vehicles:
- Honda CRV: 20,600
- Honda Element: 18,900
- Ford Escape: 19,245
- Ford Ranger: 14,495
- Ford F-150: 19,200
- Chevy Colorado/GMC Canyon: 14,595
- Chevy HHR: 16,550
- Saturn Vue: 18,100
- Toyota Tacoma: 14,180
- Toyoa RAV4: 20,950
- Hyundai Santa Fe: 21,045
- Dodge Nitro: 19,885
- Jeep Compass: 15,985
- Jeep Patriot: 14,985
- Jeep Wrangler: 19,185
- Wrangler Unltd.: 20,895
All of these vehicles are trucks or SUVs. And there are plenty more with prices of 22-24k. For all their claims of going to cars.com to price vehicles, they didn’t do a great job, especially since these are all sticker for new vehicles. Besides, hybrids aren’t the answer anyway, diesel is.
There are many more badly framed arguments, and most of them are as easily countered as these. They’re hardly worth the argument, but this is entertainment for me. Anybody find fault with my research?
UPDATE: See comment #2 below for some interesting facts about the NRSP. Mainly, that it has ties with an energy lobbying group and is funded by energy companies. But there is one surprise. Note that the supporters include alternative energy companies that would benefit from regulation on fossil-fuel use. Nuclear, natural gas, wind, and hydrogen would get a huge boost if heavy restrictions were put on coal and petrol.
But the question here is whether or not industry is allowed to commission research to support its position. You may think that the people who are paying the bill for the other side have nothing to gain, but that’s not true. Power is always at stake.
And you have to recognize that there’s another likelihood: that these climate scientists are skeptical on their own, and want to do research…but the only people who will fund it are those that are skeptical themselves, or would gain from their results. Just because anthropogenic global warming is the “mainstream” scientific position, doesn’t mean it’s right.
How about eugenics?
Eugenics is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention.[1] The purported goals have variously been to create healthier, more intelligent people, save society’s resources, and lessen human suffering.
Earlier proposed means of achieving these goals focused on selective breeding, while modern ones focus on prenatal testing and screening, genetic counseling, birth control, in vitro fertilization, and genetic engineering. Opponents argue that eugenics is immoral and is based on, or is itself, pseudoscience. Historically, eugenics has been used as a justification for coercive state-sponsored discrimination and human rights violations, such as forced sterilization of persons with genetic defects, the killing of the institutionalized and, in some cases, genocide of races perceived as inferior.
This was mainstream science, supported by Alexander Graham Bell and Winston Churchill. It even led to US laws for compulsory sterilization for those considered “unfit”. In the US immigration was cut to lower the number of “unfit individuals” coming in from the “inferior stock” of other countries. In Canada those immigrants who did not know English well did poorly on IQ tests, and the result was sterilization of many who didn’t even fall into the category.
In science, mainstream is not best. Don’t just look at the results, look at the process, the research, the testing, and the models. Ask questions. Is the sun hotter? Is carbon-dioxide really the most important greenhouse gas?
Discussion of the relative importance of different infrared absorbers are confused by the overlap between the spectral lines due to different gases, widened by pressure broadening. As a result, the absorption due to one gas cannot be thought of as independent of the presence of other gases. One convenient approach is to remove the chosen constituent, leaving all other absorbers, and the temperatures, untouched, and monitoring the infrared radiation escaping to space. The reduction in infrared absorption is then a measure of the importance of that constituent. More precisely, define the greenhouse effect (GE) to be the difference between the infrared radiation that the surface would radiate to space if there were no atmosphere and the actual infrared radiation escaping to space. Then compute the percentage reduction in GE when a constituent is removed. The table below is computed by this method, using a particular 1-dimensional model of the atmosphere. More recent 3D computations lead to similar results.
Gas removed percent reduction in GE H2O 36% CO2 12% O3 3%
There are lots of questions to be asked, and it’s counter productive to refuse to even examine someone’s science because of who made the donations. Besides, if you knew your science was good, and the opposing science was bad, would you need to go around calling for peoples jobs if they disagree or telling the press only to print your version?
Technorati Tags: anthropogenic, co2, global_warming, gods_politics, greenhouse_gas, h2o, heidi_cullen, hybrids, peer_review, Politics, prius, Science, skeptics, suvs, water_vapor, Whatever
6 responses so far...
NRSP Controlled by Energy Lobbyists
18 Jan 07
Two of the three Directors on the board of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project are senior executives of the High Park Advocacy Group, a Toronto-based lobby firm that specializes in “energy, environment and ethics.”
Timothy Egan, is the president of the High Park Advocacy Group, and a registered lobbyist for the Canadian Gas Association and the Canadian Electricity Association. Julio Legos is the High Park Group’s Director of Regulatory Affairs, whose biography says, “Julio’s practice at HPG is focused on federal and provincial energy and environmental law and policy, particularly as they affect Canadian industry.”
The Executive Director of the NRSP, Tom Harris, is also a former High Park consultant, and the NRSP mailing address is in the building where, until recently, High Park maintained its Toronto offices.
It appears that High Park has taken a page from the APCO-Worldwide playbook. APCO is the PR and lobbying firm that created a “grassroots” organization called The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC) on behalf of tobacco giant Philip Morris in the 1990s. In that situation, Steve Milloy “quit” APCO to set up a pro-tobacco website called http://www.JunkScience.com. Milloy later took over as executive director of TASSC and continues, today, to lobby against smoking restrictions. Documents, since made public, show that APCO established TASSC specifically to create the appearance of an arm’s length organization supporting tobacco’s cause.
In this instance, the creation of the NRSP as an “arm’s length” “grassroots” organization also enabled High Park and to avoid identifying who is paying for the NRSP’s public campaign against climate change regulations. The federal government’s own website makes this kind of “grassroots” lobbying subject to the restrictions of the Lobbyists’ Registration Act (subject to an important loophole).
The Question and Answer section under the General Registration Requirements of the act states:
“4. What is “grass-roots” lobbying?
“Grass-roots lobbying is a communications technique that encourages individual members of the public or organizations to communicate directly with public office holders in an attempt to influence the decisions of government. Such efforts primarily rely on use of the media or advertising, and result in mass letter writing and facsimile campaigns, telephone calls to public office holders, and public demonstrations.”
(Here, for the record, is a recent example of the NRSP’s Tom Harris doing just that.)
But setting up a separate organization allows High Park to claim an exception, also to be found in the Q&A section of the General Registration Requirements:
“5. I am involved in organizing and directing a grass-roots lobbying campaign. Do I have to register?
“If you are a registered lobbyist, you must report grass-roots lobbying as a communications technique. If you are not engaged in any registerable lobbying activity, it is not necessary to register for the grass-roots lobbying campaign.”
Thus, by removing himself from the High Park employee list and taking an office across the hall (the NRSP mailing address is #2-263 Roncesvalles Avenue, in Toronto; High Park’s address was, until very recently, #4-263 Roncesvalles Avenue) Tom Harris is able to carry out any direction Timothy Egan may be giving in this “grassroots” campaign against energy industry regulation without fulfilling what the Lobbyist act describes as the “obligation to provide accurate information to public office holders and to disclose the identity of the person or organization on whose behalf the representation is made and the purpose of the representation.”
The federal Lobbyists Registry was created specifically so that politicians and members of the public can know who is paying to influence the political decision-making process. To that end, the federal government’s Lobbyist Code of Conduct says:
“1. Identity and purpose
“Lobbyists shall, when making a representation to a public office holder, disclose the identity of the person or organization on whose behalf the representation is made, as well as the reasons for the approach.”
But Tom Harris is not technically a lobbyist and Timothy Egan and Julio Legos may well be “volunteering” their time as directors of the NRSP.
So, Egan is a registered lobbyist for the Canadian Gas Association, which is part of an energy industry coalition that includes the Canadian Nuclear Association, the Canadian Association of Oil Well Drilling Contractors, the Canadian Energy Alliance, the Propane Gas Association of Canada, Inc., the Petroleum Services Association of Canada, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute, the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association and the Coal Association of Canada, (as well as some conservation and alternative energy interests such as the Canadian Energy Efficiency Alliance, the Canadian Wind Energy Association and Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Canada). But while a paid apologist for this fossil-fuel-dominated group directs NRSP operations, and while the NRSP’s stated purpose is to block government action on climate change - the Canadian public has no right to ask who’s paying the bills for the NRSP campaign.
That may be legal, but it doesn’t seem right.
Excellent compilation of research here. Really appreciated your comment on Wallis’ blog. Where did you develop your libertarian way of seeing things?
It’s the product of bouncing between environments where I’m either the most liberal or most conservative person there, and trying to figure out what in the world I’m thinking.
Elmo, on the God’s Politics blog, you complemented me for my being able to disagree with others respectfully. I was therefore disappointed that you quoted me out of context above:
“My concern about what you wrote above is that I don’t know about any real quality research that is *opposing* the anthropogenic view. We’ve been around this topic before; the independent, peer-reviewed scientific journals carry very little, if any, evidence that counters this view. Those who are saying they aren’t sure humans are contributing to climate change are mostly those in the pay of the oil, coal, and other energy industries.
For the sake of your readers, here is the rest of what I wrote:
“Regarding the peer review process itself, sure, nothing that involves fallible humans is perfect. But while it’s easy to say that the peer reviewers simply refuse to publish articles that take issue with the “consensus” view, one must realize that the peer review process isn’t intended to weed out controversial views. In science, controversy actually is highly valued. If someone were to challenge the prevailing scientific view on just about any issue–and have the evidence to back it up and a method for generating that evidence that is repeatable–he or she would over time be hailed as genius, hero, or something similar. But that’s the point. The evidence has to be supportable through rigorous testing, and other scientists have to be able to duplicate the results. The peer review process is designed to weed out faulty methodologies, not contrary opinions. The reason the peer reviewed journals no longer publish climate articles that counter the anthropogenic view is that nobody with a contrary view has been able to submit an article that that passes this rigorous methodology test.
“In principle, the anthropogenic view is subject to modification and even discarding in the face of contrary evidence. But the evidence has to pass scientific scrutiny. In practice, nobody with a contrary viewpoint has been able to do that. Therefore, unless and until someone can demonstrate that the anthropogenic view is based on inadequate or faulty evidence or methodology, it will stand as the prevailing view.”
Peace,
Don
Don,
I was just using your quote as representative of the belief that most/nearly all of the scientists against the anthropogenic view are on the payroll of oil/coal companies. However, there is evidence available about the serious shortcomings of the peer review process, including a lack of fact checking.
A number of climate scientists have demonstrated the faulty science behind the anthropogenic view, because of bias in the peer community (Re: Heidi Cullen), their research doesn’t get through the review process.
Your arguments are quite cogent and balanced, and while I disagree, I respect your approach to discussion. But I can’t quote all of every argument out of practicality. It wasn’t an attack against your view, but against an argument that a number of people use.
Blogs4God
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