It’s a hot mess.
[Late-morning update]
A media round up, and some thoughts, from Judith Curry, on the State of the Union:
what is wrong with President Obama’s statements as cited above?
- His statement about humans having exacerbated extreme weather events is not supported by the IPCC
- The Pentagon is confusing climate change with extreme weather (see above)
- ‘Climate change is real’ is almost a tautology; climate has always changed and always will, independently of anything humans do.
- His tweet about ‘97%’ is based on an erroneous and discredited paper [link]
As for ‘Denial from Congress is dangerous’, I doubt that anyone in Congress denies that climate changes. The issue of ‘dangerous’ is a hypothetical, and relates to values (not science).
And speaking of the ‘deniers’ in Congress, did anyone spot any errors in the actual science from Senator Inhofe’s rebuttal?
The apparent ‘contract’ between Obama and his administrators to play politics with climate science seems to be a recipe for anti science and premature policies with negative economic consequences that have little to no impact on the climate.
BUt the important thing is that they line the pockets of his campaign contributors.
Maybe some day, in a future administration, we can have a grown up conversation about climate change (natural and human caused), the potential risks, and a broad range of policy responses.
Let’s hope.
did anyone spot any errors in the actual science from Senator Inhofe’s rebuttal?
Maybe not errors in science, but plenty of errors of fact:
Our nation’s energy industry deserves the credit for the growth we see today.
The energy industry is not responsible for all the growth we see, or even for all of the fall in energy prices (weak international demand, Americans driving fewer miles in more efficient cars, and Saudi Arabia deciding to maintain production levels all played a part).
The President’s War on Fossil Fuels and nuclear energy
Obama approved billions in loan guarantees for nuclear energy. It must be the sort of “war” where you try to smother your enemy with piles of money.
Tonight, the President once again failed to address our national security crisis.
There is no national security crisis.
Under President Obama’s leadership, roughly $1 trillion has been taken out of our military and transferred to his extreme global warming agenda.
Inhofe is just making numbers up. There was about $80b in energy-related spending in the 2009 recovery act. The GOP House hasn’t approved any new climate-related spending since.
“The energy industry is not responsible for all the growth we see, or even for all of the fall in energy prices (weak international demand, Americans driving fewer miles in more efficient cars, and Saudi Arabia deciding to maintain production levels all played a part).”
No, not all but a lot if not most, especially when you consider that Saudi Arabia’s actions were because fracking has been so successful. More fuel efficient cars and international demand are just grubering talking points.
“Obama approved billions in loan guarantees for nuclear energy. It must be the sort of “war” where you try to smother your enemy with piles of money.”
Hardly matters if Obama’s regulatory agencies and militant Democrat activist groups prevent anything from getting done. Another case of grubering where Obama puts forth a talking point but then does the exact opposite with his unseen hand.
It wasn’t in his official SOTU response, but when it came time to debate “sense of the Senate” climate change amendments to the Keystone XL bill Inhofe offered a whopper of a scientific claim:
The hoax is that there are some people that are so arrogant to think that they are so powerful that they can change climate. Man can’t change climate.
Can Judith Curry spot any “errors in the actual science” there?
I guess terraforming Mars is out of the question now…
I didn’t particularly care for how the administration coordinated with NASA to roll out tweets supporting this crap during the speech. The last thing NASA needs is to be politicized this way.
yeah – did I miss the part where the president said that he is going to take matters into his own hands (he’s allowed to do that, right?) and make sure that nuclear power gets past all the hurdles that his predecessors and him have put in the way. Quickly. This is important, correct? Please don’t tell me that it’s important and dangerous, and then tell me you’re worried about stupid stuff like where will we put the nuclear waste.