Het tijdschrift ‘Nature’ is niet zelden de oerbron van alle onheilstijdingen. Het blad had traditioneel een goede reputatie. En dat geldt nog steeds voor allerlei terreinen van wetenschap. Maar klimaat vormt daarop een uitzondering.Nature is een toonaangevend magazine op het vlak van eender welke wetenschap behalve de klimaatwetenschap, want dàn is het niet meer dan een hysterisch vodje.
A while ago i already mentioned that the president of the libertarian Mises Youth org, young Vincent de Roeck considers climate change to be nothing but a hoax.Climate change is a religion, not science
Last week the British conservative thinkthank "The Bruges Group" published the paper "Cool Thinking On Climate Change". In some 60 pages the author, the British member of the European Parliament Roger Helmer is trying to convince his readers that the alarmism around global warming is based on lies and dishonesty and that the actions proposed are dangerous and counter-productive.
Global Warming? The EU needs more control over energy policy, over tax, over emissions, over industry, over everything.Of course those words immediately point towards the real reason for Helmers skepticism : it's not based on scientific doubts, but it's an expression of a vision rather common in libertarian surroundings by claiming science is part of a complot set up by the government
Yes Helmer may be a politician and not a scientist, and he freely admits this, his findingsWhen having a closer look at the arguments used, indeed there's nothing new in what he's saying. He starts with a three page long attack calling "the Warmists" all sorts of names, mostly in the religious spheres.nevertheless are most valuable. Helmer doesn't bring new arguments into the debate but summarizes the most important climate skeptical arguments and theories in an easy to read paper.
The strong anti-governmental discourse which can be found in Helmers's work closely relates to other libertarian or conservative critics. Like p.ex. the op-ed "The Climate Debate: When Science Serves The State" by professor Joseph Potts for the "Ludwig von Mises Institute" in Alabama or the essay "Global Warming Revisited" by professor Michael Heberling for the "Mackinac Center for Public Policy Research" in Michigan.The Potts op-ed doesn't get much further than nagging "it's a conspiracy" & the second one does copy some of the usual fallacies, both pieces imho aren't much more than an expression of a paranoid vision to the real world.
I stick to the conclusion i made in my previous post on De Roeck : Young Vincent *really* will need to learn that a right wing think thank is not the place to get your scientific information. May i feel so free to suggest magazines like Nature, Science of GRL instead ?
Given the fact i mentioned the sports recently, I can't resist mentioning this article in the newspaper today :
In spring, Dutch ex-journalist Derk-Jan Eppink joined the Belgian party Lijst DeDecker (LDD) to become a leading candidate on the party's list for the upcoming elections for the European parliament of next week.The green-right thinks positively about the environment
Ecology is a religion without God in which politicians get dragged into a climate of fear. (...) That is why a party like LDD chooses for green-right. In contrary to the others, like the Open VLD [the other Flemish liberal party] which started moving to the left for the envoironmental topics until they became ideological neighbours of Groen! [Flemish green party]
Therefore it's not strange this weekend Open VLD is having a congress on climate change. It may sound like a discovery, but climate has been changing ever since earth exists. Greenland is called Greenland because in the past the country was green.
The central question in the debate is : does climate change because of man or not ? That question hasn't been settled : some scientists say it does, other say it doesn't. Some scientists say the heating [sic] of the earth is caused by solar activity, not man. In conclusion : we don't know.
A good environmental policy is hindered by a theological debate on climate change ruled by ecological fundamentalism. Who doesn't support the thesis that climate change isn't real, is depicted as a heathen, a non-believer or a denialist. The discussion isn't about a good policy, but 'good or evil'
[in the rest of the article, Eppink pleads for the use of Nuclear energy, and an optimistic belief in Technical Development (with a mention of Lomborg) and some fulminating against emission-trading]
Without even writing much on the subject Naegels managed to detect the point where most climate skepticism already goes awfully wrong : verifying if what you read and are blindly repeating actually is right or not.Nowhere [in literature] one can read that, at any given moment in time, Greenland really was Green. Or wait, actually you can read this, on obscure blogs sometimes people will make such claims.
But a respectable man like Eppink, having been a journalist, propagated by his party as being an 'intellectual' - a man who wants to become a member of the European Parliament, such a man wouldn't dare to use such sources, would he ? Not on a subject as important as climate change ?
That would equal a situation where the foreign-matters department of the De Standaard [newspaper] would get her analysis of the humanitarian tragedy in Eastern-Congo based on what's written on the blog of Getikt Rikske, 't Zat Flikske ("Crazy Ricky, the Drunk Cop", of course Naegels is just looking for the rhyme)
Yesterday i was mocking a little the rooster crow contest aired on Dutch TV, but actually in Flanders we have something similar, being the ancient Finch Sport.
To encourage the roosters they walk with a hen in front of them.
English version at the bottom.De Klimatosoof zal betogen dat de temperatuur op aarde in de afgelopen jaren niet is gestegen en dat er geen enkele reden is om te vrezen voor een klimaatcrisis.Kortom, ze gaan allicht voor de ondertussen behoorlijk afgezaagde en weerlegde meme dat de aarde het laatste decennium niet opwarmde.
Based on the absorbtionspectra of H2O and CO2, doubling of the latter (280 => 560 ppm) will result in a 0,9 °C increase. The water vapour feedback included, the rise becomes only 1,3 °C. That is all.So if you overestimate a cooling factor in your calculation, your final result ends up too warm ???
The rest of the 3°C of 2xCO2 predicted by models is rather dubious : the cooling effect of aerosols is estimated (too) high, the positive temperature effect of clouds (in reality probably negative) ...
I landed a job as executive director of a policy organization in Washington. This felt like aThe organisation he was working for was the notorious conservative George C. Marshall Institute (GcMI).coup. But certain perversities became apparent as I settled into the job. It sometimes required me to reason backward, from desired conclusion to suitable premise.
The organization had taken certain positions, and there were some facts it was more fond of than others. As its figurehead, I was making arguments I didn’t fully buy myself. Further, my boss seemed intent on retraining me according to a certain cognitive style — that of the corporate world, from which he had recently come. This style demanded that I project an image of rationality but not indulge too much in actual reasoning.
In every area of public policy, from national defense, to the environment, to the economy, decisions are shaped by developments in and arguments about science and technology. The need for accurate and impartial technical assessments has never been greater. However, even purely scientific appraisals are often politicized and misused by interest groups.
The Marshall Institute seeks to counter this trend by providing policymakers with rigorous, clearly written and unbiased technical analyses on a range of public policy issues. Through briefings to the press, publication programs, speaking tours and public forums, the Institute seeks to preserve the integrity of science and promote scientific literacy.
ExxonMobil-funded organizations consist of an overlapping collection of individuals serving as staff, board members, and scientific advisors that publish and re-publish the works of a small group of climate change contrarians.
The George C. Marshall Institute, for instance, which has received $630,000 from ExxonMobil, recently touted a book edited by Patrick Michaels, a long-time climate change contrarian who is affiliated with at least 11 organizations funded by ExxonMobil.
Similarly, ExxonMobil funds a number of lesser-known groups such as the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. Both groups promote the work of several climate change contrarians, including Sallie Baliunas, an astrophysicist who is affiliated with at least nine ExxonMobil-funded groups.
To give an example of fundings for these people, In 2008, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, home of Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon, received $76,106 from Exxon for no apparant reason.
