Everybody misses something; I miss the Enlightenment. Badly.

While it’s all smoke and noise on the facts, we do have a problem.

This is yet another instance where a simple but false narrative is trumping a truth that takes more than 3 minutes to explain. And all the networks have … setting their bias aside even … is 3 minutes.

We really need to invest in progressive media to tell true stories and win hearts and minds. And need to find the creative folks that can tell the truth in 3 minutes.

Phew! What a relief! Now we can all stop worrying and Al Gore can take up golf or become an ExxonMobil lobbyist.

Oh how I wish all these crackpots who don’t believe in the science would stop relying on anything but witchdoctors for medical care.

You want to see our health care costs go down, there’s the ticket.

The Republican strategy here is exactly the same as the one they used against Dan Rather and his Bush ANG story – cast doubt on one nonessential piece of an otherwise well-documented story, and claim that that invalidates the whole thing.

(Which is why I titled my post on this back at my place, “Using Karl’s Trick To Hide The Consensus”…)

Nice article and video on this at TP too.

However, as climate scientist Richard Somerville explained yesterday, “The ice has no agenda.” Arctic sea ice is at historically low levels, Australia is on fire, the northern United Kingdom is underwater, the world’s glaciers are disappearing, and half of the United States has been declared an agricultural disaster area. And it’s the the hottest decade in recorded history.

All lies.

Pfft. I’m sure they’re all faking. Jesus told me so.

This is all part of the normal climate cycle. It has occurred many times in the Earth’s 6,000 year history.

Admittedly, I don’t follow the global warming debate as closely as others. I’m 60 years old and most of the defining evidence won’t manifest itself until long after I am gone.

By and large I am convinced it’s real. But the other night I was watching a documentary called “The Great Global Warming Swindle”. And it presented some rather convincing arguments against all the hype. In particular relating to CO2 emissions and the role the sun plays in our climate.

Now, I point this out because this documentary was not aired on Fox News. It was aired on the Sundance Channel.

Things are always more complicated when they are not reduced down to one or another rendition of The Whole Truth. Which, alas, each in their own way An Inconvenient Truth and Swindle are.

If God didn’t want humans to pollute he would have made us green.

No vaccines for the evolution-deniers and their spawn!

Misinformation. When in doubt sew doubt.

The Right has *no* credibility on this, or any other issue. They freely and gleefully use made-up numbers, astroturf organizations, paid “experts” and dishonest arguments to frame every issue the way they want it framed, with no interest in facts, reason or the truth.

I refuse to play ball with them in the arena of logical discourse. If these letters really mean anything, then the people to discuss what it means are *not* the people who take every opportinity to demagogue and lie.

In other words, the Boys Who Cry “Wolf” are not in a position to start accusing anyone else of telling half-truths.

Funny how these fairly innocuous e-mails supposedly invalidate the case for global warming far more than the decisively debunked yellowcake memo invalidated the case for invading Iraq…

Maybe in Kim’s world, global warming is a fake. In MY backyard, in Upstate New York, yesterday, Thanksgiving Day, the sun was out, the sky was blue, I’ve still got veggies in the garden and it was 60 degrees. Even 10 years ago, at this point in the year we always had a) a bit of snow on the ground – the soil itself might have not been hard frozen, but we did have snow on the ground and b)we did NOT have 60 degrees; we’d be lucky to have 40 degrees. Our area now is about a month behind what it was even 10 years ago. We won’t talk about what this area was like in the 1950s and early 60s, when ski areas could open on Thanksgiving Day, regularly. Kim and her buddies can stick their fingers in their ears and go, “La, La, La..we’re not listening to you!” all they want. But global warming is fact. The permafrost melting and releasing even more CO2 and methane is fact. The world they are living in is fiction.

Projecting their own shortcomings on the opposition has been a key tactic of conservatives for a long time. A compliant media helps make it work. It doesn’t matter if only half-wits believe it. Half-wits comprise a large enough segment of the population to slow or stall most progress.

If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance baffle them with bullshit.

Conservatives hate science because it deals with “facts” and “reality”, both of which have a well know liberal bias. They would much rather create their own reality.

funny – none of the charts, graphs, footnotes and other assorted bullshit in Michael Crichton’s book show that graph at the top of the post at all.

And then he went to the WH and told W about all the cool stuff he’d “found”. And the rest is non-history.

Can’t remember the name of the book, but it is guaranteed to make your blood boil. (I wonder if that contributes to the whole warming process?)

Wanker.

But eventually it *will* snow, and every time it snows it proves that global warming is a hoax.

To ignore the evidence of global warming is to doom this planet. The nutters say it just a normal climate cycle but it’s been a loooooooooooong time since the polar icecap melted. They seem to think “what the heck, the coastal cities will have 4 to 12 inches of water in the streets. No big deal.” What they might want to consider is that under that melting ice is methane and it’s deadly.

I think that we should deny all medical services to people who do not believe in science, especially evolution (which is the foundation of all modern biology and medicine). Let them see their local faith healer. Huge cost savings as well, since these people tend to be far more unhealthy than the national average.

I’ve seen chimpanzees wearing clothes, so the theory of evolution must be true.

It is also a much more efficient greenhouse gas than CO2. There are fears that if the arctic permafrost thaws and releases all its pent up methane, it could dramatically increase the rate of warming.

Or they could have simply adopted Louis XV’s “the old machine will last out my lifetime” attitude.

Either that, or they see lucrative new disaster capitalism opportunities that we’re not morally degraded enough to envision.

I’ve seen chimpanzees wearing clothes,…

But in fairness to the anti-evolution crowd, they’re still wearing zoot-suits, and trying to figure out where Billie Holliday is performing this weekend.

But they are sporting some pretty cool hats.

Yes well, but there are Tom Coburn and the Talibangelicals as living proof to to refute it!

That’s part of it, they assume the rich will find a way to survive. Why should they care about the rest?

They will certainly find a way to make money from it.
Maybe they will buy abandoned farm land and build big box stores.

Actually it could be argued that their evident inbreeding validates Creationism.

Or buy up cheap future beachfront property in central PA.

Amish surf music, now that’s something to look forward to.

Surfing in Utah might be fun. s/

And when everything starts going to shit, was it fake then? Or are the deniers figuring they’ll be dead so it won’t matter?

Amish surf music, now that’s something to look forward to.

True – ok, I’ve changed my mind about the whole thing, and am off to look for beach-front property in western PA.

Or are the deniers figuring they’ll be dead so it won’t matter?

I’d guess that they figure that all the coastal elitistes are gonna be dead, that Oklahoma and the surrounding area look pretty safe, so it’s a win-win.

Cue Lex Luthor. Otisburg?

This week he’s looking prescient.

James Inhofe wouldn’t be ‘prescient’ about having corn in his stool, even if he’d had a plateful of cobs two nights before…The Sartre of anti-intellect.

;>)

No, that’s just proof that early man interbred with the Neanderthals.

They are looking forward to the increased tourism from coastal areas in southeast Oklahoma after the polar ice caps totally melt. Not to mention the nearly complete inundation of Texas.

Don’t be insulting the Neanderthals like that.

Not to mention the nearly complete inundation of Texas.

Oh, but let’s do.

I really don’t give a rat’s ass about anything WSJ or Inhofe has to say. They have no credibility with me. Aside from the “normal climate cycle” talking point, I would like for one of the delusional ones to give a cogent explanation for the melting of the polar ice caps and the impending extinction of the polar bear.
Also having lived my entire life in Indiana, when I was a little girl the fall always brought the arrival of zillions of “wooly worms” and grasshoppers. This year I saw no wooly worms and precious few grasshoppers.
There is an old Cree saying that goes “Only when the last tree has died, and the last river been poisoned, and last fish has been caught, will we realize we cannot eat money”. WSJ and the rest of the idiots would do well to heed these words.

…Not to mention the nearly complete inundation of Texas.

There’s an up side to everything.

Already happening. http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/essay_romanovsky.html
“What is happening to permafrost? The long-term records of the near-surface permafrost temperature, obtained from different parts of the permafrost zone in northern regions, show a significant warming trend during the last 30 years (Table 1). Ground temperature trends generally follow the trends in the air temperatures with a more pronounced warming in the lower latitudes (between 55° and 65° North). This recent climate warming brought soil temperatures to a surprisingly high level, about 1 to 3°C warmer than long-term averages (Figure 3). Within some areas, the permafrost temperatures are very close to 0°C (Figure 4) and at some sites long-term permafrost degradation has already started (Fedorov, 1996; Osterkamp et al., 2000; Jorgenson et al., 2001; Fedorov and Konstantinov, 2003; Gavriliev and Efremov, 2003)…”
There’s a dandy chart of temperature changes in the permafrost in various areas of the world, photos of collapse in areas where the permafrost has degraded and so on. The process has already begun.

Does anyone remember a song called “Over the River and Through the Woods?” If you do, you might remember that it’s a song normally sung at Thanksgiving.

Can anyone beyond the Rockies remember the last time it snowed on or near Thanksgiving?

In NYC, real winter starts in February now. We get 60 degrees in January, and more often than not, there are still autumn leaves in December.

Not a problem, I guess.

“Or are the deniers figuring they’ll be dead so it won’t matter?”

It might be just the opposite. Here’s a nice little article by Monbiot to send to climate change deniers.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/grim-reapers-role-in-climate-change-denial-20091127-jwrh.html

James Inhofe should be in prison.

Or an insane asylum.

I’m in Ohio, and I have dandelions blooming in my front yard. What the heck, I might as well use up the wildflower seed I have, see if it comes up.

anyone want a google wave invite?

Tiger Woods seriously hurt in car accident in Fl.

And what, pray tell, is “google wave invite?”

As if we needed more proof, Kimberly Strassel is on the same page with people like Karl Rove and all the other right wing buffoons and circus freaks that the WSJ calls an “editorial” page. Read it at your own risk.

In reality, it is just a political forum for the Neocon nutjobs and their bizarre and outlandish intrepretation of politics.

Republics are eager to say that it’s all made up, but they provide no reasons why someone would make it all up. Madoff made it all up, but he also lived a fantastic lifestyle from doing so. Where’s the motivation for making up global warming science?

Tiger Woods seriously hurt.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-bk-tiger-woods-accident,0,1369881.story

Good question.

http://wave.google.com is some new take on e-mail. kinda cool and maybe a cool collaboration tool for FDLers.

Send me your e-mail to tw3k dot net at gmail dot com

I have 7 invites.

And how do they hold together such a massive conspiracy? Conspiracies and frauds only work with a small group of intensively motivated and mututally surveilled individuals.

The Sartre of anti-intellect. Well said about Inhofe and the other knuckle draggers like Strassel.

Interesting, but I think I will pass. I have enough trouble keeping up with the two email accounts I already have. Want to buy some really cheap organic viagra?

Except, of course, in the minds of the paranoid. Have you noticed any paranoia on the right wing lately? I knew you had.

I’m sure that Republics would claim that they hold together because they are inherently evil. Republics stand shiny and proud by your side motivated only to do what is noble and good.

It is all part of that whole “creating their own reality” thingee.

Jane has a new post for us: “Green Holidays for Pets”

i have all the natural libido i can handle.

Sort of like the Catholic Church, huh?

Why do rethug politicos so consistently reject the very premise of scientific inquiry? I mean, it is a legitimately political decision to weigh the costs and benefits of responding (or not) to scientific findings: “scientists have just announced that the world will end in 15 seconds, but it’s too late to do anything about it, so we’re going to politically choose to do nothing. It’s been our pleasure serving you.” or “scientists have found that the world will end in 15 days, but since the last president bankrupted our country and rendered our political system impotent, we can’t do anything about it, so we won’t even try. Goodbye” or even “scientists have found that the world will be unmade in the next 7 days. As a Christianist nation, we accept the will of the Lord. Godspeed.”

But instead, these thugs (like Inhofe) actually think that’s it’s legitimate political discourse to discredit and then politicize the underlying science? In which case, we don’t even need scientists anymore, since politicians clearly know how to do the science better than the scientists do.

Ruppert Murdock signs her checks. As Upton Sinclair said “you can’t expect someone to know something when their paycheck is dependent on them not knowing.”

In which case, we don’t even need scientists anymore

That would be a big part of their agenda (except for petroleum geologists and other folks who make oil companies rich).

ADDENDUM: The Republican agenda has morphed from merely wishing to repeal the New Deal to wanting to repeal the Enlightenment.

Their argument is quite crafty: basically, they’re accusing climate scientists of being capitalists who want to spread scary lies so they can get “grant money” and “sell books”, *and* they’re anti-capitalism socialists who want to “destroy the American [capitalist] way of life” because they want to live in a moneyless Soviet paradise.

Got all that?

Toby, in my back yard, (The PNW) we have the rare occurrence that all three ski resorts on Mt Hood have opened weeks early and all on the same day. Given the weather patterns the Mt enjoys and the altitude differences between the three resorts, it is most unusual indeed.

I’ll go farther. I moved to the PNW in 1963. In November of 1964, I happened to be out photographing the western part of the Columbia Gorge, and noted how the Washington side of the mountains were covered with snow. I was not happy with my results and determined to return the next November to try again. Well, finally this year, I have the opportunity again.

Ergo, the climate is_____ (Fill in the blank)

So let’s assume for a moment that the truth is somewhere between extreme points, the extremes being that global warming is caused by man (Inconvenient Truth) and the other that it isn’t (The Great Swindle).

We’re still looking at global warming; there’s enough data to support a cycle which has dramatically affected past civilizations. Read Jared Diamond’s “Collapse,” in which he discusses the impact of a 208-year cycle which took its toll on Greenland’s Vikings, the Anasazi, and the Easter Islanders. (hardback edition, p. 174)

We’re at the early threshold of the warming part of the next cycle, which may last 40 to 80 years. And we already know what happened to those cultures which failed to adapt in time to the last couple of cycles.

What if the truth is somewhere in the middle, that it’s a cyclical event AND it’s deepened or quickened in some measure by man’s use of carbon fuels and terraforming? We’re still going to have to adapt and in a big fucking hurry.

And what if we ditch the two extremes and simply ask if global warming is a hoax? Is there a compelling reason why we should not attempt to reduce political instability by getting away from petroleum consumption? Is there a compelling reason why we should not seek to improve the health of our people and the environment by reducing our use of coal?

And what if we simply don’t have all the data? What if there really is a correlation between sunspot cycles and global warming — and we’ve entered a period in the last year which approaches the Maunder Minimum? What if we’re so busy fighting about it that we don’t spend the effort on analysis and we miss a possible dramatic rebound in the other direction? (See William Calvin’s “A Brain For All Seasons”; earlier ice age events tripped off inside mere ten-year windows. Are we ready?)

The truth is often not neat and tidy; it demands we work at it and not take the easy way out. Personally, I think the data shows we do need to do something, both in terms of preparing for an event, and in terms of reducing volatility. A climate change is going to happen, whether we are the sole cause or whether caused by a cycle, or some combination; we need to buy time and prepare no matter the cause.

The Black Plague Party… or, on the generally Medieval theme, how about the Four Horsemen Party?

Alex Jones was cracking open champagne over this story on last Sunday’s show (and endlessly replaying Lord Moncton quotes). He keeps asserting that it is just sun spots causing the warming.

I generally liked his latest film (“Fall of the Republic“) until the last third where he just went off on this “It’s all a new world order hoax”.

Except for the satellite photographic evidence of the polar ice caps receding/melting over the last several decades proves global warming all by itself, and those satellite photos can’t be faked.

I am as progressive as they come. I test out far to the left of Dennis Kucinich on all the liberal vs. conservative tests. I used to be an ardent believer in global warming. No more.

It was not the right wing nut jobs that changed my mind. Far from it. It was an article written by two Russian solar physicists from the Russian equivalent of NASA that turned my thinking. Turns out there are many solar physicists around the world who believe that the global warming of the 20th century was caused by the sun and not by man made CO2. The twentieth century had the most magnetic sun in the last 8,000 years and all of a sudden in the last five or so, the sun’s magnetic output has greatly fallen back. There is ample evidence in the geologic record equating a strong magnetic sun with a warm earth and vice-versa. The twentieth century and the little ice age from 1650 -1715 coincide with periods of high and low solar magnetism.

These Russian solar physicists expect us to have a mini-ice age by 2030 or 2040 based on the sun’s decreasing magnetic output. If any country could benefit from global warming it would be Russia.

Moreover, the leading solar physicist, Henrik Svensmark, who equates solar magnetism with climate, is Danish, and he lives in another place that is not particularly warm and suffered particularly badly through the little ice age.

These guys are not Republicans. These are cream of the crop scientists, in physics, which is probably the hardest scientific discipline. And they are predicting dire consequences for their countries, but from global cooling not global warming.

There are also several US solar physicists who think the same thing.

Climate models predicting global warming have not take into account the magnetism of the sun as a possible source of global heating and cooling.

If it turns out that the scientific consensus is wrong regarding global warming, it will greatly affect the public’s perception of scientists. And of course, it will greatly diminish the public’s perception of progressives and liberals who have also bought the scientific consensus on global warming.

These are cream of the crop scientists, in physics, which is probably the hardest scientific discipline.

I just can not get enough of this sentence!

Do you have any links you would like to share, regarding the Russian research, David?

This is the kind of dangerous rhetoric that denies climate change and jeopardizes the US future. When our govt should have said NO to auto industry stall tactics on increasing mph, other countries were designing and making better cars than us. Now, we know China is going full speed ahead on global warming solutions and advancing green technologies. The naysayers like Beck, Hannity, Palin are loud and wrong. The nation canot afford to let them get the better of us again. The repugs are dedicated to building and sustaining an economic aristocracy. Like any other shortsighted, selfish fools, they would rather see our nation fail, than endanger their short term profits.