In the current political climate, g-ment paid scientists absolutely gain value by advocating MGW. You have to consider that we aren't talking about the government as a whole. We are talking about 1/2 of the US government. Your statement about business and the electorate becoming indiscernible is only really true for the GOP. The GOP if stereotyped is pro big oil, and pro big business. Dems are stereotypically anti big oil and big business, and pro alternative energy. They've campaigned on the platform of promised job creation in the alternative energy arena, (which I support BTW), and they have a "really good idea" right now for raising tax revenue and balancing the budget. They want to make the companies buy carbon credits. It is easy to recognize that big companies see little benefit in becoming more eco friendly. For most of them it will be far less costly to simply buy more carbon shares than it would be to eliminate carbon emissions. If a g-ment paid scientist comes out and states that global warming has nothing to do with man, he is doing exactly what I was suggesting I wouldn't be willing to do in my own company. He's telling the person supplying his paycheck that they should toss this huge potential revenue source down the drain.
if raising taxes balanced the budget, we would not be in this mess. I have heard that promise at least a thousand times in the last 30 years... yet they keep spending and keep raising taxes.
Interesting article that I recently read from one of the most respected atmospheric science professors, and currently teaching at MIT. Really long article, but this quoted section I feel is a better representation of my previous arguments. Mine are simply logic based theory, as opposed to his which are IMO much more credible as he deals with the subject first hand. My first point is that as far as scientists go, most of the atmospheric scientists and oceanographers who I respect do endorse global warming (without generally being specific about exactly what they are endorsing). The important point, however, is that the science that they do that I respect is not about global warming. Endorsing global warming just makes their lives easier. For example, my colleague, Kerry Emanuel, received relatively little recognition until he suggested that hurricanes might become stronger in a warmer world (a position that I think he has since backed away from somewhat). He then was inundated with professional recognition. Another colleague, Carl Wunsch, professionally calls into question virtually all alarmist claims concerning sea level, ocean temperature and ocean modeling, but assiduously avoids association with skeptics; if nothing else, he has a major oceanographic program to worry about. Moreover, his politics are clearly liberal. Perhaps, the most interesting example is Wally Broecker, whose work clearly shows that sudden climate change occurs without anthropogenic influence, and is a property of cold rather than warm climates. However, he staunchly beats the drums for alarm and is richly rewarded for doing so. For a much larger group of scientists, the fact that they can make ambiguous or even meaningless statements that can be spun by alarmists, and that the alarming spin leads politicians to increase funding provides little incentive to complain about the spin. Second, most arguments about global warming boil down to science versus authority. For much of the public, authority will generally win since they do not wish to deal with science. For a basically political movement, as the global warming issue most certainly is, an important task is to coopt the sources of authority. This, the global warming movement has done with great success. Thus, for over twenty years, the National Academy had a temporary nominating group designed to facilitate the election of environmental activists. The current president of the academy is one of these. The American Association for the Advancement of Science has been headed by James McCarthy and John Holdren in recent years, and these have been public advocates for global warming alarm. Holdren is now President Obamaâs nominee for science advisor. There are numerous further examples. How often have we heard a legitimate scientific argument answered by the claim that the alarmist scenario is endorsed by, for example, the American Physical Society (regardless of their lack of expertise in the issue)? How often have you heard innocuous claims by some society or another taken as endorsements of alarm? How often have you heard that any particular argument has been dealt with by realclimate.org (a clear advocacy website designed to assure warming alarmists that the basis for alarm still exists)? Thirdly, the success with respect to the second item also gives the climate alarm movement control over carrots and sticks â which, in turn, is what makes it expedient for most scientists to go along. Note that the carrots are as important as the sticks, though the sticks matter a great deal when grants, publication and promotion are at stake. With respect to carrots, for example, John Holdren was long on the board of the MacArthur Foundation which has awarded âgeniusâ grants to numerous environmental activists. Ironically, an award allegedly honoring the late Bill Nierenberg (who served as director of Scripps Oceanographic Institution), a very perceptive and active skeptic of climate alarm, is now given annually to an alarmist. One could go on at great length. At the stick end, one simply has to note that Science and Nature have both publically taken positions against publishing anything that opposes the notion of dangerous anthropogenic warming, while publishing highly dubious science endorsing the notion. The process of coopting science on behalf of a political movement has had an extraordinarily corrupting influence on science â especially since the issue has been a major motivation for funding. Most funding for climate science would not be there without this issue. And, it should be added, most science funded under the rubric of climate does not actually deal with climate, but rather with the alleged impact of arbitrarily assumed climate change. All impacts depend on regional forecasts, and quoting the leading scientist at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (widely regarded as the foremost atmospheric modeling center), Tim Palmer, such forecasts are little better than guesses. Nonetheless, regional forecasts are at the heart of numerous state initiatives to âfightâ climate change. These initiatives are usually prepared by the Center for Climate Strategies (CCS), a Pennsylvania-based environmental advocacy group that purports to help states determine for themselves how to develop climate change policies. In reality, according to Paul Chesser of the John Locke Foundation, CCS tightly controls these commissions, who consider proposals mostly from a menu of options presented by CCS themselves. Nearly all the choices represent new taxes or higher prices on energy, increased costs of government, new regulations for businesses, and reduced energy-producing options for utilities, and therefore consumers. CCS is funded largely by a multi-million dollar global warming alarmist foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. If you'd like to read the entire discourse: http://www.ecoworld.com/global-warming/global-warming-greentech.html
Typical misrepresentation of what scientists are saying in an attempt to bolster unsupportable nonsense. What does Carl Wunsch actually say: "I believe that climate change is real, a major threat, and almost surely has a major human-induced component." . . "Some elements [of climate science] are so firmly based on well-understood principles, or for which the observational record is so clear, that most scientists would agree that they are almost surely true (adding CO2 to the atmosphere is dangerous; sea level will continue to rise,...)" And his comment on the "Great Global Warming Swindle" swindle: "At a minimum, I ask that the film should never be seen again publicly with my participation included. Channel 4 surely owes an apology to its viewers, and perhaps WAGTV owes something to Channel 4. I will be taking advice as to whether I should proceed to make some more formal protest." What Carl Wunsch also says is that scientists should be careful about the certainty that they attribute to certain outcomes such as a purported shutdown of the Gulf Stream leading to a new ice age in Britain/Europe. In fact most scientists do not believe this is likely to happen anytime soon and the idea has been popularized more by the film The Day After Tomorrow than by anything else. Wunsch emphasizes that there are uncertainties but also makes it abundantly clear that AGW is real and is a serious problem. Denialist cranks in typical fashion try to turn that around into the absurd proposition that "because we don't know everything, we know nothing". http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/papersonline/channel4response
Be careful about how certain Carl Wunsch seems in those statement, for these also belong to him. ".. it is very difficult to separate human induced change from natural change, certainly not with the confidence we all seek ...... clear-cut proof is not now available and may not be available for a long-time to come, if ever. Public policy has to be made on the basis of probabilities, not firm proof." "Climate change is arguably one of the most complicated of all scientific problems............anybody who tells you they know what is going to happen 20 years from now, 100 years from now, is not a good scientist, because the science can only say at this stage there's certain possibilities that we are aware of." And the rest of the quote you just took a snippet of.... "I believe that climate change is real, a major threat, and almost surely has a major human-induced component. But I have tried to stay out of the climate wars because all nuance tends to be lost, and the distinction between what we know firmly, as scientists, and what we suspect is happening, is so difficult to maintain in the presence of rhetorical excess. In the long run, our credibility as scientists rests on being very careful of, and protective of, our authority and expertise... I am on record in a number of places as complaining about the over-dramatization and unwarranted extrapolation of scientific facts." It seems that you are the one adding a false tone to Wunsch, and I would suspect that his colleague who has had many private discussions knows his positions pretty well. Obvious the article I cited has a certain bias, but you can't select little snippets out of context and present them the way you have. It seems to me that Wunsch is (as stated in my citation) a very careful individual regarding public statements that might compromise his public credibility. Having been "duped" in a film piece he was forced to overcompensate to the other side. In reality and full context, his position seems to be that there are certain probabilities that AGW is real to a certain extent and these probabilities must be considered.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...rease-over-next-40-years-researchers-say.html European âMegaâ Heat Waves to Increase Over Next 40 Years, Researchers Say By Allison Connolly - Mar 17, 2011 11:00 AM PT Growing concentrations of greenhouse gases are expected to cause âmore frequent, persistent and intense heat wavesâ in Europe like the one in Russia last year that killed thousands of people and scorched land, researchers said. The probability of another âmega-heat waveâ like the ones last year and in 2003 will increase by a factor of five to 10 over the next 40 years, according to a study published today in the journal Science, written by scientists led by David Barriopedro from the University of Lisbon in Portugal. âWe were surprised,â Erich Fischer, a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and one of the studyâs authors, said in an interview today. âWe had thought it was an anomalous event.â âSerious risksâ of heat-related events over large areas will increase if no âadaptive strategiesâ are implemented, the authors wrote. Those strategies include telling people not to do sports during the hottest part of the day, caring for the elderly, warning farmers about drought and preparing hospitals for heat-related illness, Fischer said. Heat waves in 2003 and 2010 broke 500-year-old records in some regions, the researchers said. The high temperatures in eastern Europe from late July through mid-August last year covered twice as much ground as the 2003 heat wave and temperatures deviated from the average to a much greater extent, Fischer said. Last yearâs heat wave led to 55,000 heat-related deaths in Russia, wildfires and a crop failure of 25 percent, according to the study. The magnitude was âso extremeâ that the chances of another one on that level in the same region remains fairly unlikely until the second half of the century, researchers said. To contact the reporter on this story: Allison Connolly in Frankfurt at aconnolly4@bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Phil Serafino at pserafino@bloomberg.net.
Glad I don't live in Europe. Sounds like they need to import Al Gore as a consultant and maybe implement some carbon taxes.