Update to Feb '07 post: Climategate.
I have been a man made global warming skeptic for several years. It began when I found out that if you read news pieces carefully regarding the IPCC report you would sometimes find a reference to the summary instead of the report. So I began to look around and found that only the summary had been released. So I dug into that. Turns out the summary is written by policy makers, not scientists. In fact, one by one many scientists were asking that their name be removed from the IPCC report.
Not surprising. Even though most MMGW scientists were reviled as "deniers" (to link them to Holocaust deniers and all the lovely taint of Nazism) the fact is that science works by having one scientist question anothers data/tests/methodology/
scientist: under the hypothetical conditions of our model, if this then that.
Summary: under current conditions this will happen.
At least that is what I got from reading around.
Turns out it was worse. Much worse. Think Haeckel's embryos.
Somebody hacked the email server of the Hockey Team, the guys who support Mann and his hockey stick chart that shows how MMGW has changed the climate game. Turns out they changed the numbers. And hid the numbers. And discussed how to delete the numbers.
If the cap and trade folks find out they were hoaxed by the cap and gown folks, expect to see public and private funding dry up.
Since the media have been riding the Prius built by the Hockey Team, I wonder who will drive this story?
Don't get me wrong: I try to buy, live, drive and consume green. It makes sense for a variety of reasons. But MMGW may no longer be one of the reasons. And the real shame is that all the new green jobs and whatever could only exist if we thought global catastrophe was at stake. Apparently we'll tolerate particulate pollution and increased arsenic levels in our water, but if you want us to act on anything you have go all 2012 on us. Say goodbye to the Green Economy.
At least until the Next Big Scare.
I have been a man made global warming skeptic for several years. It began when I found out that if you read news pieces carefully regarding the IPCC report you would sometimes find a reference to the summary instead of the report. So I began to look around and found that only the summary had been released. So I dug into that. Turns out the summary is written by policy makers, not scientists. In fact, one by one many scientists were asking that their name be removed from the IPCC report.
Not surprising. Even though most MMGW scientists were reviled as "deniers" (to link them to Holocaust deniers and all the lovely taint of Nazism) the fact is that science works by having one scientist question anothers data/tests/methodology/
scientist: under the hypothetical conditions of our model, if this then that.
Summary: under current conditions this will happen.
At least that is what I got from reading around.
Turns out it was worse. Much worse. Think Haeckel's embryos.
Somebody hacked the email server of the Hockey Team, the guys who support Mann and his hockey stick chart that shows how MMGW has changed the climate game. Turns out they changed the numbers. And hid the numbers. And discussed how to delete the numbers.
If the cap and trade folks find out they were hoaxed by the cap and gown folks, expect to see public and private funding dry up.
Since the media have been riding the Prius built by the Hockey Team, I wonder who will drive this story?
Don't get me wrong: I try to buy, live, drive and consume green. It makes sense for a variety of reasons. But MMGW may no longer be one of the reasons. And the real shame is that all the new green jobs and whatever could only exist if we thought global catastrophe was at stake. Apparently we'll tolerate particulate pollution and increased arsenic levels in our water, but if you want us to act on anything you have go all 2012 on us. Say goodbye to the Green Economy.
At least until the Next Big Scare.
posted by quash @ 4:18 PM
4 Comments:
OK, the WSJ is on board. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703499404574564291187747578.html?mod=wsj_share_facebook
With so much information (and disinformation) out there, what are we to believe? The article you cite is clearly labeled as commentary, and, while I have no reason to doubt his statements, and, further, readily admit that I’ve done none of my own research (or carefully studied anyone else’s), it seems that the level of “hype” of the skeptics seems to be approaching that of the “hysteria” of the so-called alarmists.
I am not aiming this criticism at you, as you seem to be well reasoned and certainly not dogmatic in your analysis, but this whole question seems to fit with most other politically polarizing issues of the day – if you’re a “liberal,” MMGW is a critical, life-threatening, impending disaster begat by economic greed; if you’re a “conservative,” it’s junk science developed by those who want to control everything and change our American way of life. If there are other voices out there, they’re not being heard, except, apparently, in tiny corners of cyberspace.
Which is not to say you shouldn’t try.
Again, not to try to hijack your thread and make it about something else, but it just fits so neatly into my frustration of 24 hour-a-day ramblings about whether or not Tiger Woods and his mistress party-crashed a White House event. Or something like that. Once something becomes political or PR worthy, facts don’t seem to matter anymore.
I think I’ll go read a book about vampires.
P.S. Have not read your recent WSJ post, but loved this quote: “Climate change researchers must believe in the reality of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God.” Put in those terms, I may be joining the skeptics’ side.
Very tiny corners.
I don't know where one is supposed to go with discussions that don't bow to one side and demonize the other.
On the interwebs you have to prove your ideological chops to get accepted by one side or the other; failing to do so merely gets you attacked by both.
Still bored . . .
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