Saturday, December 19, 2009

A "Slap in the Face" from NYC mayor

Posted by Mickey Z on 12/19 at 12:18 PM
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  1. I found this counterpunch article: http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn12182009.html
    quite interesting/thought provoking and since it flies in the face of many green assumptions I think it has to be answered.
    Is it accurate and are we all being played once again?
    Mickey what say you?

    Haiku response:
    Also I’ve always loved quiet (absence of noise) and age wasn’t a factor. Hardly ever play lotto and here in rural North Central FL weather can be muy importante hombre. Got to watch those generalizations…

    Posted by Bob T. from Archer, FL  on  12/19  at  01:11 PM

  2. Apologies for the length of this post, but I am sick of hearing this shite…

    AGW lobby "behind which lurk huge corporate interests such as the nuclear power companies". Really? Where is the source for this?

    "Copenhagen was hosting its global warming jamboree, surely the most outlandish foray into intellectual fantasizing since the fourth-century Christian bishops assembled for the Council of Nicaea in 325AD to debate whether God the father was supreme or had to share equal status in the pecking order of eternity with his Son and with the Holy Ghost" Relevance? Or is this just rabble rousing those of feeble minds?

    "Shortly before the Copenhagen summit the proponents of anthropogenic – human-caused - global warming (AGW) were embarrassed by a whistleblower who put on the web over a thousand emails either sent from or received at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia" Whistleblower? what is the evidence? No whistleblower has come forward and the people at CRU claim it was a hack. On top of this, the released ~1000 emails are 64MB for a 15 year period. My PERSONAL EMAILS over a 5 year period come to more than 10 times this, suggesting these are “cherry-picked” and even then only indicate bitching, not a “smoking gun”.

    "At that time the supposed menace to the planet and to mankind was global cooling" Ahh the old denialist bullshit comes to the fore. This NEVER HAPPENED, a TINY MINORITY claimed cooling for a short time. See THIS PAPER for analysis.

    ” Soon persuaded of the potential of AGW theories for their bottom line, the energy giants effortlessly recalibrated their stance, and as of 2008 the CRU included among its financial supporters Shell and BP, also the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and UK Nirex Ltd, a company in the nuclear waste business." Soon? Has the author ANY idea of the history of the field? It started with John Tyndall and Joseph Fourier in the mid 1800s. Obviously the nuclear industry wants to propagate the message, as at first glance they are carbon-free. This is provably false (mining and refining are hugely energy intensive and rely on carbon fuels), but it is well under the radar at the moment.

    "has been to take up defensive positions around the proposition that deceitful manipulation of data, concealment or straightforward destruction of inconvenient evidence, vindictive conspiracies to silence critics" Except the critics that they talk of preventing publishing actually WERE published, and part of the IPCC report, and there is no evidence of data destruction. It’s called VENTING - a common response to the irritation of dealing with idiots trying to perversely muddy the waters.

    "Scientific research is indeed saturated with exactly this sort of chicanery. But the CRU emails graphically undermine the claim of the Warmers – always absurd to those who have studied the debate in any detail" first point - defining scientists as “warmers” denigrates them, second point - “studied in any detail”...that would be the CLIMATE SCIENTISTS, not some political journalist ”...It has been a standard ploy of the Warmers to revile the skeptics as intellectual whores of the energy industry, swaddled in munificent grants and with large personal stakes in discrediting AGW. Actually, the precise opposite is true. Billions in funding and research grants sluice into the big climate modeling enterprises...." The TOTAL funding of WEATHER SCIENCE (of which climate science is a very small part) in the past 50 years is about $50 Billion. This INCLUDES the cost of implementing satellite, ground and ocean-based sensory networks (the majority of this cost).

    Medieval Warm Period - was a period of high temperatures, but the timing of a given location’s warm period does not sync with the others - some were 800-1000AD, some 1300+AD. The point is now we have GLOBAL, ie EVERYWHERE warming TOGETHER.

    Mike’s Nature “Trick” - is a technique to smooth the decline in quality of the tree-ring temperature proxy.

    Gerhard Gerlich’s and Ralf Tscheuchner’s NON PEER-REVIEWED paper is widely criticized.

    No Warming Since 1998 - 1998 was the record year (due to specific oceanic conditions), so obviously there has been no hotter year since. If you take ANY other starting year in the last 30, you will find 2008/9 is warmer.

    Arctic Sea Ice - see HERE and HERE

    If the “journalist” had done any research into the actual science, he would have found his arguments to be entirely fallacious.

    If you have any doubts, try these sites:
    http://www.realclimate.org
    http://www.skepticalscience.com

    Posted by subgenius from hell-A  on  12/19  at  02:41 PM

  3. Cockburn has been pushing this line for years. I know him a tiny bit and have to wonder if he just isn’t enjoying the reaction it gets from greenies. But to answer Bob’s question, I point once again to my “seat belt supposition” from a few posts ago and the link on yesterday’s main post about how green is much more than warming. It actually doesn’t matter if humans cause warming. The planet is in crisis either way.

    As for the haiku, Bob, my tongue was planted firmly in my cheek as I wrote about my Dad.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  12/19  at  03:23 PM

  4. I know him a tiny bit and have to wonder if he just isn’t enjoying the reaction it gets from greenies

    So I should start publishing about how American Irish political journalists are all arseholes then? It has the same amount of veracity, and will get similar responses from the targeted group I suspect....what happened to integrity and checking sources?

    Posted by subgenius from hell-A  on  12/19  at  03:28 PM

  5. Agreed, subgenius. I wasn’t defending him, just making a very superficial attempt to understand him.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  12/19  at  03:30 PM

  6. At least Michael Bloomberg does something about climate change - in Australia precious little happens on that front.  Melbourne which has about 4 million inhabitants now is expected to grow to 7 (SEVEN) million people within a few decades.  Now imagine New York (or London or Paris), but without the quite efficient public/mass transport and you are looking at a city where in some outlying suburbs the take-up rate for public transport hovers around the 1 to 2%.  Needless to say, both politicians and developers tell us not to worry.

    Hello, Bob T, Mickey and subgenius - plenty of denialist BS down under as well btw.

    Have a good Saturday and Sunday!

    Posted by Helga Fremlin from Daylesford, Australia  on  12/19  at  03:33 PM

  7. LOL, I didn’t think you were trying to defend him, and generally I have given up responding to this kind of article (it’s obviously a loosing proposition going up against the willfully ignorant) - but I have to wonder at what point do people start to PAY for all this kind of bull? I mean, do we really have to wipe out our (all?) species just so they can have their say?

    Actually - this is a serious point: I have wondered about this since relocating here… Why is it that in this country people seem to take the stance that anybody’s opinion on a subject is just as valid as anybody else’s?

    Furthermore, it seems that people are so decided in their opinions (despite the lack of any education or research into the subject) that they will ignore any and all evidence from reality that they are wrong.

    Any thoughts?

    Posted by subgenius from hell-A  on  12/19  at  03:43 PM

  8. And Hi Helga…

    captcha says “truth”, the commodity most lacking in current debate…

    Posted by subgenius from hell-A  on  12/19  at  03:44 PM

  9. Hi Helga.

    subgenius, they call it confirmation bias:
    http://www.litkicks.com/poetry.php?poem=718555

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  12/19  at  03:52 PM

  10. I agree totally that the planet’s in mucho trouble from many obvious sources. Mickey, I also think your seat belt theory basically makes sense. It’s the cocksure scientists that always trouble me…
    I thought Evo Morales had the best take in Hopenhagen was the strongest indictment of Western imperialist planet plunder:
    http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/17/bolivian_president_evo_morales_on_climate

    Haiku tongue in cheek brings haiku to new heights.

    Posted by Bob T. from Archer, FL  on  12/19  at  03:58 PM

  11. Whatever NYC can do to f up the environment, LA can go even further.  How would you like millions of plastic balls dumped into your water reservoir?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/us/17water.html?_r=3&sudsredirect=true

    Posted by Charles from Jersey City  on  12/19  at  04:56 PM

  12. I used to live right over the road from Silver Lake (that reservoir). I was there when the Griffith Park fire happened a couple of years back (before it was covered in balls). The firefighting helicopters came in over my apartment in flights of 3 or 4 at a time and hovered over the lake to refill their tanks. I wonder how they would do that now....

    Posted by subgenius from hell-A  on  12/19  at  05:38 PM

  13. I previously commented on the Carbon Calcs and how, to meet the 2050 reductions we’d all have to be bike riding vegetarians who’s work is near our home.

    Well, in Copenhagen that part of the deal, the 50% reduction, was completely dropped. So I guess we all just keep on trucking until the planet goes one way or anyother.

    Well that’s the official line. So much for placing faith in the leaders.

    Mickey is right to bring up the seatbelt again, even if global warming was found to be not affected by human activity, other attacks on the oceans, biodiversity and forests ..general pollution, arms sales, nukes ... there’s so many other reasons to go green and to fear a large scale distaster.

    We only need to persuade each other, not the leaders. They always follow suit later if the movement gets big enough to upend them.

    And that’s why it’s best not to stop until they are gone.

    Posted by Andy from Shanghai  on  12/19  at  07:25 PM

  14. It was 20 years ago today:
    http://tinyurl.com/y9ddjl6

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  12/20  at  07:23 AM

  15. Hello from snowbound Astoria. I decided to put up a new post about the Panama anniversary. See you there.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  12/20  at  07:37 AM

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