Frontline: Did the Climate Deniers Win?
[English major Chris Mooney] ...yes, they really do think the science is on their side, and that they're winning on the intellectual merits.Twitter / RogerPielkeJr: On the other hand, Nature's ...
...The program is heavily focused on the last four years, and on relating how momentum was lost by those who call for climate action, and gained by a small band of skeptics who rallied the tea party grassroots and forced the issue off the agenda, especially after the 2010 midterm election.
...It's just that they got a temporary infusion of mojo from the economic collapse and the tea party uprising. [What, no mention of the blogosphere or ClimateGate?]
...let us not forget that growing awareness that climate change is now here and weirding the weather is also highly emotional and frightening. It's the weather, stupid: It always was on this issue, which is why climate skeptics can't possibly win in the long run.
Climate change is here, and it was only a matter of time until people actually noticed. When we look back at the climate issue ten years from now, we may realize that "Climate of Doubt" did not actually capture the skeptics' triumph, but rather, one of their last stands.
On the other hand, Nature's editorial page deeply confuses issues of science and politics with its endorsement of Obama http://www.nature.com/news/a-vote-for-science-1.11634 …AGW Mistake Disclosed by Dan Pangburn
The planet has warmed about 8°C since the end of the last glaciation (about 16,000 years ago) when ice was over a mile thick in present day Minnesota and the continental shelf was dry land. Ice has continued to melt, off and on, and it has been warming more or less regularly since the depths of the Little Ice Age (about 400 years ago). It stopped getting warmer in about 2001. The assertion that it is warmer at the end of a warming period is, to be charitable, not very profound.
That the continental US, which occupies less than 2% of the planet surface, experienced a heat wave also does not mean that the planet is still warming.
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1 comment:
It's probably unrealistic for me to hope that Mooney and his ilk will suddenly realize that they sound like superstitious crackpots from centuries past who believed that every single "foul" weather event was worse than the last and caused by demons or the village witch. Other than some heat this past summer, we in the Midwest had a nearly tornado-free summer and the fall has been extremely pleasant and cool with a nice balance of sunshine and precipitation. In Mooney's opinion, that's supposedly weird and never happened before.
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