For a new low in Global Warming denialism, check out this piece of drivel from one Dan Gainor, where he utters inanities like this concerning [yawn] the recent cold spell many states are experiencing:
"Just ask the diehard global warming activists who showed up in Washington last week to protest the nation’s use of coal. Their event was hampered by nearly a foot of snow in the nation’s capital – enough to freeze out luminaries like Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Still, there they were, a couple thousand idiots standing in a winter wonderland, chanting about global warming. What’s amazing is that NASA’s climate chief James Hansen was part of this foolishness. Here we have a man who the left keeps telling us is so smart we need to listen to everything he says and he doesn’t have the public relations sense of a freshman communications major.
I have a news flash for Mr. Hansen – it gets cold in the winter. Sometimes it snows – even in D.C. If you want to promote global warming, look at a thermometer and wait until that red stuff climbs up real high.
This would seem the basis of a good strategy. Cede the winter months to your critics and opponents and keep the global warming activism to times when you might actually get warm weather.
Only a fool would hold a global warming event in a foot of snow – unless he or she was desperate."
Here's a news flash for you Dan Gainor: Everyone with an IQ above room temperature already knows it gets cold and snows in the winter. This shouldn't have to be explained, scientists shouldn't concern themselves with it when addressing the issue, and people like you and so many others here at Townhall need to quit wasting space and time writing about it.
Only a fool, or someone desperate or loony enough to see the scientific consensus on global warming as some sort of conspiracy, would attribute significance to someone's lack of concern over such irrelevancies. Anyone still wondering why the GOP is viewed as the anti-intellectual party, and why the rest of us(many of whom are former GOPers like me) see you as a joke, need look no further than this article as to why. It's embarrassing.
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5 comments:
I don't know who Gainor is, but it would really show your mettle if you would take on one of the real scientists who deny AGW. A minority scientist, sure, but a scientist nonetheless.
Welcome back Alex, let's try to keep our comments as substantive and on topic as this one.
Once again, you're missing multiple points. What purpose would be served by me debating a climate scientist? I'd be quite likely unable to keep up the moment the discussion became even the slightest bit technical, because I'm not a climate scientist. I am not up to date on the latest literature, and I'm a physics novice at best. A Climate scientist defeating me in debate would be like me defeating a layman in a debate on actuarial science. It'd prove nothing, since we'd win whether we were right or not.
Now the 99% or so of climate scientists that support the global warming hypothesis are up to speed, and could handle those technical arguments. So the question you should be asking is not "Why doesn't this layman debate the AGW skeptic?", but rather "Why doesn't the AGW skeptic enter the scientific arena of the peer-reviewed literature and take on the establishment there?" It's in the literature, not at live PR events and debates, where science "debate" is done. That's the playing field of science. That the AGW deniers avoid that arena, just as the IDers avoid that arena, speaks volumes for what little scientific muster they actually carry.
A basketball player who is king of his neighborhood court doesn't have much credibility claiming he is better than NBA players if he consistently refuses to attend an NBA tryout.
If you read my posts on global warming, you'll see I make very limited arguments concerning: misrepresentations (quote mines) of what scientists say, basic cherry-picking statistical tricks (like the 10-years-cooling-since-1998 canard), and holding the skeptics feet to the fire on the fact that 99% of the worlds cimate scientists and 100% of the world's scientific organizations that have opined on the subject support AGW, and that all conspiracy theories attempting to explain that are (as are all conspiracy theorys) laughable the moment on considers the real-world difficulties of actually implementing such a scheme. Review your basic economics on cartels, since that's all a conspiracy to hide the truth really is: a cartel of information.
As a nonscientist, this is the extent of my reach. I leave the more technical arguments to other more qualified individuals. I'll stick to the arenas where I do understand the issues and can stand on solid intellectual ground. As I tell many a climate skeptic who attempts to goad me into debating him on the finer points of the science, you're not debating me, you're debating the worldwide scientific community. I'm merely reminding you of what they say, and why it is so much more likely that they are correct rather than you.
Typical punditry -- simplistic, emotionally appealing, and completely incorrect. Why can't these guys stick to stuff they know, whatever that is? An MBA and a Master's in publication design apparently doesn't involve much basic science. Of course, in those fields they get to just make stuff up.
It doesn't take more than a Weather Channel knowledge of weather, never mind climate, to know that getting more snow wouldn't necessarily mean colder temperatures. For instance, anywhere that gets lake effect snow, as in the northern tier US states and parts of Canada on the lee of Hudson Bay, only gets the heavy snow until the lake/bay freezes over, cutting off the moisture. If the climate warms, the water freezes later, if at all, and the result is more snow.
Reminds me of this fella that writes right-wing op-eds for my old hometown newspaper. Tom Sears is the name - his claim to fame is a masters in accounting and he teaches accounting at a local college (and is the faculty advisor for the local College Republican goon squad). He took it upon himself to write a three-part 'debunking' of evolution a few years back that could have been written by a 5th grader with no problem plagiarizing websites to 'prove his point.' He's also written about how global warming is the latest lefty sky-is-falling power grab.
The undeserved confidence these people seem to have in their pontifications is really something.
Luke,
Don't bore them with the complexities of the real world. If it's not simple, it doesn't exist!
Doppleganger,
I'll bet he starts a lot of his science columns with "Now I'm not a science but...", which is a nice way of saying "I don't have a fucking clue what I'm talking about, but I'm going to do it anyway."
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