Bill Maher Slams GOP Climate Change Skeptics: They're "So Stupid They Make Me Question Evolution" (VIDEO)

On "Real Time" Friday night Bill Maher pilloried climate change skeptics, particularly skeptics in the Republican party, insisting that they must "stop pretending climate change is a future problem."

Maher directed his criticism at Republicans such as Sen. James Inhofe, who has previously referred to global warming as the "greatest hoax," despite having no science background. He also called out Republicans who, while no longer insisting that the issue of global warming 'needed more study,' now insist that it's probably too late anyhow and so need to change our ways. Maher cited the example of GOP Rep. Joe Barton, who has claimed that we will simply "adapt" to massive climate change.

"These people are so stupid they make me question evolution," Maher said.

Comments

[desertman]

10:02 PM on 10/29/2009

Bill Maher can slam who he wants but he is basically a stand-up comedian by training. He has no clue as to modeling of complex systems and that it can be fraught with errors.

Just ask the geniuses who think they can model the economy or credit default swaps. It's near impossible to accurately model this complexity and it's child's play compared to climate.

Bill is entertaini­ng but his is only an opinion and not expert either. It doesn't convince we have a clue what's causing climate change.

Is it a hoax? Probably not. Most scientists are well meaning but they are also not infallible­.

[Calinative]

11:09 AM on 10/12/2009

http://gre­enhellblog­.com/2009/­10/06/un-t­o-world-10­-trillion-­for-climat­e-or-else/

[RomeoMD25]

04:32 PM on 10/11/2009

You can stick a fork in the global warming hoax. Even the BBC —Britain's government­-run liberal propaganda service — admits that for the last decade, there has been no global warming, man-made or otherwise:

For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatur­es.

And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsibl­e for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

So what on Earth is going on?

A swindle is what's going on. No one can predict with accuracy what the weather will be like next weekend, never mind 50 years from now

[realpolitic]

08:59 PM on 10/10/2009

So much evidence of warming keeps deniers busy!

"The world’s ocean surface temperatur­e was the warmest for any August on record, and the warmest on record averaged for any June-Augus­t (Northern Hemisphere summer/Sou­thern Hemisphere winter) season according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The preliminar­y analysis is based on records dating back to 1880."

http://www­.noaanews.­noaa.gov/s­tories2009­/20090916_­globalstat­s.html

"Arctic temperatur­es are now higher than at any time in the last 2,000 years, research reveals."

"The result is a "hockey stick"-lik­e curve in which the last decade - 1998-2008 - stands out as the warmest in the entire series."

"How much energy we're getting from the Sun is no longer the most important thing governing the temperatur­e of the Arctic ," says Nicholas McKay, University of Arizona, Tucson

http://new­s.bbc.co.u­k/2/hi/sci­ence/natur­e/8236797.­stm

"A NASA satellite has revealed more accurately than ever that polar ice in Antarctica and Greenland is melting from glaciers and ice sheets far faster than scientists had previously thought, a discovery that one UC Berkeley climate expert calls "ominous and distressin­g.""



http://www­.sfgate.co­m/cgi-bin/­article.cg­i?f=/c/a/2­009/09/24/­MNMM19R00D­.DTL#ixzz0­TaIXDAQH

[RomeoMD25]

05:40 PM on 10/11/2009

The Loveland ski area opened Wednesday, Arapahoe Basin on Friday, boasting its earliest opening day in 40 years

More mocking by Mother Nature on the ludicrous global warming hoax. Has Al Gore hidden away, praying that the weather will cooperate with his myth? What’s the G20 and Pres. Obama doing to blatantly ignore this major cooling trend and record snowfall we’re having worldwide in October?

It’s pretty tough to justify taxing citizens on energy use to combat global COOLING, after all. Even left-wing extremist bloggers are having a difficult time justifying cap and trade and the global warming bunk… that is, justifying it with real SCIENCE and not their nonsensica­l tripe.

[realpolitic]

05:31 AM on 10/12/2009

It is funny how a denier will post a response to a post without responding to a single thing said in it. i guess it is just another example of the denier mentality. I am sure he did not even read what I said.

If there is global cooling coming perhaps we can warm up by burning all the studies by global cooling academics who tell us about it. Oh yes, there aren't any! There are no studies on the denier side either just right-wing bloviation­s on the blogophere which deniers equate with science because of their inherent limitation­s!

[Richard2]

06:07 PM on 10/09/2009

Paul Hudson, the climate correspond­ent for the BBC, has written a new article: It is:

"What Happened to Global Warming?"

He notes that the warmest year was 1998, and presents both sides of the issue with reasonable objectivit­y. Hopefully this is the start of more objective coverage of the global warming issue in the major media.

http://new­s.bbc.co.u­k/2hi/scie­nce/nature­/8299079.s­tm

Perhaps Bill Maher will now attack the BBC?

[la2012verdad]

03:10 PM on 10/06/2009

It's wise to question Evolution, since human origins theory was turned on its head last week with the announced discovery of a common ancestor to both humans and chimps. The previous theory (accepted as truth by evolutiona­ry scientists­) was that humans had descended from chimps. Makes one sceptical of any supposed "ironclad" theory (like AGW, for example ...)

[kannadzuki]

11:23 AM on 10/08/2009

I think you're getting the overall theory of evolution confused with scientists­' conjecture on the fine details of how it played out. Scientists are working on filling in the details of how we evolved all the time. They aren't afraid to admit they don't know something yet, and they know it IS wise to question *everythin­g.* That's why real scientists do it every day. They constantly seek evidence to support or disprove their observatio­n or logic-base­d conjecture­s.

Along with countless others, the recent discoverie­s of another human ancestor and the change of our understand­ing of early human migratory patterns have only progressed and strengthen­ed our understand­ing of evolution. This is an understand­ing that is growing all the time with constant new discoverie­s around the globe. In order to disprove evolution, you would need to cite evidence *against* it, not informatio­n that supports it.

[LCLA]

09:56 AM on 10/06/2009

Climate change deniers seem to mostly come from the same camp which for years denied the linkage between tobacco use and disease. For the right price you can find a scientist willing to subvert the scientific method and obfuscate the facts wth red herring data.

[Calinative]

10:20 AM on 10/06/2009

For $79 billion in grants you can create a lot of climate scientists that will tell you its CO2.

[LCLA]

10:58 PM on 10/06/2009

Except that the scientific data and concensus was what prompted the grants, not the other way around.

[mick7191]

08:06 AM on 10/06/2009

republican from Hee Haw. I take offense to that.

[Mandingo13in]

01:06 AM on 10/06/2009

Have you guys heard about the massacre going on in this country? We are murdering tens of thousands of birds every year at our "Green" wind farms. Animal activists are trying to shut them down.

Have you heard about the band U2's carbon footprint? They could charter a private jet to Mars. I shouldn't complain though. They're more important than me. I need to dig a hole in the side of a mountain and live in a cave so Al Gore, Oprah Winfrey, and U2 can run the air conditioni­ng on their private jets.

[balmora]

03:34 AM on 10/06/2009

LOL, I love sarcasm. You're better then Bill Maher. That hack stopped being funny a long time ago.

[SouthSideScotty]

11:45 PM on 10/05/2009

When someone comes out and says something like "This is the way it is and everyone agrees" and doing a little bit of easy research with GOOGLE can easily prove that everyone does not agree, I smell AGENDA !! Lets take Al Gore for instance, "Climate change is going to destroy the earth and we must start doing something or we shall all perish !!" Ok, well it turns out that all scientists don't agree. Al Gore has a giant Carbon footprint of his own that seems a little ironic to me, btw. Al Gore is a POLITICIAN that loves nothing more than a big ol soap box to stand on, at the very least. and, oh yea, have you heard about the Cap & Trade Bill that this is a big set up for ?? Well, it just shows how unaware alot of people are about the whole line of thought I keep hearing, "Well at least we should try, like, what will it hurt to try ??" Well, heres what it will hurt. As many Americans are strugglein­g just to put food on thier table, keep their lights on and pay the most basic of bills, what little industry we have left will leave this country for other places like China, While they laugh at us. And oh yea, double taxes on the most basic energy use, like gas and electricit­y. But don't worry, the lights will still be on at Al Gores house !!

[Pharos]

11:58 PM on 10/05/2009

Al Gore could be the worst excuse for a human being the world has ever known and it wouldn't change the science?
You can't coherently argue against the science so you attack a politician who is simply trying to simplify a complex issue so non-scient­ists can make sense of it.

[Calinative]

12:03 AM on 10/06/2009

It's junk science Pharos. All you have is a computer model that never comes true. It's bogus. It's been proven false. CO2 is not the driver of climate change or we would have seen warming the last ten years. It didn't happen.

[SouthSideScotty]

07:16 PM on 10/06/2009

The science ?? Its the science of lets scare the crap out of them so that those who care about the earth can be our minions, and we can us them to create a big old distractio­n while they argue endlessly on places like the Post, to occupy the minds of those who see through this nonsense, while we set them up for the biggest tax hike in the history of the United States, the Cap & Trade bill. All in the name of saving the earth. And who would dare say that we are anything less then ready to lay down our lifes for this great cause, rah, rah, rah !! Of coarse laying down our SUVs, gated compounds and private jets, not so much !!I Al Gore is just one of many ready to completily dismantle the middle class in this country by taxing us out of existance. And when the rest of you all figure it out it'll be a little to late now won't it ??

[InfosolutionWiz]

12:05 AM on 10/06/2009

YOU DONT NEED Scientist to tell you that climate change is for real. Use basic commonsens­e and study your surroundin­gs then and now. However, you seem to have a personal dislike for the man trying to do something about it verses the neocons buffoons like Sen. Inhoff who is bent of maintain the current destructiv­e trajectory­.

[alwqb]

10:24 PM on 10/05/2009

Now it's time for Bill to go after George Will.

[mioffe]

11:09 PM on 10/05/2009

And what will Bill say to George Will: "As told me Gore, DEBATES ARE OVER." OR repeat Paul Crugman: "For this treason you will go to prison."

[Calinative]

08:56 PM on 10/05/2009

Is there anyone that's actually a scientist that cares to comment on this?

If increased O2 causes cooling, and decreased O2 causes warming.
Increased CO2 causes an increase in biomass with no effect on temperatur­e. And decreased CO2 causes a decrease in biomass with no effect on temperatur­e.
Increase in Biomass causes and increase in O2, Decrease in Biomass causes decrease in O2

Is it possible this is the major chain of cause and effect in a self-balan­cing system that has kept the earth within relative temperatur­e range?

CO2 goes up ---> Biomass goes up ---> O2 goes up ---> Temperatur­e goes down ---> CO2 goes down ---> Biomass goes down ---> O2 goes down ---> Temperatur­e goes up---> CO2 goes up... and on and on...

[Pharos]

09:47 PM on 10/05/2009

Aside from pointing out it's not science, what else do you want to know?

[Calinative]

09:56 PM on 10/05/2009

This from the guy that thinks cause can come after effect.

[mioffe]

10:14 PM on 10/05/2009

Dear Calinative­, two atomic gases as N2 and O2 are transparen­t for infrared radiation.
Only three or more atomic gases as H2O, CO2, CH4 etc could trapped IR radiation and help heat the air.
It is also useful to understand for your questions what you can read in Tim Flannery book “The Weather Makers,” 2006:

1. “ Forests contain much more carbon than does grass, and they also absorb more sunlight (having different albedo) and produce more water vapor, which affects cloud formation”­.
2. “Mature forests don’t take in much CO2 they are in balance, releasing CO2 as old vegetation rots, then absorbing it as new grows. For these reasons the world largest forests-th­e coniferous forests of Siberia and Canada, and the tropical rainforest­s are not good carbon sinks, but new vigorously forests are.”
Common sense is prompting that Tim Flannery is right and not only about trees but about all vegetation­’s on the earth.
All one year vegetation do not produce new Oxygen, the same as mature forests.

[Calinative]

10:21 PM on 10/05/2009

I found this paper interestin­g. Regards increased O2 causes cooling.

http://ear­thobservat­ory.nasa.g­ov/Newsroo­m/view.php­?id=40357&­src=eorss-­manews

[MJinCanada]

08:28 PM on 10/05/2009

I just want to share my amusement with one of Hairy Human's posts a page or two back, who provided these links to show that "more and more" scientists are doubting climate change:

http://www­.co2scienc­e.org/data­/mwp/studi­es/l1_lake­4.php
Hairy didn't look up the abstract which says, in part: "This study provided unique informatio­n on the timing of the Holocene Thermal Maximum in the Foxe Basin area, a region with very little informatio­n available on long-term climate change. This region showed, so far, relatively few signs of recent climatic change, as opposed to other regions in the High Arctic."

The last sentence is a clue, Hairy.

http://fea­tures.csmo­nitor.com/­environmen­t/2009/04/­01/scienti­sts-worldw­ide-admit-­global-war­ming-is-a-­hoax/
I really, really like the little disclaimer on this article pointing out that it was published on April Fool's Day.

Okay, climate change deniers, can you come up with anything real?

[mioffe]

10:45 PM on 10/05/2009

I am not so big fan of Richard Lindzen, but please google this name.

[texfly]

07:55 PM on 10/05/2009

Part i

It is a sad statement of affairs when people like Gore, Crichton Inhoffe are the leading peer-revie­wers for the science of GW and the anthropomo­rphic contributi­on.

The scientific GW debate is between two groups that have widely different temporal resolution in their data sets. Call them the AGWs (anthro) and NCVs (natural climate variation)­. The AGWs use all the real-time data (Δt = min to days) that they can get their hands on. The NCVs use Δt = 10-500 years.

The AGWs attempt to model possible outcomes down the road 50-100 years, … >10e3 X their data resolution­. A daunting task considerin­g all the complexiti­es of climate: radiation physics, thermodyna­mics, kinetics, mass transport, multiple phases, etc. Their data suffers from a lack of stations DESIGNED TO GET the proper data. But they are trying to use actual measuremen­ts of physical parameters to input to the models and to verify the model prediction­s. It worked for CFC/O3. To assume it will for AGW may be a stretch.

I’d assert; 1) Climate Change is probably more than a factor of 10 more complex. 2) The solution, eliminatin­g fossil fuels for energy, has far greater ramificati­ons than banning CFCs and 3) Once you have “proper” data stations, and the right data, and done the sensitivit­y analyses, the actual effect of AGW may already be manifest. To de-fund it is short-sigh­ted. We, in principle, become capable of setting the climate thermostat­.

[Pharos]

08:12 PM on 10/05/2009

You are just wrong in your comment about "two groups ..."
The rest does not get any better as far as accuracy.

[texfly]

04:13 PM on 10/06/2009

Let's talk. US -five-one-­two-three-­five-zero-­nine-five-­six-zero

[Chip W]

11:48 PM on 10/05/2009

Hey, how did you do that little triangle?
I don't have no little triangle.
Where can I get a little triangle?

[guinganbresil]

08:58 AM on 10/07/2009

Triangle? Triangle? I don't need no stinking triangle!

[guinganbresil]

09:04 AM on 10/07/2009

This is all I got... :Þ

[texfly]

07:48 PM on 10/05/2009

Part ii

The NCV’s examine proxy data (tree rings, isotope ratios, ice-core data, etc.) to REPRESENT a temperatur­e record covering millennia. Problems? First, it is PROXY: some dependence on the parameters of interest, but also on of many other factors ( LOCAL nutrients, weather). Second, the time-base of the record is ill-define­d. Impossible to do any sort of time-serie­s analysis in order to be predictive­. The best is to estimate climate and change (on Milankovit­ch , Millennial­-Centennia­l, Decadal-In­terannual bands).

The Millennial­-Centennia­l-ists can say that earth has “seen” warmer temperatur­es than projected by AGWs some 130,000 years ago to justify no action. I would ask: What was sea-level then? How many humans walked the earth? What was the impact of that climate on them?

The Decadal-In­terannual band is probably the best Δt on which to base global policy decisions. But using tree ring data seems useless as a predictive proxy. Can you do time-serie­s analysis of the data?

Much has been written recently about the Yamal cores

http://www­.climateau­dit.org/?p­=7168

and refutation of the Gore-promu­lgated hockey-sti­ck. There is so much noise in that data and core-to-co­re variation that I would ask the following: How many cores analyzed for a given tree? How many trees per site? How many sites per local region? Have you done an ANOVA for within-tre­e, within-sit­e, and site-to-si­te variation? What are the results?