I think Exxon should be asking for their money back from some of the think tanks they are funding. I mean, these people are supposed to be slick professionals, well versed in the art of media manipulation, but they've completely lost the plot on Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth. First we had CEI tell us CO2 = Life, and now NCPA tells us Gore = Goebbels. It must be a really good movie.
this is so disturbing. galileo is rolling over in his grave, and goebbels is smirking. i plan on watching the movie, and always wonder if gore might have been one of the greats.
Gore doesn't equal Goebbels, he just equals nitwit.
Ben, could you share with us what mistakes he made about the science in his movie?
Actually he's comparable to a nazi propagandist. Well according to this guy who happens to be connected to the oil companies oh and uses the CO2= life stance. http://movies.crooksandliars.com/DaySide-AL-Gore-Smear.wmv I don't know whether or not Global Warming is actually occuring (not enough research on my part), and yes you have scientists debating this topic however I rather take precautionary steps to prevent it before the whole scientific community finally says that global warming is in fact a fact. I don't understand why people continually try to dispute it rather than say hey why not just incase it is true that we do such and such inorder to stop contributing to it. Maybe if Global Warming was called Hell on Earth people might be more willing to do something to prevent it or find a savior in preventive measures, like the Honda Jesus instead of the hybrid, or Christ the Lord act.
Chris - You don't do things ("just in case" or otherwise) when not doing them is netting you over $10,000,000,000 per quarter.
One more reason to hope that Gore is sworn in as president in January 2009: The people who have made careers of smearing him and mocking him and calling him mentally unbalanced will all go nuts and be put in the institutions where they belong.
Ben, could you share with us what mistakes he made about the science in his movie?
I haven't seen it. I just think he's a bit of a nitwit. Mostly a style thing really. I don't think anyone really wants to argue that point. Kinda like arguing against the notion that George Bush is a nitwit in the public speaking and small government republican departments.
Ben, your definition of "nitwit" must be different from mine. You could Gore a wonk or a nerd, I suppose, but a nitwit on style? To me, "nitwit" refers to substance not style.
I thought this was supposed to be a "science" sic blog. Why then all this hype about one of the thickest politicians since George III, with Kim Beazley a close run 3rd.
Wow, that Gore Derangement Syndrome is really infectious.
Yes, Tim C., being a multi-term Congressman and Senator and two-time Vice-President obviously makes him "thick".
You'd better alert Apple Computers (which has him on its board) and google (which employs him as a consultant).
Or maybe it's his status as best-selling author (achieved during his Senate incumbency) or his tenure on the following Senate or Congressional committees:
Armed Services (Defense Industry and Technology Projection Forces and Regional Defense; Strategic Forces and Nuclear Deterrence);
Commerce, Science and Transportation (Communications; Consumer; Science, Technology and Space- chairman 1992; Surface Transportation; National Ocean Policy Study);
Joint Committee on Printing;
Joint Economic Committee;
Or maybe it's his single solitary (narrow) election loss that makes him "thick".
In which case you have to wonder what his repeated election losses as head of the Opposition say about john howard.
Ian Gould and Tim Lambert: but what are Gore's credentials for being labelled a "scientist" other than being obese and related to Gore Vidal? But then neither of you two have much to boast of in that regard.
Right-wingers are a pretty funny lot. They should know all about Hitler, they're using his tactics in the US (secret "energy policy" meetings for Cheney, tapping phone-lines for Bush etc). And conservatives were the top Nazi sympathizers in the 30's. After all, they were all "partners" in railing against Communism. It's funny that those in full power -- executive, legislative, judicial branches are continuing to "play the victim" -- hounded by these "evil liberals!" :-)
What's also funny is they are trying to basically "Swift Boat" Gore on scientific grounds (as the spurious right-wing fanatical group "Swift Boat Veterans" did to Kerry on Vietnam Veteran & "patriotism" grounds). I mean, it's hardly a far stretch to think that Bush is, well, rather lacking in cerebral power. I mean, this fact IS the butt of jokes worldwide. And that the top Republicans would prefer we didn't teach that pesky evolution in the schools. Yeah, the Repubs are the real arbiters of "real science!"
And there really is not much of a debate by scientists about ant global warming, just as there is no debate over evolutionary biology. If there is a "debate" it's on how large an increase will see by the end of the century (2, 3, 5, more degrees C globally?)
Any "debate" is concocted by special interest corporate-financed blowhards, such as CEI, Cato Inst and non-scientist McIntyre types. They come at the issue with such ridiculously preconceived notions & biases, that it's hilarious they start slamming actual scientists immediately.
The fact that these clowns get publicity in the so-called "liberal media" just shows that the money controls the political process, & they are simply "manufacturing consent" (in the strict Chomsky terms).
Carl: but it was the "left" in Britain and Australia who were for appeasement of Hitler.
Tim C, who said Gore was a scientist? What he has done is understood the science well enough to communicate what it says. You can read what one of the scientists at RealClimate [says about Gore's grasp of the science](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/al-gores-movie/).
Tim Curtin: I imagine you're aware that environmental problems develop when traditional communal property systems break down due to increased pressures to use the resource, and if the failed communal system is not supplanted by an effective private property rights regime. The result is kleptocracy and a tragedy of the commons. I'm not why you cannot see the same dynamic at work with respect to the atmosphere and GHGs. The global commons needs to be privatized, so that those using it have to bear their share of the costs, instead of passing them on to the rest of humanity and future generations. Given the multi-jurisdictional nature of the problem, unfortunately we need to have the government involved to minimize cheating and free-riding.
WW2 has a lot ot answer for. Suffice to say, a great number of the top rich people in the UK, and the aristocracy were rather friendly towards Hitler. After all, he did unpleasant things to unions and communists, and a lot of his friends were industrialists. Of course, neither appeasement nor being friendly with him were the right ways to go, but its not much of an answer to complain that lefties were for appeasement of Hitler when righties (Oswald Moseley anyone?) were wanting to get into bed with him. Everyone makes mistakes after all...
Tim C,
I am a scientist, and think that TimL's and Ian's comments are almost always incisive and well-thought out.
As for Al Gore, I look forward to seeing his film. Perhaps if he ever gets into power he can recapture some essence of his pre-VP credentials with respect to environmental legislation. Let us not forget though that the environmental record of the Clinton-Gore White House was almost as dismal as that of the current incumbents. It seems that ideology goes out of the window when politicians are in power, and that they have to act in ways that appeal to the interests of a narrow constituency - those with unlimited power and priviledge.
As for appeasement, we need not look any further than the likes of Tony Blair and a number of other leaders who have bent over backward in support of the 'junta' (as Gore Vidal aptly calls it) in Washington DC - simply because support for the grand imperial state is their own greatest source of strategic power.
"but it was the "left" in Britain and Australia who were for appeasement of Hitler."
Tim C. Your grasp of history is as shakey as it of climate science. Care to provide some links for your assertation that it was the "left" and not the conservative establishment that was bending over for Adolf in the hope he'd take out the commies?
>TimC>but it was the "left" in Britain and Australia who
>were for appeasement of Hitler.
Errr yeah, tell it to Conservative leader Neville "Peace In Our Time" Chamberlain! ;-)
There was a response way back during the Carter administration that seems apprpriate here. Former Georgia Gov. Lester Maddox (who once chased blacks away from his restaurant with a pick handle) called Jimmy Carter a liar. Press Secty Jody Powell said that being called a liar by Maddox was like being called ugly by a frog. Sorry, all you frogs out there, but you get the idea.
Tokyo Tom: you are absolutely right when you say "The global commons needs to be privatized, so that those using it have to bear their share of the costs, instead of passing them on to the rest of humanity and future generations. Given the multi-jurisdictional nature of the problem, unfortunately we need to have the government involved to minimize cheating and free-riding." See my website for my own peer-reviewed papers in that vein (www.timcurtin.com). That is why nuclear power is the way to go - unlike fossil fuels, its social costs are already internalized, while fossil fuel power is exempt from the costs of its CO2 emissions.
Carl CV said: "tell it to Conservative leader Neville "Peace In Our Time" Chamberlain"
I say, ever heard of that well known socialist Winston Churchill? Regrettably until he eventually saw the light, perforce Pearl Harbor, my revered cousin John was also an appeaser as late as 1942.
I love it when this comes up.
On September 11th, 1939, Robert Gordon Menzies, the conservative prime minister of Australia wrote to Stanly Bruce, High Commissioner in London.
"I feel quite confident that Hitler has no desire for a first class war.
Nobody really cares a damn about Poland as such...
...Some very quick thinking will have to be done when the German offer arrives to provide for a resettlement of the whole map of Europe".
As Attorney-General, he was alleged to say 'Hitler is not an administrator as Mussolini is. He is a dreamer, a man of ideas, many of them good ones.'
You can argue about the real meaning of these remarks, and his supporters like Gerard Henderson run the line that everyone was an appeaser in those days. But they clearly contradict the position that 'it was the "left" in Britain and Australia who were for appeasement of Hitler."'
Maybe the idea that it was the left that appeased Hitler comes from the nonaggression pact between Germany and the USSR. Of course, Stalin well knew that Hitler was a threat, but he needed time. And, of course, it was the USSR that bore the brunt of the most vicious German onslaught for a large portion of WW II.
TL Posted: "To me, "nitwit" refers to substance not style."
Agreed.
I would just add the clarifying note that with regard to style, the proper term is "knitwit" -- you know, the guy who wears the "Mr. Roger's sweater" to the hip-hop club.
I really don't think it helpful or neccessary to dig up whichever side did what during WWII. Doubtlessly, there were appeasers on all political wings.
The BS here is that we have a stooge of the status quo raising the spectre of authoritarian dictatorships over the opposition to a government that has made many moves in that direction.
Errr yeah, tell it to Conservative leader Neville "Peace In Our Time" Chamberlain!
Chamberlain described himself as a Unionist. In the right circumstances, it can be amusing to point this out to visitors from Belfast. In the wrong circumstances it can be hazardous.
Tim C., firstly, pointing to a Conservative anti-appeaser does not have any bearing on your claim that it was the left who were for appeasement. You need to be talking about people on the left, for a start. That's a question of logic, and not history.
Secondly, Churchill and a few other Conservative anti-appeasers were decidedly in the minority (and out of power) in the 1930s -- Churchill was out of office until September 1939, and didn't become PM until 1940. The strength of the Conservative opposition to appeasement can be gauged by the fact that by 1936, Churchill was reduced to considering the formation of a popular front, in league with trade unionists, the Labour Party and others on the left: his efforts to promote a back-bench revolt among Tory MPs had largely failed.
Thirdly, the politicians who were most responsible for appeasement were nearly all Conservatives: Baldwin (Prime Minister 1935-7) and Chamberlain (Chancellor of the Exchequer 1931-7, PM 1937-40), Hoare (Foreign Secretary 1935), Eden (FS 1935-8) and Halifax (FS 1938-40). (Perhaps you might want to count Simon, FS 1931-5, Chancellor 1937-40 and a National Liberal, but he was hardly a left-winger.) And only a very few Conservative ministers publicly dissented from the appeasement line, by resigning: Duff Cooper (Admiralty) was one, Eden was another according to some (though my understanding is that he wasn't opposed to appeasement in general, merely to how it was being carried out).
Carl: but it was the "left" in Britain and Australia who were for appeasement of Hitler.
Yes, damn Neville Chamberlain and all the other socailists in the cosnervstive Party.
And while we're at it, damn John Curtin for selling pig iron to the Japanese over Bob Menzies' protests.
Tim curtin: I say, ever heard of that well known socialist Winston Churchill?
Heard of him?
I've not only heard of him, I've read his Parliamentary speeches praising the Italian invasion of Ethiopia and urging British neutrality in the Spanish Civil War.
Ever read his "The International Jew", Tim?
"Maybe if Global Warming was called Hell on Earth"
It was suggested somewhere I read this week that one problem is that people look on Warming as somehow more benign than if it were, instead, Global Cooling.
"but it was the "left" in Britain and Australia who were for appeasement of Hitler."
Well, you said Britain and Australia, so I won't bring up Henry Ford.
Of course Bob Menzies must be a leftist since in 1941 he said: "There must be no talk of hanging Hitler or destroying Nazism. Hitler has done many great things for Germany and there is a great Australia can learn from him."
Actually Tim Curtin (a new oxymoron), Neville Chamberlin was a Conservative, and it was the right wing of that party and the nativist wing (Anglo Saxons were honorary Germans) who wanted to appease Nazi Germany.
The latest Harpers has a good essay on the history of the right and their tactics wrt Hitlerization (I'm about halfway through, very thought-provoking).
It also gets at the origins of some of Tim Curtin's rhetorical tactics here.
Best,
D
Didn't we just go through this with Ben re/ Krugman?
All you need to know about right-wing, especially US Republican insanity, is how they spun an Al Gore statement out of context to be "I invented the Internet." They repeat it enough, so a lot of Americans believed he claimed that. Just as they repeated enough Iraq lies as "evidence for the war", that hell, 72% of Americans think Saddam was directly behind 9/11 (to this day 82% of troops still think that!)
Hey Carl,
I like the fun you're having over at Steve's place. Actually, I like the reactions you're getting over there more than any fun you are presumably having. You being a lefty and all and not able to have fun. :o)
Best,
D
http://drudgereport.com/flash3.htm
Heh heh, see, nitwit.
Thanks D, I find it amusing and slightly cathartic to have a go at the neocons at "climateidiot." Even when Steve lamely tries to get me at trouble with my employer. I guess next he'll get his Republican buddies to subpoena me for all my data records a la Mann! ;-)
I mean the biggest "debate" seems to be "go read up on real science at the 'Greening Earth Society' website etc." And, oh yeah, if you don't turn over all your data immediately, you're hiding something and are a "junk scientist!"
I just wish these dopes used 1% of this zeal & energy to examine the psychotic policies of their plutocratic overlords! :-)
Although one good side benefit of my flaming on CA is discovering Tim's blog here (although I'm probably doing too much blogging & not enough work now!)
PS - ben, the latest Drudge/Myron Ebell "expose" is hilarious. Of course when they trailed the Republican senator who was touting how "green" he was in a hybrid car, which he drove about 10 yards before getting into his gas guzzling SUV, these clowns are nowhere to be found.
Anyway, how can they bitch about Gore's carbon footprint, when Ebell/CEI are the same hypocritical twits who tout "CO2 is life!"
That's Drudge's
second bite at the apple, Ben. He already had to issue a retraction and withdraw the claim that Gore's entourage droive to the festival (they walked). Please note also: Paramount has committed to making the entire tour promoting the film carbon neutral.
Didn't we just go through this with Ben re/ Krugman?
Yeah, Krugman is a nitwit too.
Tim C, if you can acknowledge that I am "absolutely right" that GHG emissions represent a misuse of the global atmospheric commons, then can you also acknowledge that the answer to climate change issues is precisely the one proposed by you with respect to PNG and other South Pacific nations (and by other free market environmentalists with respect to fisheris) - namely, the privatization of the commons through creation and protection of private rights that can be freely traded?
I agree that nuclear power must be part of the solution to our energy needs, but because of the direct and indirect subsidies to fossil fuels (including the implict subsidy given the fact that, absent a private market, fossil fuel producers/consumers are able to pass on the costs of climate change onto everyone), the economics of investment in generating capacity is imbalanced, with nuclear at a comparative disadvantage. Unless you want to propose counterbalancing subsidies for nuclear and other generating alternatives, such as coal gasification and biofuels, why isn't the obvious and least-intrusive regulatory path simply to create a market in GHG emissions and sequestration offsets?
It is because of the artifical disadvantage created by the GHG market failure that the biggest pressure for GHG regulation in the US is coming from the electricity generating industry. Have you taken a look at the testimony industry executives have provided to the US Senate Energy Committee on its proposal for a mandatory GHG program? Let's address this market failure straight on, instead of downplaying it. Some environmentalists may misdiagnose the solution, but we should certainly not ignore that the real pigs being fed here, at the long-term cost of the global public, whose interests are being sold out to rent-seekers for short-term partisan gain.
Al Gore he is nitwit!!! NITWIT!!!! HE GOEBBELS!! LEFTWINGERS APPEASE AL GORE IRAQ 48 HOURS CURTIN APPEASE HITLER NITWIT NUKES RACHEL CARSON WORSE THAN JIMMY CARTER!!! NITWIT UGLIER THAN FROG!!
Ian Gould and Tim Lambert: but what are Gore's credentials for being labelled a "scientist" other than being obese
Oh my God.... he's FAT too!!!
... and related to Gore Vidal?
HA HA HA!!!! WHAT FUNNY MAN!!!!!!
OK, just checking.
As I recall from the last time we did this, after a lengthy session of dialectic root-canal it turned out that Krugman had been correct on every point at issue, but he was still, in Ben's book, a nitwit.
Here, it appears that Al Gore is also correct on every single factual issue under discussion -- and, according to Ben, he is also a nitwit.
Ben - I think that word does not mean what you think it means.
TokyoTom: sorry to be tardy in replying, but I am again in total agreement with you. Were it not for the unholy alliances of greens, coal miners (both workers and companies) and governments, by now market forces would have led to many more nuclear reactors being in production, and CO2 emissions would be on a declining trend. But I remain sceptical that even zero emissions would have much impact on the climate!
"Ben, could you share with us what mistakes he made about the science in his movie?
Posted by: Tim Lambert | May 23, 2006 11:44 PM"
1. Implying that before 2005 there never were hurricanes or melting glaciers etc.
2. Claiming that there is unanimity among "climate scientists" (itself an oxymoronic term if Gore is right) when there are many fully credentialled such who question AGW. Like Lindzen or hate him, he is at MIT, which stands a little taller than UNSW.
3. Implying that the ice core data is unambiguous when it is far from clear that the cores' CO2 precedes warming.
4. India and China are hardly models of low and stable emissions.
5. No less than Sir David King (Tony Blair's pet scientist) avers that Kyoto will have no effect (he seeks 50% from all countries not the 8% or so over 4 years from just the OECD).
6. No mention of nuclear, the only viable source of base load electricity (other than the hydro blocked around the world by Gore's greens).
7. Far more significant than the dubious allegoreal science is Al's bland acceptance of the even more dubious alleged consequences of the trivial warming presented by various scenarios of IPCC (they expressly avoid predictions which might be falsified, whereas scenarios are just like the movies: more CO2 fertilisation and longer growing seasons are already boosting food production around the globe.
Hat tip to RS, a credentialled critic of Al's science.
Tim Curtin, Gore does not imply that there were no hurricanes or melting glaciers before 2005. The rest of the "mistakes" are similar straw men. You repeatedly use "imply" to attribute to Gore some statement he never made. See if you can come with a mistake that he actually made based on something he actually said. Given your track record, we'll want an actual quote from Gore.
"As mentioned in the movie, a 2004 Science magazine survey of all peer-reviewed scientific studies of climate change showed 928 papers supporting man-made global warming. None denied it". (from Christian Science Monitor's supportive review). Tim Lambert: you know it is not true to claim that NO peer reviewed papers contest AGW.
Tell me, Tim, can you see the logical fallacy involved in:
a. suggesting we may (according to King) need to reduce emissions by 50% and
b. saying nuclear is the only viable source of baseload power?
Hint: 50% of a positive number is greater than zero.
Ian Gould; congrats on spelling! but not for your logic. Transport is a major source of emissions, but short of windmills on cars, not much we can do there. So electricity offers more scope for reaching the 50% cut, more so since windmills and solar panels are intermittent, they are not much good for base load. Nuclear could cut power emissions by 100%, well on the way to King's overall 50%. What's wrong with that arithmetic if for the sake of argument we assume transport is 50% of emissions and power 50%? If the proportions are different, my argument remains intact mutatis mutandis (if your literacy is up to that). Bob Brown rules out hydro, and Beazley endorses Brown in banning nuclear, so what's left for base load security plus emision cuts?
Now you are staring to sound downright desperate. Out of 928 papers, there's gotta be at least one contesting AGW, and thus making Al Gore's summary of Oreskes incorrect, right? Let's ask Oreskes, why don't we?
Point: Gore.
You know, I expected a better attack on Al Gore than this rather feeble, halfhearted effort. Is it possible that the contrarians are starting to doubt their own story?
Tim: Ian Gould; congrats on spelling! but not for your logic. Transport is a major source of emissions, but short of windmills on cars, not much we can do there.
Other than plug-in hybrids or runnign cars on ethanol - Australia being one of the few countries outisde Brazil where that mgiht actually be feasible.
Incidentally, Tim C, if you check out the AGO website you'll find the Australian Greenhouse Gas accounts.
"Power, gas and water" account for just over a third. (It's 5 AM I'm not going to be more precise than that.)
"Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries" accouts for around a quarter - much of it from landclearing. All reductions to date from 1990 levels have come from this sector - and have been more than offset by growth in other sectors. That's pretty much exclusively due to reductions in broadacre tree clearing here in Queensland. There is capacity for further reductions in that area.
BTW, Tim, whatever happened to the economic disaster we were assured was going to flow from those reductions in tree-clearing?
Of course, since we're talking about NET emssion reductions we COULD increase tax concessions for plantation forestry.
But that's crazy talk - what I meant to say, of course, was "we could murder the entire property-owning class in their beds and then emulate the great work of that inspired socialist leader Pol Pot by sending the proletariat out into the countryside for re-education through labor."
Because, as you keeping telling us, in your oh-so-charming fashion, anyone who disagrees with you on this is a fool and a commie.
On the topic of our "Great Leader" tim i'm somewhat surprised that in hanging on his every word you managed to miss all his references to "clean coal" technology - you know, the stuff that will allow us to generate between 50 and 100% more electricity per unit of CO2 emitted?
BTW, speaking of the Great Leader, who do you favor to succeed him when he finallt shuffles of to that great Members Only Pavilion in the sky - Beloved Leader Abbott or Beloved Leader Costello?
Dear Ian Gould, if caps fit wear them, but I never levelled such at you, whereas you have been defamatory of myself. Yet if we met I am sure we would get along fine and reach agreement on all issues (including tax concessions for more tree planting)! The trouble with "clean" coal is that this has yet to be shown as more cost-effective in reducing CO2 than nuclear. As for Pol Pot, he is alive and well in the shape of people like the Grauniad writers Blackwell and Monbidiotic, of whom at least the former and quite likely the latter as well are on record as calling for reduction of people alive from 6.5 bn to 1 or 2 (themselves).