WUWT has a posting about how Jim Hansen of NASA says that the skeptics are winning the argument, i.e. the argument against him and his fellow CAGW-ers. In the midst of the largely agreeing comments at WUWT (yes you are losing you jackass, and it serves you right, etc.), there was, on the other hand, this from Peter Donaldson (April 10, 3.19am):
I disagree with Hansen, he might believe not enough is being done to reduce CO2 but the global warming concept has been accepted globally, it is rarely challenged in the media it is accepted generally by the media and “saving the planet” and “reducing carbon footprint” are bandied about everywhere, and are foremost in the design of all new product be they cars, buildings, airplanes whatever. There is a huge global industry of solar energy devices and it is expanding rapidly.
The skeptical view is sidelined, reserved for oddballs, at least that is the public conception. It seems to me that this is now a bandwagon rolling on and nothing will stop it, even if warming has stopped or if there was cooling.
The punctuation is a bit sketchy, but the point is a good one. There are times when I suspect that Donaldson will be proved right, and that although winning the argument at the merely intellectual level is totally necessary to overthrowing the vested interests excused by the CAGW scare, these interests may just prove to be too firmly entrenched.
And then I read this, also at WUWT, about how many of Hansen’s colleagues (and not just any old colleagues) at NASA have come out publicly in favour of climate skepticism, and against the bogus certainties of the CAGW tribe:
49 former NASA scientists and astronauts sent a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden last week admonishing the agency for it’s role in advocating a high degree of certainty that man-made CO2 is a major cause of climate change while neglecting empirical evidence that calls the theory into question.
The group, which includes seven Apollo astronauts and two former directors of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, are dismayed over the failure of NASA, and specifically the Goddard Institute For Space Studies (GISS), to make an objective assessment of all available scientific data on climate change. They charge that NASA is relying too heavily on complex climate models that have proven scientifically inadequate in predicting climate only one or two decades in advance.
If NASA changes its public tune, that has to be big.
It’s Hansen who is now starting to look like a sidelined oddball. As Instapundit (that’s him linking to the same WUWT story) would say: well, good.
Let’s hope the political decisions and the money decisions now start to tell the pessimistic Peter Donaldson that he is being too pessimistic. I’m sure he would be delighted if that happened.
I did a quick look at the 49 signatures, and found only 1 who is in an appropriate field, a meteorologist. The others are engineers and astronauts — smart people, of course, and I wish them luck, but Hansen is a professor of Earth and Environmental Studies at Columbia.
Yup, and Hansen is a Astrophysicist who specialized, I think, in the atmosphere of Venus.
The Scientific Method is the same in all fields of science. Scientists ( and others is “science” fields like engineering) know when it is being abused.
Harrison Schmitt, who signed the letter, is a geologist (Harvard PhD 1964), an adjunct professor of engineering physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and … oh, yes … walked on the moon.
Unfortunately, I have to take Donaldson’s view on this: you’d think socialism has been discredited, and yet they keep marching on, under any possible disguise and excuse. With CAGW they have the “best” excuse of all: ‘you can’t be too safe’.
My one peeve is that it took them so long to smack down Hansen. Not calling out AGW BS early in the game is one reason the myth is so pervasive.
Alisa, hits the nail on the head; this is all to do with the ability of those with access to the public purse to be able to draw down bucketloads of money in their own direction.
That is difficult enough to stop under general circumstances, but in this instance, we have a global network of International and National Government officials, law enforcement, public representatives, scientists and corporations all working to keep their grubby little paws firmly stuck in the AGW pie. On top of that you have all the vain hypocrites of academia, the tribe of educators and the indoctrinated from the planet gaia who pressure all the little kiddie-winkies to pile further pressure on their parents.
This is one hell of a runaway gravy train, and it will take more than feet stuck out in front of it to derail or even bring it remotely under control. The faster we try to stop it the harder they will work to find ways around us. This is one case where the ordinary man in the street needs to become “We the people” and make his voice heard loud and clear yelling “STOP!” in the face of every sanctimonious official at every level of officialdom.
For example the attempt in the UK to snooker ordinary individuals from making FOIA requests to find out what exactly is going on, is just one more fight that currently needs attention… and there are thousands more like it in the western world. This AGW thing needs thousands upon thousands of ordinary heads keeping tabs on it and whacking the damned AGW critters everytime they stick their heads up looking for more money and power! OK that’s that rant over, I’d better get back to work now… have a nice day 🙂
A lot of people still believe that “the rich get richer while the poor get poorer,” an hypothesis one would have thought would have been considered falsified centuries ago by empirical evidence. So the ability of ideas to hang on long after they should have died can be impressive.
indeed, Tedd. Most people are not to be confused with facts, until some kind of a crisis.
Relative to each other, the rich do get richer while the poor get poorer. That’s generally because the rich have the means to game the system to their own advantage. Of course, in a growing economy the poor may still be better off in absolute terms, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are relatively less well off than before, or the fact that even in a stagnant or declining economy the rich still tend to get richer (again, because of political pull) while the poor get worse off in absolute as well as relative terms. So what’s your point, Tedd?
Laird,do you have anything to point to that would back up what you say about the rich and the poor?
Sure, just look at the “income gap” that the left is always whining about. The gap between the very rich and the very poor is widening. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing, or that government should do anything about it, but it is a fact.
Also, quite a few astronauts very much ARE oddballs, I think it’s only fair to point out. The Apollo ones are awesomely impressive folks but they’re almost all oddballs in one way or another and some of them extravagantly so – not sure I’d be too interested in Ed “Noetics” Mitchell’s views on any scientific point, for instance.
Still, I’m certainly much more interested in Harrison Schmitt’s views on climatology than those of, say, Al Gore, and they’re certainly all awesomely talented and well-qualified scientists of some kind. I suppose if you spend that much time relying on science to ensure your survival in an environment that could kill you in an instant, your b/s detector gets honed better than most.
NASA may be coming around, but they may also just be feeling feisty since Obama began mildly tightening their budget.
He has been much more generous with the NOAA lately. While they are still only half the size of NASA, Obama has been boosting their budget every year, and has placed them in the hands of a solid AGW believer.
With respect to the AGW debate, I’d keep an eye on the NOAA. It is not in their interests to release accurate climate data.
NASA is Old and Busted. The NOAA is the New Hotness.
NASA is not “coming around”, the 49 are FORMER nasa men, NASA is for now, firmly in Hansen’s grip.
For the rest: what Alisa said.
CAGW and Socialism are the two most influential religions, now, today, that shape the world. Talking about their demise is somewhat premature.
But you just repeated yourself:-)
Laird, et al. I think if you look back through history, you will find wealth gaps are widest when government control-of/participation-in the market is the greatest. There may be transient ‘flyers’ but the overall wealth will be much less stratified. Sometimes it is disguised as it was it the SU, but the disparity is greatest when authority is greatest. Look to times and places where governments stayed mostly out of the markets and I think you will find the least disparity. That’s been my impression but it would be interesting to hear somebody knowledgeable about economic history comment on it.
Certainly current wealth distribution patterns support that expectation.
Nothing I said was contrary to that, Midwesterner. I merely said that “the rich have the means to game the system to their own advantage”, which certainly primarily?) means using the force of government to their own benefit (suppressing competitors, etc.). My only point was that as a rule the rich do get richer and the poor do get poorer; your observation that this is a function of more intrusive government is certainly consistent with that.
No, not as a rule. As the current trend.
My point is that, relative to each other, the rich get poorer and the poor get richer once governments are rigorously cut back.
Optimism Laird! Think positive thoughts. Look for the bright side. I’ll loan you a flashlight. 🙂
Thanks, Mid. I need one.