At least, not beyond what he recognized was the shoddy science behind the “hockey stick,” which bad science he likely suspected would be shown as such and eventually hurt the environmentalist cause. But a warming “skeptic”? Hardly. Muller, Technology Review, 2004:
If you are concerned about global warming (as I am) and think that human-created carbon dioxide may contribute (as I do), then you still should agree that we are much better off having broken the hockey stick. Misinformation can do real harm, because it distorts predictions. Suppose, for example, that future measurements in the years 2005-2015 show a clear and distinct global cooling trend (It could happen). If we mistakenly took the hockey stick seriously–that is, if we believed that natural fluctuations in climate are small–then we might conclude (mistakenly) that the cooling could not be just a random fluctuation on top of a long-term warming trend, since according to the hockey stick, such fluctuations are negligible. And that might lead in turn to the mistaken conclusion that global warming predictions are a lot of hooey. If, on the other hand, we reject the hockey stick, and recognize that natural fluctuations can be large, then we will not be misled by a few years of random cooling. A phony hockey stick is more dangerous than a broken one–if we know it is broken.
So, a quick response to Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, writing in the Wall Street Journal, throwing out names of “conservatives” who are none such and who have adopted the language and goals of helping stave off man-made climate change in order to convince us that the time has come to fall in line: It’s still just bullshit. And because many of us know it we won’t be browbeaten or shamed into pretending otherwise.
Getting businessmen or certain Republican politicians in moderate or liberal states to adopt the manufactured “consensus” line isn’t terribly hard to do: businesses are risk averse and don’t want to cause the environmental brownshirts to focus attention on them; and Chris Christie is not a conservative, at all. He’ s a GOP party guy, and if he’s ever elevated to national office he’ll know how to work the system just as well as the Dems do.
GOP Party guys will eventually buckle to the progressive narrative because that’s what they do: they adopt it and work from inside it, positioning themselves on the right side of the leftist agenda. This is why the country has moved steadily left, why a growing movement of Americans no longer trust the GOP establishment or its players, and why we have a permanent ruling class in a constitutional republic built on the idea of a limited centralized authority in the first place.
It doesn’t fool us, this “scientific consensus,” and I daresay there are millions upon millions of us who will not be herded or packed and stacked or prevented from owning private property, etc., so that those who have adopted a ruling elite position, along with the science and results they fund in some vicious cycle of graft, can socially engineer the planet in a way they find pleasing. An increase in people means a (potential) increase in technological and intellectual development; and from there is where will come solutions to any “problems” caused by global climate change. The marketplace finds solutions. UN bureaucrats, cynical politicians, and publicly funded “climate scientists” find “problems” in need of their collectivist solutions — and if they happen to get rich along the way, well, that’s just purely coincidental!
Constraining humanity — herding them and treating them like livestock so that the global masterminds can return earth to their romantic vision of some bucolic state of nature (while they, naturally, will get to retain all the lavish trappings of wealth and privilege, which they deserve, for saving the earth and stuff from the disgusting, mewling ambulatory masses and their ugly ugly breeding) — isn’t the way to progress. Over the past 50 years, the US has had the luxury of engaging in environmental-friendly programs, passing increasingly onerous regulations to protect the earth from the filth we exhale, belch out of our factories, dump in our streams, leech into our water tables, etc. And yet the earth, we’re told, is not responding quite yet. Meaning, we need more and more and more control over the movement and living arrangements and land ownership rights and family sizes of the destructive masses. We need to control energy supplies, food supplies, water collection. Only then will the earth and its resources prove “sustainable.” And if that means that you as a human must sacrifice for the good of the global village — stop your sprawl, cut back on your energy usage, decrease your productivity (which will increase your means of attaining private property, while simultaneously hamstringing ingenuity, which is a feature and not a bug to the masterminds who want you tamed) — then you, citizen of the world, owe it to the earth to submit.
Well, here’s the truth: many of us won’t follow along. We won’t be treated as cattle. We won’t be constrained by masterminds. We won’t submit. We’ll live free or we’ll die.
Simple as that.
(thanks to ge0ffB)
“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.” — G.K. Chesterton
Screw both of ’em.
Someone pointed out that the idiots pushing this crap never expect us to have to use the safety margin built into our economy, technology, and society, so the idiots don’t see a problem with carving away at the safety margin for their own empowerment.
So you get the Green cult demanding we generate energy only in the most expensive, inefficient, unreliable ways — never mind that, as Insty points out in Scientific American, a day without power could mean thousands of deaths and a week or more without power could mean millions of deaths.
So you get the greedy and the stupid encouraging illegal immigration, building a culture that considers our laws as minor nuisances at best.
The race hustlers treating every imagined slight as if the Night Riders are out in force, poisoning good will and making people more and more afraid to deal with each other as equals.
They simultaneously grind away at the safety margins and pump more energy into the system.
We’re right at the safety margin for energy production already. Take a few more coal plants offline and watch the power failures begin.
I just want some sanity in my government. I guess that’s too much to ask.
<Game show “wrong answer” sound>
You used “sanity” and “government” in the same sentence. This would ordinarily call for a ten-yard penalty and loss of down, but the hint or irony in the usage is a mitigating factor. Ten-yard penalty, replay down.
The Progressive agenda could also be accurately labeled as the “Human Domestication Project.”
Perspective, historical and political.
– This “sudden discovery” is frantic pushback because “Daddy” has gone all “fuck you idiots” on their asses.
– As a matter of fact several of the so-called pergenators of man-made climate change theories have reversed course, so the Left has to quickly counter with “reformed” thinkers, you know, those psuedo scientists who majored in poly-sci and now have decided they see the light, more popularly known as “going where the grants and money is”.
– You’ll be seeing a lot of this in the near future as Progressives circle the propoganda wagons to protect the narrative and keep the gravy train rolling.
Muller “backtracked” around the same time Watts et al. released their definitive study that shows that half the alleged global warming in the U.S. is indeed man-made…
…by scientists making unwarranted adjustments to the surface temp data.
I love Watts. I love his blog. I love his commentors.
The entire thing is a beautiful, worthy enterprise and makes me feel much better for the cause of science.
Speaking of Watts, how about this asshat?
Right, by stepping on a journalistic rake while simultaneously dropping your pants and exposing the holes in your undies. He gets so mad when you do that.
Science is not a popularity contest. Thomas Kuhn, perhaps the 20th Century’s most eminent philosopher of science, pointed out long ago that consensus is an obstacle to scientific progress. Science progresses when scientists question the consensus. This alone should give one pause when people start claiming that consensus proves their argument. Suffice it to say that claiming a scientific consensus is itself profoundly unscientific.
That was the first thing that struck me about the AGW crowd. Rather than support their hypothesis with data they support it by saying “everyone agrees!” And viciously attacking anyone who dares to disagree. That’s the behavior of political hacks and charlatans, not scientists.