The Conservative Mind

66 thoughts on “The Conservative Mind”

1. Thank you, Father, for posting this trenchant article.

   I was reminded that 2-3 years ago I went to the local public library to pick up Hayek’s Road to Serfdom. Not there. Not anywhere in the entire county library system. Not even an entry in the catalogue for Hayek.

   The censors are all on the left and they are effective.

2. The censors are not all on the Left, look at the classics that are now banned from public schools for puratanical, religious reasons. The Left would surely not want Road to Serfdom to be easily accessable – though amazon.com has it.

   I personally think it should be required reading in public High Schools all across our country.

   This article does point out how conservatives are unwilling to grant or uphold individual freedoms. It is always the case when those freedoms, equally given by God, offend the religious ideals of the given conservative. They sometimes acknowledge but never respect the concept of man’s freewill.

   This is why I left the Republican party years ago when it was infiltrated by Evangelical Protestants and their “Christian Coalition”. Anymore, True pursuit of freedom and Liberty, as well as limited government is only proposed by the Libertarian party.

3. Bob –

   The censors are not all on the Left, look at the classics that are now banned from public schools for puratanical, religious reasons.

   Examples?

   I don’t think parents having objections to sexually explicit literature in schools is quite the same thing as not carrying classic books on economics in a public library.

4. Gingrich outlines the “Sarkozy” strategy for a Republican victory – run against Bush:

   The only way to keep the White House in G.O.P. hands, Gingrich said, would be to nominate someone who, in essence, runs against Bush, in the style of Nicolas Sarkozy, the center-right cabinet minister who just won the French Presidency by making his own President, Jacques Chirac, his virtual opponent. Sarkozy is a transforming figure in French politics, Gingrich said, and he suggested that the only Republican who shared Sarkozy’s “transformative” approach to governing was, at that moment, eating a bowl of oatmeal at the McLean Family Restaurant.

   “What’s fascinating about Sarkozy is that you have an incumbent cabinet member of a very unpopular twelve-year Presidency, who over the last three years became the clear advocate of fundamental change, running against an attractive woman”—the Socialist leader Ségolène Royal—“who is the head of the opposition,” Gingrich went on. “In a country that wanted to say, ‘Not them,’ he managed to switch the identity of the ‘them.’ He said, ‘I’m different from Chirac, and she’s not. If you want more of the same, you should vote for her.’ It was a Lincoln-quality strategic decision.”

   Party Unfaithful: The Republican implosion, by Jeffrey Goldberg

   I think, clearly, Gingrich has one of the sharpest most perceptive minds in the Conservative movement. An Al Gore-Newt Gingrich election in 2008 would be a true Clash of the Intellectual Titans.

5. Al Gore, intellectual titan?

6. Yes, according to all the reviews of his latest book, “Assault on Reason”.

   And yet for all its sharply voiced opinions, “The Assault on Reason” turns out to be less a partisan, election-cycle harangue than a fiercely argued brief about the current Bush White House that is grounded in copiously footnoted citations from newspaper articles, Congressional testimony and commission reports — a brief that is as powerful in making its points about the implications of this administration’s policies as the author’s 2006 book, “An Inconvenient Truth,” was in making its points about the fallout of global warming.

   This volume moves beyond its criticisms of the Bush administration to diagnose the ailing condition of America as a participatory democracy — low voter turnout, rampant voter cynicism, an often ill-informed electorate, political campaigns dominated by 30-second television ads, and an increasingly conglomerate-controlled media landscape — and it does so not with the calculated, sound-bite-conscious tone of many political-platform-type books, but with the sort of wonky ardor that made both the book and movie versions of “An Inconvenient Truth” so bluntly effective.

   Al Gore Speaks of a Nation in Danger

   Gingrich, like Gore, is also an author and a professor. After leaving politics both men chose to write and teach, rather than become lobbyists, which I think is telling. Republicans like Karl Rove, and Democrats like Hillary Clinton are all about the politics, the “inside-baseball” aspects of Washington. Gingrich and Gore on the other hand are true policy wonks and love the sheer intellectual challenge of thinking about the long-term implications of what government does or doesn”t do.

7. Gore is an idiot, someone make him go away, please!!

   Thought I would add some intellectual leavening to the discussion.

   Could Gore be just a teensy-weensy bit prejudiced against Bush? Perhaps that little dust-up in 2000? The one where Gore wanted to skip counting the military vote? The one where Gore courageously wanted only three Florida counties vote recounted? Yup, that one.

   What qualifies Gore to do science? Has anyone other than myself asked that? When did he become a climate scientist? Isn’t it a co-incidence that accepting his advice would require a breathtaking takeover of every aspect of human life by government? As the church lady on SNL used to say “how conveeeenient” for Mr. Gore’s party.

   We have illegal aliens who come close to sneaking into Fort Dix and killing American soldiers on our own soil and this guy is tilting at windmills. Mr. Gore should call Paul Ehrlich and Rachel Carson and discuss how to extricate himself from the mess he is making with his reputation.

   When will Gore go away, just go away. He is becoming the Harold Stassen of Democratic politics.

8. It’s dated, but here’s a review I wrote of Gore’s previous book:

   Full Hearts and Empty Heads: Al Gore’s “Joined at the Heart”

9. I’m really disappointed by those responses which are completely bereft of substance and textbook examples of ad hominem attacks.

   If you are going to call someone an idiot you at least have the obligation to cite osmething vaguely idiotic about them.

   My nine-year old and I sat and watched “An Inconvenient Truth” last week. She gets it – why can’t Gore’s detractors? Do they lack the intelligence of a nine-year old?

10. Dean, the last Democrat intellectual was Sen. Patrick Moynihan. Gore doesn’t hold a candle to him.

    Gore looks for waves he can ride. That’s it. There is nothing else there. I’ll read his book. I won’t buy it, but I will read it and I already know it will be a very easy read. Sorry if this sounds prejudicial, but I really do know it. Most of it will be reworded cliches with a bit of moral outrage thrown in, a lot like reading Ellen Goodman. You remember her, right? — the columnist for the Boston Globe? She declared that global warming skeptics are tantamount to holocaust deniers. Another shining light.

11. Years ago, in my lefty days, I attended an “antiwar” rally. I use pejorative quotation marks because practically nobody at the rally was critical of the wars caused and fought by the so-called forces of national liberation.

    When one speaker did get too close to a critical analysis of the situation, one of the organizers led a rousing and spontaneous chant of “All Power to the People.” (The left seems to be especially good at arranging for spontaneous and highly nuanced expressions of opinion like that.) This intellectually bracing discussion continued until the speaker sat down and shut up. Whenever I re-read Animal Farm and get to a chorus of “Four legs good, two legs bad” coming from the assembled sheep, I think back to that rally.

    Funny thing is, I’ve never come across quite the same sort of thing from the right.

12. The last three Democrats to run for president – Kerry, Gore, and Clinton – all “wanted to be the President” when they were yet teenagers. That strikes me as narcissistic to the point of being creepy. Think back to what occupied your mind and your time when you were in high school. If one of your classmates went around saying he “wanted to be the President some day” you would probably avoid the guy at all costs.

    Of the three, though, Gore has by far the biggest obsession. The guy is hunting the white whale. Any scam will do – the global warming thing is just lying about and of use.

    Regarding his status as an intellectual, Gore’s grades were not as good as Bush’s, even though he took far easier courses. He got a “D” in his course on ecology. He failed out of both law school and seminary.

    Kerry, BTW, also had grades comparable to Bush’s and scored lower on the IQ test administred to those in the military and National Guard. When questioned about it Kerry said “I must have been drunk that day”.

    Many people, apparently including Dean Scourtes – confuse glibness with intelligence.

13. Thank you Father. There is more debate on the Conservative side right now because of the current political environment we find ourselves in now.

    Democrats have muted their internal debate somewhat because they want to remain unified so that they can keep the Congress and win back the White House in 2008. However, there certainly are many underlying rifts within the Democratic party. Pro-Choice Democrats versus Democrats for Life, Free-Trade Democrats versus Protectionist Democrats, Urban Gun Control Democrats versus Rural Gun Rights Democrats, Anti-War Democrats versus Pro-Israel Democrats, Liberal “MoveOn.Org” Democrats versus Centrist “Democratic Leadership Conference” Democrats, etc. If for some reason, the Democrats suffer a setback next year you coul expect all of these to flare-up once again.

    Debate has intensified somewhat on the Republican side because of the loss of the Congress in 2006 and President Bush’s low approval ratings. This issues that have arisen during the Bush admionstration raaly place the conservative movement at a crossroads in a number of areas. First, what to do with the Bush legacy, does it reflect conservative values or not? For example, did Bush’s deficit spending and expansion of government represent a violation of conservative values.

    Second, what about Neo-conservative foreign policy interventionism? Is Neoconservatism an anomoulous Wilsonian philosophy that is inconsistent with conservatism, or is it a natural extension of conservatism?

    Third, what is conservatism’s relationship with religion, and is there a tension between conservative concern for individual freedom and government regulation of personal moral behavior?

    Lastly what about the conservative movements relationship with big business. Conservatives are concerned about illegal immigration, but big business, with its appetite for cheap foreign labor, may be supporting lax controls, a guest worker program and amnesty. Also we see greater calls from business for a government solution to our health care and carbon emissions problems. How does the conservative movement respond to calls for greater, not less, regulation from its business allies?

14. Note 9, Dean, citation of something idiotic about Gore

    If you are going to call someone an idiot you at least have the obligation to cite osmething vaguely idiotic about them.

    My nine-year old and I sat and watched “An Inconvenient Truth” last week. She gets it – why can’t Gore’s detractors? Do they lack the intelligence of a nine-year old?

    Dean, your point was well taken. I was overcome with Gore fatigue and I didn’t hold up my end of the discussion properly.

    Your nine year old daughter is not competent to evaluate scientific claims because she does not have the requisite scientific training OR access to the relevant data. Global warming advocates biggest problem is that they fail to note the effect of changes in solar energy reaching the earth. The single biggest input in the Earth’s weather system is the energy reaching the earth from the Sun. This energy transfer vastly overwhelms every other input to our weather systems. Carbon emission generated by humans may tend to have a warming effect but that effect is outweighed 1 million to 2 million fold by the impact of the energy from the sun. Solar energy can vary by large percentages due to solar storms and solar waves (all activities occurring on the surface of the Sun) Please note that the polar caps on Mars are melting. Care to guess why?

    Here is an excellent commentary on global warming posted by Amy Ridenour.
    It points out that the issues are muddled beyond all recognition and Gore has largely created that muddle.

    Saturday, November 25, 2006
    Global Warming Consensus: Folks Who Believe There is One Can’t Tell you What It Is

    From page one of today’s (Nov. 25) Washington Post, an article by Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin that begins with a reference to “the scientific consensus about climate change” as if the “consensus” were an established fact:
    While the political debate over global warming continues, top executives at many of the nation’s largest energy companies have accepted the scientific consensus about climate change and see federal regulation to cut greenhouse gas emissions as inevitable.
    Question: If “the consensus” truly is an established fact, why is it referred to as “a consensus”? Why not just state the facts about which there is a “consensus”? (After all, no one refers to the “consensus” that gravity is the reason an apple falls down after separation from a tree. Folks just call it “gravity.”)

    Answer: Because even among those who believe there is a consensus on global warming, there is no agreement about the consensus itself. To some believers it is a consensus that the planet has been warming (but with internal disagreement on since when and how much); to others it is a consensus that human-caused CO2 emissions are causing measurable warming (but how much it may cause and how quickly is disputed); to others it is a consensus that the expected warming will be catastrophic for the entire planet (while others believe it will benefit some areas while harming others, or believe warming would be negative but not necessarily catastrophic); to some it is a consensus that hurricanes, droughts, snowstorms, etc. have been altered by human behavior (while others say the jury is still out); to some it is a consensus in favor of one or more of the scientific theories combined with the advocacy of some specified political action, such as ratifying the Kyoto treaty (while others see the consensus as wholly scientific, with no political components). Etc.

    Bottom line: The supposed consensus itself is a mass of contradictory opinions, a fact which says clearly to anyone with open ears that the science isn’t settled on global warming.

    So, even though the Washington Post apparently has decided to deny the existence of doubters to the global warming theory “consensus” (making Post reporters and editors “deniers” in the truest sense), the Post still can’t do what it ought to have done in the lede: Define the consensus.

    Cross-posted at Newsbusters.

    Addendum: The Washington Post certainly has interesting ledes. From a November 26 global warming article by Blaine Harden and Juliet Eilperin:
    SEATTLE — As the Bush administration debates much of the world about what to do about global warming, butterflies and ski-lift operators, polar bears and hydroelectric planners are on the move.
    There is a world-wide debate “about global warming, butterflies and ski-lift operators”?
    In their separate ways, wild creatures, business executives and regional planners are responding to climate changes that are rapidly recalibrating their chances for survival, for profit and for effective delivery of public services…
    As surprised as I am that climate changes have the ability to recalibrate their chances for survival, I’m even more surprised that, with their survival in doubt, the climate changes are still concerned about profit and the effective delivery of public services. (Shows what I know about climate changes.)

    Subject-verb agreement problems aside, I don’t think the Post meant to say “recalibrate.” I think it meant “recalculate.”

    Oh, well, I shouldn’t quibble about a few words. It is not as if we are trusting the Post to teach us about atmospheric physics or something.
    Posted by Amy Ridenour at 10:23 PM

    And not to be missed

    Friday, November 17, 2006
    Everyone’s a Skeptic: Sir Nicholas Stern Concedes Uncertainties
    More from David Ridenour at COP-12 in Nairobi:
    Sir Nicholas Stern, author of the much-publicized “Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change,” conceded that uncertainties remain on both the science and economics of climate change in an afternoon presentation here at the U.N. Global warming conference.

    Stern began his presentation by acknowledging that global action to curb greenhouse gas emissions has been delayed due to the long-term nature of the problem and the ongoing scientific and economic uncertainties of climate change.

    Referring to climate change as an externality, Stern said the real question is “what could be the costs of these externalities? This is a matter of the economics of risk.”

    Wednesday, Secretary General Kofi Annan lashed out at what he called “a few die hard skeptics… Trying to sow doubt.” He said these skeptics “should be seen for what they are: out of step, out of arguments, and out of time.”

    One assumes he wasn’t referring to Stern, but one wonders. The key difference between Stern and the so-called “skeptics” is not that they disagree on the existence of uncertainty. Both acknowledge there is some. The key difference is that Stern believes in applying the precautionary principle — regulating emissions “in case” it is needed to avert global catastrophe.

    Stern argues that the risk probability is significant enough to warrant drastic action. Reasonable people can disagree.

    His prescription? Stern calls for stabilizing anthropogenic emissions at 550 parts per million (it’s currently 430 ppm). This, he argues, is what is needed to limit the increase in global temperature to 2-3 degrees Celsius.

    This can be achieved, he claims, at a cost of just 1 percent of world GDP.

    But given the current technology, this figure seems highly dubious without major technological advances. Demand for energy continues to rise and no economically and politically acceptable substitute currently exists.

    I told Stern that I believed his figure of 1 percent of GDP was unrealistic and asked him about his technological assumptions and if nuclear energy was built into them.

    The first part of his answer qualifies as the “Duck of the Day.”

    “I don’t think it’s unrealistic… It draws on a very broad range of literature… A lot depends on investment, flexibility of structures, and good policy,” Stern responded. “There’s considerable uncertainty… But our [findings] are consistent with figures elsewhere.”

    And the underlying technological assumptions would be?

    Stern finally did acknowledge, however, that stabilizing emissions would require, “the whole range… Wind, solar, nuclear have to play a part.”

    The Stern Review briefing also included a presentation by Vicky Pope of the Hadley Centre, upon which the Stern Review depended for the scientific part of its report.

    Like Stern, Pope began her presentation pointing out the uncertainties of emissions, “science in models,” and natural variability — apparently to add an air of respectability the Hadley Centre’s research.

    But she assured all in attendance that the group’s projections of significant, possibly catastrophic warming were based on “plausible science.”

    That’s similar to the phase used by Kofi Annan yesterday.

    Again, we’re being asked to take immediate, possibly economically devastating greenhouse gas reductions based on plausible science?

    In case anyone actually listened to and took note of her statement that the science is uncertain, Pope threw this in: “[An increase of] 5 degrees Celsius… [Which would result] from business as usual… is the difference between now and the last Ice Age.”

    Talk about contradictory messages.

    And now the jaw-dropper of the day…

    The Stern panel also included a presentation by an environmental specialist from the Peoples Republic of China by the name of Pan Jiahua who made one comment that drew gasps from the audience.

    Mr. Jiahua asserted that reducing greenhouse gas emissions requires more than technological advancements. It requires, he said, reducing demand, which can be achieved, in part, by limiting population growth. He went on to say that China’s one-child policy has reduced energy demand by 300 million people.

    The comment drew gasps from some in the audience. Under China’s one-child policy, millions of baby girls have been put to death by parents seeking male offspring.

    At the conclusion of the panel, I gave Sir Nicholas Stern one of our “Kyoto Protocol Survival Kits.” He graciously accepted.
    Posted by Amy Ridenour at 3:30 PM

    Thursday, November 16, 2006

    Source: http://www.nationalcenter.org/2006_11_01_BlogArchive.html

15. What it means to say that global warming prevention would cost 1% world GNP

    Global warming enthusiastics such as Sir Nicholas Stern have stated that global warming can be offset through various policies and that the cost of this effort would be no more than 1% of world GNP.

    What does 1% of world GNP represent? It represents 33% of yearly growth in world GNP. The world would have to sacrific one-third of its growth. Who is hurt when economic growth is suppressed? Not the well-established or the already well-to-do, the countries who are hurt are the developing countries struggling to build a modern economy or within the world of individuals it is the young just getting started. The lack of economic growth in Europe, particularly France, has hurt the young French worker, not the established middle-aged professional. France is losing young professional workers to countries that offer them some opportunity.

    Lack of growth is the surest way to squelch the young and the up-and-coming and favor the established and the already well-to-do. Again, another Lefty policy that ends up hurting the Third World, just like Rachel Carson and the banning of DDT has cost millions of human lives.

16. Environmentalism: been done this road before

    Yes, Virginia, there is something called “Lefty” science, it always supports more government control over our lives.

    Dean and I once had a debate about the air pollution supposedly caused by electric generating plants powered by coal.

    First, Dean charged that utility companies were indifferent to pollution problems and didn’t give a wit about suppressing pollution. I was able to give him a citation to the Power Society of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineering. The citation reveals hundreds of research reports on technologies used to suppress air pollution from coal-fired electric plants.

    Dean, then offered a report that supposedly supported the idea that pollutants released in to the air by coal plants caused illness and death.
    The report was 70 pages long. I took the trouble to read it and I was astonished. Prior to reading the report I had great faith in the idea that particulates in the air would cause disease and in some cases death.
    Now after having read the report, I am astounded at how thin the evidence is. Firstly, there are absolutely no death certificates anywhere that state that anyone died of air pollution. The claim that air pollution causes deaths and diseases is based on statistical studies which are in turn built on 20 to 30 unproven assumptions. For instance, the researchers would look at a particular coal-fired plant and assume or guess the following:

    a) the amount of particulants released into the air by a particular plant
    b) the direction the particulants would travel
    c) the percentage of particulants which would condense with
    rain and be absorbed by the earth
    d) the number of people exposed to breathing the air-born particulants
    e) find a matching population NOT living near (within 50 miles)
    of a coal-fired plant
    f) compare the rates of death from emphysema and heart disease.

    Well, as you can see, we are talking about huge assumptions and guesses. The diseases studied have multiple causes and the analysis was of a group. There was no way to eliminate people for whom the cause of emphysema was obvious (like their own smoking).

    The entire study cited by Dean was a jerry-built house of cards. However, the policies it was cited to promote were…….drumroll please…. more government control over private industry. Surprise that.

17. Three scientists challenging global warming hysteria: D’Aleo, Herman and Gray
    From November, 2006

    Today on Capitol Hill, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), outgoing chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, addressed the media on the U.N. Climate Change Conference currently meeting in Nairobi, Kenya: “What we learned in Nairobi and what I have known for a long time is that the real focus has little to do with the fate of the planet and much to do about money — who has it, and who wants it.”

    On hand to present scientific evidence questioning global warming alarmism were three distinguished scientists, Drs. Joe D’Aleo, Ben Herman and William Gray. Some highlights of their presentations follow.

    Dr. Joe D’Aleo — former chairman of the American Meteorological Society’s Committee on Weather Analysis and Forecasting and a co-founder of The Weather Channel — argued that recent trends of accelerated global temperature rises are “much more complex” than models show. D’Aleo stressed that “natural cycles are important” in explaining these trends.

    For instance, solar factors account for 50 percent of warming, according to D’Aleo. “When the sun is brighter, it’s hotter.” Ocean temperature and volcanic activity are also explanatory factors. The Pacific Ocean warmed in 1995 after decades of being cooler. “El Ninos tend to bring global warming because of the warmth in the tropical Pacific [Ocean],” said D’Aleo.

    And because of relatively few recent volcanic eruptions, there is less ash ejected into the atmosphere that would block radiation from the Sun. “What does that mean? More radiation from the sun gets through.” This produces warming.

    Dr. Ben Herman of the University of Arizona’s Department of Atmospheric Physics centered his presentation on the “discrepancy” among satellite-based temperature readings, temperature measurements on the ground and what climate models predict. “When you compare satellite, mid-troposphere satellite observations, with surface observations they don’t agree with climate models,” argued Herman.

    “Climate models, in general, for the most part, have predicted that the mid-troposphere, somewhere between 10 [thousand] to 30,000 feet above the surface of the Earth, should warm more rapidly,” said Herman. “In fact, observations have shown just the opposite.” Moreover, “there are all kinds of complicated feedback mechanisms that come into play that the models cannot property handle.”

    As a result, Herman believes the temperature predictions being made today are done “off the hat and without any backing.”

    Finally, Dr. William Gray, a 50-year veteran in the field of meteorology, doubts the ability of climate models to predict future temperatures. Gray acknowledged some warming in the atmosphere but argues “I think it’s mostly natural… We cannot interpret every temperature change as measured as purely human. Most all of it, in my view, is due to natural changes.”

    Gray stated: “I’ve been appalled at what I’ve been reading in the papers and hearing the last 20 years or so on this climate change. Everything I know about how the atmosphere functions does not subscribe to what we’ve been hearing.”

    Climate cycle models, such as those done outside 10 to 12 days in advance, are generally not correct. “The atmosphere is very complex,” argued Grey. He elaborated: “Global models are not issuing forecasts for the next season, next year or so. They don’t do it – why? Because they don’t have any skill. But that doesn’t stop them from telling us what it’s going to like 50 to 100 years from now. It’s going to be warmer [but] how do they know that? This is ridiculous.”

18. Interesting how all these stories and debates on “global warming” never make any mention whatsoever about the percent composition of our atmosphere and always mention Carbon Dioxide amounts in absolute tons (rather than percentages).

    Here’s a little 3rd grade Science lesson for Algore and his loyal minnions of biased “scientists” on the composition of air:

    Nitrogen = 78.084 %
    Oxygen = 20.9476 %
    Argon = 0.934 %
    Carbon Dioxide = 0.0314 %
    Neon = 0.001818 %
    Methane = 0.0002 %
    Helium = 0.000524 %
    Krypton = 0.000114 %
    Hydrogen = 0.00005 %
    Xenon = 0.0000087 %
    http://www.physlink.com/reference/AirComposition.cfm

    Nature puts our roughly 90% of the CO2 on the earth while all of human activity contributes approximately 10%. Now given that for each unit of air only 0.000314 of it is C02 (an odorless and colorless gas) and only 10% of that is caused by humans, that means that for 1 unit of air only 0.0000314 is the CO2 caused by humans. Even if all of humanity stops breathing and we all cease all activities and we contribute no additional CO2 it will have a completely negligible effect on the global temperature. Don’t forget the ten thousand year climate cycles we do not control, the warming trend that caused Greenland to be green (before us horrible American started driving and flying), and the little Ice Age that caused the death and starvation of millions in Europe.

    Multiple serious scientific studies has shown that more than 95% of the actual warming is caused by the SUN and the Cloud Cover that traps heat as it radiates from the surface of the planet. How on earth can we control the Sun and the Clouds?

    Has Algore bothered with these absolutely key and critical issues in his biased propaganda piece that even a 3rd grade can easily debunk? Not a chance! He would rather put out his idiotic Sky is Falling movie based on junk science.

    http://www.physlink.com/reference/AirComposition.cfm

19. If posts 14-18 are representative examples of the “Conservative Mind” then I would say the Conservative mind is lost in a stubborn fog of denialism and delusion. Conservatism itself will fall into the dustbin of history for the simple reason that denialism and neglect are unsustainable as as a governing philosophy when the nation is confronted by urgent problems that threaten to grow into full-fledged crises that affect our standard of living and quality of life.

    The top corporations in America have recognized that problems like our collapsing health care system, our dangerous dependence on rapidly depleting foreign oil and the grave environmental damage resulting from global warming require more, not less government.

    Years from now, historians will argue over the exact moment at which the Great Conservative Crack-up finally occurred, and they’ll have no shortage of candidates. ..But I’d take January 22, 2007. On that date, a who’s who of corporate America—CEOs from such industrial stalwarts as Alcoa, DuPont, Caterpillar, Pacific Gas and Electric, and General Electric—joined environmental leaders at a Washington press conference on global warming. Their surprising message for the president and Congress: Please, for the love of God, regulate us.

    These weren’t the only CEOs asking government to step in and solve a pressing social problem. Two and a half weeks later, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott joined Andy Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union, to announce his company’s support for some form of universal health care. When it comes to business’s united front against regulation, as Leo Hindery, former CEO of the YES Network and author of the book It Takes a CEO, puts it, “[These guys are] looking and saying, ‘Look, if we don’t play this global-warming thing right, heck with politics, our company’s going to get hurt. If we don’t reform health care, I don’t care if I’m a Republican, my company will fail.’ ”

    ..At the end of the day, the country can’t tax-cut its way to better health care or a post-oil economy or fewer carbon dioxide emissions. The titans of capitalism are beginning to realize that, even if the conservative movement’s leading lights can’t—or won’t.

    Revolt of the CEOs: A massive expansion of the federal government, supported by big business, is on the way. Conservatives couldn’t be less prepared., Washington Monthly, May 2007

20. Chris:

    Here are the facts which disprove your argument that “Nature puts our roughly 90% of the CO2 on the earth”.

    How do we know that recent CO2 increases are due to human activities?

    Over the last 150 years, carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations have risen from 280 to nearly 380 parts per million (ppm). The fact that this is due virtually entirely to human activities is so well established that one rarely sees it questioned. Yet it is quite reasonable to ask how we know this.

    ..CO2 produced from burning fossil fuels or burning forests has quite a different isotopic composition from CO2 in the atmosphere. This is because plants have a preference for the lighter isotopes (12C vs. 13C); thus they have lower 13C/12C ratios. Since fossil fuels are ultimately derived from ancient plants, plants and fossil fuels all have roughly the same 13C/12C ratio – about 2% lower than that of the atmosphere. As CO2 from these materials is released into, and mixes with, the atmosphere, the average 13C/12C ratio of the atmosphere decreases.

    Sequences of annual tree rings going back thousands of years have now been analyzed for their 13C/12C ratios. Because the age of each ring is precisely known** we can make a graph of the atmospheric 13C/12C ratio vs. time. What is found is at no time in the last 10,000 years are the 13C/12C ratios in the atmosphere as low as they are today. Furthermore, the 13C/12C ratios begin to decline dramatically just as the CO2 starts to increase — around 1850 AD. This is exactly what we expect if the increased CO2 is in fact due to fossil fuel burning. Furthermore, we can trace the absorption of CO2 into the ocean by measuring the 13C/12C ratio of surface ocean waters. While the data are not as complete as the tree ring data (we have only been making these measurements for a few decades) we observe what is expected: the surface ocean 13C/12C is decreasing. Measurements of 13C/12C on corals and sponges — whose carbonate shells reflect the ocean chemistry just as tree rings record the atmospheric chemistry — show that this decline began about the same time as in the atmosphere; that is, when human CO2 production began to accelerate in earnest.

    I would also recommend that you vist the “How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic” web site (http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics) which provides scientific rebuttals for all the phony arguments industry advocates and their hennchmen like to use to hoodwink the public.

21. #20 Dean

    You do realize that posting political advocate sites is not proof to your argument for global warming?

    Grist Magazine was founded by members of the radical environmental movement. And has received accolades from the Tides Foundation for their public advocacy for political left issues.

    Realclimate is a science page that is discussing climate change, but it’s a scientific discussion site. It is not a proof site that there is concensus in the scientific community concerning global warming.

    You argument like posting an article about the imporatance of keeping abortion legal that’s linked to a Planned Parenthood website.

    You don’t think there’s a problem of bias?

    But if you like the battle of “authorative” websites, why don’t you become familiar with this one:

    EnviroSpin Watch run by Philip Stott

    And how about being familiar with Michael Crichton’s speeches such as “Environmentalism as Religion”, “Fear, Complexity, & Environmental Management in the 21st Century” and “Aliens Cause Global Warming”

    I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance. — Michael Crichton

22. JBL – My information comes from real climate scientists working for the top agencies that study climate and weather patterns; your information comes a lone science fiction writer and paid industry hacks. So if you’re going to base your judgements solely on the credibility of the sources you have to acknowlege that the sources warning us of the dangers of global warming are more credible.

    But I didn’t only cite sources, I provided the actual scientific proof that increases in atmospheric CO2 are man-made, and could provide much, much more.

    The evidence that our climate is changing is irrefutable. Even respected US military leaders have expressed their alarm that climate change could result in geo-polical upheavel.

    US generals urge climate action, BBC News, Sunday, 15 April 2007

    Former US military leaders have called on the Bush administration to make major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
    In a report, they say global warming poses a serious threat to national security, as the US could be drawn into wars over water and other conflicts.

    They appear to criticise President George W Bush’s refusal to join an international treaty to cut emissions.

    Among the 11 authors are ex-Army chief of staff Gordon Sullivan and Mr Bush’s ex-Mid-East peace envoy Anthony Zinni.

    The report says the US “must become a more constructive partner” with other nations to fight global warming and deal with its consequences.

    It warns that over the next 30 to 40 years, there will be conflicts over water resources, as well as increased instability resulting from rising sea levels and global warming-related refugees.

    The denialism and flat-earth mentality of people like yourself is a major reason I am predicting either the demise or fundamental transformation of the conservative movement. As the nation and the world world hurtle towards disaster we can’t afford to be led by people with their heads buried in the sand.

23. And, of course, Dean any scientist who disagrees is not a “real” scientist or if he buys petroleum products is entrall to the petroleum industry. That’s a convenient way of not having to really think.

    Now I realize that it is quite easy to live in a political or even a religious feedback loop of self-validating beliefs that is hostile to anything that might contradict what one cherishes. I probably do it myself from time to time. However, if we want the truth we cannot do that.

    Political apocalypticism is always wrong in its solutions even if the problem has a basis in reality.

24. Okay Michael – Is the Wall Street Journal part of a liberal feeback loop?

    Here is what Glen Hubbard, one of the most conservative economists around, has to say about Global warming in today’s Wall Street Journal:

    Capitalism Against Climate Change, By R. Glenn Hubbard

    The case for action to combat global climate change has grown increasingly compelling in recent years. Sadly the same cannot be said for specific proposals to address the problem. … One recent … proposal to balance a need for policy action with a mechanism for prudent economic risk management …[is the] new recommendations by the National Commission on Energy Policy for an emissions trading program…

    Good environmental policy relies on sound science. Some of the science surrounding climate change is clear. … Other aspects of the science are more ambiguous… This means that estimates of the likely temperature and climate changes over the next century span a fairly wide range. The potential effects on people and ecosystems are even more uncertain.

    Despite this uncertainty, most serious students of climate change believe that the likelihood of adverse climate change is sufficiently great to warrant action. But what action? …

    A mature and responsible conservative movement would not be trying to deny Global warming. It would be trying to answer Glen Hubbard’s question – What do we do about it?

25. More imporant issues about CO2 for Dean to chew on. However, his selective comprehension abilities will ignore this also. Oh well, you can’t argue with someone who refuses to think critically and use common sense. Here it goes:

    An examination of published scientific data show many inconsistencies between the climate record and the CO2 – Global Warming hypothesis. Some of these are:

    – The major greenhouse gas is water vapour, and the nature of CO2 / water vapour interactions is not clearly understood. Moreover, James Hansen (2000) downplayed the role of CO2 as a greenhouse gas.

    – Antarctic ice cores in one study show carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 80 to 100 ppm about 600 years after the warming of the last three deglaciations, while in another study Antarctic ice core data show that CO2 levels lag an increase in temperature by 900 to 1200 years.

    – World Climate Report shows that annual growth in concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere have remained essentially flat from 1975 to the present – during a time of maximum production of CO2 from fossil fuels. This casts doubt on the claim that rapid and dramatic build-ups of CO2 will occur in the future.

    – We know that CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels was not the cause of dramatic historical climate changes, for example, 1000 years ago, in the Medieval Warm Period or in the Little Ice Age that followed from about 1350 to about 1860. We are still emerging, in an oscillating fashion, on the warming trend that came after the Little Ice Age. Global historical temperature data is readily available, for example Canada, Mediterranean, Alaska, China and Canadian Rockies.

    – In the 20th century, there was little correlation between temperature changes and CO2 levels. Some surface temperature measurements show a 0.5°C rise over the past 100 years. However, that average hides some significant details. From 1905 to 1940, a rise of about 0.5°C was measured, during which time there was an imperceptible rise in CO2. From 1940 to 1975, the temperature decreased about 0.2°C, while CO2 levels started to increase more rapidly. The out-of-sync relationship is obvious.

    http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?ide=5

26. Dean,
    1. I didn’t say anything in my post about liberal, you supplied that. I was merely commenting on the mechanism which, IMO, you employ on a regular basis.

    2. I, as Mr. Hubbard, was attempting to point out that even if Global Warming is a reality, the means and the effect of human action are very much in doubt.

    3. Apocalyptic emotionalism whether it is religious or secular always leads to over-reaction and tyranny.

    Since most of us react out of fear to something or other, we end up picking our own form of tyranny(large and small) for our own personal set of reasons. As common as such reaction is, it is not the Christian way. Unfortunately, politicians of all persuasions are really good at obsfucating issues with fear. They even use the fact against one another to rouse more fear (Al Gore screaming “He played on our fears” is one obvious example)

27. Michael: I liked Hubbard’s “Risk Management” approach, which is in your line of work is a concept you certainly understand. It is a prudent business approach and not “apocalyptic emotionalism”. Would you advise a client with a suspicious cough, not to buy health or life insurance?

    Near-term actions should not impose greater risks than the problem they seek to address. … If you smell smoke at home, it would be silly to do nothing until you actually see flames, but you also should not hose down the house after one whiff of what might be smoke.

    For the global warming debate, uncertainty justifies neither inaction nor over-reaction. As the smoke analogy suggests, the United States should pursue a moderate policy that can be justified as we learn more about the threat of climate change and the costs of alternative responses.

    http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/05/glenn_hubbard_c.html

    If scientists and climatologists were saying “let’s end all carbon emissions by 2010” that would be the equivalent of housing down the house. What they are saying is we need to continue monitoring and studying the problem and gradually begin reducing carbon emissions in case the severity of climate change turns out to be much more dangerous than we thought. Thats like saying “we need to stop smoking in bed, and make sure all our smoke alarms and fire extiguishers work”.

    Economist Brad DeLong lays out the options as follows:

    1. Relative to that baseline, you should do more of things that reduce risks: a prudent portfolio should have some gold or silver in it (not much!) to guard against the potential inflationary collapse of fiat money systems and other political risks.
    2. Relative to that baseline, you should do less of things that increase risk: invest less in risky enterprises, and dump less carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.
    3. You should delay doing expensive and irreversible things until you are confident that they are needed.
    4. You should prevent processes that could cause irreversible or incredibly-expensive-to-repair damage until you are confident that their effects will be harmless.

    Even if option 3 applies, that doesn’t mean we can’t get started on option 2

28. Note 20 – Dean – I ran the numbers on your “Proof” being the mathematician that I am. It does not disprove Chris’s data, rather reinforces it. I think you misunderstand how nature has always dealt with CO2. Over the past 150 years the rate of CO2 produced by man has grown. So if it takes 150 years to go from 280 to 380 what is your point? If your figures are accurate I understand your concern – those numbers look substantial. But I do not assume the impact of those levels on our climate.

    Now I do not know what point in time all the CO2 figures represent. Dean – your source states over the last 150 years, but counting back from what date? Chris – the percentages you provide are as of what date? Based on what I have seen in research – the figures from your 3rd grade text book indicate that that book was published in the early 60’s or the author is using data from 1958.

    You guys are holding two different kinds of fruit.

    Note 18 – Chris – If nature produces 90% of the CO2, is this an annual rate, or is the 10% simply the difference between 280 (pre industrial levels) and 314 (from your reference)? If 90% Natural and 10% Human causation is an annual rate, then you may want to use another resource to make your point.

    Let’s play with the possibility that these are annual rates, since your figures did not come with instructions. If nature produces 90% of what is or was 314 ppm, then nature is producing 283 ppm of CO2. Now before human intervention in the [substantial] creation of CO2, nature produced all the CO2 and at the same time consumed most if not all the CO2. Here again I am operating under the assumption that nature at one time was balanced. For arguments sake and to the benefit of Chris’s argument, let’s assume nature produces 90% of the CO2, Humans create the remaining 10%, and Nature consumes its balanced share 90% (current levels only). What will the numbers look like in 10 years?

    Current level = 314 = CL
    By Nature = 282.6 = bn
    By Humans = 31.4 = bh
    Used by Nature = 282.6 ubn
    ‘n = number of years

    Future level = CL + (n * bh) + (bn – ubn) = 314 + (10 * 31.4) + (282.6 – 282.6) = 628

    So in 10 years we cold likely arrive at DOUBLE the amount of CO2 than what we have according to Chris’s figures, and a little bit of assumption on my part.

    To add insult to injury Chris – I could argue that the amount of CO2 used by nature is less than 280 due to deforestation. I could also argue that the 10% caused by humans is projected to increase over the next 50 years. This would skew the numbers in Dean’s favor, if you care to look at it that way. Keep in mind I am comparing your arguments. Dean – I am surprised you did not jump all over this one.

    In 100 years,

    Future level = CL + (n * bh) + (bn – ubn) = 314 + (100 * 31.4) + (282.6 – 282.6) = 3454

    In 288 years,

    Future level = CL + (n * bh) + (bn – ubn) = 314 + (288 * 31.4) + (282.6 – 282.6) = 9357

    Although the CO2 levels are small compared to Nitrogen and Oxygen, all things remaining equal, in 288 years the way I interpret your figures, CO2 could be the third ingredient on the cereal box of “Atmosphere”.

    So I ask you the same question that I pose to Dean – What is your point? How many ppm’s of Cyanide can cause death if ingested? (150-200)

    Benzene exposure limits as per OSHA:
    The legal airborne permissible exposure limit (PEL) is 1 ppm averaged over an 8 hour workshift, and 5 ppm which should not be exceeded in any 10 minute period.

    I could go on and on, but my point here is small numbers do not prove insignificance. As a side note, in our fictitious model above – and all things remaining equal – it would only take 22 years before the CO2 levels in the atmosphere exceeded the U.S. EPA maximum continuous exposure level of .1% or 1000 ppm. Is that any indication of how flawed my analogy is? Anyone?

29. Dean, my end of the business is more about appropriate risk sharing than risk management. If someone came to me with a chronic cough and wanted either life or health insurance, especially someone who did not have existing insurance, I’d be suspicious. I’d tend to assume that the person had a significant chronic illness that needed treating. In order to determine that, insurance company would obtain medical records with the proposed insured’s consent to see if the risk of insuring the person would was acceptable.

    Many of the people with whom I deal are not risk adverse. They are more than willing to assume risk they feel is remote or avoidable in order to pay lower premiums. In the global warming debate we have a group of politicians who historically want to use government not to share risk, but in an attempt to transfer most of the risk to the government which they in turn transfer back to us in the form of higher taxes. The more risk one transfers, the higher the cost in terms of premium dollars now.

    There is always a balance between the price now and the potential cost later. Many insurance sales people are experts in making real to people the potential future risk so that they will transfer that risk to the insurance company. Most insurance sales people act in a reasonable and ethical manner when making sales, i.e, the paint an appropriate picture of the risk without exaggerating it and offer contracts that cover the risk at an appropriate price.

    There are those who are not ethical. They either outright steal from clients or they exaggerate the risk and overstate the benefit of the insurance policy, which is often sold at a higher premium than necessary. Their lack of ethics is usually motivated by a need to control and receive recognition with a little greed thrown in.

    IMO Al Gore and friends engage in unethical sales practices—they are using a sales technique know as “mini-maxing” . They are minimizing the true cost while exaggerating the risk and overstating the effectiveness of the solutions. Unethical insurance sales people make the job of explaining and appropriately selling insurance much harder than it needs to be as the well of reason is poisoned. Unethical politicians have the same effect.

    Liberals are not the only ones guilty of such tactics; it is endemic to the populist politics of our time. That does not mean that we have to make our decisions in reliance on the unethical presentation of the risk and proposed solutions. Solutions that seem too costly, will likely not have the effect promised and/or require ceding freedom.

30. IMO Al Gore and friends engage in unethical sales practices—they are using a sales technique know as “mini-maxing” . They are minimizing the true cost while exaggerating the risk and overstating the effectiveness of the solutions.

    Exactly right. Well put.

31. It is unethical for you to call Al Gore unethical. To say that he is minimizing the solution and maximizing the problem is grossly incorrect. Its is a form of denial and rationalization.

    Gore is using the most solid, credible information available from the most knowlegable sources in the scientific and climate research community. The contradictory information cited against him comes from a relatively small minority of marginally qualified experts, all of whom coincidentally have ideological axes to grind or financial ties to the energy industry.

    It’s almost as if in writing a property insurance policy to a man known to carelessly leave lit cigarettes all over the house, you chose to rely on the opinion of the head of the Tobacco company rahter than that of the Fire Chief.

    Also Gore’s recommendation are proportional to the possible enviornmental threats posed by global warming threats that are plausible and realistic enough to make our own military and intelligence communities sit up and take notice.

    Military Sharpens Focus on Climate Change: A Decline in Resources Is Projected to Cause Increasing Instability Overseas, Washington Post, April 15, 2007

    The U.S. military is increasingly focused on a potential national security threat: climate change.

    Just last month the U.S. Army War College funded a two-day conference at the Triangle Institute for Security Studies titled “The National Security Implications of Global Climate Change.” And tomorrow, a group of 11 retired senior generals will release a report saying that global warming “presents significant national security challenges to the United States,” which it must address or face serious consequences.

    The 63-page report — which is being released a day before the U.N. Security Council holds its first-ever briefing on climate change — lays out a detailed case for how global warming could destabilize vulnerable states in Africa and Asia and drive a flood of migrants to richer countries. It focuses on how climate change “can act as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world,” in part by causing water shortages and damaging food production.

    This is why I say the Conservative movement is in trouble. It would rather engage in denial and rationalization, than address urgent national problems in a manner that might challenge their rigidly inflexible and unrealistic ideology.

32. Al Gore’s Ethics

    Dean Scourtes is fond of citing the authority of the 2,500 member IPCC. In the 2007 IPCC report on climate change a consensus figure for sea level rise is given: 34.5 cm by the year 2100 (IPCC 2007b 10.6.5). Since this is the consensus opinion of 2500 (count em!) infallible climate scientists, I would expect him defend that figure against all scofflaws who would dare to mount a challenge. Only someone engaging in “denial and rationalization” would dare to contradict this information – received as it is from on high.

    But wait, a contrarian appears! Why, it is none other than Al Gore! What does Al say in his movie An Inconvenient Truth?

    If Greenland melted, or broke up and slipped into the sea – or if half of Greenland melted or broke up and slipped into the sea, seal levels worldwide would increase by 18 to 20 feet.

    Now why does Al Gore not suffer the wrath of Dean Scourtes and others of high moral rectitude? Well, first of all, he never said that the IPCC report predicted a 20 foot sea level rise. He just threw out a conditional statement full of apocalyptic imagery (“slipping into the sea…”) which happened to finish up with the words “20 feet.” Clever, eh? Second, he can cite the authority of James Hansen, the NASA scientist who traveled around campaigning for John Kerry. Against all current authority on glaciation and ice dynamics, Hansen predicts a 20 ft sea level rise. In other words, he is completly at odds with “the consensus”. In this bizarre essay Hansen, Hansen claims that his very isolation on this issue proves that he is right.

    So, the overwhelming majority of people who actually study this issue say 34 cm; Al Gore finds one guy who says 20 feet; who do we listen to Mr. Scourtes? Is Al being ethical?

    But at least Al has no financial stake in this, unlike those nasty climate skeptics. Wait! Maybe that is not so clear either. It turns out that Al Gore is the Chairman of a venture capital fund that specializes in

    global sustainability issues, such as poverty, climate change, ecosystem services, biodiversity, pandemics

    Generation

    Yes. You read that right. Al spends half his time whipping up hysteria by making up statistics about ecological disaster, while the other half is spent reaping venture capital returns on projects aimed at exploiting fears about ecological disaster.

    It is instructive to compare Al’s profiteering with the financial fate of two very highly credentialed climate scientists. Richard Lindzen is a professsor of metereology at MIT, but what is most significant is that years ago he pioneered the development of “GCM” computer models. His were among the very first efforts at modeling climate. In other words he is one of he founders of the discipline that gets so much attention by Al Gore and Dean Scourtes. Lindzen thinks this global warming hysteria is insane: “like kids locking themselves in a closet to try to scare each other”. He has seen his research funding dry up but at least his honor is intact. Henk Tennekes is another highly respected scientist – Director of the Dutch Metereological Society – who first developed theories of long-range weather forcasting. He lost his job due to his unwillingness to join the global warming funding stampede.

    These are some of the “marginally qualified experts” that Mr. Scourtes thinks are in it for the money. Meanwhile Al reaps his venture capital profits, writes more books, and dreams of being president.

33. Tom: You are under the mistaken impression that we are discussing hypotheticals. Actually, the dire predictions are unfolding, even as you read this.

    NASA: Danger Point Closer Than Thought From Warming, ABC News, May 29, 2007

    Even “moderate additional” greenhouse emissions are likely to push Earth past “critical tipping points” with “dangerous consequences for the planet,” according to research conducted by NASA and the Columbia University Earth Institute.

    With just 10 more years of “business as usual” emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas, says the NASA/Columbia paper, “it becomes impractical” to avoid “disastrous effects.”

    The forecast effects include “increasingly rapid sea-level rise, increased frequency of droughts and floods, and increased stress on wildlife and plants due to rapidly shifting climate zones,” according to the NASA announcement.

    Antarctic Ice Sheet Is Melting Rapidly; New Study Warns Of Rising Sea Levels,
    Washington Post, March 3, 2006

    The Antarctic ice sheet is losing as much as 36 cubic miles of ice a year in a trend that scientists link to global warming, according to a new paper that provides the first evidence that the sheet’s total mass is shrinking significantly.

    Warming hits ‘tipping point’ The Guardian, August 11, 2005

    Siberia feels the heat. It’s a frozen peat bog the size of France and Germany combined, contains billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas and, for the first time since the ice age, it is melting

    Global Warming Heats Up, Time Magazine, Mar. 26, 2006

    What few people reckoned on was that global climate systems are booby-trapped with tipping points and feedback loops, thresholds past which the slow creep of environmental decay gives way to sudden and self-perpetuating collapse. Pump enough CO2 into the sky, and that last part per million of greenhouse gas behaves like the 212th degree Fahrenheit that turns a pot of hot water into a plume of billowing steam. Melt enough Greenland ice, and you reach the point at which you’re not simply dripping meltwater into the sea but dumping whole glaciers. By one recent measure, several Greenland ice sheets have doubled their rate of slide, and just last week the journal Science published a study suggesting that by the end of the century, the world could be locked in to an eventual rise in sea levels of as much as 20 ft.

34. Yup, the polar ice caps are melting — on Mars! I never guessed greenhouse gasses traveled that far into space!

    Mars Ski Report: Snow is Hard, Dense and Disappearing

35. OK Mr. Scourtes – Here is your big chance to prove that you are not a troll.

    You put up a post that claimed Al Gore to have unimpeachable ethics. I responded by showing you that he misleadingly and grossly exaggerated the forecast sea level rise. His figures, and those that Time magazine is using to sell more copies, are from a handful of scientists pushing fringe theories. That is why the IPCC report does not entertain such scenarios but sticks to consensus figures like 35 cm. I even gave you the reference from the most recent IPCC report so you can read it yourself. So, I ask and I want an answer: is Gore being honest?

    BTW, over the last century the seal level rose even more than this projected amount. Would any sane 90 year old person, if asked to name remembered hardships of the twentieth century, say “oh the sea level rose 50 cm, it was terrible”?

    I also provided evidence that Gore is positioned to profit very handsomely from efforts to avoid the supposed catastrophe that he is prophesying. I think anyone with integrity would avoid such an unseemly conflict of interest. He brags about it. So, I ask and want an answer: are Gore’s financial dealings ethical?

    Finally, I gave you names of two scientists who strenuously dispute the Al Gore take on this. Both of them are not only highly respected and credentialed, but they were early pioneers in the very arcane discipline that is supposedly driving the hysteria. So, I ask and want an answer: what conflict of interest do they have that disqualifies their views? Let me give you a headstart, BTW, the fact that someone may have given a seminar and been paid a consulting fee of a few thousand dollars (chump change for eminent scientists) does not come anywhere near the conflict of interest represented by chairmanship of a venture capital fund.

    OK, good luck.

36. Tom C writes: “You put up a post that claimed Al Gore to have unimpeachable ethics. I responded by showing you that he misleadingly and grossly exaggerated the forecast sea level rise. . . . I also provided evidence that Gore is positioned to profit very handsomely from efforts to avoid the supposed catastrophe that he is prophesying. I think anyone with integrity would avoid such an unseemly conflict of interest. He brags about it.”

    I don’t really have a dog in the climate fight. I think global warming probably has a human component, but I don’t have an opinion on how much the sea level will rise, etc.

    But I would like to address this larger issue that you raise. Questions:

    1) does providing misleading and grossly exaggerated information constitute unethical conduct only in the field of global warming, or does it apply to other subjects as well?

    2) is providing misleading and grossly exaggerated information unethical only for those on the political left and middle, or for the political right as well?

    3) does obtaining a possible financial benefit for catastrophic predictions constitute a conflict of interest only for those on the left and middle, is it a conflict of interest for the right also?

37. Re #36

    Of course all three points apply to those on the right as well.

    I’m going to make a wild guess that your followup post will claim that all three points apply to Bush and the Iraq war. If you can make a good case that he duped everyone for political and financial gain then I will be first to denounce him.

    However, after having read and thought about it alot I disagree that those were his motives for going to war. Re the political aspect, you forget that his popularity was sky-high before the war and has plummeted ever since, and that he has stuck to his position despite the low approval ratings. Re the financial aspect, I know something about the chemical industry and I don’t think oil companies benefit from access to Iraq oil. The numbers just don’t add up.

    Of course maybe you were not thinking about Iraq, in which case please disregard above.

38. Tom C states: “If you can make a good case that he duped everyone for political and financial gain then I will be first to denounce him”

    I’m not sure if this is indeed what Jim had in mind, but before anyone bothers compiling evidence, it would help to know what sort of testimony you would consider credible. For example, despite former CIA director George Tenet’s claims that the Bush administration was “determined to attack Iraq from the first days” in office, I’m certain his claims will be dismissed by Bush loyalists for one reason or another. (For the record, I’m not opposed to all of Bush’s domestic or foreign policies.)

    Honestly, short of Bush signing a public statement admitting to these things, what would you deem sufficient evidence that this whole enterprise was initiated for questionable purposes?

39. Tom C writes: “I’m going to make a wild guess that your followup post will claim that all three points apply to Bush and the Iraq war.”

    Well, sure, Iraq is obvious and includes many more than Bush. It probably applies more to Cheney than to Bush. Financially, Cheney has obvious ties to defense contractors, and a number of people in high positions in the Bush administration have connections to the oil industry, either as investors or corporate officers. In fact, I am unaware of any other administration that has so many close ties to a single industry.

    Now why the administration chose to cherry pick the intelligence that supported their case is a mystery to me. I suppose there were many reasons. But I certainly can’t rule out the interesting conjunction of military and petroleum interests existing in the administration. Did Bush and Cheney meet over lunch one day and decide to enrich their defense and oil cronies by going to war in Iraq? That seems extremely farfetched to me, but I think a reasonable person could conclude that their former careers were influential in more subtle, and perhaps even unconscious ways.

    But as far as misleading and grossly exaggerated information, the Terri Schiavo case is perhaps the best example. The right wing Schiavo narrative was very compelling and moving:

    1) Michael Schiavo was an abusive husband who
    2) tried to kill his wife, thus causing her collapse, after which
    3) he refused to get her any treatment. Instead, his intention was to
    4) kill her legally and collect a million dollars of lawsuit money.
    5) Her parents, operating only from Terri’s best interest tried to stop that.
    6) This very bizarre and unique medical situation
    7) wound up being heard by a liberal judge.
    8) During the hearing Michael alone decided that his wife should die
    9) by withdrawing artificially administered food and water, that were not medical procedures in any sense.
    10) But his claim that Terri was in a PVS was false
    11) and in fact she was alert and communicative right up to the end.
    12) Nonetheless, Michael Shiavo was permitted to follow his own wishes
    13) and Terri Schindler (her real name)
    14) starved to death.

    The problem is that all of those statements are false, as anyone willing to spend 5 minutes looking at the actual facts, freely available on the internet, would understand. You criticize Gore for seizing upon minority opinions, but the right wing Schiavo narrative was largely constructed from minority opinions and actual falsehoods, and everything remotely supportive of the Schindler side, however speculative and unfounded, was taken as fact. All of this is an unfortunate example of how the “conservative mind” sometimes works.

    The difference between Schiavo and global warming is that the Schiavo case was relatively simple and the basic facts were easily available. Global warming is an enormously complex situation involving theoretical models and facts of uncertain interpretation. Nonetheless, I would say that Gore’s position is relatively close to the mainstream scientific consensus, even if he isn’t right on all the details.

40. Actually Jim, many of those statements are not false. Not willing to argue the issue all over again however, you are nevertheless too comfortable with granting life and death decisions to the state in non-criminal cases.

    There is something barbaric about starving a person to death because of a disability. The disabled, btw, are not on your side. See: Not Dead Yet

41. Note 38. Not to speak for Tom C., but let’s stay on task. Tom has not made any of the claims you presumably want him to answer. Dean has. Let Dean answer and Tom respond rather than let the question get swallowed up in side debates.

42. “OK Mr. Scourtes – Here is your big chance to prove that you are not a troll.

    [ … crickets chirping … ]

43. Fr. Hans: “Actually Jim, many of those statements are not false.”

    With all due respect, they are false and/or unsubstantiated, as can be proven chapter and verse, much of it in the public legal record. But like you, I don’t want to rehash everything either.

    Fr. Hans: “Not willing to argue the issue all over again however, you are nevertheless too comfortable with granting life and death decisions to the state in non-criminal cases.”

    Well, when there is a dispute in the family over these things, the current system ends up involving the state legal system. There are certainly other ways of going about it. But when the Shiavo case came along, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, we had to go with the legal system we had, not the legal system we might wish to have.

    Certainly reasonable people can disagree about the outcome in Schiavo. My main concern has always been that opinions about the case should be based on the actual facts of the case, and not on pure speculation and unfounded accusation. I think you would agree with this.

44. The public record is selective. That’s one of the biggest complaints about the case. On issues where medical opinion is cleary divided (what is PVS for example), only “experts” biased toward euthanasia were allowed to testify for example, — hence a skewed public record.

    As for the state law ostensibly governing the decision, when you look back at the debate surrounding the passage of the law, you discover there was no intention of forcibly starving someone like Terri Schaivo. It just wasn’t on the radar though when the law was written. The law was quickly changed afterward to prevent something like this from occuring again. This was Florida. I live here. There was a huge discussion after Schiavo was killed.

45. Fr. Hans writes: “The public record is selective. That’s one of the biggest complaints about the case. On issues where medical opinion is cleary divided (what is PVS for example), only “experts” biased toward euthanasia were allowed to testify for example, — hence a skewed public record.”

    Unfortunately, this is an example of the very thing that I’m talking about.

    First, I don’t know what it means to say that only pro euthanasia experts were “allowed to testify.” Allowed by whom? At the initial hearing, the Schindlers were able to call anyone they wanted to testify — anyone, any expert, any physician. Upon hearing all the evidence, Judge Greer — a lifelong Republican and conservative Christian, found that Terri Schiavo was indeed in a persistent vegetative state.

    Upon appeal, the Schindlers were granted a separate evidentiary hearing precisely for the purpose of determining Terri’s medical condition. In the words of the appeals court:

    As a second reason for relief from judgment, the Schindlers argued that Mrs. Schiavo’s medical condition in February 2000 was misrepresented to the trial court and to this court throughout these proceedings. . . . In support of these arguments, the Schindlers filed numerous affidavits from licensed physicians who have reviewed Mrs. Schiavo’s medical records, who have considered affidavits providing anecdotal evidence from lay people about her condition, and who have watched a brief videotape of her interaction with her mother at a time close to the original trial. . . . The affidavits of the several doctors vary in content and rhetoric. Among the affidavits filed by the Schindlers, however, the most significant evidence comes from Dr. Fred Webber. Dr. Webber is an osteopathic physician practicing in Clearwater, Florida, who claims that Mrs. Schiavo is not in a persistent vegetative state and that she exhibits “purposeful reaction to her environment.”

    Based largely on Dr. Webber’s representations, the appeals court ordered the additional hearing. Judge Greer’s opinion describes the evidence that was presented:

    The evidentiary hearing commenced on October 11, 2002 and concluded on October 22, 2002 during which time the court heard testimony on separate days from the treating physician of Terry Schiavo and five board- certified expert physicians, two selected by the Petitioner, two selected by the Respondents and one selected by the court since the parties could not agree upon an independent fifth expert. This procedure was pursuant to the Mandate. The court also received into evidence numerous exhibits including copies of published medical articles, copies of summaries of published medical articles, CT Scans and videos of medical examinations. The court also had the opportunity to observe the witnesses when they testified, to note body language, pauses, inflections and other non-verbal factors utilized in determining credibility which would not appear in a transcript of these proceedings. The court also heard excellent closing arguments from the attorneys who were well prepared and quite knowledgeable in this area of the law.

    Were the physicians properly qualified and prepared? The judge notes that

    “All of the five expert medical physicians have very impressive credentials and resumes. The record documents those credentials so they need not be set forth herein. All are board-certified which was a requirement of the Mandate. Several teach or have taught in medical colleges, several are prolific writers for medical journals, some are young and some are not so young but, by and large, the court heard five days of excellent medical testimony concerning the issue of persistent vegetative state, possible treatment options and how these may or may not have an effect on Terry Schiavo. They were all well prepared, generally having reviewed all of the available medical records, videos, etc.”

    The judge found that Terri Schiavo was indeed in a persistent vegetative state, with no hope of recovery.

    In its review of the evidentiary hearing, the Court of Appeals found that “the quality of the evidence presented to the guardianship court was very high, and each side had ample opportunity to present detailed medical evidence, all of which was subjected to thorough cross-examination. It is likely that no guardianship court has ever received as much high-quality medical evidence in such a proceeding.”

    In reviewing the medical evidentiary hearing, Jay Wolfson, appointed guardian ad litem by Gov. Jeb Bush, reported that “Following exhaustive testimony and the viewing of video tapes, the trial court concluded that no substantial evidence had been presented to indicate any promising treatment that might improve Theresa’s cognition. The court sought to glean scientific, case, research-based foundations for the contentions of the Schindler’s physician experts, but received principally anecdotal information.”

    So it is clearly false that only “pro-euthanasia” experts were allowed to testify. Now if you want to assert that not every physician who ever ventured an opinion on Schiavo testified, that’s true. If you want to say that the Schindlers were not permitted to litigate the case into the indefinite future every time a new physician showed up, that is also true. But your initial statement is not true, and the public record is surely adequate to show that.

46. # 39, 43, 45

    Jim – Did Dean Scourtes write you a quick E-mail: save me Jim! Get the subject of the thread changed to Terry Schiavo!

    #38

    James K – It would pretty hard to find someone with a bigger motivation to put the blame on Bush et.al. than Tenet.

    It strikes me that Bush did not start a war, he tried to finish one that his father wrongly suspended.

    But anyway, I want to know how whipping up global warming hysteria while sitting as chairman of a venture capital fund that stands to profit very handsomely from global warming hysteria, is an example of sound ethics.

47. Tom C writes: “Jim – Did Dean Scourtes write you a quick E-mail: save me Jim! Get the subject of the thread changed to Terry Schiavo!”

    I was responding to Fr. Hans’ assertion that “only experts biased toward euthanasia were allowed to testify [in the Schiavo case].” This is an example of an assertion that completely contradicts the known facts, and thus is one example of “The Conservative Mind” in operation, and thus is in keeping with the spirit of the thread. In other words, if we’re going to talk about the conservative mind, great, lets talk about it, in all of its various manifestations. It has always been my position that The Conservative Mind would benefit greatly by an apprehension of the facts. But then again, I’m part of the “reality-based” community, so what do I know.

48. Tom C notes: “It would pretty hard to find someone with a bigger motivation to put the blame on Bush et.al. than Tenet”

    Are you saying that Tenet is lying, or that because he might have something to gain by blaming Bush that any truth he might be stating is thereby rendered irrelevant?

49. Note 45. Jim, I don’t have the time or inclination to reargue Schiavo. The people who wanted her dead won. It’s over.

50. JamesK

    This excerpt is from the link you provided:

    Tenet blames himself, among other things, for the hastily compiled October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons, issued on the eve of a congressional vote authorizing the war. The NIE, he said, “should have been initiated earlier. I didn’t think one was necessary. I was wrong.” The document, he acknowledged, was “not cautious in key judgments” and at times used single sources who turned out to be wrong.

    A perennial problem, he writes, was a tendency by intelligence analysts to assume other people thought like they did. When judging whether Hussein was lying when he said Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, “we did not account for . . . the mind set never to show weakness in a very dangerous neighborhood.”

    One of the “lowest moments of my seven-year tenure,” Tenet recalls, was when a congressman told him in a public hearing in the spring of 2004 that “we depended on you, and you let us down.”

    It seems to me that Tenet does not fare well in re-examination of the pre-war period and he certainly has some motivation to spin his actions. That does not let Bush and Chemey off the hook, it’s just a fact to keep in mind when evaluating claims.

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