Where's my teleprompter?

The Politico weighed in on President Obama's tone for his big Copenhagen speech:

COPENHAGEN — A visibly angry Barack Obama threw down the gauntlet at China and other developing nations Friday, declaring that the time has come "not to talk but to act" on climate change.

If Obama was angry, perhaps it stemmed from the fact that he apparently had to speak without his teleprompter. Note the triangular pattern he used instead of the usual tennis-watching right/left bounce.

Grading PolitiFact: James Inhofe and the science of climate change

The issue:

The fact checkers:

Catharine Richert:  writer, researcher
Greg Joyce:  editor

Analysis:

I admit it.  I do not trust the newspapers.  And that distrust spills over to fact check operations run by newspapers.  And when I see a key citation missing from a citation list, it immediately plays on that mistrust.

The missing citation?  The quotation of Sen. James Inhofe (R, Okla.) about which Catharine Richert was writing.

CNN had the transcript.  PolitiFact has little excuse.

Senator Inhofe, let me start with you because the EPA administrator Lisa Jackson today she said this in announcing the steps the Obama administration wants to advance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LISA JACKSON, EPA ADMINISTRATOR: There is nothing in the hacked e-mails that undermines the science upon which this decision is based.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Is she right?

SEN. JAMES INHOFE (R), OKLAHOMA: Oh, no. She's not right. We had Lisa Jackson before my committee, oh, not more than a week, maybe a week and a half ago. She said that they relied upon the IPCC for the science that came to this decision to have the endangerment finding. And actually, I have a letter from her in writing saying that's where they get their science.

Now we see that that science has been pretty well debunked. And one thing interesting about this, Wolf, is that I remember a long time ago on your program -- four years ago -- I made a speech on the Senate floor where I talked about all these scientists coming in, talking about how they can't get their side on there and the science is all rigged.

And so I gave a speech on the floor that lasted about an hour on the floor and sure enough, what is happening today in this whole debate is just what we said was happening four years ago.

The PolitiFact deck reproduced above portrays Inhofe as saying that the e-mails undermine the science of "climate change" generally.
Richert provides an infinitely better account of Inhofe's statement:

Specifically, Inhofe was talking about data that the EPA used to form its decision. It came from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a scientific body that "reviews and assesses the most recent scientific, technical and socioeconomic information produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of climate change." Thousands of scientists contribute data to the organization voluntarily, including scientists at CRU, the group whose e-mails were hacked.

Got that?  Data that contributed to the EPA decision came from CRU, the organization facing questions because of the e-mails.

Richert continues:

We've been following the complicated e-mail controversy for weeks, but there have been a number of issues that make fact-checking claims about the issue difficult. To start, the e-mails were obtained illegally, which raises questions about their validity.

If the Times and PolitiFact have been following the controversy for weeks, they sure kept it a secret for a good while, but Richert makes an admirable admission regarding the difficulty of fact-checking the issue.  The problems with the validity of the e-mails would seem like the least of the problems, since CRU staffers admitted very early on that at least the majority of the documents were the real McCoy.  I suppose it makes a handy excuse for a reluctance to publish, however.  I'll note that the Times has a stricter-than-average policy on publishing anonymous reports and the like, so allowing some leeway on this point seems reasonable.

Some e-mails simply demonstrate a professional rivalry between scientists, a phenomenon that's nothing new to the profession.

"(P)rofessional rivalry" seems like a euphemistic way to refer to efforts made to prevent dissenting scientists from getting their work published in peer-reviewed journals.  Richert ought to blush at the cover she is providing on this point.  Thomas Fuller sums up the problem:

I think that they had an informal conspiracy going to pump each others' careers up, peer review each others' papers, and slam any skeptics or lukewarmers who wandered within punching range--and later, after they realised how badly they had acted, they conspired to evade the Freedom of Information Act.

And back to Richert:

Scientists are disputing the meaning of some of the language in the e-mails.

Right.  Some scientists advocating global warming, including scientists implicated in the scandal, insist that performing a "trick" to "hide the decline" is an essentially scientific practice.

Mann said the "trick" Jones referred to was placing a chart of proxy temperature records, which ended in 1980, next to a line showing the temperature record collected by instruments from that time onward. "It's hardly anything you would call a trick," Mann said, adding that both charts were differentiated and clearly marked.   (The Washington Post)

 "Mann" is Michael E. Mann, an American climate researcher with whom Jones had friendly correspondence.

Despite Mann's protestations, it is difficult to imagine how the harmless trick of putting clearly marked data on a chart would effectively "hide" anything, and equally difficult to imagine why scientists would want to hide an impression from the data, other than for nefarious reasons.  In short, it's a tough sell.

But Richert offers another difficulty with the journalistic investigation:

Finally, CRU has announced that it is conducting its own investigation into whether data were tossed out or otherwise manipulated unethically; that investigation is not complete.

Ah, what a great comfort!  If I'm ever accused of something suspicious I'll have to remember to appeal for the opportunity to conduct my own investigation as to whether I did wrong.  And let that be the end of it after I'm ready to release my findings to Ms. Richert.

From this point in the story, Richert goes on to list some of the other scientific resources that supposedly support climate change science.  This focus of her story misses the point.

Sen. Inhofe was addressing Jackson's claim that there was nothing in the e-mails that undermined the science behind the EPA's policy proposals.  Those proposals are fixated on the effects caused by mankind such as carbon dioxide emissions, though I would anticipate that methane emissions will also receive attention.  Note the disconnect from the evidence Richert places on the "climate change" side of the ledger.  All of it concerns warming tendencies.  She offers nothing that directly concerns greenhouse gases.  That constitutes a hole in this story.

Despite her earlier fair accounting of what Inhofe said, Richert matches the misleading text from the deck as she moves to conclude:

So, to say that the CRU e-mails debunk the science supporting climate change leaves out the important point that CRU isn't the only organization looking at the issue. Indeed, there are reams of data that show temperatures are increasing and that greater concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are largely to blame. On this one, Inhofe is False.

In logical terms, Richert has committed a straw man fallacy.  She misrepresents what Inhofe said and proceeds to attack the position she invented for Inhofe.  Though she mentions "greater concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases" in her conclusion, that claim appears out of the blue and lacks any support whatever in the remainder of her text.

The grades:

Catharine Richert:  F
Greg Joyce:  F

Straw men ought to be strictly forbidden in fact checking.  And key claims such as that appearing in Richert's final paragraph ought to receive evidential support.


Afters:

I sympathize with the difficulty journalists experience in covering the climate change issue.  Not only does the science present an intellectual challenge, but the hacked e-mails badly fray the journalists' traditional safety net:  expert sources such as scientists and peer-reviewed journals.

I would hesitate to offer a grade on the issue Richert tried to cover.  Interpreted charitably, Jackson may have a reasonable claim to the effect that the EPA policies have solid support apart from the CRU data.  Likewise, Sen. Inhofe may have a reasonable claim in challenging a less charitable way of interpreting Jackson.  That is not to say that either one is necessarily correct even given the most charitable interpretation.

For what it's worth, I do count myself as a skeptic of anthropogenic global warming.  I do not find the current science convincing, and the protective attitude of global warming scientists/advocates toward their data sets doesn't help.

A fact check performed without the proper tools is hardly worth the time.

Krugman crunches (and bakes) the numbers

Paul Krugman, Nobel laureate and NYT contributor, thinks cap and trade is really neat.  Part of his justification for saying so raised my eyebrows:

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that by 2050 the emissions limits in recent proposed legislation would reduce real G.D.P. by between 1 percent and 3.5 percent from what it would otherwise have been. If we split the difference, that says that emissions limits would slow the economy’s annual growth over the next 40 years by around one-twentieth of a percentage point — from 2.37 percent to 2.32 percent.

The problem is that the effects of cap and trade hit gradually.  Averaging the pain of the measure using years for which it assessed very little in taxes misleads the reader.  Note, for example, the summary of reduction targets for carbon emissions:

• 3 percent cut by 2012
• 17 percent cut by 2020
• 42 percent cut by 2030
• more than 80 percent cut by 2050

Most of the pain occurs in the second half of the total 40 years.  I have yet to locate a concise summary of the tax implications, but mostly likely those are also substantially backloaded.

"Critics are taking them out of context"

The St. Petersburg Times has weighed in on Climategate, albeit without using the term "Climategate."

A Friday editorial ("How not to fight climate of denial") chastises the Climate Research Unit for unnecessarily giving global warming skeptics ammunition.

Assuming the documents are genuine — the authenticity of all has not been confirmed — critics are taking them out of context and misinterpreting at least one controversial e-mail exchange. None of it seriously undercuts the scientific consensus on climate change. But a few of the documents are damaging for other reasons.

Do we get any examples of how the e-mails were taken out of context? Sadly, from the standpoint of good journalism, we do not. The Times, as of the end of the Friday editorial, has published exactly two quotations from the stolen communications. Those two quotations serve to illustrate the Times' one significant concern about the story (bold emphasis added):

According to one of the stolen e-mails, CRU director Phil Jones wrote that he would keep papers questioning the connection between warming and human activity out of the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report "even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" In another, Jones and Pennsylvania State University's Michael E. Mann write of organizing a boycott of an academic journal until it fires a "troublesome editor."

The Times has chosen a legitimate gripe. Trying to politically suppress science that reaches undesired conclusions puts scientists in a bad light. Though it should be noted that one of the editors CRU helped oust gave them an excuse by publishing a paper that may not have been up to normal journal standards. In terms of its methodology, I should add.

Refocus on the claim made by the Times, "None of it seriously undercuts the scientific consensus on climate change."

It doesn't?

The hacked information shows the scientists bewailing the problems with their computer model's codes.

The CRU is perhaps at the very leading edge of scientific global warming advocacy. If not the leader, it is one of them.

The Times has once chance to be correct at this stage: The scientists who form the consensus are so committed to the idea of global warming that having an evidential rug potentially pulled all the way out from under them will not affect their commitment to the doctrine.

If the Times is right on that score, then science takes a second hit even worse than the one the Times will acknowledge.

It is too early to say how much the data theft and release will undermine climate change science, the Times' opinion notwithstanding.

Now get to work publishing some of the interesting information, Times editors. Put your readers "In the Know."

In the Know: Setting new standard for site search efficiency ...

I chided the St. Petersburg Times for editing out all of the specific details from its AP version of the Climatic Research Center e-mail hack story.

It is a good thing I embedded the URL for that version of the story in an earlier post, or else I may never have found it again.

I challenge anyone to find the story using the Times' site search feature. And if you find it, please stop back by to tell me what search terms you used.

In the know, baby.

"In the Know": The East Anglia e-mail hack

Part of the "In the Know" series of posts.


The political right of the blogosphere quickly developed an awareness of a story concerning hacked e-mails from a major global warming research center.

The Climatic Research Center at the University of East Anglia (apparently misidentified in quite a few reports as the "Hadley" center) had its computer system hacked. Quite a few e-mails were snatched and posted on the Web. Some of the e-mail messages sound suspicious and appear to suggest that scientists at the center allowed politics to influence their presentation of science.

The Associated Press produced a story that sums up the gist of what happened and then goes on to add details.

The St. Petersburg Times ran the AP story, but edited out all of the specific details. The 16 paragraph story was cut down to the first four, though the Times version looks like five since one paragraph was made into two.

"In the Know," baby.

Scientists, politics, and global warming, Pt. 3

The third part in a multi-part review of Robyn Blumner's "Why scientists are seldom Republicans."

When we left off in part 2, we were still in search of the answer to the question posed in the title of Blumner's St. Petersburg Times editorial column.

We saw the implication that Republicans (and the small number of Republican scientists) are simply stupid in part 1.

Part 2 saw Blumner fail to build on that foundation.

On with the search:

Every hope we have to invent our way out of this economic malaise and create enough Information Age jobs to maintain a stable and prosperous middle class sits on the shoulders of people who understand and practice the scientific method. Every hope we have of advancing human understanding of the physical universe and bettering our lives in it, is tied to professionals now represented by only one of our nation's two major political parties — while the other party attempts to obstruct them.

Somebody apparently did away with the 10 percent of scientists who either identify as Republicans or lean Republican. Blumner has also done away with the Obama administration's suppression of a global warming report from the EPA, as mentioned in part 2. Her fantasies about history do not rightly count as evidence, so we will move on.

Global warming is a prime example.

At long last, my title is explained!

Earth is under siege by CO2 emissions to a point that the Pentagon is warning that our national security is at risk if climate change is not arrested. All Americans and politicians should be united for collective action. Yet George Bush spent essentially his entire presidency ignoring and suppressing scientific concerns.

1) The Pentagon is warning of nothing. Rather, a not-for-profit company called CNA Corporation produced a report on the security implications of some of the predicted results of climate change.

Over many months and meetings, we met with some of the world’s leading climate scientists, business leaders, and others studying climate change. We viewed their work through the lens of our military experience as warfighters, planners, and leaders. Our discussions have been lively, informative, and very sobering.

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are greater now than at any time in the past 650,000 years, and average global temperature has continued a steady rise. This rise presents the prospect of significant climate change, and while uncertainty exists and debate continues regarding the science and future extent of projected climate changes, the trends are clear.

CNA corporation, in other words, interviewed scientists and others and did strategic planning based on what they term the consensus opinion. Blumner's column fails to convey an accurate picture.

2) All Americans should be united for collective action, eh? Including action likely to be ineffectual while costing thousands or even millions of Americans their jobs?

3) I'm not going to defend the Bush administration's record on the science of global warming, though I think they may be largely defensible. Bush's acceptance of global warming and initiatives toward emissions cooperation with India and China by themselves reveal that Blumner exaggerated.

That makes for quite a paragraph. I can hardly wait for the next one:

Even today, with the effects of global warming evident, Republicans in Congress are trying to bury the cap-and-trade energy bill, the nation's first attempt (albeit not strong enough) to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Their alternative is to offer nothing.

The effects of global warming are evident? Is she talking about the record high temperatures in Florida or the record cold temperatures in Wyoming and elsewhere? Wouldn't it be just great if both record cold and record highs counted as evidence of global warming?

Their alternative was to offer nothing?

Shortly before the U.S. House of Representatives is poised to vote on a Democratic energy bill for cap & trade, Republicans have introduced a plan on Wednesday that would be an alternative and seeks for the United States to welcome nuclear energy. The GOP 's AEA is setting the goal of almost doubling the United State's nuclear energy infrastructure by constructing one hundred new nuclear plants over the next two decades, which would call for up-to-date construction regulations, tax based incentives and low trade barriers designed for utilities corporations. The AEA is the American Energy Act This bill will also focus on several additional off shore at-home explorations of oil, raises barriers to governments purchases of alternatives such as shale oil and tar rich sands and building a fund for the support of developing of newer energy sources.
(bold emphasis added)

Is Blumner a liar or simply ill-informed?

In any case, we seem no closer to having a reasonable explanation for the dearth of Republican scientists. Maybe we'll find it in part 4.

Scientists, politics, and global warming, Pt. 2

Robyn Blumner, editorial columnist for The St. Petersburg Times, coughed up an editorial a few weeks ago on the political leanings of scientists. Or that's what the column seemed to deal with based on the title. In part 1 of my response, we saw Blumner start with preposterous assertions and follow with a digression into the supposed gullibility of Republicans in thinking that government involvement in health care will lead to government-controlled decisions on the life and death of patients.

By the end of part 1, we had detected no answer to the question of why scientists are seldom Republicans, unless it was the implied answer that scientists aren't stupid enough to be Republicans. Though that would hardly be the rigorous and evidence-based way to address the question.

But let's do our part. On with the examination of Blumner's column:

Since the Sonia Sotomayor nomination we've been hearing about the GOP's Hispanic deficit. Only 26 percent of Latino registered voters now say they identify with or lean toward the Republican Party. But that's a full house compared with scientists. Only 12 percent of scientists in a poll issued last month by the Pew Research Center say they are Republican or lean toward the GOP, while fully 81 percent of scientists say they are Democrats or lean Democratic.

Finally, Blumner produces at least some data we can look at, enabling us to assess some evidence. As for Latino voters, that seems to be nothing but digression. Latinos are largely Roman Catholic (traditionally Democratic based on social justice issues), and many in addition are from a Mexico with a government to the left of our own. It fails to count as a relevant comparison, in other words.

Blumner may have exaggerated the "fully 81 percent" (55 percent identifying as Democrat plus 25 identified as "leaning Democrat" comes to only 80 on my calculator, and even 80.9 is not "fully" 81 percent). But that's a bit of a quibble. What is the reason why the 80 percent or so identify on the liberal side of the ledger? Are they just so much smarter than the other 20 percent?

We shouldn't be surprised that people who are open to evidence-based thinking have abandoned the Republican Party. The GOP has proudly adopted the mantle of the "Terri Schiavo, global warming shwarming" party with the Bush administration helping cement the image by persistently subverting science to serve a religious agenda or corporate greed.

Oh. So maybe many of these scientists were Republicans but switched based on the combination of ethical issues and the global warming dogma? I don't see that in the data, but it seems very fair of Blumner to allow that scientists may have only recently begun to favor the Democrats. Is this supposed to be her rationale for the trend among scientists?

But what worries me is not the shrunken relevancy of the GOP, a party in which 56 percent of its members oppose funding of embryonic stem cell research, 39 percent believe humans have always existed on Earth in their present form, and in which only 30 percent say human activity is warming the planet.

I would think that Blumner would go all a-quiver at shrinking GOP relevancy. But where is she getting those statistics from? Her arse? I can't speak for all Republicans, but the objection is fairly stated in terms of opposing federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Blumner ought to be able to appreciate the conscience concerns involved after working with the ACLU in her former career as a lawyer.

As for humans as a cause of global warming, I think conservatives are smart to remain suspicious of the global warming dogma. And one wonders how scientists will feel when next year's Pew Research survey asks them if they are aware of Obama administration efforts to suppress scientific findings that run contrary to that dogma.

Again, the underlying argument seems to be that Republicans are simply stupid. But rather than using real evidence, Blumner appears to rely on the appeal to ridicule. That is the weapon of the sleazy lawyer, not the persuasive tool of the person guided by evidence and reason.

Back to what really worries Blumner:

It is that this nation's future depends upon people who don't think that way and the Republican Party is closing the door to them.

That is Blumner's expression of hyper-partisanship. Serious measures aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions will cripple the U.S. economy. Let Blumner explain how we end up with a strong United States in the future with a ruined economy. Her fear is not for the United States as we know it, most likely. Blumner probably favors rule by the elites forced on the foolish masses. Your desire for cars and jobs is not conducive to human survival. So the government will run the economy instead of you. For the sake of your survival. Your freedom means little if the human race is otherwise doomed. Something along those lines, though Blumner herself may not even realize where her thinking leads.

It is through historical science that we know that the earth has been through warming and cooling periods in the past. The evidence that a warming period represents an existential threat to the United States is thin at best.

And so far from Blumner, we still only have the implied explanation that few scientists are Republicans because Republicans are stupid.

Look for part 3, coming soon.

Scientists, politics, and global warming, Pt. 1

While picking through old Robyn Blumner columns to bash, I ran across a real doozy: "Why scientists are seldom Republicans."

I had my doubts at the outset as to whether the column would seriously address the question. Taking the premise that scientists are seldom Republicans as true, I would attribute it to the socially liberal views of scientists along with their dependence on government for their livelihood.

But maybe it's just because the scientists who aren't Republicans are especially smart?

But let's get to Blumner's take on the issue:

Have you ever wondered what the world would be like without scientists? Ask the Republican Party. It lives in such a world.

Uh, what? How will we develop advanced weapons systems with which to dominate the lower classes without scientists? Hopefully Blumner can do better than baseless and absurd assertions.

Republicans have been so successful in driving out of their party anyone who endeavors in scientific inquiry that pretty soon there won't be anyone left who can distinguish a periodic table from a kitchen table.

I guess we have to clear the "clever writing" stage before we get beyond the fluff.

It is no wonder the Republican throngs showing up to disrupt town hall meetings on health care reform are so gullible, willing to believe absurd claims like the coming of "death panels." Their party is nearly devoid of neuroscientists, astrophysicists, marine biologists or any other scientific professional who would insist on intellectual rigor, objective evidence and sound reasoning as the basis for public policy development. The people left don't have that kind of discipline and don't expect it from their leaders. They are willing to believe anything some right-wing demagogue with a cable show or pulpit tells them, no matter how outlandish.

This is just too rich. Absurd claims of "death panels"?

Blumner had this to say about Robert Reich not so long ago (2007):

Robert Reich, former labor secretary under Bill Clinton, is a very smart man with a very good heart - my favorite combination. He's one of those people to whom I pay special attention, on a par with thinkers like Jared Bernstein at the Economic Policy Institute, David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown, and psychology professor Steven Pinker at Harvard.

And Robert Reich has this to say, also not so long ago (2007):

Reich: Let me tell you a few things on health care. Look, we have the only health care system in the world that is designed to avoid sick people. And that's true, and what I'm going to do, is, I am going to try to reorganize it to make it more amenable to treating sick people, but that means you, particularly you young people--particularly you young healthy people--you're going to have to pay more.

(very light applause)

Thank you. And by the way, we're going to have to, if you're very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive. So we're going to let you die.

(light applause)

Uh, also, uh, I'm going to use the bargaining leverage of the federal government in terms of Medicare, Medicaid--we already have a lot of bargaining leverage--to force drug companies and insurance companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs, but that means less innovation, and that means less new products and less new drugs on the market and that means that you are not going to live that much longer than your parents.

(light applause)

Thank you.
(Transcript mine)

Reich was taking on the role of a presidential candidate telling the truth about what he would and should do, which accounts for his declarations that he would be doing these things personally. Now, obviously Reich was not talking specifically about the health care reform proposals that were developed since Barack Obama assumed the office of president. But his sense of the economics of health care is on target. And Sarah Palin's use of hyperbole to highlight the increased role of the government toward the type of arrangement that Reich envisions is both fair and on target.

Given Reich's presentation, how can it be absurd to think that a large government role in health care will place the government in charge of determining when a person will die? Perhaps Blumner never heard Reich say anything of the kind. Her "special attention" may have waned a bit. Maybe she's not a bold-faced liar.

But let's not overlook the rest of Blumner's mindless paragraph. She actually wrote "(t)heir party is nearly devoid of neuroscientists, astrophysicists, marine biologists or any other scientific professional who would insist on intellectual rigor, objective evidence and sound reasoning as the basis for public policy development." By that type of math, the United States is nearly devoid of lesbians. The Pew Research data do not support her statement except maybe as hyperbole on a par with Palin's.

And let us not be misled into thinking that scientists have any sort of monopoly on intellectual rigor. Blumner's underlying argument is a slap at intellectuals who do not enter the field of science, and also a fallacious appeal to authority. After all, what basis have we to think that a biologist would insist on intellectual rigor, etc. as a basis for public policy development? In the pursuit of the scientific discipline, sure. But public policy ought to require morality--a thing that eludes rigorous scientific study. Too bad Pew Research didn't ask the scientists whether they subscribe to moral realism.

No serious attempt to answer the question through Blumner's first two paragraphs. But we'll keep hunting in part 2.

Frank Tipler on free market science and global warming dogma

I just read a column by Frank J. Tipler that applies free market dynamics to the practice of science, and gets in a few comments on global warming dogmas at the same time.

Just a taste; click the "read more" link at the bottom to get the whole thing.

The trillion-dollar plus porkapalooza Wreak-America Bill just passed by Congress will throw a huge amount of money into scientific research. This will be a good thing for certain scientists, but a very, very bad thing for science.
(read more at Pajamas Media)

I think perhaps Tipler overstates the case with his expectation that state-run science will only confirm what the state wants to confirm. Even government gets its share of loose cannons.

The parallel between the environment needed for healthy science and that for free speech seems to leap from Tipler's column very convincingly, however.

Cleaner air, warmer planet?

GOODBYE air pollution and smoky chimneys, hello brighter days. That's been the trend in Europe for the past three decades - but unfortunately cleaning up the skies has allowed more of the sun's rays to pierce the atmosphere, contributing to at least half the warming that has occurred.
(newscientist.com)

I have wondered about the role of air pollution in terms of global warming, even to the point of wondering whether spikes in volcanic activity play a role in cooling trends. The above story appears to offer at least some confirmation of a prominent role.

Maybe all we need to do in order to defeat global warming is disband the EPA.

Vaclav Klaus on global warming and environmental alarmism

Power Line blog posted a portion of an address by former Czech Republic president Vaclav Klaus.

I was prepared to post a portion of what Power Line posted, on the relationship between communism and the modern environmental movement--but another portion of the excerpt drew my attention because it appropriately frames the entire issue:

The real debate is and should be about costs and benefits of alternative human actions, about how to rationally deal with the unknown future, about what kind and size of solidarity with much wealthier future generations is justified, about the size of externalities and their eventual appropriate internalization, about how much to trust the impersonal functioning of the markets in solving any human problem, including global warming, and how much to distrust the very visible hand of very human politicians and their bureaucrats.
(Power Line)

That last line sums up the trepidations I have about a unified US government under President Obama. By all accounts an ambitious man whose historic footprints trail through leftist fens.

Update: The Czech proprietor of The Reference Frame, Luboš Motl, stopped by the comments section and left a link to a video of the press club event at which Klaus spoke--at CSPAN. Sincere thanks to Luboš.

"Bush's Fault" Oct. 2007

Though this one is merely implicit, Sen. Harry Reid wins the "Bush's Fault" competition for October.

“One reason why we have the fires in California is global warming,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Tuesday, stressing the need to pass the Democrats’ comprehensive energy package.

Moments later, when asked by a reporter if he really believed global warming caused the fires, he appeared to back away from his comments, saying there are many factors that contributed to the disaster.

Perhaps an investigation in the president's possession of matches and/or a cigarette lighter is in order.

I feel a song coming on.



That one's an enduring tribute to Paul Shanklin's genius.

*****