| Times Online | 0 | |
| Fox Boston | 0 | |
| Merc. News | 0 | |
| Big Govt | Obama’s Shock Troops: SEIU and Political Intimidation in St. Louis |
0 |
| NYT | 0 |
Audacity of Truth
Whiner-in-Chief:
"[W]hether the grumbling is about Republicans on Fox or bloggers in pajamas, there's a word for what the president and his aides are doing. That word is "whining." And nothing [...] does more damage to Obama's credibility or authority than the sense that a popular president is becoming the whiner-in-chief."
- John Nichols, Nation Magazine - 10/12/09
Paul Krugman: Global warming “deniers” are committing “treason” against the planet
So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement.
But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases.
And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.
[...]
Indeed, if there was a defining moment in Friday’s debate, it was the declaration by Representative Paul Broun of Georgia that climate change is nothing but a “hoax” that has been “perpetrated out of the scientific community.” I’d call this a crazy conspiracy theory, but doing so would actually be unfair to crazy conspiracy theorists. After all, to believe that global warming is a hoax you have to believe in a vast cabal consisting of thousands of scientists — a cabal so powerful that it has managed to create false records on everything from global temperatures to Arctic sea ice.
Yet Mr. Broun’s declaration was met with applause.
Given this contempt for hard science, I’m almost reluctant to mention the deniers’ dishonesty on matters economic. But in addition to rejecting climate science, the opponents of the climate bill made a point of misrepresenting the results of studies of the bill’s economic impact, which all suggest that the cost will be relatively low.
Still, is it fair to call climate denial a form of treason? Isn’t it politics as usual?
Yes, it is — and that’s why it’s unforgivable.
Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed that terrorism posed an “existential threat” to America, a threat in whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole — but the existential threat from climate change is all too real.
Yet the deniers are choosing, willfully, to ignore that threat, placing future generations of Americans in grave danger, simply because it’s in their political interest to pretend that there’s nothing to worry about. If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what is.
John Steele Gordon blasts Krugman’s column and calls out liberal global warming alarmists for what they are here:
But why is the Nobel-Prize-winning economist so exercised about global warming as to be reduced to name calling instead of examining the data? Why are so many climate scientists and liberal politicians so certain of the data on global warming that they think the debate is over?
I think it is a case of the “backgammon effect.” In backgammon, the players move their pieces according to the dictates of a pair of dice. A single bad throw of the dice can convert a near-certain winner into a near-certain loser. Being human, players sometimes misread the dice and misplay accordingly. They get a six-four, for instance, but play a six-three. The opponent, if he is paying attention, points out the error, it’s corrected, and the game goes on.
Interestingly, the player who misreads the dice and thus misplays almost always does so to his own advantage. Is he cheating? Not at all. He is simply misperceiving the real world because his self-interest leads him to do so. He wants a six-three and so he sees one in a six-four. It’s as simple as that.
Do climate scientists in general and liberal politicians to a man want global warming to be both real and anthropogenic in origin? You bet, because it’s in their self-interest for it to be so. After all, if it is, then both groups are greatly empowered by the necessity to do something about it. Only government–guided by experts–would be able to reverse a gathering climate catastrophe. The government would need vast new powers to do so. And as James Madison explained two centuries ago, “Men love power.”
Read the whole thing.
Apparently, this whole “betrayal/treason” thing is a Democrat talking point which has caught on, because Rep. Henry Waxman, half of the duo responsible for the introduction of the tax monstrosity that passed by the House last Friday, has suggested similarly:
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) on Republicans voting against the energy plan and Rep. John Boehner’s comments on the House floor Friday evening: “They [Republicans] want to play politics and see if they can keep any achievements from being accomplished that may be beneficial to the Democrats. They’re rooting against the country and I think in this case, even rooting against the world because the world needs to get its act together to stop global warming.”
You can view the video of his remarks at that same link.
So much for the “dissent is patriotic” cries we used to hear routinely from the left during the Bush administration. My, how times have changed.
What do Waxman and Krugman conveniently forget in their bloviations about global warming “deniers”? A few facts, among them being that – if we’re going to play the “they’re more interested in playing politics than studying and understanding climate change” card – the Obama administration has its own emerging “war on science” scandal, one that has the potential of being a huge deal, should anyone in our Obama-loving media be able to tear themselves away from their autographed glossies of the President to actually investigate it. They might not be interested in it, but infamous global warming “denier” Jim Inhofe sure as heck is:
A top Republican senator has ordered an investigation into the Environmental Protection Agency’s alleged suppression of a report that questioned the science behind global warming.
The 98-page report, co-authored by EPA analyst Alan Carlin, pushed back on the prospect of regulating gases like carbon dioxide as a way to reduce global warming. Carlin’s report argued that the information the EPA was using was out of date, and that even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased, global temperatures have declined.
“He came out with the truth. They don’t want the truth at the EPA,” Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla, a global warming skeptic, told FOX News, saying he’s ordered an investigation. “We’re going to expose it.”
The controversy comes after the House of Representatives passed a landmark bill to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, one that Inhofe said will be “dead on arrival” in the Senate despite President Obama’s energy adviser voicing confidence in the measure.
According to internal e-mails that have been made public by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Carlin’s boss told him in March that his material would not be incorporated into a broader EPA finding and ordered Carlin to stop working on the climate change issue. The draft EPA finding released in April lists six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, that the EPA says threaten public health and welfare.
An EPA official told FOXNews.com on Monday that Carlin, who is an economist — not a scientist — included “no original research” in his report. The official said that Carlin “has not been muzzled in the agency at all,” but stressed that his report was entirely “unsolicited.”
Greg Pollowitz quips:
Interesting. Obama’s EPA is arguing that economists aren’t qualified to comment on global warming. Someone tell Paul Krugman, please.
Indeed.
What other facts have Kruggie and Waxman ignored in their hateful diatribes against global warming “deniers”? The fact that – in spite of their assertions to the contrary – there is no “consensus” on whether or not gw is “man-made” and in fact the list of scientists who have turned skeptical of the claims of global warming alarmists is growing. Why? Because they believe the data isn’t there to support the claim.
But see, only “experts” like Krugman have truly analyzed all the data – any one who disagrees with him apparently only cares about what they can gain from being a “denier” politically. Same same with Al Gore, who suggested last year that “deniers” were nothing more than conspiracy theorists along the same lines of flat earther types and those who believe that the first moon landing was staged. IOW, just crazy fringe types who shouldn’t be taken seriously. Ditto for Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman, who in 2007 compared gw “deniers” with those who denied the Holocaust. And let’s not forget the suggestion by a Grist (environmental) magazine writer in 2006 that “Nuremberg-style war crimes trials” for global warming skeptics should not be off the table, or the call not long after that from The Weather Channel’s global warming “expert” Dr. Heidi Cullen who suggested that ” If a meteorologist can’t speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn’t give them a Seal of Approval.”
Kruggie, Waxman, and other self-important twits like them love to set up bogus scenarios in which their motives are “pure and noble” while the other side’s motives are purely selfish and political. Not only that, but they also suggest that those same “deniers” aren’t interested in the scientific side of the argument and thus really don’t care to debate the issue on its merits (or lack thereof) – instead choosing to play the “gotcha” game. However, the examples I’ve noted above – and the examples of St. Al Gore routinely shunning debate offers from those who would likely clean his clock in a debate about global warming – demonstrate the real truth: That when it comes to accusations of not being interested in tackling the scientific side of the argument and the allegations that the motives of the other side aren’t pure as the driven snow, he and others need to take the late Michael Jackson’s advice: Start looking at the man in the mirror.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Trackbacks
30 Responses to “Paul Krugman: Global warming “deniers” are committing “treason” against the planet”
Comments
Blogads
Disclaimer: The views expressed on this blog do not necessarily reflect those of ST's advertisers, nor do their opinions necessarily reflect ST's. Stats
I’m curious — isn’t dissent on global warming the highest form of global patriotism?
You know, there are two things which really, really irritate me. One is some Ivory Tower inexperienced “scientist” lecturing about how missile defense can’t possibly work when the things he’s talking about I’ve personally seen done but can’t comment on. The other is when some clueless liberal idiot (redundant, I know) tries to lecture me (a physicist who not only has done extensive computer modeling and knows the limitations but who worked extensively on an optical model of the atmosphere) about global warming and how I’m “wrong” to even question it let alone point out the myriad problems, issues, misrepresentations, and outright lies involved in selling AGW to a gullible public.
This is Orwellian in the extreme, EPA and NOAA and GISS arae the new Ministry of Truth (MiniTrue), slinging out lies, pushing things down the “memory hole” and acting to provide the lies used to prop up an evil regime. Completely uncaring about how this will not only hurt people in this country, but devastate those in the third world who can least afford any more problems (after all, they have to do without DDT due to the same anti-scientific nonsense passed off as fact by the exact same types of people).
But hey, they are happier starving in pastoral squalor in their disease ridden nations.
This is a sad time for science, Feynman has to be turning over in his grave.
If Congress Critters really want to do something about “greenhouse gas emissions,” they’ll all vote to permanently shut down Capitol Hill and collectively move out to the provinces to work at real jobs.
Furthermore….
What are the differences between Henry Waxman and Heinrich Himmler?
1. Himmler had a better fashion sense.
2. Himmler knew where the fanaticism stopped and the negotiating started.
I think it is time to buy a gun. With these facists running around how soon before I have to defend myself. – Lorica
This Krugman commentary is drivel. Krugman does not examine any real evidence. He refers to a few computer simulations of the future that can easily be weighed by selection of the data and equations. Real climatologist Roy Spencer detailed these models weakness in his book.
Why not get to the real evidence. Carbon dioxide is present in the atmosphere at about one tenth the ratio of water vapor, the main greehouse gas. Carbon dioxide only reflects energy in certain infrared wavelengths, most of which are already reflected by water vapor. Extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has less effect the the previous unit of carbon because of the filter effect. Over 96% of the atmosphere carbon dioxide is emitted from nonhuman sources. The half life of carbon dioxide in the amosphere is under 20 years. Statistical Regression analysis of real data demonstrates that earth temperatures correlate to the solar magnetic field, not the amount of carbon dioxide. I could go on, but would have to use more space.
If krugman wants to write a decent article he should actually research the topic he is writing on, not foam at the mouth with moronic vacuous insults.
With this editorial Krugman joins Frank Rich, reclining side by side on fainting couches at the Times Chicken Little Rest Home for Hysterical Columnists.
I had a related take here; I am not usually one to call on people to “shut their pie-holes,” but Krugman abuses his position as one of the Anointed of Princeton/New York fairly often *in areas not his expertise.*
I keep asking, and I’ll ask your readers here: has anyone heard or seen published ANY ONE, POSITIVE BENEFIT THAT MIGHT POSSIBLY OCCUR DUE TO CLIMATE CHANGE, EITHER COOLING, OR WARMING? ANY BODY? JUST ONE?
Until the discussion is far more balanced, I’m going to continue to smell a rat, the kind of rat that moves money/goods out of the public’s pockets, into the pockets of a chosen few. ;o/
I’m sorry for my treasonous attitude towards the whole **** planet, Mr. Krugman, but there it is. Please, sir: show me the balanced discussion.
No, it’s heresy. That’s because AGW is not based on science, it’s basically a religous cult, and a rather primitive one at that.
Christianity matured past its worst excesses hundreds of years ago, but the AGW crowd glorifies in them today.
Carbon credits, for example, are nothing more than the old indulgence system where you paid off the right church official in return for your sins being covered up. The only difference is that the church official is now Al Gore.
And now Krugman and Goodman are calling for the equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition, and the Grist writer wants to burn witches at the stake.
The Reformation, when it comes, should be interesting theater…
My biggest problem with global warming is the absolute certitude of some of its’ proponents (Example: Al Gore stating that “The science has been settled!”).
Let’s try for some perspective, time-wise.
For those comfortable with the metric (S.I.) system, imagine a line about 4.6 kilometers long (a bit under 3 miles). That would represent the 4.6 billion year age of the Earth at 1,000,000 ears/meter; 1 mm (about the thickness of a paper clip) would represent a THOUSAND years.
That line would span the downtown area of quite a few large cities, with some to spare. Here in Houston, the downtown streets are 16 to the mile, making their spacing about 100 meters. Thus, that line would be about 46 blocks.
The reign of the dinosaurs ended around 65 million years ago (65 meters, about 2/3 of a city block down that line from today).
The first of our ancestors verging on intelligence may have emerged from 2 to 4 million years ago (2 to 4 meters, say 6.5 to 13 feet; your living room could be around 4 meters in one of its’ dimensions).
What we call “modern” man may go back 40,000 years or so (40 mm, TWO finger-widths on that line).
Written history goes back 6000 years (six millimeters, 1/4 inch on that line).
Fahrenheit’s thermometer is around 300 years old ( 0.3 mm, you’re approaching the thickness of a business card now, or the diameter of a grain of salt).
The portion of that time-line during which precise temperature measurements were recorded would be literally microscopic.
And from that portion, we dare to make really long range climate predictions, and mandate actions based on them?
I live about three miles west of some of Houston’s major downtown buildings, so I can easily visualize that line.
Looking at that time-line of Earth’s history (the universe’s may be four times that), and the flyspeck of our own existence upon it, the notion of asserting that ANY science has been “settled” strikes me as arrogance beyond comprehension (as in “only a politician could possibly believe that”).
-
Betraying the planet or the People
Re: P. KRUGMAN Published: June 28, 2009
Congressional representatives that Krugman wrote as committing a treasonous Betrayal of the Planet obviously don’t have to worry about the trees voting them off there seats after coming elections. The Congress represent people, and the will of the people decide there vote. NOT TREES.. You wouldn’t suggest instead that congress commit treason against the Citizenry? Or perhaps maybe you would prefer that. ? Regarding planetary treason the Biosphere presently is without constitutional rights. You cant credibly call this treason against the planet…
… But perhaps you can extend Universal health care to include the Planets Biosphere, and perhaps tax them or jail them if the trees fail to comply. Further you could additionally confuse certain limited unalienable rights of man to somehow have the moral equivalent of privileges, or entitlements, to include these Trees. The Planet obviously needs care but you insult the 212 representatives and there votes by shamelessly marginalizing there Constitutional responsibilities when you accuse them of them acting treasonous regarding our Planet……
….The only thing I find remotely or even suggestively treasonous is the fact that anybody voted at all for a bill that in all likely hood seem impossible to have read and understand totaling 1300 pages within not even 24 hours of compiling the Waxman- Marxist bill (oops I meant to say Waxman – Markey Bill).
Yikes- Nick Laudani, Boston, Ma. 6/29/09
Oh, more than idiot politicians believe that, Paul. Look how many voted for His Hollowness in 2008, and still believe (contrary to all evidence) that he is the only one that can save the planet (with the help of his tax-cheat cronies). Why, they even believe he has a valid reason for every broken promise and lie since being sworn in.
And to top it all off, so far as I have been able to discern there is no credible evidence that would hold up with an impartial jury in a real court of law that he is even a citizen of the United States!
There may be evidence of global warming. But is man the cause? After all, didn’t GW start a few years back… and melted all the glaciers that covered what, 1/3 of the earth’s surface? I’m not too smart, but what was mankind doing back then that started the warming and melted all that ice? Was mankind even around?
When logic is outlawed……only outlaws will have logic.
When this is your constituency, you don’t really need to present the facts.
From a scientific standpoint, the data is not there, and as a former research analyst, I don’t even know how you’d go about gathering and analyzing such vast quantities of data in the first place. We humans cannot predict all the possible future mutations of the HIV virus in order to make an effective vaccine, but we can determine how warm the earth might be in 100,000 years? Based on what? Computer models generated by the very people who are AGW proponents? The fox guarding the hen house much?
Granted, the quote is on another subject but extremely relevant to this topic:
“Sen. Barbara Boxer , D- Calif. , the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee , pressed the agency (the E.P.A.) to release the list, saying the public had a right to know.” (From a Yahoo! post, article source unknown.)
And does the “public (have) a right to know just how many scientists of stature disagree with the junk science being foisted upon them by this administration and Congress? Just askin’.
How many of these now saying that dissent is treason once had t-shirts saying “Question Authority”?
Well, climate constantly changes, it always has, and always will. The very idea of a “stable” climate that we are deviating from is the utmost lunacy and stupidity. The earth’s climate constantly oscillates.
As for what is best, warm is better than cold, especially as the population goes up. Cold can be very bad, think Ice Age. How much better would it be if we had ice sheets down to Kansas again? But, even mild cold is a problem, it affects crops, food supplies, and more people freeze to death during cold waves than ever die during heat waves. The oft held up deaths in France one hot summer say a lot more about the French and their attitude towards taking care of their old and weak citizens and lack of air conditioning than it does about the dangers of heat.
If you go back and plot global temps vs. human civilization, and look where the warm periods occur, you find that they line up with the rise of Babylonian and Egyptian civilization, the rise of the Greeks, then the Romans, and then the Renaissance. The temp downturns like up with things like the Dark Ages and plague and famine. People do better when it’s warm.
And it doesn’t matter, warm or cold, without affordable, and plentiful energy, both are bad, and life is brutal, short, and uncomfortable.
I try to be amused, though in reality am somewhere between amazed and appalled, by people who literally cannot comprehend what “patriotism” means. The result is drivel like Krugman today, or Biden recently saying it was patriotic to want to pay more taxes.
Pratt the reason they don’t want to deal with water vapor is then they would have to deal with jet travel. And that is just not about to happen. – Lorica
When you predict 9 of the last 2 recessions, aren’t you then a candidate for “economic treason” ??
Oh I don’t know Lorica, ever see the film clip where they got all the liberals at an Earth Day event to sign a petition to ban dihydrogen-monoxide?
As P.T.Barnum said, there’s a sucker born every minute, and it’s morally wrong to let them keep their money.
As a teenager I read “Analog” science-fiction mag., edited by iconoclast John W. Campbell. One of his favorite types of stories involved the contrarians and outcasts who did not adhere to the prevailing views of consensus scientists, most of whom then (as now) want to do research only on things for which grant money is available. And it’s available mainly to scientists who want to do research that will verify what the prevailing consensus views are.
Which of course creates a vicious circle.
I wonder what Mr. Campbell would have thought of all this hysteria dealing with climate, considering especially that we have only about 30 years of real data.
Leslie said:
As a teenager I read “Analog” science-fiction mag., edited by iconoclast John W. Campbell.
…
I wonder what Mr. Campbell would have thought of all this hysteria dealing with climate, considering especially that we have only about 30 years of real data.
I suspect that he would have written essentially my comments above, only FAR, FAR better. The very notion of a science being considered as “settled” would certainly have set him off.
The only reason I don’t go beyond “suspect” is that he also enjoyed high-class trolling (long before the term was invented) with some of his articles; he LOVED to stir things up and force his readers to exercise (and sometimes exorcise) their mental facilities.
I have a bunch of Analog issues that I will NEVER part with because of his editorials.
-
LOL I remember that Sev. More evidence that Obama voters aren’t very bright. Of course what do you expect from a group of people who believe everything that Democrats tell them.
Which leads me to something else that has been bothering me. Why is it these Obama supporters don’t keep up with the things that this man is saying?? So many I talk to tell me they don’t keep up on politics like people like me. I am beginning to believe that the Founding Fathers were right, if you are not a land owner, and I am willing to add veterens to that list, you should not be able to vote. – Lorica
Lorica–I already own a gun! Founding Fathers were right; if you don’t own land and pay taxes on that land—you probably have no idea about how many ways this current administration is going to tax you, coming & going. My problem with “global warming” is that Gore stands to make a fortune selling carbon credits. What does a carbon credit look like? What does my carbon footprint look like? I find this entire scam to be reminiscent of the pet rock. We have an anti-American Prez whose ideology is Marxist, an ex-VP who is capitalizing on carbon credits—whatever they are!! —and this cap & trade bill which is about to destroy the good ol’ USA. I am five years from retirement–and I am terrified this current administration is going to destroy everything I have worked all my life to achieve.