Inconvenient Truth versus Inconvenient Swindle

[Ellen Stuttle]

All the same, I'm willing to take them at their word when they say that they are pressing for legislation because they believe the predictions about rapidly rising sea levels, intensifying hurricanes, mass extinctions, and the like.

Robert Campbell

PS. What does Al Gore say about nuclear power in his film?

Robert,

There is no short way to acquire the information for combating these beliefs. And I certainly can't summarize "standing on one foot" in an elist format. The best sources I know of for getting good, detailed counterarguments relatively quickly are the Marlo Lewis site I've referred to:

http://www.cei.org/pdf/ait/chI.pdf

And the Crichton novel.

Re rapidly rising sea levels, even the IPCC has had to back off on that. Re "mass extinctions," see the Crichton Press Club address from 2005 for a start on the silliness of the sources of that idea. Re "intensifying hurricanes," this is a joke, since if the polar caps did melt, we'd have far less intense hurricanes: hurricane formation requires a differential between cold and hot sea areas, a differential which would be much reduced if the catastrophic global warming alarm were correct.

As to what Gore said about nuclear power: (um...nothing which I recall).

And here's another detail from the film: He tells of an incident when his son was hit by a passing motorist and was unconscious for days, with the family terribly worried about him. Does he say anything like expressing gratitude for electricity? No; it's a parable about the threat of losing something (like the earth as we know it) precious but nothing about the technological know-how and resources which kept his son alive.

Ellen

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

Robert,

A PS about your Universalist friends: I think I well understand what you encounter there, since I encounter the same sort of thing chronically amongst my Jungian friends. There's no way I'd give up my Jungian circles, since my mind is opened there in ways in which it just never is amongst O'ists. However, those folks really dislike the current American style of life, considering it unspiritual, dead to the psyche. The AGW thing fits in, because what they think of is all the folks riding around in SUVs, blaring radios, frenetic pace of life, etc., etc. They don't realize, for instance, that supposing the controls go into effect (which I'm afraid they will do), this is going to spell death for so many people in the develping nations. I've recently learned some things about what the push toward ethanol is causing for poor people even in Mexico -- let alone Africa: difficulty affording corn for poor-man's food. Learning enough about the consequences for persons elsewhere than in America I've found helps in talking to persons of the mindset you encounter with your Universalist friends.

Ellen

___

[Robert Campbell]

Ellen,

I'll look over Lewis's online material; will also pick up the Crichton book.

Re rapidly rising sea levels, even the IPCC has had to back off on that. Re "mass extinctions," see the Crichton Press Club address from 2005 for a start on the silliness of the sources of that idea. Re "intensifying hurricanes," this is a joke, since if the polar caps did melt, we'd have far less intense hurricanes: hurricane formation requires a differential between cold and hot sea areas, a differential which would be much reduced if the catastrophic global warming alarm were correct.

Singer and Avery make these same points. For instance, they note that polar bears have been around for more than a million years, which means that the species has successfully adapted to a long series of warmer and cooler periods--not to mention an occasional full-fledged "interglacial" like the Eemian period (130,000 to 114,000 years ago), during which Greenland had a much smaller ice cap than it does now, and Scandinavia was an island. For another instance, they note that global warming disproportionately affects the polar regions, reducing the temperature differential between the poles and the equator, which, in turn, reduces the strength and frequency of hurricanes.

As to what Gore said about nuclear power: (um...nothing which I recall).

Hmm...

For me, what advocates of global warming caused by man-made CO2 have to say about nuclear power is an important test of their bona fides. Nuclear power plants emit no CO2. Whatever hazards environmentalists believe that reasonably well designed nuclear power plants might pose, surely these are massively outweighed by the consequences they claim are going to attend further increases in atmospheric CO2. Therefore, environmentalists who are genuinely worried about "anthropogenic" global warming ought to be willing to abandon the environmental movement's past opposition to nuclear power. But only a small minority seem willing to come out and endorse nuclear power generation.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Ellen,

Yes, pointing out the consequences for people in poor countries will carry more weight with a lot of UU folks than predicting what will happen to standards of living in the US or Japan or Europe.

The Global Warming Swindle devotes some minutes to the consequences for farmers and villagers in Kenya should they end up being prohibited from generating more electrical power by burning coal or oil. Not to mention the fact that cutting more trees in order to burn the wood is not exactly what environmentalists say they are trying to achieve.

But there's lots more that needs to be said. The Economist (whose editorial stand on CO2 emissions has turned 100% Gorean) ran an article recently on the prospects of tortilla riots in Mexico if ethanol subsidies keep pushing up the price of American corn. The Calderon government is quite worried.

Not so long ago, American environmentalists were demonizing politically connected agribusinesses like Archer-Daniels-Midland. Now they're promoting subsidies that could have been tailor-made for ADM and its allies...

Robert Campbell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

About Al Gore and nuclear power, I own the book and still have the rented movie of An Inconvenient Truth. The book doesn't come with an index and flipping though it, I couldn't find any references to nuclear power. So I Googled it. Here is what Gore says in his own words:

D: Al Gore on Current.tv and global warming

May 31, 2006

Posted by Dan Farber

Between the Lines blog

(Comments on a Cable TV discussion between Al Gore, Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg at "D.") From the article:

Walt asked Gore why he isn’t supporting nuclear power in dealing with the energy crisis. He responded that reactor programs lead to weapons of mass destruction, citing Iran and a proliferation of country with the technology. "If we do not move forward [with nuclear energy], it will less likely be available in other parts of the world," Gore said. "I am not entirely sanguine about the flow of nuclear power," he said, voicing concerns about WMD.

Al Gore, movie star, talks of his latest role

Grist magazine interviews former vice president on his climate flick

By David Roberts

Grist - msnbc

May 24, 2006

From the interview:

Grist: Let's turn briefly to some proposed solutions. Nuclear power is making a big resurgence now, rebranded as a solution to climate change. What do you think?

Gore: I doubt nuclear power will play a much larger role than it does now.

Grist: Won't, or shouldn't?

Gore: Won't. There are serious problems that have to be solved, and they are not limited to the long-term waste-storage issue and the vulnerability-to-terrorist-attack issue. Let's assume for the sake of argument that both of those problems can be solved.

We still have other issues. For eight years in the White House, every weapons-proliferation problem we dealt with was connected to a civilian reactor program. And if we ever got to the point where we wanted to use nuclear reactors to back out a lot of coal -- which is the real issue: coal -- then we'd have to put them in so many places we'd run that proliferation risk right off the reasonability scale. And we'd run short of uranium, unless they went to a breeder cycle or something like it, which would increase the risk of weapons-grade material being available.

When energy prices go up, the difficulty of projecting demand also goes up -- uncertainty goes up. So utility executives naturally want to place their bets for future generating capacity on smaller increments that are available more quickly, to give themselves flexibility. Nuclear reactors are the biggest increments, that cost the most money, and take the most time to build.

In any case, if they can design a new generation [of reactors] that's manifestly safer, more flexible, etc., it may play some role, but I don't think it will play a big role.

We can agree or disagree with Gore, but this is not the standard environmentalist reasoning.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Michael,

Well, one commentator takes Al Gore's predictions of imminent catastrophic global warming caused by fossil fuel burning as proof that the ex-VP is really a shill for the nuclear power industry:

http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair03242007.html

I rather doubt that.

Let's look at the issues that Gore raised in his Grist interview:

There are serious problems that have to be solved, and they are not limited to the long-term waste-storage issue and the vulnerability-to-terrorist-attack issue. Let's assume for the sake of argument that both of those problems can be solved.

We still have other issues. For eight years in the White House, every weapons-proliferation problem we dealt with was connected to a civilian reactor program. And if we ever got to the point where we wanted to use nuclear reactors to back out a lot of coal -- which is the real issue: coal -- then we'd have to put them in so many places we'd run that proliferation risk right off the reasonability scale. And we'd run short of uranium, unless they went to a breeder cycle or something like it, which would increase the risk of weapons-grade material being available.

When energy prices go up, the difficulty of projecting demand also goes up -- uncertainty goes up. So utility executives naturally want to place their bets for future generating capacity on smaller increments that are available more quickly, to give themselves flexibility. Nuclear reactors are the biggest increments, that cost the most money, and take the most time to build.

In any case, if they can design a new generation [of reactors] that's manifestly safer, more flexible, etc., it may play some role, but I don't think it will play a big role.

(1) Long-term nuclear waste storage is a political problem. Hardly anyone likes the idea of nuclear waste in their backyard. Many don't want it anywhere in their state. Hence the endless wrangling over Yucca Mountain, Nevada, and Barnwell, South Carolina. Environmentalists often take the political wrangling (in which they themselves are major players) as proof of a technological deficit.

(2) Why would Al Qa'eda or Hezbollah bother attacking an American nuclear power plant (which has a steel-reinforced concrete containment building protecting the reactor) when they could much more easily open a few of the wrong valves in a chemical plant or blow a chunk out of a dam upstream from a populated area? At the very least, hazards posed by the nuclear power plant are being weighted much more heavily than hazards posed by other industrial structures.

(3) Power grade uranium can't be used to make bombs, because it has far too low a concentration of U235. Why do you suppose that the ruling council of Ayatollahs has said "Thanks, but no thanks" to offers to supply their power reactors with reactor grade uranium if they will retire their banks of centrifuges?

While I would not recommend exporting nuclear power reactors to Zimbabwe or to Turkmenistan--or, for that matter, to Venezuela--the supposed coupling between power reactors and bombs is a good deal weaker than Gore appears to suppose.

Why, for instance, is the weapons inspectors' worry not that Kim Jr. will fail to shut down the reactor at Yongbyon (which everyone knows about) but rather that he will keep operating centrifuges (in locations that no one knows about)?

The easiest way for Al Qa'eda or some such organization to get its mitts on a nuclear weapon would be to buy one illegally from a Russian. Yet the massive stockpile of nuclear warheads in the ex-Soviet Union is not a hangover from a nuclear power program gone wrong. How many Soviet-era nuclear plants are still up and running in the former Soviet empire? Would replacing them with, say, new American-built plants make nuclear arms proliferation more likely?

Meanwhile, has France been endangering the world with more WMDs? Around 75% of the electrical power generated there comes from nuclear plants.

So should we take Gore seriously when he insinuates that building a bunch more nuclear power plants in the USA will promote nuclear proliferation in other countries? If 200 coal-fired plants right here in the USA were replaced with nuclear plants (and remember, Gore's followers want to see laws passed that mandate an 80% or even a 90% reduction in US CO2 output), does Gore seriously believe that aid and comfort would thereby be provided to Osama bin Laden, or to the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or to the junior member of the Kim dynasty?

(4) Running short of uranium... hmm, apparently Gore thinks there's enough to make lots of WMDs. Besides, he talks up technologies that are likely to make less of a contribution to total power generation than nuclear, even if uranium gets more and more expensive.

(5) It's quicker and cheaper to build a coal-fired plant than a nuclear plant. This would be so even if no one tried to block the construction of either type of plant by filing lawsuits. On the other hand, if electrical power becomes much more expensive in the US (as it certainly will, if any of the Gorean legislation gets passed or the EPA imposes such rules administratively), and power generation that produces no CO2 faces fewer regulatory hurdles than power generation that doesn't (as one ought to expect, given Gore's announced agenda), why won't electrical utilities invest in nuclear power plants?

Gore's been on the scene long enough to know that no new nuclear power plant has been built in the US since the late 1970s precisely because of the threat of interminable lawsuits brought by environmental groups. No Federal law was ever passed prohibiting the construction of nuclear power plants, and, with the exception of New York State taking over Long Island Lighting Company mainly so it could mothball a brand-new power reactor, I don't know of any such prohibitions at the state level. All it took was the prospect of endless litigation. So it's disingenuous of him to cite higher upfront costs for nuclear plants without mentioning this contributing factor. Has Gore started telling his allies in the environmental movement to quit trying to prevent new nuclear plants from being built?

Finally, if Gore never mentions nuclear power in his film, but is happy to reference wind, solar, biomass, et al. (and every account of the film that I've heard agrees that he refrains from talking about the former while playing up the latter), how much power does he envision being generated from his favored sources in the near future? If CO2 output in the US is to be curtailed by 80 or 90%, a lot less electrical power will be coming from burning coal, oil, or natural gas. Does he really expect solar panels, windmill farms, and biomass to make up for the power no longer being produced? Or is the entire goal, rather, to ensure that far less power will be produced? Nuclear plants can produce electrical power on a mass scale. Are solar panel arrays and windmill farms going to do that? Does Gore care whether they do?

I don't know what Al Gore personally believes about nuclear power. Maybe he does disagree with most environmentalists on the issue. He definitely hasn't made some of the grosser appeals to superstition that used to prevail among American environmentalists--he hasn't proclaimed that just walking past the fence outside a nuclear power plant will give you a dangerous dose of ionizing radiation, nor is he prophesying accidents on the scale of Chernobyl #4.

However, all but one of the arguments that I've assigned numbers to--(1) waste disposal; (2) danger of sabotage; (3) weapons proliferation; (5) greater up-front cost--have been used by anti-nuclear environmentalists in the past and are still being rolled out today. The only point on which he differs from the hard-core anti-nukes is (4), because those who shrink from nuclear power as an invention of the Devil don't give a damn whether the infernal devices might run out of fuel. And here's a little thought experiment concerning (4). If some engineer showed tomorrow how to run nuclear power plants safely on thorium (more plentiful than uranium, if I recall correctly, and not used in any present-day nuclear weapon), would Gore be overjoyed at such news? Or maximally pained?

Robert Campbell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert,

Thank you for those comments.

I was amused by the Counterpunch article (which I only skimmed). With friends like that to attack Gore's policies, who needs enemies? I wonder if this guy is on Gore's payroll to make the opposition look ridiculous.

Please don't think I defend Gore. I merely defend what I have seen. I am going to do some thinking about how to simplify your comments on nuclear power as I found them thought-provoking. (I need to see pros and cons to simplify correctly.)

Here is something like what I have in mind. Gore made a claim in his film that the entire scientific community agreed with him and cited over 900 peer-reviewed publications to back that claim up. I have read refutations of that claim attacking Gore's standards in screening the abstracts, or his slanted consideration (interpreting lack of covering a topic as agreement with him), etc. These refutations tend to get long-winded and technical. But if you have come this far, you will know that I am interested in getting to the layman. This is one case where Gore is flat-out wrong so it is easy. Instead of saying, "Liar! Dishonest! etc." and being taken for a partisan, I think the following would be vastly more effective:

GORE: yada yada yada yada yada yada (his statement about the entire scientific community agreeing with him).

THESE SCIENTISTS DISAGREE WITH GORE (with affiliation, links for verification and possibly very short quotes).

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

ddddddddddddddddddddddd

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

etc. (listing about 30 or more)

You decide if you think Gore's claim is correct.

This is devastating—much more so than all the technical explanations in the world. No layperson will even read the list. All he will do is see is a long list of names, universities and scientific organizations and some one-liner quotes. The falseness of the claim will honk big-time at him.

Incidentally, I just came across a gem:

Kerry, Gingrich announce climate showdown

by Jeremy Jacobs

The Hill

April 05, 2007

This sounds like there will be a pro-con type debate on global warming with heated discussion typical of this topic. Look at this below from the article:

“America should focus its energy policy in four areas,” Gingrich writes on his website. “Basic research for a new energy system, incentives for conservation, more renewable resources, and environmentally sound development of fossil fuels.

“The lengthy process of environmental planning must be made more efficient and cost effective,” he adds.

Heh. That doesn't sound like much of a "showdown" at all.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Since the problem is law, here is something I found cute:

Michael

[Darrell Hougen]

Durkin mostly ignored the correlation and multi-faceted argument and focused on CO2 in the atmosphere causing temperature rise as being Gore's basic case. And he went after that with a vengeance. He did offer an interesting theory, though, to explain the time lag between the CO2 level and the temperature (the ocean takes about 800 years to heat up or cool off).

Just to be clear, it should be noted that Durkin's film states that CO2 levels lag temperature increases by about 800 years. Not the other way around. In other words, temperature increases precede CO2 level increases. If true, that fact alone completely demolishes the argument that CO2 increases have a significant, long range effect on climate.

Darrell

[John Dailey]

MSK:

~ "Cute"?

~ I'm waiting to see it on CNN! That'd obviously take care of 'our' CO2 prob AND our media-hype one; 2 birds (er, human-subjects) with 1 stone (er, breath-holding.) --- Wonder how many TV 'anchors' are that green?

LLAP

J:D

[Victor Pross]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M8dTVObC2w

A message from Al Gore.

And:

Edited April 9, 2007 by Victor Pross

[BaalChatzaf]

Inconvenient Truth versus Inconvenient Swindle

(Thoughts on both sides of the global warming issue.)

Another very pleasant surprise was the basic science lesson I received from this film. I have never been interested in ecology one way or another, so whenever I have seen the phrase, "global warming," I always assumed that it meant something like the earth getting hotter from the atmosphere all the way down to the core. I was pretty surprised to see that it was merely the weather and the atmosphere (and, to a smaller extent, the ocean). A much better term for me to have understood at my lack-of-interest distance would have been "warming of the earth's weather." I am sure that there are many people who are at the awareness level I was on this and they would be surprised to learn that all the shouting is not over our planet getting hotter. It isn't. Only the weather is.

Sometime hot makes cold. If global weather warming causes enough melting of the Canadian ice pack and Arctic polar ice, the salt concentration in the ocean region between the Gulf of Mexico and the Northern Canadian Maritime Provinces will be lowered. This could rapidly turn off the thermo-hallicene conveyor which means the Gulf Stream will go away. That means warm water from the Gulf will not be transported to Europe. England, Holland and the areas bordering the North Sea will cool off and these areas will have hard cold winters. Once again folks may be ice skating on the Thames and in the Dutch canals. It will be time for Hans Brinker to get his Silver Skates out of the closet.

The interruption of the Gulf Stream could have some heavy effects on the El Nino. This could lead to drought and flooding. Alas, the mechanics of the El Nino is not completely understood so there will be more said about that by the experts when they learn more.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

Inconvenient Truth versus Inconvenient Swindle

(Thoughts on both sides of the global warming issue.)

Another very pleasant surprise was the basic science lesson I received from this film. I have never been interested in ecology one way or another, so whenever I have seen the phrase, "global warming," I always assumed that it meant something like the earth getting hotter from the atmosphere all the way down to the core. I was pretty surprised to see that it was merely the weather and the atmosphere (and, to a smaller extent, the ocean). A much better term for me to have understood at my lack-of-interest distance would have been "warming of the earth's weather." I am sure that there are many people who are at the awareness level I was on this and they would be surprised to learn that all the shouting is not over our planet getting hotter. It isn't. Only the weather is.

Sometime hot makes cold. If global weather warming causes enough melting of the Canadian ice pack and Arctic polar ice, the salt concentration in the ocean region between the Gulf of Mexico and the Northern Canadian Maritime Provinces will be lowered. This could rapidly turn off the thermo-hallicene conveyor which means the Gulf Stream will go away. That means warm water from the Gulf will not be transported to Europe. England, Holland and the areas bordering the North Sea will cool off and these areas will have hard cold winters. Once again folks may be ice skating on the Thames and in the Dutch canals. It will be time for Hans Brinker to get his Silver Skates out of the closet.

The interruption of the Gulf Stream could have some heavy effects on the El Nino. This could lead to drought and flooding. Alas, the mechanics of the El Nino is not completely understood so there will be more said about that by the experts when they learn more.

Ba'al Chatzaf

An interesting scenario. However, it was warmer a thousand years ago and they were growing grapes for wine in England.

--Brant

Edited April 15, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Ellen Stuttle]

Sometime hot makes cold. If global weather warming causes enough melting of the Canadian ice pack and Arctic polar ice, the salt concentration in the ocean region between the Gulf of Mexico and the Northern Canadian Maritime Provinces will be lowered. This could rapidly turn off the thermo-hallicene conveyor which means the Gulf Stream will go away. That means warm water from the Gulf will not be transported to Europe. England, Holland and the areas bordering the North Sea will cool off and these areas will have hard cold winters. Once again folks may be ice skating on the Thames and in the Dutch canals. It will be time for Hans Brinker to get his Silver Skates out of the closet.

I think you may have gotten that from An Inconvenient Truth. See Marlo Lewis' book, "A Skeptic's Guide to An Inconvenient Truth," Chapter IX on the Gulf Stream, for a corrective.

http://cei.org/pdf/ait/chIX.pdf

For access to the entire book's Table of Contents, see:

http://cei.org/pages/ait_response-book.cfm

In addition to getting some information about the thermohaline circulation (THC) wrong, Gore confuses the THC with the Gulf Stream. Lewis concludes Chapter IX:

Finally, Gore conflates the THC with the Gulf Stream. The THC is a convective system driven chiefly by the sinking of dense (cold and salty) surface water in the high northern latitudes. The Gulf Stream, on the other hand, is a wind-driven system. It is energized primarily by the Earth's spin and secondarily by the lunar tides, not by salinity levels in the oceans. Thus, even in climate models that project a weakening of the THC in the 21st century, Europe continues to warm, "albeit more slowly than the rest of the world."

Ellen

___

Edited April 16, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

School row over Al Gore film

by Liz Lightfoot

Telegraph

April 17, 2007

Now this is something I agree with.

I think this event should to be capitalized on to hammer home the message that science is not settled on the issue. If parents are objecting to it being taught to their children as science with that slant, why should there be laws with that slant?

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Michael,

On Saturday the 14th, a rally to demand Congressional legislation lowering CO2 output by 80% took place here at Clemson University.

The mere fact that it took place may not be surprising. But it was co-sponsored by the School of the Environment and heavily promoted through University media. On a conservative campus...

Robert Campbell

PS. A band was at the rally, playing loudly amplified music. I didn't notice a phalanx of people riding stationary bicycles, or windmills, or solar panels

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I want to make sure that the following stays on this thread, since it is a contemptible attempt at censorship on the issue of global warming. Like I said earlier, I have some issues with The Great Global Warming Swindle just as I do with An Inconvenient Truth, but when active efforts occur to gag either, I find that effort to be even a greater breach of all that is good. It adds to the problem.

The more I study this, the more I am solidifying my opinion that science is not settled on much anything and that climatology is a very complex field. The variables are almost too numerous to count. We can't accurately predict the weather next week, so obviously we cannot do that for next year, next decade, or next century.

Move to block emissions 'swindle' DVD

by David Adam

April 25, 2007

The Guardian

(Hat tip to Marcus Bachler for mentioning this article on another forum.)

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Michael,

Dr Allen said: "What Martin Durkin and Channel 4 don't understand is the way science works. Science is about the arguments, not the people who make them."

If Allen meant what he said about science, he'd be busy refuting the statements made in the documentary, instead of trying to block its release on DVD.

Robert Campbell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

ERAU professor seeks balance in global warming debate

By MARK HARPER

News-journalonline

May 12, 2007

I have let this discussion slide on purpose. After a huge amount of reading (skimming, actually), I came to the conclusion that both sides of the issue were essentially BS. My earlier suspicion, that science is nowhere near settled on any of this (and that includes both sides), is being endorsed more and more in articles I read as people are starting to wake up. This article, for instance, just popped up on the Drudge Report headlines. An Inconvenient Truth and The Great Global Warming Swindle are being shown back to back in a college course. From the article:

James Wanliss, a space physicist who teaches at Embry-Riddle, showed students the two films in an honors course titled "The Politics and Science of Fear" because he said more and more the public is being sold one side of an issue with many dimensions.

"I fear that attempts are being made to purposefully subvert the public understanding of the nature of science in order to achieve political goals," he wrote in an e-mail. "Science is not about consensus, and to invoke this raises the hackles of scientists such as myself. The lure of politics and publicity is no doubt seductive, but it nevertheless amazes me that so many scientists have jumped on the bandwagon of consensus science, apparently forgetting or ignoring the sad history of consensus science."

. . .

Pointing to quotes in magazine articles, Wanliss says Gore and the producers of the "Swindle" film are purposefully overstating their science as a means to a political end.

I really like that concept and phrase: consensus science.

I think the reason for my earlier reactions was summed up nicely by the phrase "overstating their science." I had more or less a similar reaction as the college student in the "The Politics and Science of Fear" honors course. From the article:

Nick Shipley, an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University freshman, had just spent a week of classes watching two films with polar-opposite conclusions about global warming.

"After watching 'An Inconvenient Truth,' I was relatively convinced," Shipley said one day last month in class. "(Al Gore) did a good job in presenting his points very methodically one after the other. They all build up to essentially prove his point.

"After watching 'The Great Global Warming Swindle,' my thinking completely changed," he said. "I kind of did a complete flip-flop."

Despite all the controversy, I am glad I waited to see both films one after another and not just one. It did a number on my head, like this entire discussion did, but I learned a wonderful lesson. Like the man said, both sides "overstate their science." This is an excellent thing to keep in mind in reading information for the general public coming from scientists (at least on this issue). You can't trust any of them. They will not give you correct general public type information.

Philosophically, the article emphasized that skepticism and never knowing the truth are inherent in science, or at least, this it is creed adhered to by most scientists. I find it interesting that this would be emphasized in a news article. Maybe this is the reason why scientists are manipulated by politicians so easily and show the sorry spectacle now unfolding to the general public about global warming, where huge numbers of top scientists are at each other's throats.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Michael, I accept your position that the Global Warmers' position is essentially "BS." Thank you. If that is true, the other side's position, BS or not, is irrelevant to the discussion; there is nothing more to discuss.

--Brant

[Greybird]

[...] This is an excellent thing to keep in mind in reading information for the general public coming from scientists (at least on this issue). You can't trust any of them. They will not give you correct general public type information.

An entirely unwarranted generalization, as I see it. When others in this thread have pointed out other "they"s, you've not dealt with such points, certainly not directly.

The discussion hasn't proceeded, nor have some of us had much interest in engaging you about it, because you're continuing to make the same two basic missteps in methodology:

~ You're treating these two documentaries as the archetypes or summaries of what is being brought to bear, in every significant respect, on the broad opposing fronts about anthropogenic greenhouse warming. Neither such production covers all the points of either side. Your "can't trust any" is drawn from an insufficient set of examples.

~ You're ignoring the crucial point, made weeks ago by Jeffery Small, that these two broad opposing sides are not epistemologically equivalent. Not in what they are saying nor in their need to say it. Those insisting that AGW is significant, ominous, and alarming are the ones who need to prove their affirmative case. Those who disagree need only show how such an affirmative case is flawed or "falsified." In terms of seeking valid science, they have no responsibility or requirement whatsoever to present an alternative paradigm.

As Brant just pointed out, though, while I was composing this: Since you accept that this affirmative case for AGW is flawed, nothing more need be said, and your generalization above is entirely moot — as well as incorrect.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Steve,

Contrary to what you say, my conclusion is not unwarranted. It came from examining a huge amount of material, not just the two documentaries. Also, contrary to what you said, they serve as excellent examples of the approach I have found most everywhere. The only thing different is the details. There is the same exaggerated statements and taking the reader for a fool and wanting to convince him at all costs.

There's a small number of experts who are reasonable and actually claim that weather can't be predicted very well, but they are in the vast minority. They hardly have a voice at all. The reasonable people—the non-experts—are starting to wake up (as evidenced by this article, but there are others popping up all over) and realize what I have. They look and read and examine and then think, "When I see that many experts disagreeing that violently and the only out is to become an expert myself, I KNOW something is fishy. And it ain't one side only."

Everywhere I look, I see all sides completely overstating the science. Everybody has a political agenda. There's not even any agreement that global warming is actually happening.

It's all BS. It's all about receiving government funds. All sides.

It's not epistemological. It's about the money.

And the con game on the public is starting to be up. Government funds will still be there but the make-believe is going the way of the tooth fairy. I say good riddance.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Just to re-emphasize the point:

Michael:

It seems to me that you are missing an important aspect of this climate change debate. You talk about the "two sides" as if they each had an equal and opposite agenda to push. This is not true. The position of the radical environmentalists is that there is a great man-made global catastrophe looming in our near future and that drastic changes must be made (through the political imposition of regulations) in our behavior to try and avert or minimize the devastating impact. They then attempt to back up this position with cherry-picked scientific data. This is the side asserting a positive position. The other group, which you somewhat derogatorily label as "our side", isn't pushing an agenda at all, but is simply reacting and responding to the radical environmental position by examining their claims and then showing where and how they are fundamentally flawed, or worse, outright misrepresentations and lies. And while it has not been difficult to do this, the response is a bit late to the party, exactly because it is a response to the other side's agenda - not some competing original theory. What fundamentally separates these two approaches is that one asserts a positive position while the other simply argues against it. And as I know you are aware, you cannot prove a negative. Since they make the positive assertion of impending doom, it is incumbent on the environmentalists to prove their case. They have not done a good job of this, and when you peer beneath the curtain you see the real political agenda which the "Swindle" video accurately identifies. The error I believe you are making is that you approach both sides of the issue in the same manner, expecting the same sort of methodology, when two quite different methodologies are necessitated by the difference in asserting a position vs. analyzing those assertions.

Like you, I would be happy if this entire debate could be framed in a rational and honest examination of all the scientific data devoid of agendas, but that is not what is happening on the public stage today. Policy regulation is going to be enacted based more upon public perception and pressure rather than scientific fact, and this leads to the spectacle of hyperbolic statements and presentation in service of influencing that public rather than a more reasoned debate. So, I suggest that you take a deep breath, think about this for a moment, and hopefully realize that you haven't been misled by "our side". They are performing a task different from what you may have been assuming. It is not their job to analyze the scientific data and prove that global warming (or cooling, or climate "change") is not occurring. Their job is to identify the misuse of scientific data by the environmentalists and stop damaging legislation from being enacted, and for that, I extend my gratitude.

Regards,

--

Jeff

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

It does have a lot to do with government money--one side--but it also has to do with the establishment of a destructive totalitarianism controlled by radical greens. They have to be green these days, because communism is so out of date.

--Brant

Edited May 13, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

I agree that there is a totalitarian drive among the greens and it needs to be combated. Otherwise, like the lady wants, ultimately we will be allowed only one square of toilet paper per sitting. What I am against is the drive to stop them at all costs, even by lying to the public.

For example, I read crap like pollution is not bad. Pollution is bad and saying it isn't comes with a whole new can of worms. There is a totalitarian drive in that angle, too (businesses currying favor from government monopolies). That one was all over Brazil for years.

I disagree about the money being only on one side. From what I have read, both sides are funded with government money. There's plenty of evidence of this out there. Our experts (all sides), funded by the public treasury (either directly or indirectly by tax write-offs) are simply not reliable sources of information. That's the sad truth. If any evidence were needed to show what the piss-poor result would be of funding almost an entire science with government money, there it is. I have no doubt that weapons development is also in this mix somewhere, and on all sides.

Nothing is going to convince me of the virtue of fighting lies with more lies. You fight lies with the truth. What galls me is that it is non-experts who are arriving at the truth.

Michael