BPSDB
Brigham Young University Pwns Deniers
Meanwhile, the Superfreaks are:
- Supercensoring
- Pwned by George Will
- Getting hosed by The New Yorker
- Still using mind control on Jon Stewart
A Climate for Change
Wednesday 11/11/2009 at 1:00 PM authors Katharine Hayhoe and Andrew Farley are going to be interviewed and questioned on blogtalkradio about their new book “A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-Based Decisions.”
Tom Olson at Climate 411 gave it a very favourable review, so it should be interesting if you can listen in (I wonder if I can get a review copy 😉 )
Brigham Young University Pwns Deniers
“A group of earth scientists at conservative Brigham Young University has sent a stinging rebuke to state lawmakers on their recent handling of climate-change science.The 18 scientists wrote the governor and legislators Oct. 26, urging them to “consider separating the science from the policy issues.” They challenged lawmakers for giving the “fringe” position of a climate skeptic equal weight to that of the broad, scientific consensus that climate change is happening, largely because of human activities.
“We have no specific political agenda to support but agree that whatever action is taken, it should be informed by the best available scientific evidence,” the scientists said. “We encourage our legislators not to manipulate the scientific evidence to suit any political agenda.”
BYU scientists take lawmakers to task on climate change issues
Nice 🙂 , and interesting that it is 18 scientists given that
18 leading scientific organizations
“18 leading scientific organizations send letter to Senators affirming the climate is changing, “human activities are the primary driver,” impacts are projected to worsen “substantially” and “If we are to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change, emissions of greenhouse gases must be dramatically reduced.”
18 leading scientific organizations send letter to Senators affirming the climate is changing
which is the link and story I have been posting in response to all of the Denier comments referencing polls showing that the uninformed public doesn’t get it. This, and:
- Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.
- 18 percent believe the sun revolves around the Earth.
Climate change denial in context
I think it helps get the proper perspective on polls.
He tolls for thee
It seems the Denialosphere is still trotting David Bellamy around, and it’s just as unfortunate as it ever was. I was wondering why he seemed to be turning up again in comments on forums and news sharing sites.
“TV3’s Sunrise programme featured an interview with David Bellamy this morning. … cut a rather sad figure, I thought, as the presenters gave him a chance to run his “global warming is poppycock” line. As a conservationist and TV presenter he used to be marvellous. As a climate denier he’s just laughable. … Sad stuff – a once influential figure reduced to spouting gibberish.”
Dubya’s War on Science
With only months left to solve the climate crisis undoubtedly many are wondering how did things get so bad so fast? Those who know the issue know full well that part of the answer is the G.W. Bush administrations suppression and censorship of climate science.
Now there is more evidence of the Bushites tampering with the science, and you can find many more sources and stories about it here. If ever there were grounds for a charge of crimes against humanity, this would be it.
Chamber pot of commerce tries rebranding
The story so far
- The US Chamber Pot of Commerce punks itself, again
- US Chamber of Commerce Punks the Yes Men
- The Assault on Science: I. Climate, evolution, and the EPA “Scopes” trial
- Deniers denying denial, the EPA Scopes trial on trial
- Climate Deniers demand Stalinist style political show trial
Rolling Stone article picked up on some irony in the Chamber’s suit against the Yes Men, pointing out that one of the biggest lobbiers for “Lawsuit Abuse Prevention Act” has filed a “frivolous lawsuit.”
“The Chamber’s complaint — filed by the lawyers of Hunton & Williams LLP — offers an object lesson in lawsuit abuse, seeking damages for everything from fraud to “cyberpiracy”, for actions that are clearly protected by the first amendment.
The Chamber runs a website called FacesofLawsuitAbuse.org that declares “lawsuit abuse is having a devastating impact on our society” and asks “Have you been victimized by a lawsuit? Do you know someone else who has?” Pwned!
Given all of the criticism and troubles that the US Chamber of Commerce has had as a result of its regressive anti-science lobbying efforts to prevent meaningful action on climate change, it became clear to them that something needed to change. Naturally they re-examined their policy and the scientific realities and determined that a more rational, ethical, responsible policy was necessary … NOT.
As Peter Altman shows in “Is the U.S. Chamber changing its tune on climate, or just its tone?“, their revised stance is crafted to look good superficially, but really it’s the same old pig with lipstick. Let’s just hope that the Chamber is not able to get away with this, although now that the news cycle has moved on it is all too likely that they will.
Superfreaks Superfreakonomics
The story so far
- Pwn-Fest continues despite Superfreaks PR spin attempts
- Ouch … more Superfreakonomic Uber-Pwnage (all sorts)
- Daily Show pooches Superfreaknomics interview, big time
- Actually it’s the WSJ, not a parody site … i think
- Scary Monsters (And superfreakonomics)
- Superfreakonomic-expialidocious “I did not deny climate change with that woman!”
i) Supercensoring
Given polite, fact based critiques and comments on your work, rational adults respond with facts and logical argument. Or if you have neither, you square your shoulders and admit you are wrong like any mature professional should.
Or you could just delete the comments.
Anna Haynes documents that the Superfreaks choose to (drumroll …) “Evidence of questionable SuperFreakonomics NYTimes blog comment moderation.” Is anyone surprised?
ii) Pwned by George Will
Actually George Will really likes the Superfreaks and endorses them. However, given what a hard core climate change Denier Will is, and particularly given how hopelessly brain dead his claims are, that counts as major Uber-pwnage.
Needless to say Will just regurgitates some of the absurd claims from the book well known to be nonsense, but knowing that would require knowing how to use a search engine, and actually using one
How does that man sleep at night?
iii) Getting hosed by The New Yorker
“The whole conceit behind “SuperFreakonomics” … is that a dispassionate, statistically minded thinker can find patterns and answers in the data that those who are emotionally invested in the material will have missed.
Given their emphasis on cold, hard numbers, it’s noteworthy that Levitt and Dubner ignore what are, by now, whole libraries’ worth of data on global warming. Indeed, just about everything they have to say on the topic is, factually speaking, wrong. Among the many matters they misrepresent are: the significance of carbon emissions as a climate-forcing agent, the mechanics of climate modelling, the temperature record of the past decade, and the climate history of the past several hundred thousand years. Raymond T. Pierrehumbert … In a particularly scathing critique, he composed an open letter to Levitt, which he posted on the blog RealClimate.
“The problem wasn’t necessarily that you talked to the wrong experts or talked to too few of them,” he observes. “The problem was that you failed to do the most elementary thinking.” [emphasis added]
Nice, and yeah, I had to emphasize the quote from Pierrehumbert for any who may have missed his merciless vivisection of the dismal science duo. Tip of Hat to The Way Things Break for bringing this one to my attention with Betsy Kolbert spanks the Superfreaks.
iv) Still using mind control on Jon Stewart
Granted Stewart has backtracked somewhat from his unabashed gushing over Levitt and Superfreakonomics, but he is still a long way from making sense. He had Al Gore on his show and couldn’t stop pushing the whole “geo-engineering will save us, hallelujah” delusion.
“It’s worrisome when someone usually so careful to do his research seems to know so little about a large, important topic that is reshaping global economies and our lives. It just highlights what a large communication challenge we face.”
I think it underscores an even bigger problem than communication, psychological denial. Stewart has a social conscience and generally tries to do the right thing. Stewart is intelligent and has considerable resources available to get his facts right and actually know what he is talking about. The problem isn’t communication, it’s that he doesn’t want to hear the facts. His continued wallowing in denial has nothing to do with facts, but rather fear.
That being said, it may not have made any more positive difference than Stewart, but for a realistic perspective on climate change I’ll still take Letterman.
UPDATE: 14:00 SHouldn’t have missed these, but I did.
“Since 1982, spring in East Asia (defined here as the eastern third of China and the Korean Peninsula) has been warming at a rate of one degree Fahrenheit per decade.” Earth Gauge
We give our consent every moment that we do not resist.
Comments that are not relevant to the post that they appear under or the evolving discussion will simply be deleted, as will links to Denier spam known to be scientific gibberish
- The “Mostly” Open Thread is for general climate discussion that is not relevant to a particular post. Spam and abuse rules still apply;
- The “Challenging the Core Science” Comment Thread is for comments that purport to challenge the core science of anthropogenic climate change.
Greenfyre's 
of course!
http://www.alrcnewskitchen.com/climateforchange/review_copy.php
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I’ve been looking forward to this book for a while too; now I’ve got a review to be interested in as well.
(I’m tempted to write on the other big climate/religion news item at the moment, but I think I’ll hold off until reading this.)
[…] Mike Kaulbars: Superfreakonomic Expialidocious: I Did Not Deny Climate Change With That Woman (Editor’s note: This is my favorite summary of events so far, although (or perhaps because) it doesn’t deal with errors directly.) Scary Monsters (and superfreakonomics) Ouch… more Superfreakonomic Uber-PWNage – all sorts PWN-fest Continues Despite Superfreaks’ PR Spin Attempts Climate Change Bytes and Blogs VII […]
Hummm.. the “best available scientific evidence” as stated by the conservative BYU scientists shows that global temperatures have been trending down for over a decade now while Co2 continues a steady rise. Greenies, you can now breath a sigh of relief. There is no corrulation between rising Co2 and temperatures. Oh… but wait! Those pesky facts!
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Deleted for violation of Comment Policy
The “Challenging the Core Science” Comment Thread is for comments that purport to challenge the core science of anthropogenic climate change.
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Those deniers just don’t understand anything. Two simple facts.
1. Co2 is rising drasticaly from humans
2. The earth is getting hotter
Need I say more?
Dear John Beckwith
You have said much more, and all of it is spam.
I wonder how long it took you to come up with a statement that you felt was both consistent with your ridiculous cut and paste crap (see yourself on the Challenging the Core Science thread if you need to review) but ambiguous so as to withstand continued well-deserved deletion for posting repetitive spam.
Such willful scientific illiteracy is a waste of a human brain. Moreover, such flagrant disrespect for the public borders on contempt.
“Need I say more?”
No, you needn’t.