By Dr. Tim Ball, Canada Free Press
Frequently after a presentation someone will ask me the rhetorical question, “So, you are telling us the majority of scientists, the IPCC, and National Academies of Science are all wrong.” It is more than the usual consensus argument, which says you must be wrong because the majority disagrees. It implies it is not credible to believe so many people are deceived. The consensus argument is counteracted by the point that consensus is not a scientific fact. The second implication was more difficult to counter. Not any more! Now the massive failure of the financial markets and financial systems shows how a majority of people including world leaders, politicians, academics, business leaders and the media were fooled.
The financial debacle and the climate change misdirection fit Abraham Lincoln’s dictum, *You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” Maybe now politicians the public and the politicians will acknowledge that they can and have been fooled about climate change.
A few were warning about the problems, but they were easily marginalized. Evidence of cracks in the system were papered over and dismissed as anomalies. Some people and companies were pursued and prosecuted for misrepresentation of data and malfeasance, but they were dismissed as isolated rogue cases, not part of a serious systemic failure of the financial world. Governments, including politicians and bureaucrats, either didn’t understand or pretended everything was in order leading to actions that ignored the basics and made matters worse. Dow Jones plummeted from an all-time high in 2007 and the fallacy and house of cards of the world financial system was exposed. How were so many people misled? How could a system with so many flaws, failures, misconceptions and misdirection persist? A list of explanations includes; greed, lack of understanding of a complex system, exploitation of economic opportunities by a few with sociopath tendencies, the standard Emperor has no clothes syndrome. Greed overrode fear and lack of understanding as people who didn’t know a derivative from a hedge fund pursued wealth, the standard of security in a monetary world.
The climate change issue is very similar. A few were warning about the problems, but they were easily marginalized. Identification of faulty science, misrepresentation of data and malfeasance were dismissed as isolated rogue cases not part of a serious systemic thwarting of science and the scientific method. Governments, including politicians and bureaucrats, either didn’t understand or completely misidentified the problems leading to actions that ignored the basics and created unworkable or destructive legislation such as Kyoto or carbon taxes. How were so many people misled? How could a system with so many flaws, failures, misconceptions and misdirection persist? A list of explanations includes; fear, lack of understanding of a complex system, exploitation of economic opportunities by a few with sociopath tendencies, the standard Emperor has no clothes syndrome. Fear overrode greed and lack of understanding as people who didn’t know a greenhouse effect from radiation balance pursued environmentalism, the standard of security in a developed world. Read more here.
Britt Weygandt, Western Business Roundtable
Says U.S. Senate Should Ignore Calls by Environmental Extremist Groups Wanting To Derail the Nomination
Western business leaders today commended the decision by President-elect Barak Obama to select U.S. Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) to head the Department of the Interior.
“Ken Salazar is a uniquely qualified Western voice for the full range of Western issues and challenges under the management of the Department of the Interior,” said Roundtable Executive Director Britt Weygandt. “We look forward to continuing to find areas of agreement with the Obama Administration and particularly with our new Secretary of the Interior on water, public lands, energy policy and endangered species regulation.” “We know that we will get a fair hearing even on those issues where we disagree, because that’s the kind of guy Ken Salazar is,” Weygandt added.
Weygandt expressed disappointment that “a few self-styled environmental groups are already attacking the Salazar nomination.” She pointed to press reports today saying that the Center for Biological Diversity, WildEarth Guardians and Western Watersheds Project launched “last-ditch” campaigns yesterday trying to derail the Salazar nomination.
“Ken Salazar listens to all sides of an issue. It’s unfortunate that there are extremist groups in the West that don’t admire that quality in our government leaders. We do. We urge the U.S. Senate to view the actions and recommendations of these extremist groups for what they are, and to vote to approve Senator Salazar as the new Secretary of the Interior.”
Weygandt noted that the Western Business Roundtable has worked with Senator Salazar on a number of issues, including water policy, “Good Samaritan” abandoned mine legislation and clean coal and carbon capture technology development issues.
See release here.
Investor’s Business Daily
The Associated Press warns that the new administration won’t have much time to save the planet from a global warming apocalypse. Never mind that the “ticking time bomb” is a dud.
The temperature at Denver International Airport dropped to 18 below zero on Sunday, breaking the previous record of 14 below set in 1901. White Sulphur Springs, Mont., reported 29 below to the National Weather Service, breaking the record of 17 below set in 1922. Meanwhile, ice storms ravage the Northeast and the upper Midwest. This is not a local phenomenon. Hong Kong had the second-longest cold spell since 1885. Cold in northern Vietnam destroyed 40% of the rice crop and killed 33,000 head of livestock. The British Parliament debated climate change as London experienced the first October snow since 1934. Presumably this has all been reported by the Associated Press.
But according to a weekend AP report, this is all an illusion and “2008 is on a pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line.” Rather than being “evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.” Oh. The report, which includes no comments from any skeptic, says global warming “is a ticking time-bomb that President-elect Obama can’t avoid.” It warns “warming is accelerating. Time is running out, and Obama knows it.” Especially if he relies on AP wire reports. Problem is, nature didn’t get the memo.
Geophysicist David Deming found that for the first time since the 18th century, in the days before SUVs, Alaskan glaciers grew this year instead of retreating. Fairbanks had its fourth coldest October in 104 years of records. U.S. Geological Survey glaciologist Bruce Molnia reported: “On the Juneau Icefield, there was still 20 feet of new snow on the surface of the Taku Glacier in late July.” It was the worst summer he’d seen in two decades. As the Anchorage Daily News reports, “Never before in the history of a research project dating back to 1946 had the Juneau Ice Field witnessed the kind if snow buildup that came this year. It was similar on a lot of other glaciers too.” The consequence of melting glaciers and sea ice is supposed to be rising sea levels.
The poster children for this phenomenon are low-lying coral islands such as the Maldives and Tuvalu. Again, the facts are ignored in the quest for headlines. The satellite record shows the sea level has actually fallen four inches around Tuvalu since 1993, when the $100 million international TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite project record began. As in other places around the world, sea-level changes have many natural explanations, including geologic changes in the land. The atolls of Tuvalu rest on sinking volcanic rock on top of which new coral grows to replace the coral die-off that occurs as the volcanic rock sinks deeper into the ocean where coral does not survive. Sand is excavated for building material on Tuvalu. Excavation for building material has eroded the beach, thus giving to the casual, or biased, observer the impression of rising sea levels. The strong El Nino of 1997-98 caused the sea level surrounding Tuvalu to drop just over one foot. Patrick Michaels, a research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and visiting scientist with the Marshall Institute in Washington, D.C., notes that Tuvalu is near the epicenter of a region where the sea level has been declining for nearly 50 years.
He has written that the decline has been so steep that, even accepting the U.N.’s median estimates of global warming over the next hundred years, Tuvalu would not return to its 1950 sea level until 2050, much less disappear under the sea. None of this, of course, matters to the warming zealots and some major media outlets. If it’s too dry or too wet, too hot or too cold, everything is caused by global warming. We believe, as do many reputable scientists, that the warming and cooling of the earth is a natural phenomenon dictated by forces beyond our control, from ocean currents to solar activity. We needn’t worry about one day mooring our boats to the Washington Monument. Read post here.