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Climate Contrarians Seek Leadership of House Science Committee
An article at Ars examines three members of the U.S. House of Representatives who are seeking chairmanship of its Committee on Space, Science, and Technology. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) said in an interview, "My analysis is that in the global warming debate, we won. There were a lot of scientists who were just going along with the flow on the idea that mankind was causing a change in the world's climate. I think that after 10 years of debate, we can show that that there are hundreds if not thousands of scientists who have come over to being skeptics, and I don't know anyone [who was a skeptic] who became a believer in global warming." James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) has a similar record of opposing climate change, as does Lamar Smith (R-TX). Relatedly, Phil Plait, a.k.a. The Bad Astronomer, has posted an article highlighting how U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), a member of the Senate's Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, has declined to answer a question about how old the Earth is, calling it "one of the great mysteries."
I don't know anyone [who was a skeptic] who became a believer in global warming.
You mean like Richard Muller who quite famously denounced anthropogenic global warming only to come to the same conclusion by his own means? Yeah, that opinion piece by him opens with "Call me a converted skeptic."
Oh, I get it, after it turns out that his research didn't back up your "beliefs", he must never have been a skeptic to begin with, right? Or perhaps when you made that statement you meant that you just don't know Richard Muller personally?
Political word games have always been such a pain in the ass.
But you are right that while peer reviewed journals move one way, the population moves the other:
The most striking result is the increase in the proportion of Americans who express strong doubt or rejection of the reality of global warming through their free associations. In 2003, only 7% of Americans provided “naysayer” images (e.g., “hoax,” or “no such thing”) when asked what thought or image first came to mind when they heard the term “global warming.” By 2010, however, 23% of Americans provided “naysayer” images.
My work here is dung.
Crazy
Idiots!
How much longer did this nonsense have to continue?!
I do believe global warming is happening, however, I am not sure mankind is responsible for a majority of it. However, I do believe we must cut pollution for the sake of pollution regardless of whether it puts a dent into the overall problem of global warming.
If you can't beat scientists on the F of Facts, then go by the F of Funding..
You're completely and utterly full of shit. There is absolutely no reason why cutting pollution has to cause quality of life to go down. The only profits that will go down are the profits of shitty companies that refuse to adapt. And I can't say I give a damn about them.
If the choice is between having an iDevice and cheap transportation, and having a world outside that I don't need an environment suit to survive in, I will take the latter one.
Ah yes.
Having lost the election, these fine ladies and gentlemen must now redirect attention to another matter. They lost the other matter too, but by redefining the problem, the answer, the audience, the meaning of "won", and so forth, they can claim victory.
Next watch for them to claim to have won the "evolution debate", the "age of the universe debate", the "voting fraud debate", the "who crashed the economy debate", and the "legitimate rape debate", among many others.
Why do we listen to these people? They are about as reliable as a sex addict in a monastery!
There's no such thing as a climate "contrarian". That's just a politically correct term used to coddle ignorant deniers and make them feel like they have something to contriibute to civilization.
Rock and minerals are mosly recycled by our active planet. The oldest rock is 4.03 billion years old (gniess from NW Canada), and oldest mineral is 4.3 billion years (zircon crystals from west australia). But neither tells us the age of the Earth. That is done by assumption from meteorites and moon rocks.....true age of Earth is honestly a mystery.
Back in the 1980's, the [so-called] Moral Majority spent a lot of time stealthily taking over local school boards. By stealthily, I mean they concealed their true colors, while running, then used their winning of elections to argue that they had a mandate to undermine the teaching of science and critical thinking in public schools. The fact that people can be elected to Congress and make such fatuous statements with a straight face makes me think that they -- in a certain sense -- did "win": these Congresspeople are the children of that age. It's sad, of course, that people think that "winning" means one has the right to determine the conceptual course of the nation's children -- regardless of actual facts.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
It's interesting to see how fragmented the anti-science people are.
That 23% of people who express doubt, are actually a bunch of different doubters. People who think it's not happening and lah-lah-lah (fingers in ears).
People who believe it IS happening but its natural.
People who believe it's man-made , but there's nothing we can do about it.
If you watch Fox (it's the only US news I see on my cable), they can't keep their story consistent between which of these they are. I suspect all they really care about is that you use fossil fuels as wastefully as possible at as high a price as possible. Whenever energy efficiency comes up, they're all screaming 'unAmerican' as if anyone would be against doing the same thing for less money!?
But it does show that you don't actually have 77%-23%, you have a more fragmented 77%-10%-10%-2%
You mean like the ones who depend on power and transportation? Yeah, those companies are really shitty.
Senator Barack Obama in 2008:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/11/rubio_and_obama_and_the_age_of_earth_politicians_hedge_about_whether_universe.html
These guys are politicians. Part of being a politician is to not annoy anyone who might vote for you, unless you have a really good reason. Privately, both Rubio and Obama might well believe the science is settled and that the literal word of the Bible is just wrong... but why would they say so? Why not just give a non-answer that annoys the fewest number of people?
So, is it stupid and wrong when Rubio does it, but okay when Obama does it? If you have that kind of double standard, then shame on you.
Yeah... it is a great mystery, but the bible says less than 10k years, which is obviously wrong, and obviously what is being fished for in the question. And to think that religion is really about seeking truth. I went to the creation museum -- intellectual vapid bunch if ever there was. Funny how the "holy" can be so disingenuous about their motives. I'm sure Jesus would tear town their temple and decry the corruption of the Pharisees.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Hi. Nice to meet you, Dana. I go by the name Sarten X, often represented with a hyphen.
When The global warming concerns were first being voiced, I was skeptical. Surely humans' influence couldn't be that severe? Then I started learning. I learned about how CO2 traps heat. I learned how human CO2 production has been increasing exponentially. I learned how small shifts in ocean temperatures put far more moisture into the air, producing more severe storms.
I learned too much to doubt. Even if half my knowledge turns out to be wrong, the other half still leads to the same conclusion: Our society is royally screwed because of global warming, and we're making it worse every day.
I hope I'm wrong. I hope that we've been terribly mistaken in our analysis. I hope the solar system drifts into a previously-unknown dust cloud, and the greenhouse gasses save us. Hope, though, will not explain to my great-grandchildren why they can't leave the tunnels during storm season.
At this point, I am still skeptical of many of the claims. A world covered in poison ivy by 2015? I doubt that. The east coast of the United States submerged in a decade? Probably not. Regardless of what preposterous scare-tactic forecasts are made, there is still too much evidence for me to ignore. Though the outcome is uncertain, the trend is clear. We, as the current dominant species on this planet, should do what we can to reduce the approaching threat of a warming planet. We should strive to make our pollution as harmless as we can, and keep our industrial processes as flexible as we can to allow future change if similar problems are discovered. We should have been more cautious in our designs over the past century, and we may not even have another century to live if we do not change our ways now.
I am Sarten X. I was a skeptic of global warming, and I now support the efforts to fight it.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Shorter House GOP: "Fuck it - we're not going to live to see the destruction we cause, nor are our most reliable voters. Sky Jeebus is going to come back anyways, so why should *we* care that we're screwing over future generations? Also, cut taxes for the rich."
Waste is nothing more than an untapped resource stream. The light fractions burned off at refineries for instance. Instead of burning it off at the stack, pipe it under low pressure to a power plant made to run on methane and natural gas.
Municipal waste is a veritable gold mine for rare earths in reasonably pure form, as well as other heavy yet valuable metals. (Like mercury.) Not to mention as a source of refinable plastic.
Sewerage is a few stones throws away from being usable like brown coal or peat in power plants.
Granted, pretty much all of those release carbon. No contest. The deal is though, that those are potentially new industries that could provide the needed waste management services for a cleaner environment overall. (Babysteps)
Seriously looking into alternatives to combustion for power generation, or at the least, adopting carbon neutral economies, would go a very long way as well.
The issue you seem to have, is that you appear to be butthurt that "purpetual growth" would be laughed at, and your idea of prosperity requires infinite resources from the environment to attain, and such restrictions would put the kabosh on that hard.
How the US has become one of the most scientifically/technologically advanced country on Earth in the past hundred years is beyond me...
If the choice is between having an iDevice and cheap transportation, and having a world outside that I don't need an environment suit to survive in, I will take the latter one.
Unfortunately, that's not the choice most people are confronted with. Instead the choice is (1) have cheap tech, transportation, be able to waste resources, etc. NOW, or (2) have a world where your grandchildren or great-grandchildren might have to wear environmental suits many years from now.
I think the general pattern of the debt crisis, people unwilling to plan for paying their mortgage next month, let alone planning for retirement or grandchildren, gives a general sense of where most people's priorities are. "If it makes my life easier or just more fun today, I'll worry about that other stuff later..." even if that othet stuff means complete financial ruin or disaster.
If people are willing to gamble in these ridiculous ways with their futures just to buy the slightly larger sunmer house, you really think they're motivated to worry about the quality of people's lives a century in the future? A lot of people say stuff like how they don't want to ruin things for their kids or grandkids, but few of them seem to really do much about it other than buying a more energy efficient light bulb or recycling a tin can.
If US industry does the same thing using half the oil, then their costs are down significantly and so their profits are up.
I don't know why House Republicans keep opposing every energy efficiency measure, but I don't think its because their god told them to. I suspect they're oil lobby stooges.
Ultimately it doesn't matter too much what SOME countries do, if they ALL don't do it. The atmosphere has no boundaries.
California is starting to swirl faster and faster down the drain, taxing the producers out of the state, and now implementing a ridiculous "carbon credit" scam which will drive more businesses out of that state... Likewise, If the US enacts debatable "green" policies the result will be to drive business out of the country.
Net effect - the "pollution" will just get made somewhere on the other side of the world where it is completely out of your control.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the cars that speed down it are not the nice, clean, catalytic-converter equipped cars you are used to...
How many times do I have to say it?
This is why we can't have nice stuff.
And yet history is full of examples where Government pollution laws have decreased quality of life or caused prices to rise for consumers:
- Removal of TSP from detergents causes them to be less effective at cleaning
http://mises.org/daily/5267/Why-Everything-Is-Dirtier
- Ultra low sulfur diesel requirements made diesel fuel more expensive than gasoline
- Mandated (and formerly subsidized) ethanol in gasoline lowered gas mileage, increased costs, and has done damage to small engines and fuel systems
The decline of USA as a global superpower is finalizing.
At least according to the plan, it is.
BTW, I don't believe in global warming. Facts just show that it is happening.
I agree with what he says, "I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says.".
However this is not what he (and his accomplices) actually mean.
Despite what the words say, the underlying intention is radically different.
- not "parents should be able to teach..." but "schools must be forced to teach"
- and not just teach, but with every word imply ABSOLUTELY equal standing with science (eg Intelligent Design, which is nothing more than christian creationism with SCIENCE branded all over it)
And, of course, the WORST part of their hypocrisy is that they want THEIR religion mandatorily taught everywhere, but not any OTHER religion.
You want the worldview of your religion taught in schools, sure - GO AHEAD - as long as EVERY other religion also gains equal airtime and equal status.
For Example:
- Hindus
- Buddhists
- Mormons
- Zoroastrians
- and yes, even Scientologists.
It's called having a secret agenda and they're doing the same thing with Global Warming.
The entire "debate" has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with MONEY.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
While I haven't been saving for retirement like I should, I have no problems with the mortgage. I have been unable to save for retirement, because every creditor and insurance company on the planet has been hiking rates for my demographic like I am made out of 100$ bills. (No seriously. I make about 30k a year, and live fairly comfortably, and cyclically manage to save up around 2 to 3k each year, only to have it vaccumed up by homeowners insurace (1.5k), and property taxes(500$).)
I MIGHT be able to finally start saving for my retirement after I have paid off the mortgage, which should be sometime next year.
I have no problems seeing where the future is headed, and would eagerly prepare for it if the shortsighted people around me beholden to their precious quarterly reports would wake up and smell the ashes already.
When the mortgage is paid, I will look for a less brutal insurer, and use the monthy difference to improve my retirement prospects, and reduce my environmental impact. That's the plan anyway. Assuming Uncy Sam doesn't decide that he needs to raise my taxes.
There is if you happen to own coal or petroleum companies.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Forced sterilization? Seriously?
I'd rather live with the most obnoxious christians I've ever met than with nazis like you.
If you're so concerned about the average IQ in the world, then die in a fire, you conceited little prick.
"The science of age of the Earth is the basis of nuclear medicine & power. Should our leaders understand it?" Maybe not understand it mathematically, but I think everyone should understand what 'radiation' and 'nuclear' are. There are so many misconceptions that some people fear everything other don't fear anything. People don't understand just how many discoveries and applications nuclear physics and nuclear medicine has brought. Bill Nye is being polite, since I'm online, I won't. If he wants to deny the age of the earth, then deny him X-ray's, most cancer treatment, MRI's and so many other or our medical treatments. (I'm exaggerating of course, I'm from Saskatchewan where the first medical treatment of cancer using radioactive material was invented and performed, and as a physicist in training, I'm damn proud of that.)
The main reason for global warming denying is to avoid having to change how rich corporations do business. Energy companies want to keep burning coal and auto companies preferred to make gas guzzlers. The joke is the very ones denying global warming tend to be the ones buying beach houses. Those same beach houses won't be around in 50 or 100 years due to global warming. They can assume it'll happen after they are dead but like what just happened in New Jersey many will be lost in the next 25 years. In truth I think the majority of deniers believe it's happening they just don't want to change how they live so it's easier to just claim it's all a lie.
It is a pity when insane people are allowed to embarrass themselves in public so.
Watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gE6zipFWmo
and you'll know why you're a "skeptic."
thegodmovie.com - watch it
The point being that Republican Marco Rubio, used the 'climate change is natural' argument, and referred to a graph showing a peak 130,000 years ago. So everyone is keen to get him to state that the earth isn't 7000 years old.
Not to pin down the date to a Monday afternoon.
That's the problem, this 'creationism vs evolution' stuff is to get people to state something they know is a lie. Once you get people to lie, they will continue to tell ever bigger lies to remain consistent. It's a indoctrination technique used by cults. The more they depart from the real world the harder it is for them to accept aspects of reality.
If the choice is between having an iDevice and cheap transportation, and having a world outside that I don't need an environment suit to survive in, I will take the latter one.
that is BS - it's not a choice of current lifestyle and catastrophe - 4 degrees makes you wear a environment suit ???? its current lifestyle and something somewhat worse. Heck Canada , Russia and Mongolia will do better.
You're missing a big part of the calculation. All these costs reduced or eliminated the resulting costs not doing these actions would bring. No one pulled these initiatives out of the hat; such decisions aimed at reducing costs for society in the long term.
That's called not thinking just about today, but saving money for future times. It's quite sound economics, in fact.
.... do you not comprehend the wild swing that a 4c global temp increase would cause in global climate, or that CO2 levels will CONTINUE to rise during that time, unless we alter our behavior, and will continue to rise afterwards?
It won't "stop at 4c". It will go PASSED 4C, and get hotter each decade.
In 200 years, the earth will be a fucking sauna. But what do you care? You'll be dead by then!
Oh, and Idaho potatoes I'm sure.
or can anyone get in?
The problem is, we've turned most every science question into a political one and so its turned into:
If AGW exists and it will negatively impact my quality of life if new legislation is enacted, then it only makes sense that those people will deny that AGW exists, irrespective of the evidence for or against AGW.
If AGW doesn't exist and it will negatively impact my quality of life if the government doesn't do something (for example, if they don't subsidize "alternative" energy and you've got a large stake in said "alternative" energy), then it only makes sense that people will say that AGW exists, irrespective of the evidence for or against AGW.
Even "unbiased" scientists will never truly be "unbiased" because like everyone else they act in their own self interest and creating predictions that will lead to more funding (or recognition of their deeds) will benefit them.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
And let your grand children suffer in a shitty world caused by global warming. Wait, I know. You think you'll be rich enough to evade the fate of the majority of people. You are a real selfish person masquerading at someonethinking about the future. At least this is what you wrote shows.
I think we can fix both. Say all those oil/coal subsidies we give to that segment of the population... save it and use it to give incentives when the market moves towards alternative fuels/solar/wind/nuclear. The sticking point with most rational people (people who aren't of the 6,000 year old earth variety) isn't whether or not we should do something about it, but whether or not we use a stick or a carrot. I vote carrot, because in the area of new technology, the United States still kicks major ass. We can, and should, reward them (not giving stupid bulk grants to failing companies like Solyndra) and use the government's meddling in the market for good (for a change.) OR, we can level the playing field so that the market corrects itself (that'd be removing subsidies to the oil/gas/coal too). When people want to change, it's easier to get them to. Beating them over the head "you're killing Mother Earth! You're killing your children! Martians are laughing at us!" will get us nowhere... it hasn't worked in a society not ruled by an iron fist. And I am not for giving Obama a big iron glove to beat us all over the head with his agenda.
Markets work when we let them... meddling for the most part has been shit... because it isn't really market manipulation in the strictest sense... it's rewarding the established players (specifically: those who give the most campaign money). If they want to manipulate the market... shift the balance and see where it leads. Will oil companies piss and moan? Yes. But as a libertarian, I'm tired of them sucking on the government teat and charging ME $4/gallon gasoline for no other reason than they can. Something that has inelastic demand should have a limited fluctuation in pricing when there is sufficient supply (we've not had a "shortage" since the 1970's... and that was artificial.) But I'm going offtopic.... time to submit...
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Wait, do you even know what 1 Celsius represents? What are we at right now, today for temperature? Add 4C to that. What are our hottest summers like? Add 4C to that.
Don't try and crap out the average making things exponentially hotter everywhere because not everywhere even is getting hotter. Temperate regions may ONLY see a 4C increase, while colder climates will not see anywhere near 4C and may even go down over the same time period. Hotter places will see much more than 4C, so those places like Arizona, where it's already a sauna, or the Sahara desert, or Peru will become more like the saunas that they already are. That's how an average works.
So in 200 years, the Peruvians or Nigerians might have to move out. However most likely not, as a permanent +12C to their normal temperatures is just another hot summer in those regions. Plants and animals also have a much wider range of survival than people like to give them credit for. Sure, the closer a species is to extinction the more likely it is to die out. But the more robust species will take over and flourish.
I believe the universe was created by an omnipotent, antisocial hedge-maze 3.5 years ago. Science can do nothing to prove me wrong. You actually *can't* know the truth in these types of questions, which is why it's called faith. Please stop confusing the two.
Oh, and when religious types can't define their faith in non-disprovable ways they are rank amateurs, and should be ridiculed for their ignorance. Attack ignorance, not faith. We'll all just get along better.
-Your friendly neighborhood theological non-cognitivist
... a center/dumbass nation
Founder of The Skeptics Society and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic writes:
"Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism. "
Michael Shermer, 2006.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-flipping-point
This whole business is a large part of why I can not vote for a Republican, at least in national races. Between the people mentioned in this story, and we all remember Todd "In the case of a legitimate rape" Akin and Paul "Lies straight from the pit of hell" Broun, both who were/are also on the House Science committee. I mean, a Republican can say, "Hey, yeah, that is looney, but we're not all looney!". But I have to ask, "Who let these people serve on the science committee, and what does that say about... their concern for the nation?" Its this unbelievable horror story that these people are in an elected office, just utterly baffling. Sometimes I expect Rod Serling to step out from around a corner and tell us all that this was all just an odd trip into the Twilight Zone.
1 - The climate has warmed.
2 - CO2 absorbs infra-red energy at certain wavelengths
3 - More CO2 will lead to warming
Most skeptics will agree with the above points. The application of pretty simple physics leads to the following: Doubling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to about one degree celsius of warming. That's hardly alarming.
To get the amount of warming necessary to cause alarm, it is necessary to have positive feedback. That's where the skeptics part company with the alarmists.
The evidence for positive feedback is very tenuous. The evidence for negative feedback is just as strong. Judith Curry comes as close as any serious climate scientist to being completely open minded and she thinks the case is far from clear either way.
http://judithcurry.com/
Just asking.
No, you're "just trolling". If you were "just asking" you would listen to (or at least respond to) the answers you have been given in the past. But that's not what you do, you keep repeating the same discredited claims over and over again like a broken record. Another possibility is that you have a learning disability, but I doubt that since you seem like a rational human being on politically neutral subjects.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You wrote: "They know that without the sciences, their comfortable lives could not be what it is today."
I suspect a large fraction doesn't know that. I doubt these are people who, when they flip a light switch or run hot water in their kitchen or flush a toilet, even occasionally think of the infrastructure that lets them do those things. They not only don't know what they don't know, they aren't curious about it. Much less capable of changing their minds in light of scientific evidence that conflicts with their faith/beliefs.
The Church of global warming is fear mongering again ? Did you guys studied your Bible to predict when exactly the world will end ? Is it next year or the year later ?
JAM
The distinction between retirement saving and paying off your mortgage is moot, unless you are talking about insurance. Your house should be one of the best assets you have, so pay that off and then start saving.
Here in Australia the government mandates 9% savings for retirement. This is for the stupid people who won't save. Me, I would rather have the money to put against my mortgage or spend on my own share portfolio rather than pay some muppet to do it for me.
how is putting gas in my car, that damages the engine, in turn making my car that used to last 15-20 years only last 10 "helping"
so while I may be "polluting less" in the short term, i need to buy a new car sooner (along with hundreds of millions of other humans
so, I ask you this. What is the cost/benifit/polution ration of using a fuel that will kill your car faster, gives you less power per gallon of gas (some 20%less efficient than regular unleaded) and therefore a car that runs for 100K miles, will use MORE fuel that is eth based than gas based
my issue is not with future times, my issue is with forcing high cost alternatives early rather than allowing them to mature.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
for that to be the only choice we would have to believe that WE (2012 people, not humans as a species ) are going to do THAT much damage. I disagree, there are many other choices, like allowing tech to mature to the point of replacing old tech, Should we have raised the price of the typewriter to force the adaptation of the computer? hell no, and the same is true with fuel.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
and removing TSP (trisodium phosphate) removed an antropogenic source of phosphorus that was aggravating eutrophication of lakes; see, for example, http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wq/nonpoint/phosphorus/HSphosphatepresent.pdf Lowered oxygen->fewer fish, etc.
and removing sulfur from diesel reduced the amount of SO2 in the atmosphere, which reduced the amount of SO3 -> H2SO4 production, which reduced the acidity of rainfall, which has a number of beneficial effects which you can explore if you're interested.
The price rises for consumers simply indicate the fact that the full costs weren't being accounted for in the first place. As we learn more about the various complex processes that sustain our lives, we're better able to determine what it actually costs us to live. Don't expect those data to be especially comforting.
I agree that it's not clear what Obama and the democrats in general would do if given the chance anyway. We can all pontificate over what they think they might want to do, but I have no idea what they'd actually be able to wrangle their own party into given the opportunity.
How is there no clarity? The President had democratic majorities in the Senate and the House his first two years.
Fuck yeah!
You are welcome on my lawn.
It might surprise you to learn that The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea is not actually democratic or a republic.
You do realize that "The Friends of Science" are not scientist. Actually they are political activist (shills) being paid by oil companies.
Why do we still pretend it is okay for uneducated people to make policy decisions?
Before politicians are elected (and particularly before they get into any committee with science in its name) they should have to pass a written examination.
Yeah right, the world bank and the pentagon are a bunch of hippies.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Except R isn't interested in compromise. For example, way back when Obama started with redoing health care, he invited the Republicans to participate ...
Uh, no. The first thing Obama did was hand health care reform to Nancy Pelosi who took things behind closed doors and did not invite the R's in. Obama did not control participation, Pelosi did. Obama provided little to no leadership in the drafting of the legislation. Did not push Nancy to do so in an open fashion as he had promised. He was an organizer not a leader on the signature issue that would define his legacy. He merely campaigned for pretty much whatever Pelosi came up with. He only took positions on the most egregious abuses like the cornhusker kickback.
The attitude of the Obama administration towards the Republicans was well stated by Obama's Chief of Staff: "F*ck em, we have the votes". That quote was from a little over a week into the new administration. There was no real effort at bipartisanship.
Freedom isn't free. It cost's about a $1.05....
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
More than that, to use your analogy, it would be as if a large number of people did not believe that spending made debt and the consequences it would bring are real things.
- Ultra low sulfur diesel requirements made diesel fuel more expensive than gasoline
Unrelated. Canada has the same ULSD requirement (15ppm maximum) as the USA and diesel is frequently cheaper than gasoline.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
The question I ask then, is what mechanism are you proposing that is stopping physics from doing its thing here.
That is a silly question, red herring'ish. No serious person is claiming that some basic mechanism of physics is misunderstood. What serious people are claiming is that our model(s) of how the environment functions as a whole have problems. For example:
"In addition to finding that far less heat is being trapped than alarmist computer models have predicted, the NASA satellite data show the atmosphere begins shedding heat into space long before United Nations computer models predicted."
http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html
I notice that you made no attempt to refute any of the claims in the post you were replying to. I therefore conclude that you have nothing of substance to contribute to the discussion at hand.
If you can't beat scientists on the F of Facts, then go by the F of Funding..
Politics and funding can distort science in either direction. Politicians can funnel money towards "pro" as easily as "con". The biggest problem with climate change is that politicians have politicized it. That is going to slow our progress because it artificially silences one side and artificially enhances the acceptance of the other side.
Since the Sun does a polar shift about once every 15 years (and is due for one this year), wouldn't the flow of electrons through the magnetic core change the course of the Sun from a downwards to and upwards trajectory in space? North to South, then South to North, so to speak? /Stolzy
Every so often my man, Rep. Dana, and some of us low life scum bags go drinking at the various watering holes. For some dark force reason, my man Dana seems to think that the Tea Party has the inside on what reality is. Dana is a good guy, and fair surfer. But his choice in fund raisers is the reason he lost my vote.
Oh, and Idaho potatoes I'm sure.
Never forget the potatoes, they can save your life in combat. Well maine potatoes, don't know about idaho, maybe they don't look enough like hand grenades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_O'Bannon_(DD-450)#1943
Politicians on either side of this issue don't understand the science behind global warming. But as someone who believes that global warming is happening but that the US should not adopt policies to reduce carbon emissions (because such policies do more harm than good), I don't really care why people vote the way they do as long as they do.
I was impressed when John Huntsman (R) plainly said "I believe in evolution and I trust scientists on global warming."
It's sad you have to make sure you say that so people don't mistake you as the typically wrong thinking (in this aspect and much more) republicans.
He's a Mormon but he also created Dream Theater day in Utah when governor and is the ambassador to China. Funny thing is if he had been made VP you would alinate the far right but gain so much at the middle. Instead their strategy was to alienate not just a political spectrun but 47% of Americans which includes a large part of Republicans. Maybe they just didn't want to vote after that.
Funny thing, Paul Ryan maintained he loved Rage Against the Machine and it was funny how Tom Morello called him out and basically told him he was a hateful ass they didn't want as a fan. Bitch slapped by your favorite band, and a guy with a Harvard education.
It's fun to pretend the rest of the world is composed of dimwits, but the reality is those people are the exception. The rule is people who do dimitted things due to stress or a lack of hope for the future, but are not intrinsically dimwitted. So no, I cannot lay the blame for poor retirement planning entirely or even majorly at the feet of the masses, especially considering the reasons their 401ks collapsed has so little to do with their own actions.
Having to constantly worry about their livelihood in the short term is not conducive to long term planning, and is more conducive towards saving for vacations to preserve one's sanity and get some laughs in before the whole shithouse collapses. Some people seem to like to promote this condition, in the hopes of squeezing these people for their own benefit. Those are the truly short-sighted dimwits.
Someone had to do it.
Personally, rather than climate contrarians (who's really against climate?), I like to call them Climate Change Denying Douchebags (CCDD). Bad maybe that's just me.
Argumentum ad veracundiam. Try again.
I have for years postulated a big enough event say, a large hurricane that tears up the expensive parts of the east coast of the USA, might be enough to prompt some serious thought about climate change, but Sandy was not really big enough, only 50B worth of costs, I guess it will take a really big one to carve up Florida or Washington DC to prompt a reaction. Let's face it either it's a freak event (or two or three), Global climate change, or God hates you.
What would the AGW regulation on Solar Panels? None. What would be the regulation on tidal power? None.
It doesn't regulate energy.
It reglates burning fossil fuels.
Try to get out of the stone age and stop burning things for heat and light.
Not sure I understand the debate of global warming. To me it looks like the following:
Evidence: the earth is warming, no one disagrees.
Hypothesis 1 - The cause is the emission of greenhouse gases generated by human activity such as fossil fuel burning and agriculture.
Hypothesis 2 - It is a natural cycle that has no known cause ...
Is that right?
What if a politician got drunk and killed a woman? Would you throw your support behind them? Of course you would because you are a Democrat. They would have to be Democrat but it would be ok if they did it. Hello Ted Kennedy! I wanna be your girl next~~~ Yep, Democrats really care about women, unless they are using them. Well surely you would not support one who is the Grand Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan? Right? Well, it would be ok if they were a Democrat. In that case we would make him the longest serving senator in the history of the United States. Hello Senator Sheets Byrd, DEMOCRAT senator from Virginia! Twilight Zone indeed!
But don't worry, being Democrat means never saying you are sorry, or any introspection at all.
No, a skeptic IS NOT "one who believes that something should be challenged," it is someone who will always be open to evidence contrary to THEIR position.
Which is why deniers like yourself are not skeptics whilst the IPCC authors are.
Note how for you deniers that uncertainties only work one way: to make you right. Never skeptical to that idea, never considering that it could be worse.
Don't let that happen! Show them what the real America is. A country founded with the strict separation of church and state.
And that mentally ill religious schizophrenics are not allowed to be the ones to decide things. But deserve a therapy.
Not only that, but the US won't have the current power for that long anymore. And when nature begins to wreck everything, and the US doesn't stop causing it, the rest of the world will put an embargo on it. Which, considering how much the US imports, will not end well.
I for one, don't want the US to fall in the pit of becoming a Christian Iran. No way.
So you admit that the entire group are paid shills but you still copied and pasted their talking points.
97% of climate scientist believe that global warming is happening and is man made, why would I bother looking at points made by a group with economic interest opposing the clear majority of specialist? If a doctor and a second opinion both said surgery is necessary would you be saying that you didn't need it because Bubba across the street said it wasn't necessary?
The science has settled. Anthropogenic Global Warming is a real. Scam. It's high time to leave CO2 out of it and turn our attention on the effects of particulate aerosols, contrails. Those are true effects of humankind. And in the case of contrails, a net cooling effect.
Debating AGW is a lost cause. Bring on the battle robots.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
and so on.
Now remember the part where 97% of climate scientist said that they believe Hypothesis 1 and that the evidence exists for Hypothesis 1.
This is a case of not noticing the outer tiny box because you noticed the inner, even tinier, box.
The actual sad part is that he said "believe" and "trust", and didn't even remotely think about maybe saying words like "know" or "understand".
It's all about belief and truthiness nowadays. People are literally no individuals anymore, since their views are entirely built on stuff they haven't even tried to understand or check for themselves. Which is crazy close to schizotypic delusions. They just follow beliefs and trust, no... are... their opinion makers.
He should understand the dynamics of global warming and have checked the evidence for evolution with his own senses. In fact every school child should.
He should therefore know how those things are. And he should not be allowed into any government at all, otherwise.
It's fun to pretend the rest of the world is composed of dimwits, but the reality is those people are the exception.
Umm, no. As someone who has actually taught math to high school seniors, I can guarantee you that the vast majority of the population has no clue how to evaluate even the most basic financial situations. And, from polls I've seen about financial questions, people don't pick up a lot more knowledge about this stuff later in life either. Even if some people do want to save or invest or get better terms for a loan or whatever, the vast majority of the U.S. population doesn't even understand stuff like how compound interest works. I like to have faith in people, but in this case, I'm sorry, but you're simple wrong about most people's abilities to plan for tomorrow. Hell, after teaching high school for 3 years, I can tell you that many of my math and science teacher colleagues were living from paycheck-to-paycheck, saving nothing that wasn't forced on them by state retirement policies or whatever... and some of them were in their 40s or 50s. I also know that their salaries weren't that bad in those schools -- I managed to sock away quite a bit in a couple years. If that's true of teachers actually trained in math, you think their students (most of whom won't be) will do better in financial decisions?
So no, I cannot lay the blame for poor retirement planning entirely or even majorly at the feet of the masses, especially considering the reasons their 401ks collapsed has so little to do with their own actions.
I don't blame them ENTIRELY -- not just financial execs but even our basic educational system is at fault. But it shows how much you know about "the masses" in your response... most people don't even have money in a 401k. Poor people don't have steady enough jobs to have things like employer matches and encouragement to contribute. They're worried about putting food on the table or medical bills... but even there, many of them will spend ridiculous percentages of their budgets on cable bills or a new cool TV, rather than putting a little away for a rainy day. Sorry, but you seem to have no clue about the masses.
There is money to be made already, solar panels. But it is the Chinese who are making the money.
Republicans are not interested in making money, they are interested in maintaining the Status Quo. If things change, someone else might get their hands on some money, ordinary people even. Can't have that. Better to be the richest man on a sinking ship then for everyone on an intact ship to be better off but the rich man misses a single penny.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Hi. Nice to meet you, Dana. I go by the name Sarten X, often represented with a hyphen.
When The global warming concerns were first being voiced, I was skeptical. Surely humans' influence couldn't be that severe? Then I started learning. I learned about how CO2 traps heat. I learned how human CO2 production has been increasing exponentially. I learned how small shifts in ocean temperatures put far more moisture into the air, producing more severe storms.
I learned too much to doubt. Even if half my knowledge turns out to be wrong, the other half still leads to the same conclusion: Our society is royally screwed because of global warming, and we're making it worse every day.
See, this is where I have trouble. I take the first jump, and do come to the conclusion that AGW is happening. Its the second jump that bothers me, that society is royally screwed. Looking at history, I am amazed at humanity's ability to respond to changes in the way we live, either man-made or naturally. Comparing 150 years ago to today is light night and day, and the rate of progress only continues to plow forward at breakneck pace. The focus is always on how expensive it will be to relocate or re-engineer coastal cities, and I'm not convinced this is an accurate way to measure the impact of GW. If you look at a city, any given building that doesn't exist for historical importance has either been built anew or heavily renovated in the past 100 or even 50 years. City relocation predictions tend to not weigh the costs of sustained society next to those of the proposed relocations. This is all aside from the fact that the change will be gradual, making trillion+ predictions alarmist in nature and not amortized so as to give us a clearer picture of the cost.
Cost vs. Benefit. That's what it boils down to for anyone who believes in AGW but doesn't agree with a massive societal restructuring to mitigate its effects. There is no extensive cost benefit analysis of the different paths, and there likely never will be because we're unsure of what technologies will make expensive things now trivial in 20-50 years. Hell, advances in AI and robotics alone could turn construction and scrapping into a trivial affair, as could breakthroughs in Fusion in regards to sustainable energy, or civil engineering techniques in coastal cities. I guess I've seen such a malleable society in history that I'm not worried about the changes that come, since change is the only thing that's constant and its not something we've found daunting in the past. Maybe I'm a short-sighted asshole for this? I don't know. What I do know is that being labeled a denier because I debate the response to AGW is assinine. The focus needs to be on people who refuse the science behind AGW, not the people debating humanity's reaction to it. Tieing action to beleif in AGW, turning this into an all or nothing debacle, is the #1 flaw in the AGW issue.
The biggest problem that pro-technology, pro-science Conservatives face today is an overly vocal minority that is either ignorant, mysognistic, racist, religious, or some combination of the four, and as we pull our money away from Education in the name of Defense Contracts and corporate tax breaks, it's not surprising that part of the population is going that way, as well.
It’s complicated for a peripheral observer like me. What am I supposed to do, just take as gospel that AGW is occurring? Every time I hear proof from one side I hear counter-proof from the otherthen I’m called a Neanderthal for not knowing what to believe. Too bad, cuz the way I figure it man is probably responsible for some of to much of the warming, and we should probably do something about it. And that brings me to my main point This whole carbon trading biz just reeks of inefficiencies and corruption. How is the original value for one credit set? How are the credits allocated? How can we validate that every carbon emitter emits the amount in accordance with his credits? It is way too complicated with arbitrary HUGE dollar values set by unelected, unaccountable entities. No freekin’ way. Guaranteed corruption. Then when a simple google on methods to capture carbon turns up plenty of potential carbon trapping techniques that I never hear Al Gore and Co. promote I get really suspicious. Again, too bad.
Or like the time the gov't stopped me from using Agent Orange in my backyard. I had to go buy roundup instead and that shit is expensive. So what if some little shitheaded brats get cancer in twenty years, not my fucking problem!!!! My quality of life took a serious dip there.
And we were all thinking it was the oil companies funding the astro-turf, but I think you're onto something. Those sneaky fucking canucks...
..."math."
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
Just let me know when the climate *stops* changing. That would be news worth discussion.
...but apparently the term "scientists" is now a weasel word. As in... ...who works for the petroleum industry. Piss off, you little oil-industry whore.
I think that after 10 years of debate, we can show that that there are hundreds if not thousands of scientists who have come over to being skeptics...
Well, which is it? Hundreds or thousands? Oh, you don't actually have any real evidence. It's "just a feeling", right? Whatever. Let's just, for the sake of argument, say that there are actually more than 1,199 "scientists" who are now skeptics. The last time someone cited some "scientist" skeptic as an authority on climate change, it was a geologist... (wait, it gets even better)
The lack of tax is artificial because there are many external costs to oil that are not reflected in the market, for example the military costs of maintaining a semblance of stability in the Middle East to keep oil prices down, the environmental costs of pollution (in terms of reduced crop yields, increased medical costs for people exposed, etc.), and the long-term costs of global warming which will incur phenomenal costs on the whole planet as we're forced to abandon or massively fortify all our coastal cities to protect against rising waters and stronger storms. All of those costs can be laid directly at the doorstep of fossil fuel consumption, yet none of them are reflected in the price of oil - in Economics they are what is called externalities and it is understood that a free market can't directly address them. By taxing them so that all of those costs can be entirely paid for from those tax revenues you make the at-the-pump price reflect the actual cost society is paying. Without the taxes all those externalized costs are just a massive socially-funded subsidy for fossil fuels.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
UFOlogists also believe UFOs are real, and because the universe is so vast, they might be right. The problem is, neither them or me have a way to settle the matter because there's too much unknown variables. However, if a climate sciencist or UFOlogist tells me that in order to save the world from a (very unlikely) doom scenario, I have to deviate large sums of money to their cause, and further studies, I don't care how many of them really believe their bullshit.
It had to be an "iDevice" didn't it. Never mind that all smartphones are all roughly equal in their environmental costs... you just gotta undermine your main argument to get a cheap dig / troll in.
/sigh...
I used to be one, but libertarians who claim that "the two big parties are equally evil" are dickheads! Republicans are just "libertarian lite", with a better understanding of geopolitics and the hands-on dirty details of gradualist reform. Democrats are wrong on everything across the board, starting with complete retardation in understanding of basic economics. Libertarians (radicals, not gradualists) have the luxury of sitting in their futurist Ivory Tower and not having to deal with the disgusting "lesser evil" tactics of the here and now. Convince Republicans to only pursue their "culture warrior" bullshit locally (on the state, municipal, or ideally neighborhood association level), and they're good people. Their halfhearted appeasement of the functional idiots who are religious is politically inevitable (democracy sucks), and is far less harmful than the Democrats' appeasement and bribery of the dysfunctional idiots on their side!
Political dodging of questions like the age of the Earth is not ignorance - to the contrary, it is strategic awareness of what the democratic circus requires. Obama has done the same thing! AGW is the only scientific issue on which there is genuine disagreement, because it is the one issue on which the government-funded "scientific community" is largely wrong, or rather it's bribed and coerced to jump to politically convenient conclusions. Real scientists know how to tell politicians "we don't know", "don't jump to conclusions", or "there's no cause for alarm". Real climate science is a process of data gathering and factual analysis - not a popular democracy, a shouting contest, or a barrage of emotional videos that end with the Earth catching fire! Real scientists know that, without a time machine, our knowledge of climate history is very approximate at best. So real scientists are suppressed by the system, while the politically-convenient greeny radical are promoted instead...
If you study the actual science, you will inevitably see that political alarmism over AGW is baseless, and very likely could be the most dangerous fraud in human history! It is a set of politically desirable solutions in search of a problem, and if the problem doesn't exist it must be manufactured. No crisis - no need to retain / expand / monopolize the power of the state! The Soviet commies knew they couldn't win because the relative advantages of Economic Freedom were obvious and inescapable - the only way to enslave the world is to homogenize all governance. So they stepped back, regrouped, and painted themselves green! Only a world government can make communism possible, by removing all frame of reference and all intergovernmental competition that has been the only source of freedom throughout human history. And only a bullshit lie like an alien invasion or a global ecological crisis could provide the excuse. After the AGW hysteria goes the way of all other politically-bought pseudo-scientific fraud that occurred throughout history (ex. Lysenkoism), the people who advocated it should be treated the way Nazi supporters were treated after the spring of 1945! A "climatologist" without AGW wouldn't even be able to get a job flipping burgers!
Never mind that the total human contributions to greenhouse gases are like a mouse riding on the back of an elephant (the elephant being water vapor, natural sources of CO2, etc). Never mind that all their projections are based on the assumption that there will be ZERO TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION in the 21st century! Never mind that the margins of error on their CO2 ice core samples and temperature measurements before modern satellites are greater than the alleged temperature changes! Never mind that there are natural temperatu
However, it's OK for the BRIC nations to pump out carbon all they want. Why? These nations are either tyrannical ethnic republics or have sufficient squalor to maintain the "not first world" status. For whatever reason, college students are attracted to tyranny and squalor so as to please their professors. We have America haters here and it all has to do with post-secondary education, especially in the USA. I would like to see these college educated people putting their money where their mouth is and adopt a full live-in-filth-and-squalor third-world lifestyle. Heck, they already have the hairstyles, tattoos and piercings (especially NOSE RINGS). to match their intentions. They are not happy so much that there is one human left exercising freedom of choice of which they do not approve.
Hey, Joe College, here's some cholera, dysentery, and tuberculosis for a true oneness-with-the-world experience, go diarrhea yourself to death while coughing up lung cheese.
Waste is waste; you can improve efficiency up to a point, but ultimately you're going to have unusable waste. Entropy is a bitch.
Fine, you go work on that. Until you find them, we'll keep burning things. Wind has very limited potential. Photovoltaic is a joke. Nuclear is politically infeasible. Solar thermal is of unproven potential. As for carbon neutrality -- there's that entropy again. We can't grow enough fuel to replace petroleum and oil.
So you admit your ideas will cause quality of life to go down?
One of them made a speech several years ago that said any scientist that espoused the validity of climate change should be arrested and jailed for life for conspiracy to commit fraud on the American people. I can't remember which one it was.
Made me flash back to the days of The Inquisition when even asking certain questions could get you burned alive.
UFOlogist? Now you're just making up words. Scientist, people with degrees and peer reviewed journals.
After the defections of two of the four major remaining climate-change deniers last year (and the reluctant admissions of both tha their pseudo-research had been funded by energy multinationals), my impression had been that the debate was al but over. Perhaps what we're seeing now is merely the snarling of death throes. Like (to put it into Red State terms) the hisses of a treed raccoon.