When I saw last Friday's Wall Street Journal editorial, "No Need to Panic About Global Warming," my first instinct was to burst out laughing. The Journal found a whopping 16 "concerned scientists" who declared that fears about climate change were exaggerated, and that we can just keep on burning as many fossil fuels as we darn well please.
The Journal has been pushing climate change "skepticism" for decades, so the editorial was nothing new. What made the piece funny was how lazy the arguments for inaction were.
As Peter Frumhoff of the real Union of Concerned Scientists notes,
[T]he op-ed repeated a number of deeply misleading claims about climate science. To take just one example, the authors claim there has been a "lack of warming" for 10 years. Here's what we know: 2011 was the 35th year in a row in which global temperatures were above the historical average and 2010 and 2005 were the warmest years on record. Over the past decade, record high temperatures outpaced record lows by more than two to one across the continental United States, a marked increase from previous decades.
Those who believe that global warming is a legitimate problem, and even those who are unsure about the seriousness of the problem but who recognize that the phenomenon of global warming is not a hoax, have long since recognized the sort of game the Journal always plays on this issue: just find a couple of "concerned scientists" (usually ones affiliated with libertarian think tanks funded by the fossil fuel industry) who claim that the science isn't settled, and voilà , you can successfully declare that there's no real need to take action to reduce carbon emissions.
Peter Gleick of Forbes points to another example of the Journal's con game:
But the most amazing and telling evidence of the bias of the Wall Street Journal in this field is the fact that 255 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences wrote a comparable (but scientifically accurate) essay on the realities of climate change and on the need for improved and serious public debate around the issue, offered it to the Wall Street Journal, and were turned down. The National Academy of Sciences is the nation's pre-eminent independent scientific organizations. Its members are among the most respected in the world in their fields. Yet the Journal wouldn't publish this letter, from more than 15 times as many top scientists. Instead they chose to publish an error-filled and misleading piece on climate because some so-called experts aligned with their bias signed it. This may be good politics for them, but it is bad science and it is bad for the nation.
Science magazine -- perhaps the nation's most important journal on scientific issues -- published the letter from the NAS members after the Journal turned it down.
Why does the Journal insist on pushing the idea that science isn't science? Ed Kilgore's theory is compelling:
[Y]ou'd think in all this tough-minded truth-telling about those with a financial stake in the climate change debate the Journal might have noted in passing that the most powerful economic interests on the planet have an interest in doing nothing about it.
But then that's the Journal's core constituency, and I suppose it is predictable its editors remain willing to threaten the credibility of its usually solid news-gathering operation to tell those who would melt the ice caps without a moment's hesitation exactly what they want to hear.
However, the Journal has another constituency: those who have adopted the view that global warming is a politically correct issue, something that is promoted by the left to advance big-government goals. I used to be a member of this constituency, until I started studying the facts.
My declaration that I no longer believed global warming was some sort of Communist plot led to the end of numerous friendships; I don't regret losing those "friends," as I now realize that the only thing I had in common with those "friends" was the fact that we had mutual political hatreds. Every "friend" who objected to my change of heart on climate saw the global warming debate as an example of political correctness -- and they all saw themselves as avowed enemies of political correctness.
The problem, of course, is that science is not political correctness.
My "friends" could not view global warming through a scientific perspective, only through a political perspective. Thus, they could not understand why I no longer shared their view that Al Gore and Carol Browner cooked up global warming as a backdoor way to implement Keynesian economic policies.
I laughed at the Journal editorial because I envisioned my former friends lapping up the piece without criticism or skepticism. I laughed because the piece was clearly motivated by the Journal's fear -- fear that the Republican Party's self-destruction will lead to a second term for President Obama, the retention of the Senate by the Democrats, the loss of the GOP majority in the House, and, perhaps, a serious effort toward putting a price on carbon and putting America on the path to cleaner energy.
I laughed because the folks who deny scientific facts deserve to be laughed at, and scorned.
Follow D. R. Tucker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/drtucker
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The WSJ "No Need To Panic" OpEd characterized Yale economist William Nordhaus' work thusly:
"A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls..."
Dr. Nordhaus responds:
"The piece completely misrepresented my work. My work has long taken the view that policies to slow global warming would have net economic benefits, in the trillion of dollars of present value... I have advocated a carbon tax for many years as the best way to attack the issue. I can only assume they either completely ignorant of the economics on the issue or are willfully misstating my findings."
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/scientists-challenging-climate-science-appear-to-flunk-climate-economics/
The science denier propagandists do their job well.
The founder and author of 'skepticalscience' once broke from his unyielding, matter-of-fact, day-by-unending-day refutation of all skeptic arguments to talk about why he was driven to do what he does (he's unpaid). It was his faith, and his child.
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This is, in my view, one of the most irresponsible and sad pieces of opinion writing I’ve seen in a long time. It is by no means science or even vaguely scientific, despite the scientific background of its signatories.
If this is where debate among scientists about climate change is headed, we’re doomed to a dark age where politics, PR, and unfounded accusations will rule and science will become irrelevant. I have come to expect that from some of our politicians and paid talking heads. But to see people with once-respected scientific credentials stoop so low is truly depressing, and bodes very poorly for the future of science as a means of finding viable solutions to the many problems faced by society.
What’s worse, I know some of these guys, and have hard time believing they actually read what they signed (I may be naïve)… To see them turn on science itself in such a profoundly unprofessional, disingenuous and dishonest way is particularly disappointing.
http://crocodoc.com/ziAHqp7
The oil corporations are the richest corporations in the history of corporations, and most of their ownership is foreign. But, what is the image they project to conservative voters? Of hardworking ordinary people, just trying to scratch a livin' out of God's Earth, not lettin' the evil big gov't tell them where they can and cannot drill. They identify with the frontier, where resources were yielded to the unyielding Ayn Rand accolyte. Where mans activities never, ever, could impact God's creation.
One hopes that conservatives would catch a clue and realize all the flag-draping in the world doesn't make WMD magically appear where it is not. That Barack Obama is not from Kenya. And that CO2 doesn't stop intercepting infrared radiation just because it slipped above 300 ppm.
The christianity requirement for elected office must be abandoned and soon or we will get what we deserve.
See: http://revolutionofreason.com and http://www.youtube.com/RobertLBlackburn
See: http://revolutionofreason.com and http://www.youtube.com/RobertLBlackburn
I would expand that slightly. People that actively avoid or deny reality because it conflicts with their beliefs, deserved to be laughed at and scorned.
As Thomas Jefferson once said: "Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."
The Journal would also dig up any alternative energy projects and paint them as boondoggles. One of my favorites was a $175,000 solar facility for a fishery near Yellowstone. The author went to great lengths to show how economically deficient it was when compared to staying on the grid. What the author failed to discuss was that the electricity from that grid comes from a Rural Electric Cooperative (REC) which is subsidized by the Federal Government. RECs are a neat little way to expand the use of coal as RECs rely on 80% of their power from coal (US average is 50%).
RECs are very active politically. one REC from Colorado "donated" 100,000 to a Mr. Patrick Michaels in 2006. Ever hear of him???