Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Environmental reading list

From the current issue of Vanity Fair -
  • A Convenient Untruth - profile of global warming denialist Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute

  • Rush to Judgment ("Attacking environmentalists as hippie-dip "wackos" who care more about spotted owls than people and use polar bears for propaganda, Rush Limbaugh has blinded millions of Americans to the climate crisis.")
From elsewhere:
likely more to come...

10 comments:

Russ said...

Yep, true to their roots when liberals can not deal with the facts they attack the messengers. What else can I say.

Anna Haynes said...

Russ, arguing with you is a dead end; you will never change your mind, at least not until the Heartland Institute changes its mind, which won't be until its funders change their minds...

Until you can recognize the difference in credibility between news and public relations, there's no point in my trying to clean up after the factual messes the PR global-warming-denialism industry is handing out. Meanwhile we merrily keep on turning up the heat...

And if you had a special "antienvironment Republican" planet, that'd be fine and your property rights would be absolute so you could do what you liked with it, but as it is we're all on this one together.

Anna Haynes said...

"...news and public relations..."
(correction, I meant "news and advertising" or "science and public relations")

Russ said...

Anna,

I am not a sock puppet for the Heartland Institute, or for that matter the Competitive Enterprise Institute. I am fully capable of reading the climate research papers and more importantly the critiques of these paper showing where the flaws are. It does not matter what the HI or CEI say, I check the facts. Fact: Dr Jones temperature records used in the IPCC have never been audited. His UHI adjustments have never been validated. Fact: Dr Mann Hockey Stick is is totally dependent on strip bark trees that dendrochronlogist all agree are not temperature proxies and unique statistical techniques that fail standard tests. So, we are making global warming policy on un-audited temperature records, lazy science, and faulty scientific analysis. Yet, this is the same group of scientist, and there fellow traveler policy makers, that refuse to believe the satellite temperatures, which show no significant warming in the southern hemisphere and a small amount in the northern. If you combine the two, not much global warming?

These same junk scientist insist that the MWP did not happen, yet we have multiple peer reviewed papers using multiple methods demonstrating that the MWP was global. For god sake, the HI and CEI did not pay for this science.

Fact: The Bush Administration has invested $12 Billion on climate change research. If your really want to follow the money, think about this. If warming is an natural cycle, then billions of research dolar dry up and we have a lot of professors and grad students with out funding. It is the best interest of the warmers to keep the climate scare band wagon on the road. Yes, follow the money! But, it not the PR money, which is peanuts compared to the research pot.

Anna Haynes said...

RS: "These same junk scientist insist that the [Medieval Warming Period] did not happen, yet we have multiple peer reviewed papers using multiple methods demonstrating that the MWP was global."
And that, Russ, shows up the difference between science and PR. Scientists orient to the data, PR flacks orient to the desired result. Here's the explanation, from How to Talk to a Global Warming Sceptic, in the debunking of the claim "The Medieval Warm Period was just as warm as today":
"NOAA presents a whole selection of proxy studies together with the data they are based on and these can be found here. Specifically, [NOAA has] this to say about the MWP: "The idea of a global or hemispheric "Medieval Warm Period" that was warmer than today however, has turned out to be incorrect.""
Russ, peer review (plus disclosure of vested interests) is the best quality control for science we have in the short run; further peer reviewed research is the best quality control we have in the long run. When the facts change with the weight of additional research, we change our minds.

RS: "If warming is an natural cycle, then billions of research dolar dry up and we have a lot of professors and grad students with out funding."
[implication: climatologists are collecting/interpreting their data with an eye toward making the results look scary for reasons of job security]

Russ, the only people who think that scientists think like that are projecting, or have been brainwashed by Rush Limbaugh. Trust me, academics* aren't doing research for the money; please revisit Goofus and Gallant do science to get your bearings on this. Or ask anyone who's been a graduate student in science.

OK Russ, that's it - I've spent most of my evening on this comment, I don't have the time to keep on doing this. If you'd like to talk in person though, I'm at Java John's around 8 most mornings. And I would like to talk to you.

Russ said...

Anna:

Here is a map tracing the location of 77+ papers attesting to a MWP.
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/data/timemap/mwpmap.html

There are 16 level one papers, 19 level two papers, and 42 level three papers. Click on each of the locations and it takes you to the scientific paper, which you can read and decide for your self. The reference you gave was just more of Dr. Mann’s junk science which has been audited and found wanting. I am sure you can do better than just recycling the same junk science. Show me something new, proof that the MWP did not exist.

Anna Haynes said...

Russ, I've got things to do, I don't have time to chase after the denialism industry's talking points. From now on,
Please limit your comments about global warming on my blog to a one-sentence summary of your view with (if you like) a link back to a post on your blog expanding your argument.
This will meet everyone's needs: readers who are interested in your views will get easy access to your analysis on your turf, while those not interested won't have to read a long comment but will still be notified that you disagree.

And I'll append a comment on my blog saying this:
(I think this info is correct; please set me straight if any of it is inaccurate)

Russ Steele is a local retired engineer and property rights activist who doesn't see global warming as a crisis; he believes that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (all of which _do_ see global warming as a crisis) have been suckered by scaremongering climatologists who publish peer-reviewed "junk science" in order to garner more funding for their field of study. Please see his weblog for further information.

Anna Haynes said...

(2 more questions Russ, for your mini-profile - what's your favorite TV station and who's your favorite talk radio host?)

Anna Haynes said...

Russ's response (to my asking him for one-line comments from now on, re global warming) is on his blog here.

Anna Haynes said...

OK, I looked into the CO2Science "Medieval Warm Period Project" papers, and wrote up my findings in this NCFocus post. From here on, no more pro bono debunking.