Coal Exec Challenges Climate Scientist To Debate (VIDEO)

Massey Energy President Don Blankenship challenged one of the world's top climate experts to a debate on global warming this week after learning NASA scientist James Hansen would be attending an anti-mountaintop removal protest in West Virginia led by Bobby Kennedy Jr.

The "Charleston Gazette" reports that Blankenship said he's:

"...More than willing to invite Dr. Hansen to have a factual discussion about coal mining in West Virginia, which provides thousands of jobs in the state and provides low-cost energy to millions of Americans. I look forward to hearing from Dr. Hansen, as I'm sure a productive dialogue - not publicity arrests - is what Dr. Hansen, a university professor who values an exchange of ideas, surely, must desire."

Hansen is best known for his climate research and the testimony he gave to Congress in 1988 that helped put global warming at the forefront of environmental activism. Blankenship, on the other hand, doesn't believe global warming exists:

Comments

[busterbrownthefirst]

How can Blankenship seriously challenge Hansen to a "debate" when Blankenship's only basis of knowledge is that he wants to continue to line his pockets? A "dialogue" with Jim Hansen will not make climate change go away. It would only give Blankenship a platform to mouth off about how everyone who disagrees with him is "crazy."

I live in Colorado, and in a recent election Pete Coors ran against Salazar for Senator. During the campaign, Coors said that as Senator he would attempt to get the national drinking age reduced.

Those two have something in common, and that would be greed. Isn't it ironic how incredibly stupid things seem so logical when one's pecuniary interest is the only motivator?

On the other hand, congratulations to Hansen for speaking out. After warning us about climate change for decades, it must be incredibly upsetting to him that we still don't get it. If you are not familiar with him, the Huffington Post has several of his editorials.

[realpolitic]

Yes, because we all know that coal company executives have so much integrity! That is why that blast the tops off mountains in West Virginia and dump the gravel in streams. Then they tell us it is an environmentally friendly process. Sure!

[Sensiblebg]

If you all are so confident then why not debate the man?? Dont be scared libs..

[MGhamma]

If you truly were sensible, you'd be addressing the scientists, not us libs.

[SteveMI]

Sensiblebg, don't tease the libs, science is not their strong point, we are talking about people who believe Co2 is a pollutant and windmills can power the planet!

You'll never get any scientific argument out of them, I've tried, you only get 'Al Gore/ the UN' told me so- they wouldn't lie!

[LeLoup]

Do not confound denialism* with honest debate. A guy crooked enough to buy himself a judge on the State Supreme Court (see the Brett Benjamin case) cannot be trusted to be intellectually honest in a true debate.

Furthermore, the state of American journalism is so pathetic that these dimwits would be stupid enough to give equal weight to both sides of the "debate" IRRESPECTIVE of the FACTS.

So, pray tell why should anyone with more than one functioning brain cell be confident when dishonesty and spin rules the day?

BTW, do not confound scientists with libs; it's insulting.

http://scienceblogs.com/denialism//

[SteveMI]

As many climate realists have observed , the faithful have a lot of emotion, political ideology-
but no sign of individual scientific understanding, just read these posts.

or are we wrong, can you explain how Co2 will cause catastrophic warming?
Prrrey tell lest ye confound using quaint olde phrases with sounding intelligent!

:)

[PresidentRobertBooth]

***More than willing to invite Dr. Hansen to have a factual discussion about coal mining in West Virginia, which provides thousands of jobs in the state and provides low-cost energy to millions of Americans***

The issue of how many jobs coal mining in West Virginia creates and how expensive the generated energy the industry produces is completely irrelevant to the issue of global climate change.

[Sensiblebg]

No its not.. Its a debate about trade offs.

The environmental zealots have been hiking costs up on everything from housing to the ability of businesses to create jobs to do their 'green initiatives' with little evidence that their restrictions have are changing the climate in positive ways..

He is challenging the scientists to debate costs vs. benefits..­.

[PresidentRobertBooth]

***No its not.. Its a debate about trade offs.

The environmental zealots have been hiking costs up on everything from housing to the ability of businesses to create jobs to do their 'green initiatives' with little evidence that their restrictions have are changing the climate in positive ways..

He is challenging the scientists to debate costs vs. benefits***

He isn't. He's the last person in the world who should be entering debates about responsible industrial practices anyway, and is a clear climate change denialist.

[whocan]

The globalphobiacs are cowards , they debate those who disagree less than Olbermann debates a conservative

[MGhamma]

'Globalphobiacs'. Now that's a big word. It cracks me up watching you skeptics trying to gain credibility with big, fancy words. You know, kinda like what ya'll accuse us libruls a doin. Actually, the people who know what they're talking about don't debate those that don't know what they're talking about. Would you debate someone on whether Santa Claus exists? On second thought, you might. And you'd probably lose the arguement.

[Sensiblebg]

Determining who knows 'what they are talking about' is completely arbitrary. In reality you meant to say "People who believe in global warming wont debate anyone who disagrees with them"..

[bdaved]

Just about everybody I know who's over 50 and has spent a lot of time in the same locality outdoors says the climate is changing. You can grow things now in places you couldn't thirty years ago.
Climate change skeptics will often say "There's no such thing as global warming" and follow it up with "It's part of a natural cycle." Which is it?

[melmoid]

Ask any forester in the Pacific Northwest if global climate change is real, and you will get a straight yes answer without hesitation. I have personally watched the changes in the forests for the last 50 years.

[wyomingredneck]

and the forests never changed before?

[elmerfude]

I learned the hard way that a scientist should never, ever debate a guy like this. Scientists have a lot of skills, but spin, PR, salesmanship, deception and hyperbole are not usually among them. Scientists also generally are not very good liars.

[Exusian]

The only people calling for open public "debate" on the science of global warming/climate change are those who do not have the science to back up their arguments.

That's because public debate shifts the focus from the veracity of the facts and science to the power and strength of rhetoric and presentati­on--i.e. style and delivery over substance, or, persuasion and playing to emotion over reason and logic. In public debate, a lie delivered with skill and apparent sincerity will almost always trump a clumsily delivered fact. Public debate is theater that panders to ignorance, in fact, depends on ignorance of the subject being debated.

That's why science has developed objective venues--peer reviewed journals, scientific symposia, etc--where hypothesis, theory and scientific truth can be thrashed out among those equipped with the training and tools to do so.

That's why those who challenge scientists to publicly "debate" the science rarely, if ever, do so in those venues.

[research]

yes. Let them debate it here on Huff, in writing with time to check facts.

[tailgateshirts]

he believes in profits more than the environment, we get it

[Overtone]

FORGET COAL. Future cars will need no fuel and can become power plants when parked.

First is the MagGen™. These magnetic generators will initially make it possible to cut the cord on a plug-in hybrid. It will no longer need to plug-in. At a later date, they can replace the batteries in an electric car. Then, the MagGen can run when the car is parked and sell power to the utility. Prototype MagGen units are under development.

Second is a Self Powered Internal Combustion Engine - SPICE™ which can power a hybrid. It will need no fuel and is another path to ending the need to plug-in. The engine can run when parked. Both systems can wirelessly transmit and sell power to the local utility.

The SPICE is powered by hydrinos. One barrel of water can equal several hundred barrels of oil.
It may prove possible to modify the manufacture of existing engines so that they may become a SPICE.

Scientists and engineers will doubt these technologies are possible until they have been validated by Independent Laboratories. That is an important step on the agenda.

Until now, car ownership has been an expense. Payments to car owners driving a hybrid with a SPICE, or powered by MagGen, are likely to be substantial.

The cost of many vehicles might be paid for by utilities.

Parked cars each become decentralized power plants - a cost-effective path to an end for any need to build coal plants.

[BrettnCalgary]

I've read through your website and searched for other information to support your claims and come up woefully short. Why don't you display working prototypes of these devices so that scientists can evaluate your claims?

[bdaved]

Now cut that out.

[MGhamma]

You're talikng about a perpetual motion machine. Doesn't exist, my friend.

[rsaillant1]

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CLEAN COAL.....

There, HuffPo moderators, I said it again.This time with NO mention of the CLEAN COAL ad
currently running on your Media page......­oooops, guess I'll be censored again.

Oh well.....

[MGhamma]

Maybe you should say it one more time. I didn't quite catch it.

[rsaillant1]

Sadly, I just saw a "flash" ad on the Media page, here on HuffPo, extolling the
cleanliness of coal....I'­m disappointed that Huffpo profits from this line of B.S.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CLEAN COAL.

[MGhamma]

A businessman challenges a scientist to a scientific debate. That's rich. But he's already showed his hand. He'll scare the beejessus out of people with dire predictions of economic catastrophe, while at the same time, not offer one shred of scientific evidence to support his OPINION. Typical skeptic BS!

[NWBrunette]

You'd have to hold the "debate" in a really large refrigerator, what with all the hot air from this dufus.

[elmerfude]

If Blankenship has some data, evidence or conclusions about global climate change; let him submit it to a scientific journal or to a scientific conference. That is the way science works. His stuff will be peer reviewed, his assumptions questioned, his data scrutinized and his credentials examined just like anyone else doing "science."

[MGhamma]

elmer, that's exactly why he won't do it.