Michael Crichton on Environmentalism

[Luke T.]

It's called "respect". I have respect for someone that has chose to dedicate his/her life to the pursuit of knowledge in one particular discipline. It requires much work and sacrifice.

I reward that by giving them a much higher degree of trust in their word regarding their relevant area of study than one who has not.

So what does a climatologist know about the effect of global warming on insects, animals and crops and so on?

 

[Luke T.]

September 2003 was the warmest on record.

Woo-woo indeed.

I would be very interested if anyone who doesn't have a dog in this fight would explain how to interpret the data in this link. I see that it says the base period is 1951 - 1980. How does that work for the entire period of 1880 - 2003?

And what does "using elimination of outliers and homogeneity adjustment" mean?

 

[EvilYeti]

This proves it, EvilYeti knows nothing about statistics or mathematics or even the laws of averages for that matter. Why continue arguing if you keep posting pointless data that you cherry picked just to show you were right. Is that how you concluded there is GW and it was caused by humans?

Looks like October was likely the warmest as well. Or at least a close second to 1995. But thats just more cherry picking, right?

I've concluded that GW is caused by humans by looking at historical records of CO2 concentrations in the troposphere, temperature reconstructions and having a basic understanding of physics. It's really not that hard, maybe I should write a "Anthropogenic global warming for Idiots" book. I'll send a signed copy to you and Luke free of charge!

 

[EvilYeti]

So what does a climatologist know about the effect of global warming on insects, animals and crops and so on?

And you have evidence of climatologists making grandiose predictions regarding insects, animals and crops? The closest I can find is the reference to vegetation chages, which is perfectly fair as climatologists study the interaction between flora and the atmosphere. Its that "carbon cycle" think I keep harping about.

"The likely result is more frequent heat waves, droughts, extreme precipitation events and related impacts (such as) wildfires, heat stress, vegetation changes and sea-level rise, which will be regionally dependent," the two scientists write in the Dec. 5 issue of the journal Science.

 

[EvilYeti]

It is more likely they got tired of putting up with you. This in no way advances the cause of skepticism.

Big word's coming from someone who thinks John Daly is a scientist. Stick to technical writing, buddy.

PMs of support. Woo hooo! So popularity makes you right. As I said, I wish more skeptics would learn this method doesn't work.

Why are they only supporting you in private?

EvilYeti v. Diamond & shanek


As for the Cato institute, I told you that I stopped using them because you and Grammatron had started on an ad hominem attack toward each other over it. Precisely my point about your approach. You did not prove anything to me except that you have a tendency to fly off the handle easily.

Something about snotnosed McSkeptics like yourself posting junk science propaganda on a forum devoted to exposing the same just rubs me the wrong way. I must be a bad guy.

I have reserved judgement on Cato for later examination. I have not excluded them because of you, but I will examine them closer because of you, if that makes you happy.

You do that. Keep in mind you will be reserving your judgment to your grave because Cato is never going to be a research body. They are a conservative propaganda mill.

You count running people off the forum as a victory? Man oh man...That's very sad.

Are you saying you miss Diamond/Titanpoint?

 

[Luke T.]

Looks like October was likely the warmest as well. Or at least a close second to 1995. But thats just more cherry picking, right?

Yes, it is. Shall we wager a one year JREF membership on whether September and October will be hotter next year?

I've concluded that GW is caused by humans by looking at historical records of CO2 concentrations in the troposphere, temperature reconstructions and having a basic understanding of physics. It's really not that hard, maybe I should write a "Anthropogenic global warming for Idiots" book. I'll send a signed copy to you and Luke free of charge!

Just don't be an idiot and make any predictions.

 

[Luke T.]

Something about snotnosed McSkeptics like yourself posting junk science propaganda on a forum devoted to exposing the same just rubs me the wrong way. I must be a bad guy.

You have "looked into" Cato. Have you looked into Norman Solomon?

 

[Luke T.]

EvilYeti v. Diamond & shanek

Seems I'm not the only one who has trouble with your approach. And I don't mean Diamond or shanek.

 

[EvilYeti]

You have "looked into" Cato. Have you looked into Norman Solomon?

While I'm not partial to Mr. Solomon's politics, his journalistic integrity is impeccable. If the truth show's your conservative buddies in a bad light, is it really fair to shoot the messenger? According to you, of course it is!

Here's some more info of creative fact-spinning at Cato.

The Cato Institute

Here's a great quote I find most appropos:

Cato is one of the most blatant examples of "simulated rationality", as described in Phil Agre's The Crisis of Public Reason. Arguments need only be plausibly rational to an uninformed listener. Only a tiny percentage will notice that they are being mislead. That's all that's needed to manage public opinion.

I'm the tiny percentage. You're the uninformed listener.

Now is it really fair to claim it's only the ENVIRONMENTALISTS that are making things difficult for the layman to understand?

 

[Kodiak]

Hey Luke, This was before my time, but I heard that enviromentalists were up in arms about global cooling in the 70's. Is that true?

Modern Environmentalism (AKA The Last Bastion OF Socialism):

"The continued rapid cooling of the earth since WWII is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialization, mechanization, urbanization and exploding population. -- Reid Bryson, "Global Ecology; Readings towards a rational strategy for Man", (1971)

"The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer. -- Paul Ehrlich - The Population Bomb (1968)

"I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000. -- Paul Ehrlich in (1969)

"In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish. -- Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970)

"Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity . . . in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion -- Paul Ehrlich in (1976)

"This [cooling] trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. -- Peter Gwynne, Newsweek 1976

"There are ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth. The drop in food production could begin quite soon... The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. -- Newsweek, April 28, (1975)

"This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000. -- Lowell Ponte "The Cooling", 1976

"If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000...This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age." -- Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day (1970)

Predictions...

 

[Luke T.]

"There are ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth. The drop in food production could begin quite soon... The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. -- Newsweek, April 28, (1975)

Huh. Meteorologists making crop/famine predictions? How about that!

 

[Luke T.]

While I'm not partial to Mr. Solomon's politics, his journalistic integrity is impeccable. If the truth show's your conservative buddies in a bad light, is it really fair to shoot the messenger? According to you, of course it is!

Woooo! Perhaps it is you who needs to examine the truth again. Where are the melted ice caps? Where are the famines? Where is your evidence this year was exceptional for hurricanes, wild fires, etc., etc.???????

How about that wager?

 

[Luke T.]

Kodiak, I've often said that the environmental movement is just socialism with a new dress on. Because at the bottom, their answers are always anti-corporate, anti-capitalist rhetoric.

 

[Aoidoi]

I've been trying very hard to be a fence sitter on this since way back the last time I got involved in one of these threads. Emotions get far to high for productive discussion in most of these threads.

I just want to mention that while it has little bearing on the issue of GW in general, I find EvilYeti's approach to be unfortunate. Flat out admitting that his purpose is to drive those who disagree with him off the board or else shout them down is rather disturbing from my POV. Arguing that his opponents are religious and their heretical views need to be driven out of public view doesn't really help me believe in the credibility of the rest of his arguments.

While LukeT has cited any number of questionable (or at least questioned) sources, his apparent search for answers comes across as much more reasonable to me. His willingness to put aside sources based on the vitriol they generate also seems quite reasonable.

This all has little to do with the factual basis GW, but as I rather doubt this thread is going to resolve the issue anyway I felt you might want the opinion of someone who just observing. Others may well have a different reaction, but frankly I find myself reluctant to agree with EY based on his tactics.

(My bias in the past has been towards LukeT's side, so that's also probably influencing my opinion, though I'm trying to remain neutral.)

 

[Kodiak]

Kodiak, I've often said that the environmental movement is just socialism with a new dress on. Because at the bottom, their answers are always anti-corporate, anti-capitalist rhetoric.

Don't forget anti-individual, also.

They believe the collective good they intend for government to force on us is wayyy more important than individual property and consumer rights.

"Snail Darters of the world unite!" --

 

[Luke T.]

EvilYeti, you'll have to excuse me if I am completely underwhelmed if Solomon (who is described as a "progressive" and uses catch-phrases like "imperialism" and says that it is obvious to him that the police have infiltrated environmental groups and they are the ones who provoke riots) doesn't like a corporate-funded, conservative think tank and spends a lot of energy making sure no one else likes them either.

You are starting to slip. You are on the edge. Cherry picking, rambling on about hurricanes and wild fires. You are just a nudge away from losing it and starting to rant about the next Ice Age being only 50 years away and it's Exxon's fault. I can smell it.

edited to add: Solomon is the kind of guy who won't be happy until there is no Right, and we all march lockstep into the fields of our collective farms. I wonder what they will do to keep warm? Can't burn wood. No sir. That's bad! Bad!

 

[Luke T.]

You all remember Sean Penn's visit to Iraq? Guess who invited him?

Norman Solomon.

 

[Grammatron]

Looks like October was likely the warmest as well. Or at least a close second to 1995. But thats just more cherry picking, right?

I've concluded that GW is caused by humans by looking at historical records of CO2 concentrations in the troposphere, temperature reconstructions and having a basic understanding of physics. It's really not that hard, maybe I should write a "Anthropogenic global warming for Idiots" book. I'll send a signed copy to you and Luke free of charge!

Let me use your logic here based on that data...

OH NO! Since 1998 we have been cooling down, it's global cooling!!! Quick, lets change the world economy and the way companies operate without investigating any further. What? No I'm not being alarmist, I'm just giving you reasonable conclusion here!!

 

[Luke T.]

Well, a simple surf of the net shows the shrieking, alarmist attitude is still around in the environmentalist community. I even found one saying we could be in an ice age by 2050. There was a Horizons show about it on Novemeber 13. Too bad I didn't see it, but maybe it will recycle around to Nova here in the U.S.

My favorite so far is this one from an organization called "Working For Change," of which Norman Solomon is a member.

Some tasty morsels from the article:

Ebell, and other East Coast pseudo-academic commentators whose fondness for America's fossil fuel consumption is related directly to their paychecks, were then promptly buried under a foot of snow over the weekend. It can't be easy, insisting that the world is flat while having to shovel evidence to the contrary.

As science has scrambled to track all these changes, and to track the havoc that changing climates are already beginning to wreak on what turns out to be an exquisitely balanced natural world, the phrase "global warming" turns out to be a misnomer --a euphemism, even, for a cluster of trends so catastrophic that without dramatic human counteraction will, in a matter of decades, threaten food and water supplies and much of the natural and technological infrastructure that we humans have developed to support ourselves.

It is unfortunate Solomon doesn't turn his Institute for Public Accuracy eyes on one of his own groups.

edited to change Accuracy in Media to Institute for Public Accuracy. My bad.

 

[Luke T.]

What's the phrase I'm looking for with regard to Solomon's "Working for Change" organization? It is right on the tip of my tongue. Wait. I'll get it. Here it comes. Ahhhhh, yessss.

"Simulated rationality."