McDonnell doubts global climate change exists at all.

Bob McDonnell just doesn’t think that people have anything to do with global climate change, and the AP’s Bob Lewis asked him some hard questions about it. Climate scientists are unanimous: the temperature is going up, and human are doing it. But McDonnell says he merely “thinks” that global climate change is real, but says that “there’s some debate” over that. (There’s not.) Lewis asked him if carbon emissions have anything to do with it, and McDonnell said, terrifyingly, that “it’s not going to affect my policy decisions.” (Yes, we know it’s not—that’s the problem.)

Two points to the first reporter who asks McDonnell whether a) evolution exists b) humans have evolved and c) there’s scientific consensus that evolution exists. I’ve got a strong suspicion that his answers will make for some good copy.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

43 replies on “McDonnell doubts global climate change exists at all.

  1. Climate scientists are unanimous: the temperature is going up, and human are doing it.

    No, they’re not. Climate scientists are unanimous that the climate is in constant change. There’s little else that climate scientists are unanimous about. Temperature going up? Puh-lease. The temperature goes up for a while, then it goes down. Then it goes back up. (http://carnalreason.org/images/feb08/globaltemp.jpg; http://www.threesources.com/global%20temperature%201979-2008.jpg). Human causation is more debatable than temperature trends.

  2. I.Publius – going outside, holding your licked-finger up, and saying, “Yep, cooler today. Global Warming is a farce,” is ridiculous.

    Of course there are folks who are looking for ways to de-bunk the overwhelming number of climate scientists showing a global temperature increase over the last 25 years. The study of science uses adversarial frameworks to provide stronger proof for studies. But that hardly points to a true deconstruction of what many more scientists agree to every day.

    http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html

    http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/

    http://climateprogress.org/2009/03/22/an-introduction-to-global-warming-impacts-hell-and-high-water/

    But I tell you what. I will take my entire life savings and retirement and pour that into an annuity for your children to access in 50 years if it turns out that science does not find that humans were a significant cause to global warming.

    You run out and get three of your richest knuckle-dragger friends to do the same for my two kids – all your retirements and savings in an annuity for 50 years from now.

    Lets see where that gets us. If you are agreeable, I will let my daughters know they will be rich some day.

  3. Many of you are probably too young to remember the “overwhelming” majority of scientists back 30 to 40 years ago that said we were headed into another ice age. They shut up after the global temperatures started warming. Then the chicken little “scientists” started the opposite argument. Some were the same that raised the alarm over the ice age. Al Gore seized the opportunity to make millions.

    There has been no warming in over a decade. We are, in fact, cooling. Lessons from the ice age teach the alarmists that they are out of time. As the cooling cycle has already begun, people are realizing this is a hoax. A scam. Time is running out to use false science to pass horrific bills that will make them tons of money, so the panic has reached a fevered pitch.

    There are exactly ZERO “scientists” that believe man is to blame for climate change that are not making money from saying so.

    There are thousands of scientists that are not on the take that say man has no impact on the climate. Or at least no measurable impact.

    In my youth, an overwhelming number of scientists claimed cigarettes were actually beneficial to your health. (I wonder how many of these “scientists” are now global warming “scientists.)

    Climate scientists are NOT unanimous. Not even close. Waldo left out the most important word that exposes this as a hoax. CONSENSUS. (But he does use the word in connection with evolution.) This word is carefully used in the “global warming” argument. It means that science has nothing to do with this. There is no PROOF, only consensus. Feelings. Emotions. Custom made arguments for emo Democrats.

    While I am not a climate scientist, I am a Navy trained Nuclear Engineer and temperature changes and heat transfer calculations are a large part of nuclear science with a lot of parallels and similarities to the whole global warming / climate change theory.

    The science I find credible includes arctic core samples that measure the thickness of layers of ice over thousands of years. This proves the normal cycles of warmer and cooler temperatures the earth has experienced in that time. Before Gore even jumped on the bandwagon, we were already cooling again.

    The science I do not believe is the alarmists that look at temperature data barely over 100 years and reach the wrong conclusion. If you look at the core samples, the cycles graph to a sine wave. Gore is looking at the rising transition of a sine wave and reaches the wrong conclusion.

    By way of example, Gore is looking at the temperature in the desert from 8 AM to noon and calculates an ever increasing temperature that will be hundreds of degrees the next day, ignoring the cooling cycle of the night.

    But they go one step further and try to tie the increasing temperature to man-made causes. Specifically, carbon. Why carbon? Because the radical environmentalists want to demonize oil and coal. So this is simply a way to tax it out of favor.

    Problem is, CO2 is only a tiny portion of greenhouse gasses, and the man-made portion of this is small. Water vapor comprises 95% of all greenhouse gasses. The climate “scientists” ignore water vapor to make the man-made CO2 sound more significant.

    Man-made CO2 accounts for .28% of greenhouse gasses if water vapor is taken into account. That means that 99.72% of greenhouse gasses are natural. Beyond our control.

    So, if we reduce man-made CO2 by 10% globally, at a cost of billions of dollars and thousands of jobs, we will reduce man-made CO2 by .03%. This will make absolutely no measurable difference in global temperatures.

    However, and here is the cleaver part of the Gore plan, global temperatures will suddenly be seen as declining and Gore will credit Cap and Tax. And the willing press will go along. And ignore the fact that global temperatures have been in decline due to the normal cycle for over a decade.

    Consensus is not science. Science is measurable and provable. Anything else is theory. Or worse.

    “Changers”, those that believe in man-made climate change, accept hysteria and theory over real science.

    When someone tells you that scientific consensus tells us something, what that really means is that they are unable to prove it. Don’t confuse consensus with scientific conclusion. There is no scientific proof that man has anything more than a negligible impact on global temperatures. Short of, perhaps, global nuclear war.

    The old saying that everyone complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it will always be true.

  4. Many of you are probably too young to remember the “overwhelming” majority of scientists back 30 to 40 years ago that said we were headed into another ice age.

    Prove it.

    Seriously. Just one legitimate, peer-reviewed citation (hell, even a mainstream newspaper) that shows that an “‘overwhelming’ majority of scientists” believed that we were heading into another ice age.

    Or I can give you a shortcut and save you the trouble. It doesn’t exist. (Ref. 1, ref. 2, ref. 3, ref. 4.) There was a single story in Newsweek back in the 1970s in which they claimed that the world was cooling, but they were unable to provide any evidence at all. Famously, they ran a correct a couple of years ago, apologizing for running such a foolish article.

    You’re parroting myths, Tom.

  5. No, they’re not. Climate scientists are unanimous that the climate is in constant change. There’s little else that climate scientists are unanimous about.

    Yes, they’re unanimous, as Naomi Oreskes’ 2004 paper made clear. She analyzed every single paper published in peer-reviewed scientific journals from 1993-2003 and found that 100% of them either used as a premise or explicitly argued that the global climate is warming and that human activity is warming it. Not a single contemporary climate scientist has provided any evidence that the climate is not warming, or even tried.

    Again, when McDonnell says “there’s some debate” over whether climatologists believe that global climate change exist, he’s flat wrong. There is no debate to be had about this, what with there being no evidence in support of his claim.

  6. Ok. Change the subject. Ignore the meat of my argument and zero in on a nearly irrelevant footnote intended to give you a point of reference. Apparently one in direct conflict with your religion.

    I will indulge you on this diversionary tactic, however, I will also challenge you to research the ice core samples that prove the cycles of which I speak. And it also measures the amounts of CO2 in the air over eons and is an amazing history of the earth’s temperature and atmospheric composition for thousands of years.

    It is also proof positive that “changers” are wrong.

    It is intellectually dishonest of you to ignore this true scientific proof in order to continue believing a theory.

    The word “overwhelming” was in quotes denoting that the so called scientists back then, like today, were hardly an “overwhelming” number. Just a few crack pots. But this time around, there is money to be had. Unlike the last time.

    Waldo, unlike you, I was there. I attended the first “earth day” festivals. I “parrot” nothing.

    If you believe there were not almost daily stories and dire warnings of the impending ice age, you are far more gullible than I thought.

    You want proof? Look at the efforts to discredit those views. You “changers” don’t want to risk looking like Chicken Little, Part II. But I was there.

    Remember, Al Gore didn’t invent the internet until years later. We didn’t have Youtube. We didn’t even have VCR’s. But the warnings were on the news. They were in the papers. Best I could do on the first moon landing was to take 35mm photos of the TV. I didn’t think to do that with the ice age stories.

    Ask your Mom. I am sure she remembers the stories.

    By the time the internet rolled around, this laughable scientific theory was long debunked. Little more than a footnote. Which is all that remains.

    I was even taught the theory in science class, but it was done with a skeptical view, and not forced upon us like the indoctrination you received on the climate change bunk.

    See, I was not sure about the ice age at the time, but my skepticism of dirty science was founded in the highly paid for opinions of the Cigarette manufacturers’ “scientists”. It is hard to imagine the constant bombardment we received from TV commercials and print ads telling us that cigarettes would improve our minds and overall health. And they had “scientific” proof to back it up.

    So, when the global warming crowd began running in circles, and the warming turned to climate change (hummm!), my experience gives me a perspective you will not have for decades. You are simply a victim of a youthful disadvantage on this topic. You were taught this as if it were a religion, you accept it on faith. So when your faith is challenged, you use anger and emotion and fail to look at the hard, COLD facts.

    Ask yourself. Why would there be so many articles about debunking the magnitude of the Ice Agers today? If the “science” were fact, why would they care.

    You and your fellow changers have been brain-washed. I had a number of friends and acquaintances that were just as convinced our next greatest threat would come from Polar Bears in the frozen Florida tundra.

    If it weren’t for the economic disaster this will cause, I would be doing the same thing I did in the 70’s.

    Laughing at the hysterical climate changers. The fact that this comes in cycles, just like global temperatures, makes it even more amusing.

    I imagine in 10 or 20 years you will be telling the next wave of Ice Agers of how you remember the ridiculous belief of the “changers”, which by then will have the whole world laughing at them, as I do now.

  7. Waldo. Show me one scientist that blames man for climate change that is not working on a grant from Gore or some other business that is hoping to make money on this. Gore has cashed in on over $100 million. I’d fly around and say anything for that kind of money.

    These “scientists” are in it for the money. Gore Whores as I call them.

    There are an overwhelming number of scientists that believe in climate change. Because it is a fact. The climate DOES change. Only Man is not the cause, unless, of course, you received the first class brain-washing.

    There are two classes of “Changers”:

    Those that fall for the man-made global warming and are unable to think for themselves, and those that know it is a load of crap, but find it an irresistible method to gain control over people.

    Waldo, as I believe you to be rather intelligent, I would have to think you fall into the latter category.

    So tell me. Are you a member of the cult, or allied with the cult leaders?

  8. Tom White: You were challenged to provide valid scientific, peer-reviewed cites, not more of your self-important opinions. Get to it son, or go stink up another joint.

  9. MB:

    Seriously? You would try to use this garbage blog as a credible source?

    Realclimate.org is funded by Environmental Media Services, founded in 1994 by Arlie Schardt, a former journalist, former communications director for Al Gore’s 2000 Presidential campaign.

    EMS is closely allied with Fenton Communications.

    Fenton Communications client list includes organizations associated with a diverse array of social issues, but they are most known for their work with liberal causes such as MoveOn.org and Greenpeace.

    Get real.

  10. Oh, now Tom’s bringing the funny. Click on his name, and you’ll see that he’s written an entire post devoted to the fact that “Waldo Jaquith has exposed himself as a “changer”.” And he appears to be completely serious.

    (I’m not usually one for suggesting that clowns like Tom be rewarded with attention, but I thought it might be worth a laugh for the rest of us.)

  11. Bubby;

    Like I told Waldo, this is your typical diversionary tactic. Ignore the bulk of the post you cannot refute with hard, scientific proof, and find an unimportant detail to examine in minute detail. So predictable.

    Show me one piece of hard PROOF that is not “consensus” or feelings that man-made climate change is not part of a normal cycle. You can’t do it.

    While Waldo is likely a member of the group that is aware that the whole Climate Change thing is a hoax, my previous dealings with you indicate you are part of the brainwashed group.

    And to believe that I was “challenged” to provide “valid scientific, peer-reviewed cites” for the Ice Age crowd is really funny.

    The data from the ice cores is available on the internet. Google it. And try to use a site not paid for by the Gore Whores. There is no valid data there. They are slanted. They are the equivalent of asking a cigarette manufacturer if the “good for you” science was valid.

    Google it yourself.

  12. So, when I expose MB’s link as a liberal spin site, he feels the need to move on to personal attacks.

    How intellectual!

    When facts fail you, turn to personal attacks and emotion. I pretty much outgrew that in High School (during the impending Ice Age.)

    You got anything besides personal attacks?

    You guys act like I said God does not exist at Thomas Road Baptist Church.

  13. And before I depart for Tidewater, let me say that although we disagree on man-made climate change, please don’t mistake that as my endorsement of fossil fuels.

    The emissions spewing from autos and industry are producing a toxic mix which we must breathe.

    Big oil companies are far too powerful and foreign countries are a threat because we buy their oil. If the world could stop using oil, most of the money flowing to terrorist nations would dry up. That would go a long way towards world peace.

    As a nuke, I see that as a viable means to produce energy in the short term, but it, too, is a finite resource. Waste can be “recycled” but I do not believe this is a safe process as of yet.

    Solar power is a couple of discoveries away from being useful. The cells themselves and the storage technology.

    I have seen a demonstration using water to power a cutting torch. H2O is broken down into Hydrogen and Oxygen and ignited. The waste is H2O. Pretty interesting stuff.

    There are many new and exciting renewable sources of energy on the horizon. Investment in this technology is the key to our future.

    We MUST stop burning carbon for energy. And I would rather see investment in the next energy sources than health care or almost any other area. Health care is important, but a true “Manhattan Project” type of effort to move away from fossil fuels and onto a free, or inexpensive, non-polluting, renewable energy source will save more lives in the long run. And save more money than Health Care.

    No more elderly people dying due to cold or heat, cleaner air will prevent diseases and assist people with breathing problems.

    And if we can share this cheap energy technology with the world, and prevent Big Oil type monopolies, so much the better.

    Admit it or not, Climate Change is a means to that end. Or more precisely, the legislation planned. But the motives of many in this area are suspect. They are seeking money, power and control and using issues like energy to accomplish this.

    We have real problems now and our focus is not in areas that will help us resolve those problems.

    And for those that don’t know me personally, I can assure you that if I saw anything to the man-made climate change theory that was scientifically valid, I would be the first in line to sound the alarm. I want my kids and grand kids to have a safe environment. For those that do know me, you already knew that.

    This is an important issue. We need to present an alternative that is better, cheaper and cleaner. Then there would be no need to even debate the issue.

    China is bringing 3 coal fired plants on line each week. There is no EPA there.

    Cap and Trade will have absolutely no impact on the environment. Europe has proven that. We are spending money on these things that could be invested in creating the next generation of energy technology.

    We are spinning our wheels arguing about things that would be moot if we could use the sun or simple water as fuel.

  14. Tom – yet again, you and deniers like you want to let China and India dictate our own air quality standards based on a fallacious market argument. Big corporations are not putting jobs in China because of emission standards, they do it because they can get cheap child labor with few if any labor regulations.

    Why would the US wait until China and India decide on emissions when America, or at least my America, is still the leader of the free world. Don’t you believe we should be leaders and not followers? Or am I not in real-enough America for you?

  15. Tom, I’m losing patience with you.

    I posted a blog entry in which I pointed out that there is scientific consensus on global climate change. You attempted to rebut it by saying that there’s not, repeating the canard that scientists believed the opposite forty years ago. I pointed out that’s wrong, and you accused me of changing the topic. But this bit?

    While Waldo is likely a member of the group that is aware that the whole Climate Change thing is a hoax

    Tom, you don’t know me. So I’m going to be polite as I can in pointing this out. I get very, very unhappy when people call me a liar. If I’m a liar, there’s no sense in you wasting your time here, because there is no reason to trust anything that I say. And if I’m a liar, there’s no point in my trying to convince you of anything, because why would you believe me? As somebody whose primary value in this world is established through statements that I make—which is to say that I’m a “knowledge worker,” as it’s known—being called a liar is potentially very damaging. As a result, every word that I write is true, to the best of my knowledge.

    You and I can disagree on things until we’re blue in the face, and that’s just great. But if you are going to call me a liar, I’ll have to ask that you stop commenting on my blog.

  16. I have to say, Tom, that I’ve never heard anyone argue that science is unable to be trusted because the entire scientific establishment is corrupt. I’m impressed.

    Really, though, that strategy of saying something is untrustworthy because it is N degrees away from some basically unrelated, partisan group can be used to discount any source from any argument about any topic. More important, though, is that it’s completely irrelevant: You’re focusing on political connections rather than scientific soundness. Who cares if a study was funded by Al Gore, the KKK or Scientologists, if the study is valid and peer-verified? You’re falling into a self-made trap that reveals your agenda, here: Science is non-partisan, but you’re looking at everything through partisan lenses. We’re talking science, you’re talking politics. If you want to disprove global warming, you have to do it scientifically, not politically.

  17. Waldo, I did not call you a liar.

    If I were to call someone a liar, the word liar will appear in the sentence.

    But the kicker, Waldo, is your statement “You’re parroting myths, Tom.” What you are saying is that I am not intelligent enough to analyze the data and come to my own conclusion. That I am being dishonest (lying) by stating my comments were my opinion based on experience and research. While I contend I did not call you a liar, I believe you did call me a liar.

    And from MB: “anyone is wondering whether Tom has even the slightest bit of a clue, the answer is no.”

    And Bubby – who uses the same dialog every time, and I believe he may actually be a computer generated script –
    “not more of your self-important opinions. Get to it son, or go stink up another joint.”

    So, other than the quote you picked out which was clearly speculating on your position and not calling you a liar, is there anything I wrote that is calling people names, dismissing them as idiots, and generally disrespecting them for having an opinion that is different from mine?

    I try really hard to not name call and disrespect others opinions, and especially not disrespect them personally. Honestly, when I sit here and read the venom spewed by some it is difficult to remain civil. But you will never see me use personal attacks and belittle the intellect of others because they do not agree with me. I wish the same could be said of others.

    I am simply trying to throw out a perspective most of you may not have. I have seen junk science before and I have seen overly hyped climate alarmists before.

    I expect attacks. I am used to them by now. There are literally no lefty blogs in the universe that tolerate or respect different opinions. And it is not possible to discuss the issues (apparently) without being attacked on a personal level.

    And guess which one is singled out for “bad behavior”.

    Waldo, you are probably the most cerebral blogger on the left in Virginia. I am one who enjoys a good back and forth without the childish name calling and dismissive attitudes. I can go on conservative blogs and get mega dittos 24 hours a day and never learn a thing.

    It would be really great if every now and then a discussion could take place between people with strong, but different opinions and do so at an intellectual level, rather than as if it were some sort of contest where we keep score.

    That is honestly what I attempt to do when a topic interests me, and I feel I might have a point of view others may not have considered.

    I am occasionally guilty of using language that might be inflammatory, which is what I did with you. But, being human, the emotional side occasionally overtakes the logical side of my brain and a bit of frustration surfaces. I would argue that this is always in response to numerous inflammatory attacks by others.

    I have a pretty thick skin and the attacks I receive roll off my back, for the most part. Some take 3 to 5 minutes to roll off.

    I would really like to have discussions of topics that are controversial without seeing them degrade into an ugly and irritating abyss. And the only way to do that is if all parties play nice.

    But I will apologize for my choice of words. I really should have put that another way, but I never intended to convey a message that I was calling you a liar.

  18. Will M.
    There are organizations on both sides that exist to “disprove” almost any issue.

    Before the discussion degraded, the only points I was trying to make are:

    a)Junk science has existed before and scientists can be bought.
    b)The word “consensus” is used when proof does not exist. It is not a “consensus” that water boils at 100 C and freezes at 0 C. It is fact.

    There are arguments on both sides of this issue. Many are valid, or at least interesting. I believe there is simply more scientific proof that man’s impact on the Earth’s temperatures is negligible.

    I would also state that man-made global warming, while not scientifically proven, is not scientifically disproven, either. I have seen no proof to convince me 100% either way.

    What I do know is that, based on 55 years on the planet, these issues are often commandeered by people that are out to make money. And people are making money on this.

    I am not saying we should do nothing about it. I am saying that drastic action costing (possibly) $1 trillion and 1.2 million jobs is not wise at this point. (And these are figures I have heard and also do not believe 100%.)

    The last 10 years have been cooler. The temperature is not rising. Predictions are that this will continue.

    Keep in mind, we are talking 10th’s of a degree globally. The fact that we have early snows in the Midwest and Virginia has been bone chilling the last few days is unrelated to this issue. Just because we have a cold snap is not proof global warming is not happening. Conversely, the excessively hot days are not proof of warming, either. These are all short lived and probably average out.

    We need the greenhouse effect or we would all freeze.

    And let me add the Ozone Hole scare to the equation. Remember that? Did it go away? Well, no. The largest ever recorded hole was in 2006. It was supposed to let so much warmth out that we could see a new ice age.

    Do a little research on Dupont’s patent on Freon (R-12) and it’s replacement. And the correlation to the hole.

    And this video from Fox. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL9FkkDhOwg

    I know you are taught to discount anything on Fox and anything Republicans say, but the report came from CBS. Look up Alan Carlin of the EPA.

    Scientists are abandoning this global warming “science”.

    I am sure you only want to look at things that agree with your opinion, but I am trying to tell you that you are ignoring far too much science and information and dismissing it without even listening.

    A new movie was released today from http://noteviljustwrong.org .

    My point is, I have been conned far too many times in my lifetime to fall for this stuff hook, line and sinker without careful consideration of all the facts.

    And Will M. – I appreciate your civil tone and valid points. It is good to know we can disagree and discuss it in a polite way.

    And to others about to launch a Fox attack or call me a conspiracy theorist, please, I am not saying I buy everything these folks are selling. I watched the trailer to the “not evil” movie and got a kick out of the goofy “Bubba” they quoted at the 1:40 mark. I sure hope the movie is better than the trailer, because I am laughing my ass off on this one. I was supposed to view the movie at a friend’s house, but was unable. After watching the trailer, I’m not so sure.

    There are alarmists and wackos on both sides that raise the hair on the back of my neck. You know when you get one of those emails that says something about a missing kid, or some horrible evil and says “pass it on to everyone you know”. I get the same feeling here.

  19. Tom, this is ridiculous. You wrote:

    There are two classes of “Changers”:

    Those that fall for the man-made global warming and are unable to think for themselves, and those that know it is a load of crap, but find it an irresistible method to gain control over people.

    Waldo, as I believe you to be rather intelligent, I would have to think you fall into the latter category.

    Quite clearly accusing me of saying something untrue (“a load of crap”) knowingly (“that know it is”). Lying. After I called you on it, you wrote:

    I did not call you a liar.

    Your behavior is foolish, embarrassing, and obvious. Please stop.

  20. Tom,

    It’s no use. I used to bring arguments to the table on this blog, and got the same treatment you’re getting — a virtual hands on the ears and “la-la-la-la I don’t hear you!”

    And then you’re asked to stop visiting the blog.

    Same old story. But I commend you for attempting to call them on the bullshit.

  21. Tom, I think there is an easy way to settle this. At this point, Waldo has already referenced the 2004 essay from Science that explains the consensus in the scientific community. As the essay points out, of the 928 papers published about global climate change in a refereed scientific journal between 1993 and 2003, not a single one disagreed with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s assertions regarding global warming. (I’m not able to verify past 2003 as I don’t have access to the ISI database.)

    If you want those of us who disagree with you to take your viewpoint seriously, I think that the only way you can do that is for you to point out a peer-reviewed paper from a scientific journal that disagrees with the IPCC’s assertion. If your side of this argument is indeed scientifically sound, as you assert it is, then it should be fairly easy for you to do this.

    This isn’t a trick or rhetorical, I just want to see a real, peer-reviewed scientific study put up in your argument, rather than the political back-and-forth that’s been going on so far in this discussion. Politics are moot. If we’re going to argue science, then let’s do it by the rules of scientific discourse.

  22. I agree. When faced with honest dialog and attempted civil discussion, a few on this blog begin name calling and get bent out of shape.

    I have seen this behavior in the past with Waldo. He seems to enjoy twisting things I did not say so he can become offended.

    I have obviously not called him a liar, apologized if he misunderstood what I was saying and he insists on making that an issue rather than discuss the climate change issue rationally.

    Sad, really. A couple of people on this blog are capable of reasonable discussion. Will M. comes to mind.

    Perhaps I will return and comment again on Waldo’s blog when he grows up. I feel a “taking my ball and going home” fit coming from him.

    I seriously overestimated Waldo’s intellect.

  23. Tom White said:

    There are two classes of “Changers”:

    Those that fall for the man-made global warming and are unable to think for themselves, and those that know it is a load of crap, but find it an irresistible method to gain control over people.

    Waldo, as I believe you to be rather intelligent, I would have to think you fall into the latter category.

    Tom, I think it’s difficult for you to argue that your statement didn’t imply Waldo is lying. You suggested that he knows global warming “is a load of crap” but was supporting it anyway. That’s the definition of lying: to make an intentionally false statement.

  24. It’s no use. I used to bring arguments to the table on this blog, and got the same treatment you’re getting — a virtual hands on the ears and “la-la-la-la I don’t hear you!”

    And then you’re asked to stop visiting the blog.

    Now, we talked about this, I. Publius. Sometime about two years ago, you got very angry and got in the habit of calling me a liar, in the same sort of scenario. We went through the same thing, and then you were gone. I’d written a blog entry about the broader habit of rational people behaving irrationally, and mentioned you, though not by name. You posted a comment, explaining that it wasn’t you, but somebody else posting under the same name, and “sometimes [you] would disagree with what one of my colleagues said.” That is the only other instance of this that I can recall. Folks are welcome to disagree with me on all of my blogs. It’d be awfully boring otherwise. But once somebody crosses the line into intellectually dishonest discussion, that’s when the warnings start, and I think fairly enough.

  25. I believe it was Nixon and his crew who convinced me that rightwing political “discussion” is inherently intellectually dishonest. He was denying that the US was bombing Cambodia while my relatives were bombing Cambodia. Victory With Honor! He was evil, but he wasn’t stupid. He wore his dishonesty with pride.

    This new breed; Tom White and the I. Publius, along with their kindred wingnuts, have actually taken to believing the lies. Apparently Belief makes the lie unassailable and morally safe. Makes it easy to trump up a war of aggression, call torture “enhanced interrogation”, or deny manmade climate change. So otherwise smart guys end up with brain damage linked to over consumption of their own bullshit.

    This is the legacy of Ronald Reagan. Or Ronaldus Magnus as Republicans say. A guy who could simultaneously fund anti-communist paramilitaries in Central America by selling shaped-charge ordinance to the Iranian government. In the end Reagan was too stupid to know that he was evil. But not before he brought Supply-Side economic theory to prime time and birthed the $100 modern day tank-killer IED.

    The struggle continues!

  26. I tell you what Waldo, if McDonnell says he doesn’t believe in evolution I’ll vote for Deeds. As to this other sticky wicket of climate change I beleive man does effect it but what I can’t yet understand is by how much. I agree that less pollution is better and we should move less smoke stack emissions. It’s the amount of reduction we get for the drain on the GDP.

    I don’t pretend to have tha answer yet and will keep reading.

  27. I feel the same way Perlogik. I’ve personally studied evolution and done the research on it, so I have a firm grasp on the realities. But I haven’t quite done enough research into man-made global warming to hold definitive positions on it. Obviously less pollution and energy conservation are worthwhile goals for everybody.

  28. Now both of y’all’s positions I totally get. I was not at all convinced of global climate change until about a decade ago, but I kept an open mind and spent time learning about it, as boh of you are doing. And, yes, it’s awfully difficult to say how much humans affect it, other than to say that it’s to a degree that’s likely non-trivial. Reasonable people may disagree to the extent to which anthropogenic causes bear on climate change. And, Meri, I couldn’t agree more with the notion that less pollution and more energy conservation is inherently a good idea. No matter what one makes of global climate change and its causes, I think any reasonable individual would support both of those concepts.

  29. I just have to wonder why McDonnell even bothers with the green jobs and green energy deal in his energy plan if he doesn’t believe in global warming. Well, I guess I do. It’s all about marketing. The same reason corporations do it.

    I didn’t read the entire thread mind you. But I thought I would address just a few things from Tom White’s post. When people say Big Oil is powerful, that always bothers me. The major, publicly traded, integrated oil companies are not powerful in terms of the petroleum market as a whole, production or reserves specifically (even in refining and retail sales). At a national level, politically they were powerful. At a state level, only in those states where oil is significant in the state’s economy & revenues. Big Oil is pretty anemic these days. And as far as bogeymen, they are no more so than any other large corporation.

    As for terrorists, they’ll find other ways to fund themselves (like they already do with heroin or cigarettes). The major beneficiaries of oil sales are not terrorists anyway.

  30. I had a number of friends and acquaintances that were just as convinced our next greatest threat would come from Polar Bears in the frozen Florida tundra.

    Your friends are morons then. And this is the problem when the general public tries to understand scientific literature after after it has been processed by the media. I see it all the damn time. A massive research paper gets relegated to two sentences in the evening news and suddenly it’s the end of the world. And then politicians who don’t know their elbow from another part of their body try to form a public opinion about said subject.

    As for the topic:
    Bottom lines is that humans are affecting global climate. You don’t do the things humans do across the globe and not affect climate. It’s not known as to what degree. I really dislike modelers because they’re allowed to get things wrong all the time since they base a model on the parameters they input. If the parameters are wrong or not all parameters are used, the model disintegrates.

    Pissed the weatherman can’t predict the weather 10 days out and it rains on your picnic? Try predicting climate 2,000 years out. Your favorite football team beat the Vegas spread and you win some cash? Odds-makers got it wrong. It’s all the same. But it doesn’t mean you can’t take action based on the best guess out there. It’s all you can do.

  31. JR, his proposals in this area are so anemic as to suggest he either takes us as fools or isn’t serious about doing anything. The majority of his “initiatives” are actually funding priorities from the ARRA (remember, the bill that Republicans regularly pan?)

  32. I loved the comment above that said you couldn’t just walk outside and stick your finger in the air and say “it’s not getting warmer”.

    Because it was perfectly true, while also revealing the truth about global warming these days.

    Which is that scientific facts no longer matter to the global warming argument. The fact that we have cooled, not warmed, over the last 10 years doesn’t matter. The fact that none of the peer-reviewed articles that accepted as truth the claims of global warming predicted we’d have 10 years where we’d end up cooler.

    The fact that none of the simulations that are used to validate the global warming theory predicted the results of the last 10 years.

    The fact that none of the global climate change experts predicted that there would be more ice, not less, in the north pole.

    Or the fact that even among scientists who still “believe” that global warming is real, the realization has set in that C02 levels explain nothing of what has been observed, that old information used to suggest C02 is predictive was invalid.

    That even politically liberal climatologists, who still believe in global warming, are now coming forward with the stories of how the left is destroying their reputation for publishing facts that don’t fit the climate disaster theme.

    There was a time when it appeared the science was on the side of the global warming alarmists. But that time has passed. THere is much inertia — most climatologists staked their careers on global warming, and aren’t going to quickly acknowledge the truth. The younger generation was trained with the assumption of global warming, and will take time to be retrained to think rationally about the subject.

    My hope is that the scientists will come around, speak the truth, and do so quickly, before the politicians get through using the inaccurate global warming alarmist data to justify doing what they wanted to do all along, destroying our economy and making our lives worse.

    It’s a race, and with the democrats firmly in charge, I don’t hold out a lot of hope for the science to win this battle.

  33. I loved the comment above that said you couldn’t just walk outside and stick your finger in the air and say “it’s not getting warmer”.

    Kind of like how it’s been getting colder every week, but this week it’s warm. Clearly summer is just around the corner!

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