| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Captain Compassion" |
| Date: |
16 Aug 2007 10:30:09 PM |
| Object: |
Paralyzing fog of certainty on climate |
Paralyzing fog of certainty on climate
Debra J. Saunders
Sunday, August 12, 2007
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/08/12/EDG3IQ8K6T1.DTL
NEWSWEEK's global-warming cover story purports to reveal the
"well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists,
free-market think tanks and industry" which for the last two decades
"has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change." It's
the same story run repeatedly in mainstream media: the overwhelming
majority of scientists believe the debate on global warming is over --
but if there are any dissenting scientists left, they've been bought.
Here's the rub: If dissent is so rare, why do global-warming
conformists feel the strong need to argue that minority views should
be dismissed as nutty or venal? Why not posit that there is such a
thing as honest disagreement on the science?
As for the overwhelming majority of scientists believing that man is
behind global warming, former NASA scientist Roy Spencer, now at the
University of Alabama, told me, "It's like an urban legend. There has
never been any kind of vote on this issue." He referred me to a 2003
survey in which two German environmental scientists asked more than
530 climate scientists from 27 countries if they thought humans caused
climate change: 56 percent answered yes, 30 percent said no.
What really frosts me about the Newsweek story is that it concentrates
on industry funding for skeptics, while ignoring the money that pours
into pro-global-warming coffers. That focus ignores where the big
grant money goes -- to pay for crisis-mongering research. Or as Reid
Bryson, the father of scientific climatology, told the (Madison, Wis.)
Capital Times, "If you want to be an eminent scientist, you have to
have a lot of grad students and a lot of grants. You can't get grants
unless you say, 'Oh global warming, yes, yes, carbon dioxide.' ''
That's not to say that industry does not liberally fund political
efforts. Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope told me, "If you
look at the cumulative public relations weight of those who don't want
action on climate change, such as the think tanks and trade
associations, it vastly dwarfs what has been spent on the side of
those who want action."
Pope cited American automakers' fight against tougher fuel-efficiency
standards. Also, the campaign to defeat Proposition 87, the 2006
California ballot measure to tax oil production in order to fund
alternative-fuel development, outspent Prop. 87 proponents by 2 to 1.
Newsweek leads with the revelation that a conservative think tank that
had been funded by ExxonMobil offered scientists "$10,000 to write
articles undercutting" a U.N. International Panel on Climate Change
report that there is a 90 percent chance global warming is due to the
burning of fossil fuels.
Ooooooh, $10,000. After the billions that have gone into
pro-global-warming research, that's (pardon the pun) rich.
What critics call a $10,000 "bounty" could be seen in the research
community as the equivalent of a 25-cent tip. As Steven Hayward,
fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, explained, his think tank
was "asking very busy and prominent people to wade through as much as
5,000 pages of material and write original papers on it, and people
think they're going to do that for free?"
Spencer told me he had been writing on global warming for years before
he started writing for TCS Daily, which received ExxonMobil money,
three years ago. He said, TCS Daily now provides some 5 percent of his
income. And: "All I was doing was being paid for writing things I
believed in anyway."
Global warming guru James Hansen, a NASA scientist, received $250,000
from a foundation run by Teresa Heinz Kerry. Hansen endorsed John
Kerry for president in 2004. But I wouldn't dream of suggesting Hansen
was bought.
The science doesn't follow the money, the money follows the scientist.
If you're a researcher on either side of the issue, eventually you'll
get money from that side -- or be unemployed.
I guess all skeptics are supposed to work for free.
True believers appear to be afraid of a fair fight. In March, when the
audience was polled before a New York "Intelligence Squared U.S."
debate, 30 percent agreed with the motion that global warming is not a
crisis, 57 percent disagreed. After the debate, 46 percent agreed with
the motion, while 42 percent disagreed.
After all the Newsweek-like stories announcing the debate is over, it
took one debate to flip the audience. No wonder they want to muzzle
dissent.
--
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to
escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. -- Marcus Aurelius
Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not
on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away
with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone
are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices
me wherever I am or whatever I do. -- EPICTETUS
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net
.
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| User: "kT" |
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| Title: Re: Paralyzing fog of certainty on climate |
17 Aug 2007 12:43:31 PM |
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Captain Compassion wrote:
Debra J. Saunders
You mean this Debra J. Saunders?
---
Debra J. Saunders is a conservative columnist for the San Francisco
Chronicle. Her column currently runs on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays in
the paper.
Before going to work for the Chronicle in July 1992, Saunders worked as
a columnist and editorial writer for the Los Angeles Daily News,
beginning in 1987.
Her' column is syndicated through Creators Syndicate. She has also
written pieces that have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the
National Review, the Weekly Standard, Reader's Digest, Reason Magazine,
and the Heritage Foundation's TownHall.com.
Saunders' political experience includes stints working as a
writer/researcher and account executive for Russo Watts & Rollins, a
Republican lobby shop in Sacramento, Calif., and Todd Domke Associates,
a Boston-based Republican media consulting firm specializing in
strategy, public relations, and advertising. With both organizations,
her political work included research, issues strategy and advertising in
U.S. Senate and congressional races. In addition, she also worked for
the Republican leader of the California Assembly.
---
All good American fascists get their science from Republican op-ed
columnists.
--
Get A Free Orbiter Space Flight Simulator :
http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/orbit.html
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