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Climate Change NewSpeak: Warming is Cooling, Economists are Climatologists
A recent article by Tom Harris in CanadaFreePress.com is providing some well traveled fodder for fossil fools (sorry for the inflamatory language, but I needed to make the alliteration work!) . It is yet another poor attack on Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and as such is not particularily remarkable. Tim Lambert at Deltoid tears it apart rather thoroughly. Not a pretty picture.
So what more is there to say?
Well, it struck me that this article makes use of a couple of rather remarkably duplicitous tactics, of the Orwellian "War is Peace" variety. We can start with the title, "Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe", because it's not really Gore's warnings, it is Gore presenting the scientist's warnings of climate catastrophe.
So who is it then that is responding to Gore, according to Harris?
He starts out with a quote from Bob "warming stopped in 1998" Carter who has the chutzpah to accuse Al Gore of using circumstantial evidence! Then comes the real through-the-looking-glass twisting of reality: the naysayers are "hundreds of highly qualified [..] climate experts" and the consensus position is "immaterial" because "only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field." As the "coup de grace" evidence for this presented in the final paragraph, Harris cites the recent open letter to Prime Minister Harper urging him not to be fooled by Greenpeace and stating more research is needed before taking hasty actions like Kyoto. But looking at the list of sponsors for this letter we see that, as well as the regular group of well traveled denialists, these 60 signatories include mathematicians, economists, anthropologists, geneticists, chemists, engineers and other interesting fields hardly related to climate! Love is Hate.
And of course the IPCC consensus comes from these fine folks who are (surprise surprise) in fact the ones who work and publish papers in the climate field. Freedom is Slavery.
And of course, the article is full of many of the usual tried and not-so-true standards:
So what more is there to say?
Well, it struck me that this article makes use of a couple of rather remarkably duplicitous tactics, of the Orwellian "War is Peace" variety. We can start with the title, "Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe", because it's not really Gore's warnings, it is Gore presenting the scientist's warnings of climate catastrophe.
So who is it then that is responding to Gore, according to Harris?
He starts out with a quote from Bob "warming stopped in 1998" Carter who has the chutzpah to accuse Al Gore of using circumstantial evidence! Then comes the real through-the-looking-glass twisting of reality: the naysayers are "hundreds of highly qualified [..] climate experts" and the consensus position is "immaterial" because "only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field." As the "coup de grace" evidence for this presented in the final paragraph, Harris cites the recent open letter to Prime Minister Harper urging him not to be fooled by Greenpeace and stating more research is needed before taking hasty actions like Kyoto. But looking at the list of sponsors for this letter we see that, as well as the regular group of well traveled denialists, these 60 signatories include mathematicians, economists, anthropologists, geneticists, chemists, engineers and other interesting fields hardly related to climate! Love is Hate.
And of course the IPCC consensus comes from these fine folks who are (surprise surprise) in fact the ones who work and publish papers in the climate field. Freedom is Slavery.
And of course, the article is full of many of the usual tried and not-so-true standards:
- Geological history does not support CO2's role
- Antarctic ice is growing
- Some sites show cooling
- The temperature record is unreliable
- The truth dare not be spoken
Not a very impressive presentation after all...
Labels: unlabeled
posted by coby @ 6/20/2006 05:09:00 PM
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8 Comments:
At June 21, 2006 4:01 AM,
Stentor said…
Just a nitpick -- geography isn't "hardly related to climate." There are lots of people in geography departments doing climate-related research. The particular geographers who signed that letter may not be among them, but you can't tell that just from their disciplinary affiliation.
At June 21, 2006 5:52 AM,
Anonymous said…
Sorry Coby
'Coup de gras': probably the best translation is 'cup of fat'. I think you want 'coup de grace' (with a squiggle under the 'c').
:o)
John Mann
At June 21, 2006 7:59 AM,
coby said…
LOL! You know it didn't look right...then again, I could say it was intentional irony.. ;)
At June 21, 2006 8:33 AM,
coby said…
Hi Stentor,
I removed geography, though I am not sure I agree. Certainly climate and climate change influences geographical issues, but does geography involve any knowledge of atmospheric or ocean science? That is to say, geography surely consumes climate knowledge, but does it produce any? Anyway, I had ignored a couple of mathematicians and engineers in the list so put them in instead.
At June 22, 2006 2:30 PM,
Anonymous said…
Curt Cuffey of UC Berkeley is an example of a geographer who is a climate scientist. That said, I think he's a rarity.
At June 27, 2006 4:07 PM,
Anonymous said…
I love your "How to Talk to a Sceptic about Global Warming" in fact i found it so useful i had to copy your catagories to my blog ... i hop you don't mind. I have already used is several times on fastblogit to answer critics. Btw, what is the procedure to submit new questions? In any Case i would like to answer this one ... though it may be poorly phrased: Why should we ruin our enonomy to reduce the temperature by a mere .6 degree?
At June 27, 2006 4:31 PM,
coby said…
Hi Seth, thanks for the comment, I am very happy you are putting the Guide to good use! No worries about the cloning, though it will get out of date eventually.
A question in the comments as you have done is as good a way as any to suggest it. See this article for half of it and this article for the other half. Let me know if that covers what you had in mind.
At July 20, 2006 10:57 PM,
Peter K. Anderson said…
You will ALL find that the fields listed (60 signatories include mathematicians, economists, anthropologists, geneticists, chemists, engineers and other interesting fields) ALL present situations that present SCIENCE that is contradicted by the attempts to platform a supposed 'greenhouse effect' and the illusion of 'science activity' made to appear as 'climate science research'.
Infact Coby, there is hardly related to SCIENCE much of the supposition presented by the OPINION (related as a supposed consensus) 'marketed' as 'climate science' and the supposed 'climate experts' too often present opinion that is disassociated from SCIENCE.
The materials presented by our biosphere are common, their behaviours are well known and ALL present such situations within the fields of SCIENCE listed. It is TIME you ALL realised, there is NOT possible a 'closed shop' for suppositions of a platformed 'climate science' which is INCREASINGLY being obviously disassociated AND contradictory to commonly KNOWN and USED SCIENCE.
As I have mentioned already topics from near ALL these areas of SCIENCE, perhaps it IS time you all began to discuss the discrepancies AND inconsistencies of the supposed 'greenhouse effect'.
The Human bio-form is inconsistent with the presence of sufficient energy within the Infrared Spectrum EVER behaving as the 'greenhouse theory' requires.
The mathematics presented by the 'greenhouse theory' is invalid.
The Materials Science presented by the 'greenhouse theory' is inconsistent with the known and common materials the 'greenhouse theory' involves in its suppositions.
There is NOT infact any valid 'climate science', that is WHY those platforming such attempt to discuss with reference to non existent futures, or distant pasts.
"Chuckle-thons" lost their application years ago, this slide into redundancy was accelerated by the anonymity of the Internet, and still it seems that has also escaped the notice of the more highly disassociated in their 'passenger position' in the 'riding of the greenhouse wagon'.
Your's, Peter K. Anderson a.k.a. Hartlod(tm)
From the PC of Peter K Anderson
E-Mail: Hartlod@bigpond.com
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