The Right And The Climate: A New Low

[W*GS]

http://climateconference.heartland.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Billboard2-620x229.png

Just when one would think the deniers and the Right couldn't get any more stupid...

<a href="http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/05/the-right-and-the-climate-a-new-low.html">The Right And The Climate: A New Low</a>

Large sections of the American right are now close to insane as well as depraved. And there is no Buckley to rein them in. Just countless Jonah Goldbergs seeking to cash in.

[El Minion]

Listen, they are the same people that believe you can pray the gay away, pray the cancer away, basically praying cures everything and anything. How do they know there is no global warming? That's right, they prayed it away. They have no need for science because the bible tells them everything.

[TonyR]

A reader writes:

When Donald Rumsfeld rattled off his triptych of levels of intelligence (known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns), he left out the one that afflicts the right wing - the unknown knowns, in which it is ideologically impossible to accept things that the undelusional have long ago accepted.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/05/the-right-and-the-climate-a-new-low-ctd.html

[Garcia Bronco]

Listen, they are the same people that believe you can pray the gay away, pray the cancer away, basically praying cures everything and anything. How do they know there is no global warming? That's right, they prayed it away. They have no need for science because the bible tells them everything.

I don't know if you can pray those things away...but there is something to be said for the power of faith to feel better.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Shows how desperate these idiots really are.

Anything to stampede the herd...

[Missouribronc]

Shows how desperate these idiots really are.

Anything to stampede the herd...

I have to agree. This definitely proves that humans are a problem for the planet.

[Odysseus]

Corporate America cannot afford to acknowledge that global warming exists. The costs to correct this are staggering.

Americans are a nostalgic and creative people. When "forced" to eat healthy "super sizing" was the corporate response. In the past we used "innovation" to solve our problems to lazy for that.

[Rohirrim]

The Heartland Institute does not disclose its funding sources. According to its brochures, the Heartland Institute receives money from approximately 1,600 individuals and organizations, and no single corporate entity donates more than 5% of the operating budget,[31] although the figure for individual donors can be much higher, with a single anonymous donor providing $4.6 million in 2008, and $979,000 in 2011, accounting for 20% of Heartland's overall budget, according to reports of a leaked fundraising plan. [32]Heartland states that it does not accept government funds and does not conduct contract research for special-interest groups.[33]
MediaTransparency reported that the Heartland Institute received funding from politically conservative foundations such as the Castle Rock Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.[34] In 2011, the Institute received $25,000 from the Charles G. Koch Foundation.[12] The Charles Koch Foundation states that the contribution was "$25,000 to the Heartland Institute in 2011 for research in healthcare, not climate change, and this was the first and only donation the Foundation made to the institute in more than a decade". [35]
Oil and gas companies have contributed to the Heartland Institute, including over $600,000 from ExxonMobil between 1998 and 2005.[36] Greenpeace reported that the Heartland Institute received almost $800,000 from ExxonMobil.[20] In 2008, ExxonMobil said that they would stop funding to groups skeptical of climate warming, including Heartland.[36][37][38] Joseph Bast, president of the Heartland Institute, argued that ExxonMobil was simply distancing itself from Heartland out of concern for its public image.[36]
The Heartland Institute has also received funding and support from tobacco companies Philip Morris,[24] Altria and Reynolds American, and pharmaceutical industry firms GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and Eli Lilly.[32] The Independent reported that Heartland's receipt of donations from Exxon and Philip Morris indicates a "direct link"..."between anti-global warming sceptics funded by the oil industry and the opponents of the scientific evidence showing that passive smoking can damage people's health."[8]
As of 2006, the Walton Family Foundation (run by the family of the founder of Wal-Mart) had contributed approximately $300,000 to the Heartland Institute. The Heartland Institute published an op-ed in the Louisville Courier-Journal defending Wal-Mart against criticism over its treatment of workers. The Walton Family Foundation donations were not disclosed in the op-ed, and the editor of the Courier-Journal stated that he was unaware of the connection and would probably not have published the op-ed had he known of it.[39] The St. Petersburg Times described the Heartland Institute as "particularly energetic defending Wal-Mart."[39] Heartland has stated that its authors were not "paid to defend Wal-Mart" and did not receive funding from the corporation; it did not disclose the $300,000+ received from the Walton Family Foundation.[39] (Wiki)

The new paradigm: Even if something is true, if you can spend enough on propaganda to convince enough people that it is not true, you win. We've traded in science for stupidity.

[Fedaykin]

I don't know if you can pray those things away...but there is something to be said for the power of faith to feel better.

Which does not mean that prayer and/or faith are real and true.

No more than a shook up water water pill (that you think is a powerful medicine) making your headache go away means that shook up water is a pain reliever.

In the end, living a lie is perfectly acceptable to the majority of people. To some it's not good enough.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

The new paradigm: Even if something is true, if you can spend enough on propaganda to convince enough people that it is not true, you win. We've traded in science for stupidity.

http://www.ohmz.net/wp-content/uploads/HLIC/2fd093343474fad7fcb3d7af8d671908.jpg

[El Minion]

Why Climate Change Denial Is Just Hot Air (http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2012/12/11/climate_change_denial_why_don_t_they_publish_scien tific_papers.html)

By Phil Plait
Posted Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2012, at 8:00 AM ET

I was thinking of writing a lengthy post about climate change denial being completely unscientific nonsense, but then geochemist and National Science Board member James Lawrence Powell wrote a post that is basically a slam-dunk of debunking (http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/15/why-climate-deniers-have-no-credibility-science-one-pie-chart). His premise was simple: If global warming isn’t real and there’s an actual scientific debate about it, that should be reflected in the scientific journals.

He looked up how many peer-reviewed scientific papers were published in professional journals about global warming, and compared the ones supporting the idea that we’re heating up compared to those that don’t. What did he find? This:

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/bad_astronomy/2012/12/10/climatedenierspapers.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/original (http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/15/why-climate-deniers-have-no-credibility-science-one-pie-chart)
The thin red wedge.
Image credit: James Lawrence Powell




Oh my. Powell looked at 13,950 articles. Out of all those reams of scientific results, how many disputed the reality of climate change?

Twenty-four. Yup. Two dozen. Out of nearly 14,000.

Now I know some people will just say that this is due to mainstream scientists suppressing controversy and all that, but let me be succinct: That’s bull. Science thrives on dissenting ideas, it grows and learns from them. If there is actual evidence to support an idea, it gets published. I can point out copious examples in my own field of astronomy where papers get published about all manners of against-the-mainstream thinking, some of which come to conclusions that, in my opinion, are clearly wrong.

So let this be clear: There is no scientific controversy over this. Climate change denial is purely, 100 percent made-up political and corporate-sponsored crap. When the loudest voices are fossil-fuel funded think tanks (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/01/25/five-shots-againt-global-warming-denialism), when they don’t publish in journals but instead write error-laden op-eds in partisan venues (http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2012/12/03/climate_change_deniers_write_another_fact_free_op_ ed.html), when they have to manipulate the data to support their point (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=55208), then what they’re doing isn’t science.

It’s nonsense. And worse, it’s dangerous nonsense. Because they’re fiddling with the data while the world burns.

[Odysseus]

Why Climate Change Denial Is Just Hot Air (http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2012/12/11/climate_change_denial_why_don_t_they_publish_scien tific_papers.html)

By Phil Plait
Posted Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2012, at 8:00 AM ET

I was thinking of writing a lengthy post about climate change denial being completely unscientific nonsense, but then geochemist and National Science Board member James Lawrence Powell wrote a post that is basically a slam-dunk of debunking (http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/15/why-climate-deniers-have-no-credibility-science-one-pie-chart). His premise was simple: If global warming isn’t real and there’s an actual scientific debate about it, that should be reflected in the scientific journals.

He looked up how many peer-reviewed scientific papers were published in professional journals about global warming, and compared the ones supporting the idea that we’re heating up compared to those that don’t. What did he find? This:

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/bad_astronomy/2012/12/10/climatedenierspapers.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/original (http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/15/why-climate-deniers-have-no-credibility-science-one-pie-chart)
The thin red wedge.
Image credit: James Lawrence Powell




Oh my. Powell looked at 13,950 articles. Out of all those reams of scientific results, how many disputed the reality of climate change?

Twenty-four. Yup. Two dozen. Out of nearly 14,000.

Now I know some people will just say that this is due to mainstream scientists suppressing controversy and all that, but let me be succinct: That’s bull. Science thrives on dissenting ideas, it grows and learns from them. If there is actual evidence to support an idea, it gets published. I can point out copious examples in my own field of astronomy where papers get published about all manners of against-the-mainstream thinking, some of which come to conclusions that, in my opinion, are clearly wrong.

So let this be clear: There is no scientific controversy over this. Climate change denial is purely, 100 percent made-up political and corporate-sponsored crap. When the loudest voices are fossil-fuel funded think tanks (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/01/25/five-shots-againt-global-warming-denialism), when they don’t publish in journals but instead write error-laden op-eds in partisan venues (http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2012/12/03/climate_change_deniers_write_another_fact_free_op_ ed.html), when they have to manipulate the data to support their point (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=55208), then what they’re doing isn’t science.

It’s nonsense. And worse, it’s dangerous nonsense. Because they’re fiddling with the data while the world burns.

+1

[Rohirrim]

I'm just wondering how many Hurricane Sandys it will take for the crazy apes to wake up.

[TonyR]

So let this be clear: There is no scientific controversy over this. Climate change denial is purely, 100 percent made-up political and corporate-sponsored crap. When the loudest voices are fossil-fuel funded think tanks (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/01/25/five-shots-againt-global-warming-denialism), when they don’t publish in journals but instead write error-laden op-eds in partisan venues (http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2012/12/03/climate_change_deniers_write_another_fact_free_op_ ed.html), when they have to manipulate the data to support their point (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=55208), then what they’re doing isn’t science.

^ Will be interesting to see how the righties who post here will dispute this. Or whether they even try!

[cutthemdown]

whats funnier is the left spends no time on the fact all the models, regardless of how much usa reduces co2, show co2 going up up up over next 50 yrs. What is plan B? If you want to stop Hurricanes you have to look into geoengineering because co2 reduction will take a long long time to actually do anything. I'd guess even with everything being tried that co2 production still goes up every decade for the next 50 yrs.

[Odysseus]

I'm just wondering how many Hurricane Sandys it will take for the crazy apes to wake up.

I have studied sustainability at a Tier One University. The future is green technology. The faster that regular Americans wake up to that reality the faster they will be able to profit from this eventuality.

[myMind]

I have studied sustainability at a Tier One University. The future is green technology. The faster that regular Americans wake up to that reality the faster they will be able to profit from this eventuality.

Renewable energy must be heavily invested in now, as soon as possible. Even if the average daily CO2 emissions in the world were reduced by half tomorrow, we would still be feeling the impact of our current levels in the climate for 50 + years. This is not something that can be reversed over night, obviously. The longer we take to turn the rutter, the longer it's going to take the ship to right its course.

[Arkie]

Futurist Ray Kurzweil isn’t worried about climate change

Ray Kurzweil: One of my primary theses is that information technologies grow exponentially in capability and power and bandwidth and so on. If you buy an iPhone today, it’s twice as good as two years ago for half that cost. That is happening with solar energy — it is doubling every two years. And it didn’t start two years ago, it started 20 years ago. Every two years we have twice as much solar energy in the world.

So right now it’s at half a percent of the world’s energy. People tend to dismiss technologies when they are half a percent of the solution. But doubling every two years means it’s only eight more doublings before it meets a hundred percent of the world’s energy needs. So that’s 16 years. We will increase our use of electricity during that period, so add another couple of doublings: In 20 years we’ll be meeting all of our energy needs with solar, based on this trend which has already been under way for 20 years.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/environment/futurist-ray-kurzweil-isnt-worried-about-climate-change/7389/

[W*GS]

Futurist Ray Kurzweil isn’t worried about climate change

So?

Even if he's right that solar will provide all our energy needs in a very short time frame, how that fixes the millennia of future climate change we're already committed to having is nearly orthogonal.