Utah Assembly Passes Resolution Denying Climate Change

cowtamer writes "The Utah State Assembly has passed a resolution decrying climate change alarmists and urging '...the United States Environmental Protection Agency to immediately halt its carbon dioxide reduction policies and programs and withdraw its "Endangerment Finding" and related regulations until a full and independent investigation of climate data and global warming science can be substantiated.' Here is the full text of H.J.R 12." The resolution has no force of law. The Guardian article includes juicy tidbits from its original, far more colorful, version.

Comments

I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out

[eldavojohn]

WHEREAS, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a blend of government officials and scientists, does no independent climate research but relies on global climate researchers;

What do you propose to collect independent data from 1950 to 2010? Time travel? Of course you have to rely on global climate researchers.

I more than understand their concerns with cap and trade but some of these premise statements are a bit off track:

WHEREAS, the recently completed Copenhagen climate change summit resulted in little agreement, especially among growing CO2-emitting nations like China and India, and calls on the United States to pay billions of dollars to developing countries to reduce CO2 emissions at a time when the United States' national debt will exceed $12 trillion;

So what the state of Utah is saying is that since no one else is taking this seriously, we shouldn't have to? I agree that it will hurt us economically and competitively with other nations but you have to look at what scientific evidence we have before you mire this in those sorts of things.

WHEREAS, according to the World Health Organization, 1.6 billion people do not have adequate food and clean water; and WHEREAS, global governance related to global warming and reduction of CO2 would ultimately lock billions of human beings into long-term poverty:

Funny that absent from their "concerns" of foreign citizens is the statement that "increasing temperatures will increase drought and famine in equatorial developing nations resulting in starvation and displacement." Third world peoples will be the first to feel the effects of climate change while people like me in the United States will hear about this on the news. We have the resources and means to deal with the beginnings of it, they don't. Their governments will have bigger problems than debt and slowed economic development.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of the state of Utah urges the United States Environmental Protection Agency to immediately halt its carbon dioxide reduction policies and programs and withdraw its "Endangerment Finding" and related regulations until a full and independent investigation of H. [ the ] .H climate data H. [ conspiracy ] .H and global warming science can be substantiated.

A "full and independent investigation" is exactly what the EPA tried to do. Problem is that everyone is on the planet. Good luck finding sentient beings to do an 'independent investigation' of our planet. Anyone else has a stake in this one way or the other because they live here.

Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out

[PhilHibbs]

Climate change (and I mean that in the broadest sense, be it global warming or the onset of an ice age) is never a simple "everywhere gets a little bit warmer" or "everywhere gets a little bit dryer". Some places change in one way, some in another. The UK had the coldest January in 25 years, but the global average temperature in January was the highest since records began. Some places will have droughts, some places will have more snow, but it's still impossible to predict with any accuracy what will happen in any one place at any one time. That doesn't mean we should throw in the towel and say "it's impossible to be certain, so lets give up".

Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out

[Elektroschock]

From a German perspective it sounds a bit weird, I mean, can there be any good argument against greater energy efficiency? Even if there was no climate change, why waste energy?

Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out

[Anonymous Coward]

So, let me get this straight.

If scientists correct for bad monitoring stations, either by throwing the data point out or applying a compensation function for the urban heat island effect, you global warming deniers raise a shitstorm about how the scientists are just making data up.

If scientists present the full, unaltered dataset, you global warming deniers throw the baby out with the bathwater and say that all the data is bad because there are some bad data points.

It appears to me that the real problem is every time researchers try to present evidence for an answer to your question, you move the goal posts.

I love the double standards

[Gadget_Guy]

How many times have we seen this sort of argument as contained in TFA:

It accused those seeking action on climate change of riding a "gravy train" and their efforts would "ultimately lock billions of human beings into long-term poverty".

So in other words, they accuse the climate change scientists of of acting in their own financial interests by being alarmists and then also complain about how doing something about the problem will adversely affect the financial interests of the skeptics. It is a massive double standard!

They claim that scientists toe the climate change line to get grants, and yet can you imagine how much definitive proof against man-made climate change would be worth to businesses? Any scientist who was in it for the money could name their price (or at least, their wife could name her price to be a consultant to industry).

The problem with this debate is that one side has to prove their claims, while the other side just needs to create doubt by using unsubstantiated and even sometimes completely discredited claims. In this case, claiming that the other side is on the "gravy train" isn't supported by any evidence at all, and yet there is no way to disprove it either. In all the leaked emails regarding this, where was the shred of evidence that anybody was trying to rort taxpayers money?

Re:I love the double standards

[polar red]

The problem with this debate is that one side has to prove their claims, while the other side just needs to create doubt by using unsubstantiated and even sometimes completely discredited claims. In this case, claiming that the other side is on the "gravy train" isn't supported by any evidence at all, and yet there is no way to disprove it either.

That's exactly my thought as well; and i would even go a bit further:
1/ the greenhouse effect is proven; without the Greenhouse-effect it would be nearly 20C colder on average, and CO2 is one of the gases responsible.
2/ CO2 levels has changed dramatically since the industrial revolution, in fact we can calculate how much CO2 we dump into the atmosphere by looking at the amount of oil and gas sold.
3/ because of (1) and (2), 'NOT AGW' should be proven, because no further warming would mean a strange cut-off point for the greenhouse effect of CO2, and that would mean we need an extraordinary explanation for 'NOT-AGW'.

Re:I love the double standards

[jcupitt65]

It seems daft to me to claim that the whole thing is a hoax to get funding. All science is funded somehow, and yet this insult is only thrown at the people working on climate.

In my experience (I'm a working scientist, though not in climate), science is very, very competitive. Just brutal, in fact. It's full of mildly Aspergers people who delight in other's discomfort and are convinced (almost) all other researchers are idiots. If you have a clever idea that cuts your rival's work off at the knees, by God, you're going to publish, and you're going to rub their face in it as you do.

I find it impossible to believe that good anti-AWG ideas really have been suppressed for 50 years or however long it is.

Re:I love the double standards

[catchblue22]

I posted the following comment recently, but I think it is germane to this discussion at hand:

I am noticing in many of the posts here a distinct lack of intellectual rigor. A friend of mine is an engineering professor, and he notices this amongst his students too. Specifically, many of his students have an attitude where they feel they can question any scientific theory. Fine you might say. After all, isn't it good to be skeptical? Well yes, perhaps. But when he asks these students specifically why they doubt a particular theory, they can't make a logical argument to support their position. They just say it doesn't intuitively seem right. It is almost as if they don't really comprehend the reasons for their opinions. And this is amongst elite engineering students.

If I could venture my own opinion on this, I think that relativistic values (and I don't mean Einstein) have seeped into much of our educational system, and by extension to society at large. This relativistic world is a place where there is no real truth, where all opinions are relative to the self and are essentially given equal value. In such a world, taken to its extreme, there are no facts, only opinions. Everything is relative.

On the left, we see university professors pontificating from institutions founded on Greek principles of Truth and Freedom of Inquiry that these Greek principles are merely just another cultural view in their relativistic universe. And from the right, we see religious leaders cavalierly rejecting the search for Truth through rational inquiry and observation, preferring to create their own "Truth" as revealed in the bible. What both of these extremes are forgetting is that this country was founded on Greek principles of Truth and Freedom of Inquiry, that in the founders' minds, the Greeks were a primary inspiration. Separation of Church and State; Science; Universities where Truth is the primary virtue; the ideals of Justice; a three class society, in which the Middle Class (the Polis) forms the backbone of society; Democracy. These were ALL Greek values and ideals. And has been these Greek ideals that have made our country great.

If you don't believe this, I suggest you read some Greek literature. Plato. Aristotle. Aristophanes. Sophocles. In Greek literature you will find commentary on many of the most important issues our society faces. The Greeks even wrote about cultural relativism. I believe we are sorely in need of a rediscovery of Greek wisdom.

And here is my main point. I believe that many in our society are abandoning the Greek values that have made our civilization great. Values such as searching for Truth for Truth's sake through rational inquiry and logic. Skills such as rigorous logic applied in rational debate. In our modern technological society it often seems that Truth should only be pursued for material gain, for profit and not simply because it is noble to pursue the truth. Thus it is easy for business executives to ignore inconvenient facts if those facts might interfere with profit margins. And it is easy for religious followers to adopt truths that make them feel more comfortable with their chosen worldview. After all, if all Truth is relative, then why not pick an easy and comfortable Truth.

Huzza for legislation over science!

[txoof]

While the science around climate change deserves scrutiny and probing, this probing should probably be done by scientists, not legislators. The last time I checked, the scientific method didn't include debate, Robert's Rules of Order or passage by majority. Freeman Dyson makes some interesting points against climate change in this NY Times Article. If you agree with him or not, at least he's engaging in scentific skepticism over uninformed legislation.

Obviously the majority of Utah's Assembly has no idea how science works, as it takes a majority to pass an obviously useless law. It's too bad that method doesn't work or the Utah State Assembly could go ahead and legislate the Higgs-Boson into existence right there in the chambers. I think this problem is a symptom of our terrible science education in our schools. Perhaps they could go ahead and legislate some scientific thinking into themselves while they're redefining physics.

Re:So if man makes 29 gigatons or so of CO2 per ye

[orzetto]

So if man makes 29 gigatons or so of CO2 per year, and nature pumps out 600+ how much can we affect it by modifying the US production?

Assuming for a moment you did not take those numbers out of your posterior, nature before the industrial revolution was at equilibrium, meaning it pumped out 600 and pumped back in 600 (e.g. plant growth). Then, human activities with 29 Gtons would tip that balance and accumulate CO2 in the atmosphere, which cannot be absorbed by nature (whose capacity is 600, not 629).

Ultimately, it is because an inordinate amount of carbon was extracted from the earth as coal and oil, way faster that the geological scale that would have occurred in nature.

Re:I love to be the first to say this...

[wanerious]

There are some factors you're apparently unaware of. The long-term trend over many decades is roughly 0.15C or so, but on the scale of a particular decade, roughly 4 main variables influence warming: CO2 excess, El Nino cycles, solar radiance, and aerosol cooling (volcanoes, say). Over the last 12 years we've had, in combination, a decrease in El Nino heating from a record 1998 (which is why many "skeptics" pick this year as a starting point) as well as a cooling cycle in solar radiation. They both operate on roughly the same timescale. Underneath that, the CO2 excess from humans contributes a fairly constant 0.2C per decade of warmth, which is why the last decade and a half have shown roughly flat temperature increases instead of the expected cooling. If you look at the temperature plots, you can see this "wiggle" happening on a regular basis. We'd then expect, over the next decade, to have rapidly increasing temperatures as all the warming factors are positive, then probably a flat profile after that. The long-term trend, as shown in the plots, is still rising.

Re:I love to be the first to say this...

[Snarky McButtface]

I did find an interesting study of the papers written by climate scientists between 1965 and 1979. Seven articles written in that time frame predicted global cooling, forty four predicted global warming and twenty were neutral. It seems the media at the time, not the scientists, were predicting a new ice age.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/03/the-global-cooling-mole/