Climate & Climate Politics
- Methane discovery stokes new global warming fears Shock as retreat of Arctic releases greenhouse gas – Science – News – The Independent.
- Labels « ClimateSight
For a long time I have struggled with what to call the people who insist that climate change is natural/nonexistent/a global conspiracy. “Skeptics” is their preferred term, but I refuse to give such a compliment to those who don’t deserve it. Skepticism is a good thing in science, and it’s not being applied by self-professed “climate skeptics”. This worthy label has been hijacked by those who seek to redefine it.
“Deniers” is more accurate, in my opinion, but I feel uncomfortable using it. I don’t want to appear closed-minded and alienate those who are confused or undecided. Additionally, many people are in the audience of deniers, but aren’t in denial themselves. They repeat the myths they hear from other sources, but you can easily talk them out of their misconceptions using evidence.
I posed this question to some people at AGU. Which word did they use? “Pseudoskeptics” and “misinformants” are both accurate terms, but too difficult for a new reader to understand. My favourite answer, which I think I will adopt, was “contrarians”. Simple, clear, and non-judgmental. It emphasizes what they think, not how they think. Also, it hints that they are going against the majority in the scientific community. Another good suggestion was to say someone is “in denial”, rather than “a denier” – it depersonalizes the accusation.
I’ll confess that I have never really liked the term “denier” but have enjoyed using it at times because I can see how it get under the skins of some of the “deniers” I have debated climate with online. I can’t stand how the “Pseudoskeptics” have co-opted the term skeptic and I think it’s insulting to real skeptics like myself. “Pseudoskeptics”… I like that one.
- Romney slams Gingrich for global warming ad – Political Hotsheet – CBS News This is just great. I hate to be cliche but this is a pot calling the kettle black.
- Cold-Hearted About Warming: Conservative Media Deride Adaptation Aid For World’s Poor as “Climate Gold” | ThinkProgress
Revisiting Solyndra to See Where This “Issue” Has Gone & What We Know Now
- US-Chinese Trade War on Solar Panels Killed Solyndra
- Grand jury investigating Solyndra – Darren Samuelsohn – POLITICO.com
- Opinion: Solyndra lessons for Barack Obama from Thomas Jefferson – David O. Stewart – POLITICO.com
- Another Oops: Perry Says Solar Company Solyndra Is A Country | ThinkProgress
Environment
China
- I just watched a segment on Dylan Ratigan’s Show on MSNBC where after referring to Zbigniew Brzezinski’s (former United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter) op-ed that appeared in the NYTimes today: How to Stay Friends With China – NYTimes.com he then had on Peter W. Navarro to talk about Brzezinski’s ideas and Navarro’s new book Death by China: Confronting the Dragon – A Global Call to Action
Politics
- Wonkbook: Gingrich and Romney have the same problem – The Washington Post
So Mitt Romney is now saying Newt Gingrich is an “extremely unreliable leader in the conservative world.” This is the pot is calling the kettle a flip-flopper. The problem for Romney, of course, is that he and Gingrich share their weaknesses. They have both supported national health-care plans that included an individual mandate. They have both supported action to curb carbon emissions. Neither truly embraced Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget.
- Daily Kos: Rick Perry: I’m not a babbling idiot, I’m just ‘fatigued’
- Via Ed Brayton’s Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Hilarious Quote of the Day | Dispatches from the Culture Wars :
From the “you can’t make this shit up” department, here’s Victoria Jackson on Fox and Friends:
Very few people in America are informed and educated as I am.
Come on, you’re making this too easy.
- Santorum: Obama ‘Doesn’t Deserve Credit’ For Killing Bin Laden | ThinkProgress — What an asshole. I had been sort of surprised watching Republican candidates during this pre-primary cycle how they seem to self destruct with the exception of Rick Santorum who I have always thought of as a kook and a loon. He was gaining some respect in my eyes even though I still couldn’t disagree more with his ideology and still considered him looney but he lost anything he gained with this idiotic purely partisan remark.
- Graham: Consumer Protection Agency ‘Stalinist’ | Dispatches from the Culture Wars
“I can’t stand how the “Pseudoskeptics” have co-opted the term skeptic and I think it’s insulting to real skeptics like myself. “Pseudoskeptics”… I like that one.”
So if you’re a real skeptic, then you can’t be an alarmist, you’d be realistically skeptical of future climate disasters, or you would be a skeptical skeptic, perhaps you could be called a double skeptic, maybe called a skeptic squared. Pseudoskeptic or false skeptic is really a climate alarmist right? How did you get so confused?
“Skeptic squared”, I like that. It describes me perfectly.
Global warming is not “alarming” or “disastrous”. It’s simply a consequence of the kind of fuel people have been burning for the last few decades. Not a punishment, not a judgment, not a karma, a CONSEQUENCE — the physical effect of a physical cause.
In trying to mitigate or adapt to global warming, we are simply trying to fix our own broken toy.