7 Replies to “Gorbacle: All Washed Up [Dan Collins]”

1. Jeffersonian says:

   June 3, 2007 at 9:35 am

   I’ve been trying to change my evil ways and live life as Al Gore has taught me, but do you know how hard it is to triple my kWH-per-square-foot electrical consumption to match that of our eco-Savior?

2. mojo says:

   June 3, 2007 at 1:11 pm

   Apollo squinted in the bright sunlight and calmly tensed his muscles as he pulled his bow. He released his arrows one after the other until Python’s blood was spilled and his life escaped in the thin air. Python-dragon,the faithful guardian of Ge’s sacred ground, had guarded the hill for hundreds of years until his encounter with “far-reaching” Apollo. The new god despite his serene nature, or perhaps because of it, was triumphant in the epic battle, and with his victory he gained the right to call the rolling slopes of Delphi his sanctuary.
   
   http://www.ancient-greece.org/history/delphi.html

   Ge, of course, was the ancient Earth Mother deity usually referred to these days as Gaia…

   SB: college68
   
   yup

3. Swen Swenson says:

   June 3, 2007 at 1:16 pm

   Al & Tipper were so much more fun when they were warning us about those hidden satanic messages on rock albums. Now Big Honest Al’s the voice of friggin’ reason?

   By the way, don’t miss his ‘message’ on the blurbs for his new book. Sanctimonious St. Al in full bray.

   TW: growing62. Well, yeah, those grow lights suck a lot of juice. Looks like he’s got a hell of a bad case of the munchies too.

4. happyfeet says:

   June 3, 2007 at 1:39 pm

   Political debate over wind projects has intensified as the industry has seen major growth in recent years. According to the association, wind power is growing 25 percent to 30 percent annually.

   Congress has encouraged this renewable energy as oil prices have skyrocketed, creating incentives for the industry and promoting its benefits. But some lawmakers are concerned about the effects on wildlife.

   Rahall’s proposal, included in a larger energy bill, would direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to publish standards for siting, construction and monitoring of wind projects so that they do not harm wildlife. Violators could go to prison.

   Aren’t we kind of confiscating liberty a bit capriciously these days? I don’t think Democrats are good people anymore.

5. Lazar says:

   June 3, 2007 at 7:55 pm

   Stoo Pid sends this excellent article, and asks me to h/t his correspondent Imaboazo

   It [the article by Lawrence Solomon] seems a bit of a mess to me.

   “Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the global warming crisis. The time for debate is over. The science is settled.”

   So said Al Gore … in 1992.

   Only an insignificant fraction—so what is this fraction in numerals?

   of scientists—chemists, molecular physicists, marine biologists,
   
   malariologists, dendrochronologists, graduates, researchers, actual climate scientists, what scientists?

   deny the global warming crisis—what particularly is it about global warming that is a ‘crisis’?

   That’s an unusually sloppy statement for a politician, allegedly. The only reference on google is the above article by Lawrence Solomon.

   Amazingly, he made his claims despite much evidence of their falsity. A Gallup poll at the time reported that 53% of scientists actively involved in global climate research did not believe global warming had occurred; 30% weren’t sure; and only 17% believed global warming had begun.

   There appears to be no online version of any such poll, but here is a likely source…

   In his book, See, I Told You So, Rush Limbaugh misquoted a Gallup poll, claiming that 53% of scientists do not believe that global warming is taking place, 30 percent say they don’t know, and only 17 percent are “devotees of this dubious theory.” (1) Unfortunately, this is a gross misrepresentation the original poll, which actually found that 66 percent of all scientists agree that global warming has occurred, 10 percent disagree, and the rest are undecided. Rush apparently got his incorrect numbers from a second hand source (either George Will or the National Review) without bothering to confirm them.

   More on Will’s alleged mis-statement…

   This 1992 attack (Washington Post, 9/3/92) on Al Gore for being “cavalier with the truth” in his “wastebasket-worthy” book Earth in the Balance. Will confronted Gore on the issue of global warming: “Gore knows, or should know before pontificating, that a recent Gallup Poll of scientists concerned with global climate research shows that 53 percent do not believe warming has occurred, and another 30 percent are uncertain.”

   It was Will, however, who should have read the poll more carefully “before pontificating.” Gallup actually reported that 66 percent of the scientists said that human-induced global warming was occurring, with only 10 percent disagreeing and the rest undecided.

   Note that Will’s “scientists concerned with global climate research” is not quite the same as “scientists actively involved in global climate research”. The scientists polled were some 400 members of the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union. Here’s Harvey Leifert, the Public Information Manager of the AGU, on that same poll…

   what exactly did those 17% of scientists say, back in 1991? Well, first of all, it was 19%. (The 17% figure appears in the op-eds that Gregg has relied on.) The scientists were asked two questions:
   
   First, “Do you think that global average temperatures have increased during the past 100 years [1891-1991]?”
   
   Second, for those who answered “yes”: “In your opinion, is the warming measured over the last 100 years within the range of natural, not human-induced fluctuation?”

   Here are the results: of the 400 scientists interviewed, 60% said temperatures had increased, 1891-1991, 15% said temperatures had not increased, and 25% did not know. Of the 60% who said temperatures had increased, 29% said it was in the range of natural fluctuation, 19% said it was human-induced beyond natural fluctuation, and 12% said they did not know.

   The op-eds and blogs that cite this survey never refer to the next question, immediately following the above two: “In your opinion, is human-induced greenhouse warming now occurring [in 1991]?” Of the 400 scientists, 66% said yes, only 10% said no, and 24% did not know.

   This survey is, of course, 15 years old and now mainly of historical interest. Since it was conducted, scientific research has produced a voluminous body of peer-reviewed literature supporting the conclusion that human factors are playing a role in the global warming that is undeniably occurring.

   Solomon appears to want to attack the idea of a ‘consenus’ of neither a consistent nor precise definition.

   E.g., he starts with Gore’s alleged claim of consensus on…

   global warming crisis

   Moving swiftly on to a consensus on rising global temperatures…

   A Gallup poll at the time reported that 53% of scientists actively involved in global climate research did not believe global warming had occurred

   Then consensus on the imminence of a runaway warming effect…

   a Greenpeace poll showed 47% of climatologists didn’t think a runaway greenhouse effect was imminent

   … the probabilities of which vary from undefined to unlikely to almost certain; he claims to be talking about the ‘same’ consensus yet regarding different subjects contemplated by different people at different times…

   Today, Al Gore is making the same claims of a scientific consensus, as do the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and hundreds of government agencies and environmental groups around the world. But the claims of a scientific consensus remain unsubstantiated. They have only become louder and more frequent.

   When discussing the alleged ‘Deniers’ of the ‘consensus’, he decides that the ‘consensus’ is that climate change “threatens the planet”.

   More than six months ago, I began writing this series, The Deniers. When I began, I accepted the prevailing view that scientists overwhelmingly believe that climate change threatens the planet.

   If this were not vague enough, a paragraph later it changes to…

   those who deny that the science is settled on climate change

   Well, the idea that ‘science’ is ‘settled’ on ‘climate change’ would be denied by about every one involved in climate research.

   Hence the list of ‘deniers’ is very strange, from those working on the frontiers of knowledge, where there is much legitimate uncertainty and disagreement among those who accept that, yes, temperatures have risen over the past century, and that most of the recent warming in the past 50 years is anthropogenic, to outright nuts like Svensmarsk who just can’t let go of cosmic rays as a probable cause, yet all lumped together ‘deniers’ of a ‘consensus’.

   Which leaves me wondering what it is he’s talking about. I’m not sure he knows.

6. TheGeezer says:

   June 4, 2007 at 8:29 am

   After Iran pops the big one on Israel and Israel respods overwhelmingly with its arsenal, this whole concern will be moot, thank heaven.

   Is it then that we will have a nuclear winter?

7. Lazar says:

   June 4, 2007 at 9:19 am

   Maybe.

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