Print Friendly
February 2, 2010

Can Global Warming Be Reborn?

Walter Russell Mead

Judging by the comments, my post yesterday on the death of global warming did not make everybody happy.  Some readers thought I went too far, cavalierly dismissing the work of thousands of scientists over many decades — a typical example, one reader noted, of Ivy League arrogance since without anything more than a BA in English I was making sweeping generalizations about a subject in which I have no training.

A larger number of comments objected to the fact that I specifically endorsed the basic science of global warming.  Some thought I’ve just been taken in by a deliberate conspiracy of fraud (either by socialists trying to destroy capitalism or by aspiring capitalist plutocrats out to get rich on the public’s gullibility).  Others figured that as a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and general Establishment lackey I’m somehow in on the scam.

Pachauri_ChampagneThese readers may not have gotten my motives right but they understood my position better than those who thought I was attacking the science of global warming.  I don’t actually think I’ve got the science background to pontificate on the science of climate change.  There is a broad though not a universal consensus among serious climate scientists that the earth is getting warmer, that human activity has something to do with it, and that unless we make some changes the warming of the earth will continue until things become unpleasant in a number of ways. At the same time, beginning last fall with the hacked emails from East Anglia, and accelerating in the last couple of weeks with a steady stream of revelations about high profile assertions in the IPCC’s reports, a flow of news stories in the UK and elsewhere  makes it increasingly clear that some scientists and institutions who are prominent in the climate change debate have made some serious errors in judgment and in some cases have made claims about the impact of climate change that do not have serious scientific backing. When challenged on these matters, instead of frankly and candidly discussing the issues on the merits, they got on their high horses and denounced their critics as practitioners of voodoo science.  Now they are getting a richly deserved comeuppance.

I have been writing about the political impact of these revelations, not the state of the science.  Scientifically, the revelations to date affect only a small number of statements and do not seriously attack the basic claims of the climate change community.  (That may change if it turns out that the East Anglia data on global temperatures is flawed or if a couple of other allegations of misconduct are substantiated.  But there will be time enough to analyze all that as the facts trickle out; for now, I’m going on the assumption that 90% of the scientists involved have got 90% of the science right — though I reserve my right to change my mind if the facts change down the road.)  Politically, it seems to me that the errors in judgment by the IPCC and the East Anglia Climate Research Unit doom any serious action in the US on climate change for the foreseeable future.  The political support just isn’t there.  A failure by the US to act lets everyone else off the hook.  Additionally, the high profile science scandal gives ammunition to people in places like China and India who don’t want to take action on this issue.  Even before these latest revelations, I have been skeptical for some time that all the huffing and puffing about the need for international action against climate change was going to produce what environmentalists thought was required.  The structure of international politics does not lend itself to this kind of action and so far the international community has missed every deadline for definitive, binding and effective agreements.  It always seemed likely to me that this effort would flop; it now seems close to a certainty. As I wrote yesterday, the jellyfish isn’t going to climb the stairs.

Maybe I’m right and maybe I’m wrong, but my analysis is based on politics, not science.  It holds whether ‘anthropogenic global warming’ is happening in a big way, is part of the story or if it isn’t happening at all.  Right now, the misconduct of leading climate change campaigners has made the unlikely impossible, and the political backing for serious international action to fight climate change no longer exists — if indeed it ever did.

The climate change skeptics don’t need much advice at this point; they are rubbing their hands in glee and saying “We told you so.”  They are saying some ruder things as well; for a sampling you can look through the comments on yesterday’s post.

Those who believe that climate change is a serious problem and want the world to act on it are in a much tougher spot.  Public confidence in the science of global warming has been falling in the United States for some time now.  As the news of the current wave of scandals spreads (and it is spreading far and fast even though many major news organizations have skimped on the coverage), skepticism will increase. The perceived arrogance of the climate change movement combined with the humiliating comeuppance of some of its most prominent leaders is a devastating blow.  Regaining public confidence and support will be neither easy nor quick.

A Five Step Recovery Plan

For what it’s worth, here’s how I think the movement to fight climate change could recover and relaunch.

First, don’t circle the wagons.  The IPCC and the East Anglia Climate Research Unit are, from a PR point of view, toast.  Environmental leaders, groups and scientists in the United States need to get out front denouncing the misconduct, demanding full investigations and accounting, and disassociating themselves from the individuals, institutions and claims that threaten to drown the whole field in a wave of undifferentiated skepticism and revulsion.

Second, accept the things you cannot change.  There will be no rush to fight climate change now, no quick global agreement on binding targets and legal treaties and major climate change legislation in the US in 2010 is deeply unlikely.  (Look at what happened to public support for health care in 2009; already weak support for climate change legislation will melt in much the same way once the public’s attention fully turns to it.) Unless political trends change dramatically in the US before the midterm elections, legislation will be even less likely in 2011 and 2012.  The climate change movement can either spend its energies resisting the inevitable delay or using it to regroup and relaunch.  My advice: take box number two.

Third, push for a massive scientific redo.  Given that much of the American public didn’t accept the scientific claims of the climate change movement even before the recent scandals, the only way to build a public consensus for change is to rebuild the science from the ground up.  A highly publicized effort that includes serious skeptics and has bipartisan backing is the only way to get American public opinion on board the climate change train.  The issues that the serious skeptics (not the tinfoil hat crowd) raise can and indeed should be addressed and a panel of reputable scientists drawn from the majority and the minority can significantly narrow the gaps and get broader public support for their conclusions — whatever they are. This should be an open, transparent process and the scientific chips should fall where they may.  No cooking the books, no stacking the deck: the public has to trust the people and the procedures involved.  Nothing in a society as contentious as ours will produce a 100% consensus on anything; but a serious inquiry carried out in the full light of day will have a much better chance of getting public opinion aligned with the facts than anything else at this point.  Also, and this is not a minor point, pushing for an open and thorough scientific review will help the American environmental community separate itself from the negative consequences of the international scandals.

Fourth, push for intensive new research into climate science.  The consequences of the inevitable delay before serious policy steps are taken on global warming can be significantly mitigated if we achieve a better understanding of how the climate works and how it can be affected.  Even the strongest advocates of aggressive policy changes to address global warming acknowledge that our understanding of climate is still limited.  Learning more will both increase public confidence in climate scientists and their predictions and quite possibly open up new and more promising avenues for addressing the effects of human industrial activity on our environment.  The research, like the inquiry, has to be inclusive — skeptical perspectives need to be part of the process and we have to get beyond the cliquishness revealed by the East Anglia emails.  But pushing for this kind of inclusive research into the basic science will improve the public image of climate science and help ensure that the period of delay is not simply lost.

Fifth, rethink the policy approach. The decision by the ‘climate change community’ to focus on a grand global solution to climate change was unwise.  The international system isn’t capable of the kind of sweeping, rapid changes and decisions that activists seek.  200 years of human rights campaigns have not eliminated slavery.  Nuclear proliferation continues despite more than sixty years of efforts to control it — and the consequences of nuclear war are much more horrible than those of global warming.  Piracy, terrorism, tyranny, sexual discrimination: human beings live with many terrible problems that we have not solved.  Environmental degradation is one of these problems.  Worse, there are signs that the international system is becoming less effective on a broad range of policy issues.  The Doha round of trade talks has seized up, possibly for good; efforts to manage imbalances in international financial flows or to regularize world currency values are going nowhere.  There are no signs of an international consensus to deal with the legal problems raised by enemy combatants fighting for non-state actors in terror campaigns.  Meanwhile, in terms of American politics, getting a treaty through the Senate is the highest hurdle you can set yourself — it takes 67 votes to ratify a treaty. The combination is deadly.  The climate change movement needs to invest some time and intellectual energy into finding a more workable agenda.  Regardless of the science, the current track looks very much like a dead end.

Assuming that the review of the science strengthens the case for global warming and that the policy review helps the community develop some more feasible options going forward, the net result of all this brouhaha could be a deeper US and even global consensus for a set of actions that would mitigate if not altogether solve our climate problem.  That’s the best possible outcome for the climate change community given where we now stand; let’s see what happens.

Comments

Finally, a few words on comment policy here in MeadWorld.

First, I’m grateful to readers who care enough about what I write here to take the time to comment.  I do my level best to read them all with care.

Generally speaking, I believe in publishing all comments that don’t compromise the family-friendly character of this blog.  I do, however, believe that the President of the United States is entitled to a certain basic respect and so a number of particularly abusive (and so far as I can determine, untrue) comments about President Obama are languishing in the cybervaults here at Mead Central. Publication of a comment in no way suggests that I agree with or approve of the sentiments or views expressed.  Nor do I endorse any factual statements or charges expressed by the readers.  I believe that it is important for people to know what people are saying and thinking, and so I plan to continue to allow access to as many comments as possible.  If the flow continues at its current rate, I will probably have to adopt some more formal policies.  The situation is evolving; I will keep you posted.

Meanwhile, thanks again to all who read and all who respond.

Posted in Energy & Environment, Essays
Send Us Feedback Send Post Ideas
Load Comments
  • Malak

    The consensus is the result of a quasi-religious and millenarian movement that is particularly attractive to specific subsets of the population. Helped along, like other religions, by a decent amount of knowing cynicism.

  • John Ellis

    As someone who went to school with you in New Haven, I can safely assure your readers that you are, in fact, part of the Global Conspiracy. I can’t, unfortunately, tell your readers what it is that the Global Conspiracy does, because I am sworn to secrecy. I can say, as an advisory matter, that the GC is in the process of taking over the Blogospehere. Readers who are distraught over this fact are advised to get over it. Life sucks and then you die, unless you are a member of the GC. If you are a member of the GC, as Mr. Mead points out, Jeeves brings you coffee and irons the FT.

  • plaasjaapie

    “… a steady stream of revelations about high profile assertions in the IPCC’s reports, a flow of news stories in the UK and elsewhere makes it increasingly clear that some scientists and institutions who are prominent in the climate change debate have made some serious errors in judgment and in some cases have made claims about the impact of climate change that do not have serious scientific backing.”

    Participating in an overt conspiracy to commit fraud goes way, way beyond being “serious errors of judgement”.

  • http://n.a. Adam Garfinkle

    Walter, don’t fret: You’re not in the blog business to make everyone happy. That’s what clowns do.

  • Pete

    A fair, open, and well-thought analysis delivered by Mr. Mead, as I want to believe the large majority of people have learned to appreciate over the years. I hope that rational minds prevail and can find a degree of commonality through discourse, rather than sharpening disagreements through the tirades, interruptions, and argument so common on TV and elsewhere. Thanks for this great blog. I am particularly enjoying the “blue model” pieces.

  • Norm

    I think you have a thoughtful program laid out. However, I think that to the extent the AGW crowd has quasi-religious feelings for the idea, they will be operating on a different plane and disregard such recommendations as heresy. Malak is onto something here.

    The administration, by adopting an EPA endangerment finding on the strength of the IPCC, is inviting resolving this by a judicial process instead of a political process. The trick here is that factions will compete in the courts and try to rescue their side by legislative action if compelled by losses on the judicial side.

  • Jerry Pulley

    Mr. Mead, your first paragraph is based on a complete reversal of the sense of the comment you cite. The quote selected and the emphasis added by the commenter (plaasjaapie on February 1, 2010 @ 11:56 pm) make it evident that he (humorously) ties your unsupported belief in AGW to your Ivy pedigree. You seem to base your post on the opposite and false premise that the comment questions the standing of your summary of recent revelations of corruption among leading AGW proponents.

    Without regard to your alma mater, your misinterpretation of the thrust of a simple and clear comment sheds some light on the effort and time required to shed superstitious belief.

  • plaasjaapie

    Jerry: Actually, you’re both right to a degree. My comment about graduates of the Ivy League was indeed half-humorous. Walter, however, was apparently stung a little harder than I intended. I wasn’t intending to disallow either his analysis or his right to write about it. What I WAS criticizing, however, was his making an assertion on policy, viz

    “…and ESTABLISHES IN MY MIND {emphasis mine} the need for intensive additional research and investigation, as well as some prudential steps that would reduce CO2 emissions by enhancing fuel use efficiency and promoting alternative energy sources”

    Walter has no educational background to give any substance to this sort of policy endorsement. It detracts unnecessarily from the rest of his article, which I found quite good, actually.

  • Sarattus

    I appreciate your open rational approach to the “Global Warming” issue. It seems to me the collapse of the “pro” side stems from the confluence of a number of things. First the attempt to fuse true believer ideology i.e. socialism and faith in government control with science invoking the deadly rule that lies in the service of a good cause are OK. Secondly the advancement of technology make fakery more difficult. New satellite ground temperature sensors challenged the old ground system of tempreture data collection the glaring differences raised profound doubts, in other words someone was lying. Finally the Internet provided gifted and informed people a place to gather and analyse information and the pontifications of “experts.”

  • http://www.american.edu Igor Dabik

    Walter, what is interesting as far as the political ramifications of ‘climategate’ go is this new column.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-emails-hacked-by-spies-1885147.html

  • Blane Burns

    To be honest, it is of no consequence. We will warm as we thaw from the last ice age unless another ice age occurs. It isn’t a bad thing. There be a mess of liars out there and many of them are scientists. There are no experts. The ones who accept that label are liars.

  • http://BornAgainDemocrats.com Luke Lea

    I would add that we need to see a lot more economists and independent statisticians involved in the debate.

    For instance, what are the probable costs and benefits of climate change in comparison to the costs and benefits climate mitigation? Do we have the ability to assess these things with a reasonable degree of confidence?

  • Norm

    Some months ago I developed a taxonomy of the Greens. It doesn’t really work too well with the scientists, but I think that most of the ordinary people in the street who profess allegiance to the green agenda fall into one or more of the categories:

    Watermelons: Green outside/red inside, these folks are pursuing socialism & collectivization under a different flag.

    Gaia Greens: These folks are putting a premium on the biosphere and humans are regarded almost as a cancer in the biosphere.

    Roman Greens: Following from the old “Club of Rome” thesis that we’re running out resources, the carrying capacity of the biosphere is being stressed by humanity so we just are going to have to make due with less, much less, going forward.

    Hard Greens: Global warming boils down to a physics process and an engineering problem. Nukes are one possibility. Popular Mechanics runs articles every so often with various geo-engineering schemes. Carbon sequestration and getting biodiesel from algae also come out of this camp.

    Tammany Greens: Environmental rationing offers a new racket where political influence and crony capitalism can pay off handsomely. Unfortunately, it seems to me that most of the proposed market mechanisms to address carbon permitting falls afoul this during the “sausage making” of politics. To the extent that a scientist subverts the pursuit of knowledge for politically favored conclusions in his grant applications, that scientist is also a Tammany Green.

    The only category that I find inherently morally suspect are the Tammanies. I find the Hard approach most prudent. We like to think all of our scientists are Hard Greens, but the recent scandals strongly indicate some leaders in the field were not.

    The recent thrust of climate change management was dominated by Watermelons and Tammanies with a leavening of Hards. Given the track record of socialism and economic progress, a less prominent role for socialist solutions and wheeler/dealers would seem to be more politically palatable.

  • Nottingham

    Thanks for the article – finally a note of sanity.

    I think the activists badly overplayed their hand. Ramping up the rhetoric to a “do what I say now or else we’re all gonna die!” inevitably led to lies and manipulation of data. If moving a decimal point on a table means saving the world, who wouldn’t do it? And of course, sooner or later, they were going to get caught.

    The moment Al Gore said that a “consensus” of scientists had determined the science was “settled” I knew this was going off the rails.

    Funny – we would vastly better off if the anti-nuclear protesters hadn’t been successful back in the 1970s. Oh well.

  • Chris

    There are lots of natural disasters between me and a rising ocean, as was underscored by Haiti just a few days ago.

    The best plan is to increase options, not to calcify one course of action in a global treaty.

    So until trouble actually arrives, I think it is best that I learn to shoot a gun, grow some crops, start a campfire, and give money to the Salvation Army.

    Now…. if you wanted to spend some money to start a moon colony (increasing future opportunity) or to start sweeping the Pacific Ocean of plastic shopping bags then, given the right leadership, I’m interested. If it’s a might be maybe could happen sorta, then no thanks.

    The day that Al Gore didn’t sell his Escalade was the day the argument was over.

  • SLEcoman

    The most damning evidence out of EAU CRU records is not the emails, but the computer code that intentionally inserted an array of fudge factors to modify historical temperatures to get a warming trend. The next thing we need to recognize is that the EAU CRU Climategate is the ‘tip of the iceberg’ Recent revelations regarding the IPCC & AR4 (e.g. glaciergate, Amazongate, weathergate, etc.) provide further evidence that problems with scientific dishonesty and manipulation of data among AGW proponents is widespread. Next, NASA and other goevernment agencies must be forced to stop stonewalling various FOIA requests. Once this information comes to light, it is very probable that, like in the U.K. there will be prima facia to indicate a special prosecutor will need to be named to investigate possible criminal activities. Before another dime is spent on climate research, there needs to a thorough and comprehensive review of how government funding promoted unscientific behavior and why the scientific community failed to “blow the whistle” on these activities. We are now hearing of many scientists at academic institutions who had doubts about AGW, but did not speak up for fear of losing their jobs or in response to pressure from their university to remain silent so as not to jeopardize future government research funding.

    President Eisenhower’s farewell address where he warned of the dangers of the military industrial complex is ofen cited, especially by liberals, but they forget his other warning – the dangers of government funded research. If government only funds one scientific viewpoint, as has been the case with climate change research, then it will get the answers it wants. Funding yet more climate change research without fixing the systematic flaws in the way government funds research sets the stage for a reprise of where we are today. Even more importantly, its critical that we recognize that AGW research is the ‘canary in the coal’ mine; and the problems of agenda driven government funding of research is not limited to AGW.

  • Tucci78

    Those “thousands of scientists [working] over many decades” upon the anthropogenic global warming fraud not only deserve to be thrown under the proverbial bus but NEED to be.

    Housecleaning. Extirpation. Smoke ‘em out, burn ‘em out, hunt ‘em down, blacklist them. Pour encourager les autres.

    Build anew on the corpses of their careers.

    Given the nature and scope of the AGW fraud – and fraud it most certainly is – the only conduct which will rehabilitate the non-scientist proponents of these insane predatory “cap-and-trade” impositions upon the helpless and inoffensive people of the world is the equivalent of Germany’s “de-Nazification.”

    A set of Nuremberg-style trials would be very useful in that.

    To hell with Godwin’s Law. The “Liberals” in their advocacy of carbon taxes and the punishment of those of their neighbors condemned as “enemies of the Earth” for burning fossil fuels have behaved as rabid fascists. You people might as well get to hellangone over it and do your penance.

    Though I’m still subject to the temptation to haul you out, seriatim, and beat you bloody. You’ve been that goddam bad.

    You might also get reconciled to the fact that sound science – investigations conducted by dint of scrupulously skeptical scientific method – has demonstrated that anthropogenic global warming by way of carbon dioxide forcing is bloody impossible. Always has been. Always will be.

    The laws of physics – like the laws of economics – work whether you want them to or not. Both facts just grate on the average “Liberal” (or progressive or socialist or whatever you’re calling yourselves this week) like a power sander, but then you deserve it, don’t you?
    –

  • John B

    Although I disagree with you on the science of Global Warming (I always thought it was nonsense) you have the political implications right IMO. When I saw Al Gore back out of Copenhagen I knew that the political implications were devastating. He would have been asked awkward questions he doesn’t want to answer if he went.

  • keelin

    Global Warming is a non issue, knowing the public were on to something the environ mentalists quickly rebranded it Climate Change, to cover both sides of the argument, again another non issue.

    All the while the main driving force of many economies all over the world has been over looked, cheap reliable energy, the mainstay of any successful economy.

    Somewhere along the line the bankers rather than being innovative found a loophole to make a fortune out of the climate hoax. Get CO2 classified as a pollutant and sit back and make vast fortunes skimming the public via carbon trading. Carbon trading is essentially a human activity tax.

  • arkd

    My suggestion to the greens will be:

    1) Tell the truth. Even if it means a diminution in your power and influence.

    2) Give up your arrogance.

  • Tom

    SLEcoman, It is my understanding that Ike, first wrote: “Military-Industrial-Congress”

  • knife

    In April 1975 Newsweek published an article “The Cooling World” which gives a fascinating look at the climate issue from a perspective before politics and distortion of facts became involved. There was no questioning of the cooling in 1975 so one must assume that Hansen was fully aware that the world cooled from 1942 to 1975 before global warming returned in 1976.

    This simple fact is somewhat problematic for Hansen and the entire global warming industry, because the physical record shows that the rapid increase in CO2 emissions did not start until after the Second World War (with the rapid increase in post war industrialization), and prior to that, as the world warmed rapidly from 1910 to 1942, there was only a minor increase in CO2 emissions.

    In 1910 CO2 emissions from fossil fuels were 3.5gt/year and increased to only 4.0gt/year by 1942. By 1975, as the world cooled, CO2 emissions jumped to 20.0gt/year. (And emissions have been increasing ever since). For sixty five years from 1910 to 1975 there was absolutely no correlation of global temperature with increasing CO2 emissions, yet in 1988 after just 13 years of concurrent increases in both global temperature and CO2 emissions, Hansen created a forcing parameter for his climate models that was based firstly on the assumption that CO2 emissions were the prime source for the observed increase in atmospheric CO2, and secondly that there was a direct causal relationship between these emissions driven increases and global warming. Essentially the climate model projections are based on a correlation that is only valid for thirteen of the seventy eight years from 1910 to 1988.

    An email from Norm Kalmanovitch [kalhnd@shaw.ca]

  • JAE

    The “warmers” keep saying that “the majority of the science” supports AGW. What I can’t figure out is just what constitutes this “science.” Take your favorite subject–glacier melting, hurricanes, Artic ice, etc.– and look at the scientific literature. You will find in almost every case (maybe all cases) that there are only models and theories and armwaving. No real empirical evidence to connect the “disaster” with CO2. Not even any good correlations between CO2 levels and the “disaster.” Only statements that CO2 absorbs and emits IR (which does NOT prove anything at all), that CO2 has increased, that the temperatures have increased (now that’s even in doubt), and that there is an increase or decrease in some “thing” (glacier extent, etc.). Fundamentally, the “science” amounts to pure speculation, especially since we know that it was as warm or warmer several times within the past 10,000 years.

  • dave72

    …”cavalierly dismissing the work of thousands of scientists over many decades”

    Climate “scientists” rank just below phrenologists and astrologers. Most couldn’t hold a real job in industry – that’s why they keep lying to get government grants.

  • Pingback: Fat Lady Warms Up For Global Warming; Grey Lady Not Listening - Walter Russell Mead's Blog - The American Interest

  • northwah

    Might I suggest a sixth step in the recovery program for the environmentalists, in the tank media, scientists, and politicians behind Global Warming?

    6. Accept the fact that your conclusions and dooms day scenarios are totally false. Admit them and apologize. Prosecute the perpetuators of the fraud and move on to more noble and truthful endeavors to build back what little credibility you had in the first place.

  • Craig Goodrich

    This is a good, moderate column, but there are times when moderation is out of place. This is one of those times.

    First, the real science is not that hard to understand, for anyone who passed 7th-grade Earth Science and 12th-grade Calculus. Actual papers by distinguished climate scientists are available all over the Web.

    You will soon find that the hard evidence against the CO2-driven theory is overwhelming. NONE of its predictions have proven true; The 20th century warming was driven to such an extent by ocean current fluctuations and solar activity that any contribution of CO2 would be unmeasurable.

    Moreover, NOAA, GISS, and CRU have so diddled the surface temperature in innumerable tendentious ways that it is impossible to say with any certainty exactly how much warming has taken place in the last century and a half. Around one degree C seems reasonable, but that is well within the observational margin of error, even if the raw data hadn’t been lost by these distinguished government agencies. One degree C when coming out of the coldest period in the last ten thousand years is hardly cause for panic.

    Second, millions are suffering all over the planet RIGHT NOW BECAUSE of the insane “renewable” policies of politicians entranced by the Global Warming hysteria. Ethanol production has raised world food prices and is causing food riots and starvation in the Third World. Wholesale clearance of rain forest to plant oil palm for biodiesel and eucalyptus for “carbon sink” is destroying wildlife habitat and unique ecologies throughout the tropics. Peaceful rural lifestyles, unspoiled wilderness, and wildlife habitat are being devastated from Germany through the UK and US to Australia by phalanxes of utterly useless and hideously ugly phalanxes of giant wind turbines.

    Thanks to a horde of idiot politicians in league with fat cat financial manipulators, we are utterly destroying the environment in order to save it from one of Mencken’s imaginary hobgoblins.

    So if some of us reject moderation in favor of opposing this criminal lunacy with every fibre of our being, I hope you will understand why.

  • Pingback: IPCC: International Pack of Climate Crooks : USACTION NEWS

  • Pingback: IPCC: International Pack of Climate Crooks | I Hate Al Gore

  • Pingback: IPCC: International Pack of Climate Crooks « Diagenesis

  • sdcougar

    Your point, “push for a massive scientific redo,” must face what has been intergral to the old process, the federal funding that becomes an end in itself. Pres. Eiesenhower warned “that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

    “Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity…The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present—and is gravely to be regarded.”

    Your fourth point, ” push for intensive new research into climate science,” is also entangled in the above problem. Already [perhaps you could give us the figure] tens of billions of dollars have flowed to grants on this topic. Though, as noted [by Richard Lindzen, I believe], most of this money has not gone to the climate science itself but to the disaster prophets and their mitiagation scenarios.

  • Pingback: Walter Russell Mead: “The great IPCC meltdown continues” « Spin, strangeness, and charm

  • Pingback: The Great IPCC Meltdown Continues - Walter Russell Mead's Blog - The American Interest

  • Pingback: Climate Change Scandal Spreads – Still Unreported in American Mainstream Press « MN Prager Discussion Group

  • http://www.coloursoflife.com.au Steven Pace

    When people want to waste their money on products that claim to be more green, that is silly, but ok. What I am upset about is when their little mistakes hurt people who can’t afford it. When they change their mind and no longer want to import organic produce from across the world, the farmers who have invested to produce these silly products are hurt. When “renewable” fuels take food out of hungry working poor people’s mouths, that makes me mad.