environment: assholes capitalism climate science denialists idiots Wall Street Journal
by Warren
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Year 3, Month 2, Day 6: Hats Back On, Gentlemen.
Behold! An idiot. Meet James “Smokey” Shott:
— — More bad news for environmental alarmists came last week when 16 more well-known and well-respected scientists signed on to a Wall Street Journal article titled “No Need to Panic About Global Warming: There’s no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ‘decarbonize’ the world’s economy,” adding their names to a large and growing list of scientists opposing manmade climate change dogma.
This one was fun. Sent January 31:
“Smokey” Shott tells us that the established scientific foundation of global climate change has been dealt a terrible blow — a double blow, at that. How? First, he notes a piece just published in the Wall Street Journal criticizing the broad scientific consensus on climate change — and written by 16 (sixteen! count ’em!) scientists and engineers (almost none with actual climate science backgrounds). Omitted from his report is the fact that six of the Journal’s signatories have been linked to fossil-fuel interests, or that when 225 (two hundred and twenty-five! count ’em!) genuine climatologists submitted a paper providing scientific facts and analysis of the question, they were rejected out of hand by the WSJ (the paper was eventually published in Science Magazine).
And then Mr. Shott delivers what he clearly believes to be the coup de grace: an article from the UK’s Daily Mail, a paper notorious for its sensationalist, factually-challenged journalism. Quoting “fringe” scientists propounding a thoroughly-debunked “global cooling” hypothesis, the article has already attracted widespread derision in scientific circles.
Getting science from the WSJ is as silly as getting investment advice from a climatology journal. Getting science from the Daily Mail, on the other hand, is as silly as looking for celebrity gossip in the pages of “Global Biogeochemical Cycles.”
Warren Senders
environment Politics: climate bill fury Wall Street Journal
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Month 7, Day 23: Tired & Angry. How ’bout You?
It’s very late. I’ve been cleaning the house all night…leaving for Toronto tomorrow mid-morning, where I will help celebrate my father’s 90th birthday…and meet up with my wife & daughter, who are at this moment flying back from two months in India.
My fury at the Senate’s abandonment of climate legislation is muted by my exhaustion. Usually I write this letter about 11:40 at night; I’m two hours behind. The Wall Street Journal ran an article about it, so I sent them a screed on the media’s failure to do its job. Think they’ll print it?
The failure of the US Senate to move forward on meaningful climate legislation represents the continued triumph of ignorance in our country — a triumph enabled by our news media. The scientific consensus is overwhelming that climate change is real, it’s dangerous, and it’s caused by humans. But the spurious doctrine of false equivalency requires that any climate scientist must be “balanced” by an opposing voice — actual fact-based reporting be damned. This is a sad day for America and a sad day for the world. Global warming’s effects are real and they are only going to get worse: more storms, more droughts, more displaced populations, more shattered ecosystems. By procrastinating (again!) on this most important of all issues, our senators demonstrate that short-term political exigencies count for more than the long-term good of the nation and the planet. Shame on them, and shame on the media which has abdicated its responsibility.
Warren Senders
environment: Bret Stephens idiots Wall Street Journal
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Month 4, Day 11: The Wall Street Journal – Fishwrap for Financiers
It’s 11 pm and I’m finishing this one up. I couldn’t think of what to write, so I checked out Media Matters, which had a good treatment of a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. So I wrote them a letter (the WSJ, not Media Matters).
Speaking of Media Matters, I greatly enjoyed David Brock’s book “Blinded by the Right.” It’s always amazing to me that anyone can swallow the nonsense spewed by so-called “conservatives,” and Brock’s personal story was very revealing. I’m glad he came around and is now on the side of the right, rather than the Right.
Anyway, here’s my letter to the Journal:
Bret Stephens’ April 6 column suggests that recent scientific research shows that “global warming is dead.” Yet the climate scientists he cites explicitly reject this notion.
While Stephens claims that National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) data show that Arctic sea ice has not diminished significantly, the NSIDC disagrees, stressing that long term data (in contrast to data for a single month) indicate that “ice extent has shown a dramatic overall decline over the past thirty years.”
Stephens’ also discussed the “now debunked claim about disappearing Himalayan glaciers” in the context of the so-called “Climategate” scandal. Is he aware that scientists’ studies around the world unanimously support data showing significant glacier loss? And is he also oblivious to the fact that on March 31, the British House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee completely exonerated Dr. Phil Jones and the CRU, confirming that their data are “consistent and independently verifiable”? Yes, the 2007 IPCC report included an erroneous citation about Himalayan glacier loss, but this no more invalidates the document’s conclusions than a mendacious op-ed about global warming invalidates the Wall Street Journal’s stock market reports.
Warren Senders