It annoys me greatly when I see things like I have witnessed today. When unsupportable fairly tales get equal time with established science. Today, we got the double blow of Lord Throckmorton (or whatever) with his climate change road show. And if that bit of snake oil salesman wasn’t enough, we then also get the corporate shill Paul Sheehan providing a supporting argument on the SMH today. Well, I don’t have time today to sort these two out separately, so I shall address them jointly.
Gentlemen, you are either phenomenally ignorant of the scientific method, or purposely promoting disinformation voluntarily or under corporate compulsion. Your motives are your own, and I will not comment on them, but I will take specific issue to Sheehan’s written words, since they adopt several of the Lord Christopher Monckton’s arguments.
If you want to read the short version, just stop with Paul’s beginning:
“[all of these facts] . . . are either true or backed by scientific opinion. All can also be hotly contested.”
No Paul, they can’t. That’s what makes them facts, you moron. As the saying goes, we are all allowed our own arguments, but there are only one set of facts.
However, I will continue and move onto the detailed specifics for those who have some time, and give a shit. I know there are very few of you, and probably fewer every day as we are inflicted with more and more drivel on this subject that should have been (and was) decided at least ten years ago to the bright, and to the rest of the world’s scientists in the intervening period. What we are left with is significantly less than 1% of the scientists who could withstand any peer review whatsoever who deny the anthropogenic climate change we have begun. And they use poor journalists and mainstream opinion spewers to provide winners like these 10 “facts conveniently brushed over by the global warming fanatics”:
1. The pin-up species of global warming, the polar bear, is increasing in number, not decreasing.
Hmmmn, now while I so wish this was true, I think I am going to have to see at least some shred of evidence to back this one up. None? No? Well sorry, then I think I will go with what the people at Polar Bears International, since they pretty much spend their whole time studying them and have answered this exact question, and unfortunately they don’t think so.
2. US President Barack Obama supports building nuclear power plants.
Whoopdeedoo! And so do I, Paul. What is your point? Are you saying it is a wholly and totally bad thing to consider every alternative in a risk-based approach when addressing climate change? I don’t even know why this inconvenient fact is in your list, because there are a number of climate change scientists that would be happy to pay it any amount of attention you want anytime. Maybe you just threw this in because you needed to make up the numbers.
3. The Copenhagen climate conference descended into farce. The low point of the gridlock and posturing at Copenhagen came with the appearance by the socialist dictator of Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez . . .
No, I would say the low point came when everyone realised on the first day that the organisers didn’t even plan the amount of tickets they issued based on the space they were using, and risked everything from a minor safety to a major security incident. After that, I wasn’t really expecting much, and I can say the same for the greenies I know. But here again, I don’t think I could call this in any way overlooked, as I remember seeing it on the news multiple times.
4. The reputation of the chief United Nations scientist on global warming is in disrepair.
Once again, no facts supplied. Just unsupported assertions with no references provided. My five minute research on this online through typically reliable sources provides me with no evidence to support the slander put forth by Sheehan. Talk about playing the man and not the ball.
5. The supposed scientific consensus of the IPCC has been challenged by numerous distinguished scientists.
The body of scientific work has been around for something like 30 years when people I know of decided that this might be an issue, following not long after the theory that was around when I was a boy suggested that the world might be going into a new ice age. The science moved on and even I published my first paper on the issue in ’99. The body of evidence upon which the science is based has been around forever. It is based on planetary physics, thermodynamics, chemistry and the application of industry through economics. It is not simple, and it is subject to some criticism (as that is the nature of science), but it remains solid and supported by the vast overwhelming number of credible scientists.
6. The politicisation of science leads to a heavy price being paid in poor countries. After Western environmentalists succeeded in banning or suppressing the use of the pesticide DDT, the rate of death by malaria rose into the millions. Some scholars estimate the death toll at 20 million or more, most of them children.
This one is so bad, I had to repeat it in full. “Some scholars”? Honestly, that’s what passes for a credible citation these days? For the record, those pesky kids who determined that the banning of DDT was causing a number of the bird species to go extinct, and demonstrating the basis of disruption of the reproductive cycle of animals through concentration of poisons through the food chain was a seminal piece of work (Silent Spring), that has withstood scientific scrutiny since its publication in 1962, despite a highly paid and aggressive disinformation campaign by the chemical industry for 10 years before DDT was banned. Humans have since, if you haven’t noticed, not gone extinct to malaria in any of the locations where it exists, and the birds were demonstrably going that way. Malaria also becomes resistant to drugs and poisons, so it would surely be as bad with or without DDT use.
7. The biofuels industry has exacerbated world hunger.
Aha, we finally have the start of something that is a bad idea and has not had nearly enough light shined on it, mainly because people still waste so much time debating if there is a climate change issue. But the idea of plant-based biofuels was attempted for the right reasons, even though it does end up driving food prices up and is not going to be a major long-term solution. But you can’t blame people for trying. Unless, of course, you have better examples of what you have tried. The thought that we might grow our own fuel is not dead either, but should be more focused on things like bacteria, and not food crops turned into ethanol.
8. The Kyoto Protocol has proved meaningless.
It may seem meaningless to those who don’t agree with the motives, good science, or common sense. But that does not make it overlooked, particularly since Paul and the sceptics still want to discuss it, and its being meaningless is not an established fact by a long shot. That global emissions have gone up since its 1990 is not in dispute, but the argument that emissions would of gone up more, and at a greater rate could easily be made, if one wanted to speculate. But why bother? Their argument is meaningless and doesn’t require any other response.
9. The United Nations global carbon emissions reduction target is a massively costly mirage.
I don’t even know what this one means, to be honest, but man it sure sounds good as an emotive statement without anything to support it at all. It is just hanging there in the article, as if dropping it so casually by itself lends itself to its credibility.
Unfortunately Paul, its also completely bullshit. To suggest emissions reductions are a mirage that cannot be reached shows no faith in the engineers of the world (forget the pure scientists), and the costs have been debated by me amongst others as not being as bad as you think. But of course we publish our math, data and assumptions, and that doesn’t really play as sexy as a one liner by a know-nothing on the subject like Sheehan.
10. Kevin Rudd’s political bluff on emissions trading has been exposed.
Here again, we have this presented as an undisputable fact hot off the pen of Paul Sheehan. But where is your evidence Paul? If Kevin Rudd wanted to pull off a bluff of doing something on emissions trading, imagine the conspiracy he would have had to create. Virtually all of Labor and a large portion of the Liberals, as well as the Greens and the non-bonkers independents are on the side of believing the science and doing something. The bulk of the emissions trading process as it exists comes from the Howard government. So let’s not characterise those of us on the reasonable side of the argument as fanatics. That’s called projecting.