Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Don’t Panic!

54 Comments

Thoughts on global warming, and cooling, from JoSH:

From the perspective of the Holocene as a whole, our current hockeystick is beginning to look pretty dinky. By far the possibility I would worry about, if I were the worrying sort, would be the return to an ice age — since interglacials, over the past half million years or so, have tended to last only 10,000 years or so. And Ice ages are not conducive to agriculture.

What’s the environmental impact of the Great Lakes region being under a mile of ice?

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

The Fallout Continues

21 Comments

Several physicists are asking the American Physical Society to rescind its 2007 endorsement of AGW:

In 2007 the APS Council adopted a Statement on global warming (also reproduced at the tinyurl site mentioned above) that was based largely on the scientific work that is now revealed to have been corrupted. (The principals in this escapade have not denied what they did, but have sought to dismiss it by saying that it is normal practice among scientists. You know and we know that that is simply untrue. Physicists are not expected to cheat.)

If I were a working scientist, I would be most insulted by the insinuation, which seems to be their current main defense, that “everyone does it,” and “this is the way that science works.” I’ve seen blog commenters try this game, and I think it’s an outrageous slur on the thousands of scientists who actually do science with integrity.

[Update a few minutes later]

Roger Simon has a plausible theory as to why the president delayed his trip to Copenhagen. It buys him time to decide not to go at all, as the whole enterprise (finally and thankfully) begins to unravel.

[Another update a couple minutes later]

Like me, Eric Raymond is popping the corn. I think we’ll see a lot more of this:

My favorite recent entry on the CRU mob is a screed from a professor of mathematics in Canada: “All of my colleagues have had to endure these bullies and criminals for a very long time.”

Now that the curtain has been pulled back, and the great Oz revealed as a fraud, expect a lot of previously cowed people to speak up, and even pile on. It’s not going to be pretty, but it’s no less than they’ll deserve.

[Update a few minutes later]

The (still) faithful gather in Copenhagen:

…it’s already clear that being here during the next few days is going to be very much like attending some kind of massive religious gathering. The faithful — over 16,000 strong — are here, of course, for the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference, a.k.a. COP15 (“COP” as in Copenhagen), at which they supposedly hope to achieve a provisional international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus rescue our beloved blue planet from the fate envisioned in any number of bad Roland Emmerich movies.

I say “supposedly” because at this point, lacking a polygraph, it’s hard to know for sure what any of these professional climate folks really think or believe or aspire to.

Oh, I think we can guess.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

More Evidence That These Are Religious Fanatics

11 Comments

After doing yeoman’s duty in going through the CRU emails, Steve Hayward notes:

How is it possible for a group of smart people to write over 1,000 e-mails over the course of a decade without a single shred of wit or humor in any of them?

As the title says…

And as Mark Steyn notes at the link, the New York Times’ Andrew Revkin has been excommunicated.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

More Climaquiddick

3 Comments

California style:

Crafty use of statistics, lack-of-transparency, wild projections about future calamity requiring government intervention now…Hmmmm.

If all of this is sounding familiar there’s a reason. Stefan Rahmstorf is one of the CRU e-mail clatch and a contributor to Real Climate. For instance, here is an e-mail in which he is desperately seeking help writing a reply to a critic.

Based on this alarmist study, Schwarzenegger and the State of California have put together…a…video which includes the Rahmstorf’s prediction of a 4 foot sea level rise by 2100 and images of San Francisco inundated by rising seas.

By the way, the California Energy Commission which is pushing this is the same group that outlawed future sales of my TV a few weeks ago. Maybe I shouldn’t worry about it since TVs don’t work well underwater anyway.

I’ll be OK. We’re a couple dozen feet above at least, with dunes between us and the beach a mile and a half away.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Climaquiddick Doesn’t Matter

2 Comments

Because there are so many better reasons to scuttle the nonsense in Copenhagen:

While it’s great fun — and entirely worthwhile — to make a big stink about Climategate, it would be a shame if people believed that Copenhagen’s inevitable failure hinged on this one scandal. Even if the CRU researchers were the model of scientific dispassion, these schemes are pointless. Indeed, even if global warming is the threat the alarmists claim it is, it makes no sense to waste trillions of dollars on “fixes” that will do little to fix the alleged problem.

I like the reference to Canada as the Richie Cunningham of the UN.

Humor, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Satire, Science And Society

A Few Good Scientists

2 Comments

Temporary scientist Frank J. says that we can’t handle the truth:

Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to have scientific equipment on them to gather data, and that data studied by men with computers. Who’s going to do it? A layman like you? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for the global warming skeptics and curse the climatologists. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know — that the crushing of data contrary to global warming, while tragic, probably saved grant money. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to the layman, creates scientific consensus. You don’t want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about on Twitter, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall studying those measurements you can’t even begin to comprehend.

I’m ashamed to have questioned such noble and selfless people.