Tuesday, July 27, 2010

CO2 allegedly driving Mexicans into the US: Absolutely classic junk climate "science"

In an attempt to influence US politics, a left-winger takes ten years of data, blames CO2 for it, ignores many many other factors, then guesses what will happen in 70 years.

Climate change linked to possible mass Mexican migration to U.S. - Los Angeles Times
"Assuming that the climate projections are correct, gradually over the next several decades heading toward the end of the century, it becomes one of the more important factors in driving Mexicans across the border, all other things being equal," said study author Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University.
...
"Our primary objectives were, No. 1, to give policymakers something to think about and, No. 2, to give researchers a spur to start answering some of the more complicated questions," Oppenheimer said.

Oppenheimer teamed up with two economists, Alan B. Krueger and Shuaizhang Feng, to study the connection between agricultural decline and migration. They looked at Mexican emigration, crop yield and climate data from 1995 to 2005 to make estimates about the next 70 years.
...
Philip Martin, an expert in agricultural economics at UC Davis, said that he hadn't read the study but that making estimates based solely on climate change was virtually impossible.

"It is just awfully hard to separate climate change from the many, many other factors that affect people's decisions whether to stay in agriculture or move," he said.
Mexican 'climate migrants' predicted to flood US : Nature News
[Oppenheimer] said the team had thought hard about how their results might be used before undertaking the work. They decided that it was better to provide the information, which would be "of interest" to policy-makers, and to do their best to ensure that it was not used for the wrong purpose.
...Douglas Massey, a sociologist at Princeton, says that he thinks some of the migration attributed by the study to environmental change could actually be the result of structural changes in the Mexican economy. "Over the same period of the study [1995–2005], Mexico's economy underwent a wrenching change as agricultural subsidies were ended, price supports eliminated, and communal lands privatized," he says.
...
Oppenheimer says he now intends to look at climate-induced displacement, or internal migration, in the United States, and will possibly tackle US immigration to Canada in the future.
Flashback: More on alarmist Oppenheimer
Nonetheless, touting Michael Oppenheimer as an expert, whom NBC identified only as an “atmospheric scientist” with Princeton University, Thompson asserted that “climate experts say whether hired guns or honest dissenters, deniers are confusing the issue and delaying solutions.” Oppenheimer, who NBC failed to note is “science adviser” to the left-wing Environmental Defense organization, ominously warned: “This is a problem that needs to be attended to very soon, immediately, or else it threatens to get out of control.”

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

NAFTA already drove Mexicans into the US and jobs OUT of the US.

Anonymous said...

“Michael Oppenheimer is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School and the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University. He is the Director of the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy (STEP) at the Woodrow Wilson School and Faculty Associate of the Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences Program, Princeton Environmental Institute, and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies.” http://www.princeton.edu/step/people/faculty/michael-oppenheimer/

See also: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-change-may-mean-more-mexican-immigration

and

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/article_7a77f457-a50d-5c40-b26a-a8072befedfe.html

where some intelligent criticisms are offered.