Slashdot Mirror


Another Climate-Change Retraction

jamie writes "It seems every time someone twists global-warming science into 'good news,' a retraction is soon to follow, and so it must be for Slashdot. Yesterday, the conservative Wall Street Journal published yet another apologetic claiming 'the overall effect of climate change will be positive,' by someone who (of course) is not a climate scientist. Today, Climate Progress debunks the piece, noting 'Ridley and the WSJ cite the University of Illinois paper to supposedly prove that warming this century will be under 2C — when the author has already explained to them that his research shows the exact opposite!' We went through this same process last year, with the same author and the same paper, so it's pretty embarrassing that he 'makes a nearly identical blunder' all over again."

13 of 479 comments (clear)

  1. Look over here, look over here! by s.petry · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Anything to keep you from looking at the root cause of the problem. Pollution, waste, dumping, strip farming/mining, and so on and so on are never discussed. Problems that we see like the great pacific garbage dump are ignored, as are ocean dead zones and polluted water.

    I don't believe 99% of what is paid to be published, because, well hell look who is paying for the media spin? The same people pushing more and more pollution in most cases.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    1. Re:Look over here, look over here! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There are hundreds of millions of people on this planet who have no legitimate prospects for "adapting" in time to avert catastrophe. Your flippant (and ignorant) proposal, if implemented, would lead to hundreds of millions of deaths. Or, it will lead to hundreds of millions of angry, desperate, poor people who are are going to force you to "adapt" to their needs.

      Now, do you have something NOT ignorant to contribute to the conversation?

    2. Re:Look over here, look over here! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 5, Funny

      If one reckless nation's environmental impact causes changes that will lead to deaths of people in other nations, it's a state-level version of negligent homicide.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    3. Re:Look over here, look over here! by QRDeNameland · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Simple calculations suggest..."

      Beware when the simple start calculating. It never ends well.

      --
      Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
    4. Re:Look over here, look over here! by turbidostato · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "All of the woes that you mention such as pollution are caused by excessive population."

      That explains why India pollutes more than USA.

      Oh, wait!

      No, I was joking: It's progress not population.

      That explains why Denmark pollutes per capita as much as USA.

      Oh, wait!

    5. Re:Look over here, look over here! by Joce640k · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "makes a nearly identical blunder' all over again"

      It's not a "blunder" - he's figured out he can get paid for conferences and keep himself in the spotlight by doing this sort of thing.

      Bottom line: He's a fraud.

      Sad thing is, a lot of people are prepared to believe him and pay to listen to him. And the planet could be wrecked because of people like him.

      --
      No sig today...
    6. Re:Look over here, look over here! by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Partly because when people post things here from some of those real scientists, they are insulted, harassed, and stuck with the label "denialist".

      That's because well over 90% of the people who hold that viewpoint on slashdot are flat-out denialists.

      We get people:
      * Insisting there is some conspiracy or that scientists are in it for the money.
      * Bringing up the same tired, well covered talking points ("scientists are so stupid they've forgotten about solar output").
      * Attacking news and opinion articles and using this to "debunk" the actual science.
      * Latching on to the shrieking shrill enviro-nuts and using that to "debunk" the science.
      * Pretending that economic consequences of action say anything about the science,attacking proposed action and using that to "debunk" the science.
      * Cherry picking the actions of one or two scientists and using this to "debunk" all the other scientists.
      * Confusing scientists with everyone else arguing about it and using that to "debunk" the science.

      That makes the majority.

      You also get a few people:
      * Massively cherry picking the data.
      * Claiming that it's so complicated anyway that we can't know anything and therefore it is not warming or its not our fault or whatever.
      * Ignoring the climate models actual predictions.

      I invite you to find someone here who doesn't do all those things.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  2. Re:Freeman Dyson by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 5, Informative

    He also admits, he doesn't know what the heck he's talking about:

    "my objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it’s rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have."

    http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2151

    He's not an expert on the current science. Taking his advice is like asking a guy who wrote COBOL in the 60's about something like open stack.

    --
    Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
  3. "blunder" is far too kind a word for it by bzipitidoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Black lie is what I call it. These scum knew what they were doing. They've been told, repeatedly, that they are wrong and why they are wrong, and they just dismiss and ignore everything and say those lies again anyway. They were printing propaganda. Throwing raw meat to the conservatives. That's all the WSJ's opinion section has been since Murdoch bought it.

    It's like the black knight skit in Quest for the Holy Grail. "It's only a flesh wound" and "The earth has had worse." Won't quit fighting even after his legs have been cut out from under him.

    --
    Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
    1. Re:"blunder" is far too kind a word for it by cusco · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's pretty much all the WSJ opinion page has ever been, at least since the 1980s when I used to steal it. The newspaper itself could have a great in-depth and well-researched story saying X, and on the opinion page the bloody editors would declare Y. George Will used to be particularly bad at doing that. He could lay out all the facts that would show why one of Ronnie Raygun's programs were going to be yet another disastrous unending money pit of fail, and then declare that the program should be supported 111%. All Murdoch has managed to do is get rid of some of the good investigative reporters that it used to have and change the format to something that no one likes.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
  4. Re:Forbes, WSJ others by TapeCutter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The same sort of lies were spread about smoking and cancer, the same (for hire) lobby groups were writing and distributing the anti-science propaganda. They dragged the tobacco CEO's into congress for a grilling. At the end of the day they were fined $500M, but still not enough to put them out of business and certainly no jail time for what was nothing short of fraud. The coal industry is an economic superpower compared to tobacco, they have been successfully fighting emission controls for over a century. They will not retire gracefully.

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  5. Don't like the solution so the problem can't exist by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Your right, we SHOULD be listening to the people pushing for more taxes for the government instead, because they OBVIOUSLY have your best interest in mind.

    Have you got a solution that doesn't involve regulation?

    What is being said here seems to be "I don't like the solutions that I think will be imposed, so therefore I will vehemently argue that the problem doesn't exist, or if it exists that it's not as bad as projected."

    The logical fallacy of that should be obviously: whether a particular solution is right or wrong has no logical bearing on whether the science-- that human-generated carbon dioxide contributes to temperature according to well-known models-- is correct.

    If you don't like the solution, perhaps you should work on figure out a proposal for a solution that is acceptable, rather than denying the science is right.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  6. Re:Have you looked at the evidence? by _xen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Have you actually read the IPCC working-group 1 report, The Physical Science Basis of Climate Change. I don't mean, a summary of it ... Have you actually read the report?

    I beg to differ. Even reading the Summary could be greatly beneficial for many of the victims of the disinformation campaign. The full WG1 report is a lot of reading. There's an overwhelming amount of science to get through and expecting non-specialists to tough it out is not entirely realistic. That, after all, is why the Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) exists.

    And the advantage is that on any area of science where you want to get your hands dirty, you can navigate from the SPM, into the the appropriate place of the Full Report proper and via the citations to the original publications in the scientific literature.

    And on that point, don't waste your time right now reading the AR4 report. The AR5 report is due for release from the 27th of this month, starting with the SPM, from here.

    And the SPM makes it so easy for non-specialists to get a handle on the science, it's simply unforgivable for anyone who presumes to venture an opinion on this issue not to have digested it.