Cold Water On 'Global Warming' (Thomas Sowell)

GOPUSA ^ | February 28, 2008 | Thomas Sowell

[alwaysconservative]

Your post reminded me of my current tag. . .LOL!

[Yo-Yo]

There's no such thing as a pro-global warming conference.

What do you think the UNFCCC conference in Bali was?

Since you like to quote brocures, here's a qoute from theirs:

Over a decade ago, most countries joined an international treaty -- the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) -- to begin to consider what can be done to reduce global warming and to cope with whatever temperature increases are inevitable.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Doesn't the Heartland Institute...know that there is a scientific consensus on this issue?

And what weight does that carry?

There has been scientific consensus on a great many ideas in the past before they were blown out of the water by observation and a little clear thought.

Do the names Copernicus and Kepler ring a bell?

[cogitator]

No difference.

Wrong. The get the funding to do the research, and if they're smart they include funding for travel and meetings. It's up to the scientists to do that. The difference here is that the conference is paying the way for the speakers to attend.

[cogitator]

You don’t think scientists are paid to travel to conferences?

Invited keynote speakers or special guests (award-winners) might be. In general they aren't. Note the difference between an open scientific conference and something like the IPCC, which is a working group tasked to produce a report.

[MrB]

That they’ll do,
without skipping a beat, just like in ‘1984’.

And, since global socialism and reduced lifestyle in capitalist countries was the solution to global warming,

to solve global cooling the solution must be...

global socialism and reduced lifestyle in capitalist countries.

[cogitator]

The purpose, which is perfectly reasonable, looks to be to present a point of view, not to decide on one.

Which is not what an open scientific conference is for. My point exactly.

[cogitator]

Summarizing my reply to your first half: there's a difference between paying for propaganda and funding scientific research. Ask a few tobacco company execs, or Steve Milloy, about that.

Speakers are often paid.

The majority of attendees to scientific conferences, who present posters and papers (like 90-95% or so of the attendees) are not paid; they pay registration and travel expenses. As I noted in an earlier reply, invited speakers and maybe somebody who gets an award might get an honorarium and travel expenses. Heartland is paying everyone to attend (who they choose) and paying their travel as well.

Do you want to open this up and compare Durkin’s documentary with Gore’s on the basis of scientific facts and accuracy?

Bring it on!!! but hold your fire for a week. I'll be on vacation far from the Internet next week. (I dislike having my laptop on a fishing boat for some reason. My wife dislikes having it in the hotel room.)

I checked your review for two minutes. Couldn't find any science to speak of. You'll have to point it out.

We can discuss some of your other points later. About incandescent light bulbs -- more efficient technologies have replaced less efficient technologies throughout history. Or do you ride a horse to work?

[cogitator]

It's perfectly OK to attack James Hansen anyway you want to, fair or unfair. But here's what he says about the supposed Soros connection:

------------------------------------------------

Sometime after giving a potentially provocative interview to Sixty Minutes, but before it aired, I tried to get legal advice on my rights of free speech. I made two or three attempts to contact people at Freedom Forum, who I had given permission to use a quote (something like "in my thirty-some years in the government, I have never seen anything like the present restrictions on the flow of information from scientists to the public") on their calendar. I wanted to know where I could get, preferably inexpensive, legal advice. Never got a reply.

But then I received a call from the President of the Government Accountability Project (GAP) telling me that I had won the Ridenaur Award (including a moderate amount of cash -- $10,000 I believe; the award is named for the guy who exposed the Viet Nam My Lai massacre), and offering pro bono legal advice. I agreed to accept the latter (temporarily), signing something to let them represent me (which had an escape clause that I later exercised).

I started to get the feeling that there may be expectations (strings) coming with the award, and I was concerned that it may create the appearance that I had spoken out about government censorship for the sake of the $. So I called the President of GAP, asking how the nomination process worked and who made the selection. He mentioned that he either nominated or selected me. So I declined the award, but I continued to accept pro bono legal advice for a while.

The principal thing that they provided was the attached letter to NASA. This letter shows me why scientists drive 1995 Hondas and lawyers drive Mercedes. I have a feeling that the reader of that letter had at least one extra gulp of coffee that morning.

But it turns out that GAP has lost most of their cases in defending whistle-blowers. It is obviously not because they are crummy lawyers. Things are getting pretty tough in our country. It is still not clear to me what rights of free speech we actually have today. Some people think that things must have changed in our government, since I have been speaking pretty freely of late. That is mainly appearance. The (free speech) situation in NASA is good at the moment only because our Administrator made a strong statement. The rules as written, according to GAP, will allow the next Administrator, if he so desires, to hammer the free speaker. But the big problem is that the Offices of Public Affairs in most agencies, at the Headquarters level, have been staffed with political appointees, who in effect are running Offices of Propaganda (Mark Bowen has written a book about this, which will come out in December). Public Affairs people at the field centers are dedicated professionals, but political appointees occupy the Headquarters positions in Washington. I complained about this to a Government Reform committee in the House, saying that there should be a law that Public Affairs must be staffed by professional civil servants, not political appointees. I did not seem to raise much interest. Too much reform for a Reform committee, I guess.

The bottom line is: I did not receive one thin dime from George Soros. Perhaps GAP did, but I would be surprised if they got $720,000 (that's a lot of Mercedes). Whatever amount they got, I do not see anything wrong with it. They are a non-profit organization. Seems like a great idea to have some good lawyers trying to protect free speech.

By the way, in case anybody finds out that George Soros INTENDED to send me $720,000 but could not find my address, please let me know! We are pretty hard pressed here.

------------------------------------------------------

Source: More swiftboating of James Hansen from Grist. I'm not hiding the source; I remembered reading this when the supposed money from Soros first came out. The article includes a link to the "attached letter" mentioned in the text.

Here's another article about it:

The swiftboating of a climate scientist

I encourage you to investigate as deeply as possible into this issue to determine if Hansen is telling the truth or not. Repudiate him. Prove he's lying. Do everything possible that you can to show that what he wrote above is untrue.

If anyone else is reading this, and if it happens to turn out that Hansen is telling the truth: what does that tell you about gullibility and propaganda regarding global warming? If it turns out that qam1 or anyone else can't show that Hansen wasn't telling the truth, will everyone pledge to not repeat this false allegation again?

[cogitator]

Quick followup. See post 69 regarding the supposed 720K from Soros. I can't dispute that he won a Heinz Award. Do you think they awarded it to Jacques d'Amboise and Steven Wozniak so they'd vote for Kerry, too?

Heinz Award Jurors Reviewing the list, there are several people in the Environment category likely to agree with Hansen on climate change and the environmental impact. Not surprising they'd pick Hansen as a recipient based on his research work.

Heinz Award Nominators

[Old Professer]

“Note the difference between an open scientific conference and something like the IPCC, which is a working group tasked to produce a report.”

Not only are you poor at proving innocence of bias, now you bring your own rope to the hanging.

It is precisely the fact that the IPCC is “tasked...to report” that creates the impression in the minds of many skeptics that the conclusions are foregone and the rest is just a matter of polishing up the “product.”

[kidd]

There is not even a lot of controversy over temperature readings.

Actually, there is. It seems that the quality control on ground-based measurements is appallingly poor. Many of the ground-based measurements are located too close to parking lots, air-conditioning exhaust, etc. The resulting error in temperature measurement trends (>2 C) overwhelms the very small temperature changes that climatologists are claiming are due to man-made CO2.

The ground-based temperature measurement trends do not agree with satellite-based measurement trends. It seems that these ground-based measurements are really more of a measure of urban expansion than long-term temperature changes.

[cogitator]

It is precisely the fact that the IPCC is “tasked...to report” that creates the impression in the minds of many skeptics'

Science is what matters. Impressions in the minds of skeptics are not my problem, particularly if they have trouble recognizing a conference intended mainly to influence media coverage. Especially when that's what the conference organizers say the conference is primarily intended to do.

[Old Professer]

I have no interest in whether people are paid for speeches, articles, books or just showing up for dinner at the White House.

My concern is what they plan for my future,

Here is an entertaining exchange of letters with Hansen concerning an article he published in 2006:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19304

[cogitator]

The ground-based temperature measurement trends do not agree with satellite-based measurement trends.

One: are they supposed to? What do you mean by "agreement"? Does that only mean headed in the same direction, or are they supposed to be the same? Is your concept of agreement similar to that of climate scientists?

Two: which trends do not agree? There are up to 4 (two most notable) satellite temperature trends based on MSU/AMSU data. There are three main groups producing surface temperature trends: NOAA, GISS, and the Hadley Centre UK.

[Old Professer]

So now you don’t believe in “equal time?”

AGW clamoring may be the answer to the riddle: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

[cogitator]

A Plan to Keep Carbon in Check (PDF)

You want my plan? They wrote it.

[cogitator]

So now you don’t believe in “equal time?”

I don't believe in equal time for propaganda versus an accurate dissemination of scientific conclusions, if this what's you mean.

[jazusamo]

I agree. I read a piece not too long ago here at FR about that very thing, there were pics at the link of weather stations set up in areas that were concreted or paved or closed in by buildings.

[Old Professer]

Please define climate scientists.

Each time you are presented with field studies of the notorious lack of calibration of the surface instruments being performed, you have explained it away by saying the scientists are making corrections to the data rather than fixing the the cause of the errors.

Everyone knows the melting point of ice is 32F which makes it easy to test a bulb thermometer in the water - but that’s tells us nothing about the temperature in the room or the temperature of the ice.

You seem to imply that we just remark the points on the thermometer from, say 35F to 32F and put the thermometer back in use; I say trash the thermometer and use one that reads correctly.

I believe the theory on differences between satellite data and surface data is that the upper air should be a higher order of change, but I’m just going from memory here.