Desperate Climate Deniers Resort To Attacking Terminal Cancer Patients
Wow. Climate doubters are attacking dying astronaut, climate scientist. Just stunning. https://t.co/oM9hQ5Inwu
— seth borenstein (@borenbears) January 17, 2016
Cancer and Climate Change, Piers Sellers, New York Times
“I’m a climate scientist who has just been told I have Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. This diagnosis puts me in an interesting position. I’ve spent much of my professional life thinking about the science of climate change, which is best viewed through a multidecadal lens. At some level I was sure that, even at my present age of 60, I would live to see the most critical part of the problem, and its possible solutions, play out in my lifetime. Now that my personal horizon has been steeply foreshortened, I was forced to decide how to spend my remaining time. Was continuing to think about climate change worth the bother?”
Climate deniers attack NASA scientist dying of cancer, Grist.org
“And yet, it took no time at all for the climate change deniers to start attacking Sellers, as ThinkProgress points out. James Delingpole author of such illuminating articles as “Paris Climate Talks Are Doomed Because China Knows ‘Climate Change’ Is A Hoax” wrote a post on Breitbart with the ridiculous headline “NASA Chief: Global Warming Is Real Because I Have Cancer”.
NASA Chief: Global Warming is Real Because I Have Cancer, Breitbart
“Sorry, but no. Sellers’ cancer says no more about the validity of global warming theory than Einstein’s having shagged Marilyn Monroe says about the validity of his theory of relativity. Interesting biographical details and personal tragedy have nothing to do with the scientific method. (Well, not unless it’s Francis Bacon killing himself while experimenting on a frozen chicken). I’m genuinely surprised that NASA thought it was at all a good idea to publish this emotive piece. I shouldn’t be surprised if it alienates more people than it persuades. After all, if climate change were really such a desperately important, scientifically proven issue, it certainly wouldn’t need moving pleas from dying men to push its cause. The facts would speak for themselves.”
bunch of losers
This is disgusting.
If you want Breitbart to admit to climate change, just convince them that it’s caused by minorities using tax dollars.
As a conservative I want to apologize for this disgusting article by a news agency that leans toward my side of the aisle. Writing this kind of filth is unbecoming of the journalistic profession and of being a good human being.
Personally I believe that global warming is occurring. I do have questions and am skeptical of some of the rhetoric being used (e.g. “The world will be uninhabitable in 100 years.”)
The questions in my mind relate to the extent of it, how much it is being caused by man, and what actions we should take to deal with it?
I don’t think those questions have been completely answered yet. While they are being answered the debate over climate change should be discussed in a reasonable manner by all sides of the argument.
Good post.
In Dec 2015, a study revealed that almost two-thirds of the listed impacts related specifically to the warming over land and near the surface of the ocean could confidently be attributed to *human-generated* emissions.
Studies have shown that no action would cost more GDP than the GDP cost to lessen the effects of climate change. What responsibility should the industries who gained tremendous short term profit at the expense of the environment bear? Is this why folks do not want actions to be taken, they do not want to bear any responsibility or held accountable for their actions? Did the fail to notify the risks to their investors?
Climate change threats include lobster, ski resorts, shorelines, hurricanes, droughts, coral reefs, Artic Ice free by 2050, natural habitats of species, and perhaps most importantly declining crop yields. How does one relocate a city/farm on the sea or protect it from sea level rise? cost?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016…
http://www.nature.org/ourin…
warming-climate-change/threats-impacts/economic-loss-and-damage.xml
http://climate.nasa.gov/eff…
https://www.edf.org/climate…
http://www.sciencedaily.com…
You are a climate skeptic, not a climate denier.
A skeptic will say “I will believe something only after I get compelling evidence”, while a denier refuses to consider anything outside of their pre-conceived worldview.
Scientists are skeptics.
.BTW – breibart does not lean toward your side of the aisle. Magazines and sites like The Weekly Standard, National Review, The American Spectator, Cato, The American Conservative, The Christian Science Monitor, Human Events, etc., are respectable conservative voices (not that I agree with anything they contain!).
If you go past these legitimate voices and descend far past the lying BS of the
FakeFox News and then noise like Rushbo, you end up in a sewer like Breibart.So don’t feel they tarnish the conservative brand and you don’t need to apologize for them.. They don’t rate the label.
Long time lurker, first time commenter – surfacing to only say that this is one of the most respectful and gentle conversations I’ve witnessed in recent months, and I wanted to give y’all two snaps and a high five for being model human beings.
Sites where people can disagree and discuss is what makes it worth posting and enjoyable and informative. I give the real credit to HRH Keith Cowing who keeps people in line. He has 86ed my posts more than once (and did rightly).
(My wife tho would greatly disagree with your characterization at least in my case!)
I hate sites that simply turn into abusive, gutter-mouthed and hostile flame pits. Again special Kudos to Keith.
By the way, sarah.. please surface and comment more! Always can use infusions of new ideas! I think most current posters are pretty predictable (I know I am) and fresh POVs are so very welcome.
A skeptic will say “I will believe something only after I get compelling evidence”
True. I would go still further and recall the frequent admonition of the late Carl Sagan – hardly a conservative – that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” And where the Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis is concerned, no one has yet shown me any. Mr. Sellars is no exception.
He says, This involves studies of climate and weather using space-based observations and powerful computer models. These models describe how the planet works, and what can happen as we pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The work is complex, exacting, highly relevant and fascinating and use our increasingly powerful computer models to explore possible futures associated with proposed policies. The models will help us decide which approaches are practicable, trading off near-term impacts to the economy against longer-term impacts to the climate.
He exhorts us, in other words, to put our faith in models developed by “top men” such as, umm-hmm, himself. But the models have all been shown to be garbage.
while a denier refuses to consider anything outside of their pre-conceived worldview.
That progressives will engage in wholesale prevarication – backed up by campaigns of vituperation and harrassment and attacks on the livelihoods of any who stand up to them – to advance their political goals and to enrich themselves is not only not outside my worldview, it is a key part of my worldview.
Scientists are skeptics.
But progressives are true believers.
The Breitbart piece was an entirely reasonable response to a deliberately mawkish effort by a leading peddler of climate crapola to use his personal misfortune as a means of advancing his worthless thesis. Breitbart has nothing for which to apologize.
When NASA trots out the latest entry in their ceaseless cheerleading campaign of baseless happy talk about going to Mars and how the SLS and Orion are key components of that plan, most here are properly scornful of NASA’s obvious subservience to venal political and self-interests in keeping their funding coming. Somehow, none of this healthy – and completely justified – skepticism, even scorn, is in evidence when NASA tells even bigger whoppers about the Arctic ice cap melting and Florida being submerged. Frankly, I’m a bit more inclined to believe the Mars crap than the climate crap, but, make no mistake, it’s all crap.
“But the models have all been shown to be garbage”
Seriously? or hyperbole?
I have seen plots of predictions by the models and they all diverge from observations.
The self declared “skeptics” should realize that the evidence for AGW does not come from models but from the basic physics of the greenhouse effect (known for more than a century) and the DATA on temperatures, sea level rise, increase in atmospheric CO2 from burning fossil carbon, etc. These are facts, and no consistent interpretation has been suggested other than AGW.
As noted in my long comment above, the physics are not basic and rely on assumptions that have proven false to fact. In response, the “climate scientists” have taken to cooking the data to conform to their hypothesis rather than admit their hypothesis has been falsified by actual events. The increase in atmospheric CO2 is indeed real. It’s all the elaborate computer model-based hand-waving about melting icecaps and rising seas that is illusory.
If you do not want liability, you must claim that the physics of greenhouse gases have been falsified and/or not proven,even though in John Tyndall in 1859 discovered that carbon dioxide and water vapor trap heat and later that century, Arrhenius proved the relationship between greenhouse gas concentrations and surface temperatures.
The most conclusive evidence of the role of CO2 in warming is comparing the heat reaching and leaving earth, where the long wave length radiation arriving is less than departing, and the frequencies being trapped are the *SAME* frequencies absorbed by greenhouse gases.
In the past half decade, the world has burned over a trillion barrels of oil and vast quantities of energy sources. Emperically, the moon has no vapor or greenhouse gases, but the earth does not get as cold as the moon at night.
Hey, we didn’t know it would cause warming? it’s all about liability.
https://www.skepticalscienc…
Much of rising seas are caused by expansion of warm water and the effect is seen globally and dramatically (and expensively).
http://www.space.com/30379-…
Climate Myth #6: Models are unreliable
Read up on all of them:
https://www.skepticalscienc…
Is the goal to have no liability?
I asked this question about hind casting at a presentation by Lonnie and Ellen Mosley Thompson, both of considerable fame taking ice cores from tropical glaciers (an odd phrase, I know).
http://research.bpcrc.osu.e…
The response was to recognize that models have a long way to go; that there are models, and then there are models; that models have improved over time; that we are right to view the predictive qualities with skepticism; and that models are scientific output just like any other scientific work and are therefore properly viewed as works in progress; and that they are not all divergent.
More to the point was this: models are converging in prediction especially as inputs become more reliable.
There’s no discounting the stunning ice core data, however, which truly give millennial reach.
Over time models tend to diverge from reality. A model can never contain all factors. That is why they are constantly refined. That is what is so infuriating from the Cruzs and Rubios who betray the public trust by stopping the collection of fresh data and analysis.
If government-supported scientists have been faking data and telling alarmist lies, they should be fired, indicted and jailed for fraud. They should definitely not be rewarded with more money. Nobody is trying to stop the collection of data. But the current stewards of that data have been demonstrated to be untrustworthy. They need to be removed.
Quite seriously.
Are you at all familiar with “Climategate?” An unknown hacker pilfered a huge e-mail archive from the climate science department at the University of East Anglia in the U.K. back in 2009. The e-mails demonstrated beyond any possibility of refutation that leading lights in the field of so-called “climate science” were engaged in a conspiratorial campaign to: (1) oust editors of science journals who were not committed climate alarmists and replace them with people who were, (2) systematically subvert the peer-review process to keep any research that didn’t support the Anthropogenic Global Warming Hypothesis from being published, and (3) hounding any so-called “deniers” out of any academic positions they held and getting any government funding they received for said research cut off.
They were quite successful at this sub-rosa campaign of sabotage and disparagement before the Climategate e-mails surfaced and have even been somewhat successful since.
In addition to academic backstabbing in the shadows, some have also resorted to lawfare – suing opponents of their views so as to divert all or most of their critics’ resources to paying lawyers and defending themselves in court. The Michael Mann suit against Mark Steyn, National Review and Rand Simberg is maybe the most famous of these efforts.
Then there are the so-called “models.” It may surprise you, but prior to the Climategate revelations, neither the data sets nor the code for any of these models was in the public domain despite the vast majority of the “research” having been paid for by public funds. The code and data sets for a number of these models was among the things contained in the pilfered Climategate archive. Said code proved, upon examination, to be the dog’s breakfast that code written by scientists often is. There were many instances of violations of standard numerical methods safeguards, such as checking for floating point underflows and overflows and divide-by-zero errors. One doesn’t have to be a “climate scientist” to find fault with horrible code, just a decent journeyman programmer.
Beyond wobbly code, however, it seems none of these much-vaunted “models” could “predict” the past climate given known starting conditions and applying all the assumptions about physical reality built into them. That argues that said assumptions are, in fact, wrong.
The main bad assumption seems to that rising CO2 will “force” more water vapor into the lower atmosphere. It is this water vapor that is supposed to be the main engine of Global Warming. The CO2 is more like the pull-starter on a lawnmower. Problem is, actual measurement has not shown this theorized “forcing” to have taken place. Hence, no out of control warming.
Then there were the mathematically invalid uses made of statistical methods by Mann, et al, in producing the famous “Hockey Stick” graph of exponentially rising temperatures. A number of reputable statistical mathematicians have made mincemeat out of Mann’s work and it is now generally acknowledged, even by other climate alarmists, to have been categorically refuted.
There is also the wholesale “adjusting” of raw surface temperature data by “researchers” at NOAA, NASA and places like East Anglia to erase the Medieval Warm Period and to make it seem that there has been a significant warming globally in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The latest in a long series of bogus reports based on this data-fudging chicanery has just been released and is the star subject of a nearby post on this blog.
In short, the entire infrastructure of “climate science” is corrupt and must be burned down and replaced.
What motivates people to do these sorts of things?
Reason one, money. There’s an old saying that I first heard from a freshman-year English professor of mine. “Academic infighting is particularly vicious because the stakes are so small.”
But not always. Nuclear physics was once a marginal and impecunious field that attracted a corps of researchers numbering in maybe the mid-three figures worldwide. Then there came WW2. Leo Szilard got Einstein to write his famous letter to Roosevelt and suddenly the heavens opened and money in unimaginable quantities fell on the field of nuclear physics.
In Germany, in the late 30’s and early 40’s, the same thing happened to rocket science. In the 50’s and 60’s, that same thing happened to rocket science in the Soviet Union and here.
The lesson that some formerly small and struggling area of science added to a big scary problem could yield the wealth of Croesus being visited upon the fortunate in-crowd did not go unremarked elsewhere.
Of course, in the case of both nuclear physics and rocketry, the big scary problems were actually real – Hitler and the Soviet Union, respectively. At some point, a critical mass of climate scientists seem to have decided that it was their turn to call down the gravy train on themselves – even if the big scary problem required had to be invented out of whole cloth.
So they did.
Reason two, political ideology.
The leading lights of “climate science” are also, pretty much without exception, leftists of one stripe or another. In the Academy at large, not merely in the field of “climate science,” the Left has been engaged in a long-term campaign of removing politically incorrect academicians and replacing them with their fellow leftists.
Left-wing politicians, always looking for ostensible reasons to increase the reach and obtrusiveness of the State over the lives of ordinary citizens, are quick to seize on any suggestion of a crisis that demands “Something Must Be Done.” Catastrophic Global Warming meets all the requirements for a typical leftist jihad of interference in free people’s affairs so it was taken up with alacrity. The left-wing politicians in Western democracies are happy to fund “climate science” generously in return for the continued production of more “settled science” with which to bludgeon their way toward the bright technocratic-socialist future in which they will finally be in charge of everything of consequence and even of everything not of consequence. It’s a perfect storm of corrupt “science” and leftist megalomania.
And, thus, here we are.
Yes, I too am familiar with Mr. Watts.
Your understanding of “climategate” is off the rails.
http://blogs.discovermagazi…
http://climatesight.org/201…
http://www.scientificameric…
Discover and Scientific American both have aggressively pro-climate alarmism editorial policies. SA refuses to publish even letters to the editor that dispute the climate alarmist catechism, never mind actual articles.
Your other citation is from a site maintained by a self-declared apprentice member of the garbage climate science cabal. Pretty much everything she has to say about Climategate is nonsense. The archive is available on-line. You don’t have to accept what some obvious partisan tool has to say about it.
In short, all your citations are to sources that are about as objective on the subject of climate change as Stormfront is about Jews.
You are trapped in your worldview and cannot escape. Facts cannot affect you. You attack what falls outside your narrow range and not the facts or analysis.
Notice that your response showed NO numbers or analysis!
In Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse 5” novel, the aliens, who are omniscient in time and space, describe the way a human “Billy”, experiences the world:
(The alien explained) … among them was this poor Earthling, (and he experienced the universe as if) his head was encased in a steel sphere which he could never take off. There was only one eyehole through which he could look, and welded to that eyehole were six feet of pipe.
This was only the beginning of Billy’s miseries in the metaphor. He was also strapped to a steel lattice which was bolted to a flatcar on rails, And there was no way he could turn his head or touch the pipe. The far end of the pipe rested on a bi-pod which was also bolted to the flatcar. All Billy could see was the dot at the end of the pipe. He didn’t know he was on a flatcar, didn’t even know there was anything peculiar about his situation.
The flatcar sometimes crept, sometimes went extremely fast, often stopped-went uphill, downhill, around curves, along straightaways. Whatever poor Billy saw through the pipe, he had no choice but to say to himself, ‘That’s life.’
I (probably the one of the few. I’ve learned people don’t read long ones) have read your incredibly long essays posted as comments and have been alternately astounded, amused, and appalled at the myopic tunnel vision.
You appear to see the world as a battle ground between the failing Evil Collectivists (led by Ellwsorth Toohey and Dr. Ferris) who, thru their henchmen, the socialists, manipulate the misguided dupes (Liberals and Progressives) against the True Humans, the Free, led by John Galt and Howard Roark.
When I was in my 20’s, I was trapped for awhile in your worldview. Then I grew up. Some folks never seem to find their way out of the simple-minded adolescent Manichean leftist worldview. I don’t make these posts with the expectation of changing your mind; I doubt that is possible. I simply believe that rampant mendacity should be publicly opposed, not celebrated.
You are not unintelligent as your remarks about space-related matters readily demonstrate. When the subject is SLS/Orion you seem ready enough to accept that there are many people, some of them even “public servants,” who will advance and pursue an invidious public policy simply because it personally benefits them. Yet when it comes to alleged Global Warming/Climate Change you behave as though everyone in an academic or civil service job in the field is some sort of incorruptible angel simply because that is congenial to your political “common sense.” It’s easy to lie to people who want to be lied to.
You have no idea of my worldview. As a teen and young man, I was not going to be like those fuzzy thinking softy liberal dupes and was a tough -minded rightist, a member of the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) and Young Republicans. Then like Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwia, I suddenly had the clouds clear before my eyes and then i grew up and chose thenceforth to look at the FACTS, not the bias.
Well, I was a Young Democrat for awhile and was greatly influenced by a socialist uncle of mine who had voted for Norman Thomas, been imprisoned for anti-war activity during WW2, always bought English cars as he thought the Brit trade unions were the real thing while the AFL-CIO were all fakes, and took many family trips to that socialist garden spot of the 50’s and 60’s, India.
My own parents were Republicans so my adolescent flirtation with leftism may have had an element of rebellion against the parents about it. Whatever its origin, my sympathy for the Left curdled badly after meeting some real “Movement” types during my undergrad days. Let’s just say that these people had “issues” and I don’t mean political ones.
May I ask if your turn to leftism from YR/YAFfyness had maybe a similar origin? It’s really quite remarkable how many people’s problems with their parents carry on in various ways into their adult lives.
You appear to misunderstand the water vapor issue.
Please look here:
http://www.realclimate.org/…
No I don’t. The page you link pretty much says what I did about the relative contribution of atmospheric CO2 and H2O to the greenhouse effect. H2O is a much more efficacious greenhouse gas than is CO2.
The article also confirms that climate models produce their most extreme predictions based on increased CO2 producing an increase in H2O which then does most of the predicted heavy lifting in raising global average surface temperatures. The argument advanced about whether this is a “forcing” as opposed to a “feedback” is largely pointless because the average level of atmospheric H2O is not, in fact behaving as the models predict.
you still have it backwards
The measured global vapor. Data shown with the late 1990’s El Nino (recall 1998 had the outlier high temp) and without the el nino data, showing the trend more strongly.
Assuming the data points on these plots are actually correct and not “adjusted” to fit an agenda, the alleged “trend” is barely there. The upper graph with the 1998-centered El Nino data left out tilts the “trend” line up by 50%. I, personally would be interested in seeing comparable graphs for longer periods. I suspect the graph for 1995 – 2015 would show essentially no “trend” as there would be a strong El Nino close to each end. Even the “trend” in the lower graph – the one with no data points missing – shows only a 2% increase in average humidity over a 13-year period. You need a much longer baseline to establish any long-term trend that is not simply an artifact of some cherry-picked interval. There is such a thing as natural variability. It constitutes a lot of the noise out of which real climate scientists should be attempting to discern any warming signal. Instead, the politically motivated liars in academe and government trot out the noise and claim it’s the signal.
The baseline is from available data.
BTW – QUIT insulting scientists. You sound like the poster Einstein when he streamed insults at one of the world’s experts on electromagnetism in space, to the point the scientist politely posted here and was directly insulted by “Einstein”.
What do you want to see in the vapor levels?? A carboniferous era rain-forest? With vapor levels responsible for 50% of the warming, anything more would make this place look like the film Day After Tomorrow.
How much has the average global temperatures risen during that same time period?
I’m not insulting scientists. I’m insulting people who claim to be scientists when they’re engaging in deliberate fraud to assure themselves of continued generous funding by politicians who find their lies helpful to their agendas. Committing fraud while in possession of a PhD is still committing fraud. I see no reason why fraudsters shouldn’t be called out simply because they have advanced college degrees or titles.
“extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
You have it backwards in this case. Filling the atmosphere with GHG should cause climate change, and the fact of this effect has been demonstrated in a compelling way to the almost complete universe of qualified atmospheric scientists. It is “extraordinary evidence” that is required for the extraordinary claim that it is not happening.
If all those “qualified atmospheric scientists” were actually right they wouldn’t have to keep making up data or cranking out worthless software code in an attempt to bluff the credulous.
Not a response.
NUMBERS with REFERENCES
Try the Climate, Etc. and Watts Up With That? sites if you want detailed explanations and hard numbers. Both have gigatons of both. Citing Politifact and especially Media Matters is risible. Politifact is notorious for its leftist tilt. Media Matters is strictly a progressive propaganda site. It exists solely to peddle whatever the politically correct narrative is.
No. don’t point me to a site. YOU supply what you think are compelling numbers. You constantly make broad-brush political smears and name-calling, then get a SPECIFIC rebuttal (like LA actually getting hotter) and then you either disappear or again call someone or something a pinko and thus make your case. Well, it is silly.
I’m not sure exactly what numbers you suggest I “supply.” Your side is the one claiming the seas are about to boil and Florida is about to submerge. I would call this sort of scaremongering “extraordinary claims.” But no extraordinary proof is on offer. The only “numbers” your side can seem to supply are cooked data sets run through bogus models.
As for L.A., I’ve lived here over 40 years. It’s been hot and it’s been cold at various times. The climate of both the entire Earth and of any particular sub-region tends to vary. That isn’t at issue. Your side claims most of observed climate variability is due to human agency. Simply observing that climate changes over time – even if all those changes are in a warming direction – doesn’t prove your case.
Where the real dirty money comes from:
http://thinkprogress.org/cl…
http://environmentcounts.or…
http://www.theguardian.com/…
http://phys.org/news/2013-1…
Ah, yes. More leftist propaganda sites busily having cows about the allegedly nefarious Koch brothers. I wish they actually were spreading around as much loot to “Climate Change Deniers” as the Left imagines. I could sure use some, but the check – alas – never seems to arrive in the mail.
The Koch brothers are in – among others – the oil business. They see nothing wrong with being so and aren’t above saying so publicly. Quel horreur!
It always amuses me that lefties think no one should ever contradict them when they start on one of their anti-whatever-today’s-Two-Minutes-Hate is about.
Rather than pay off the Green Left, like many other oil companies – and the Saudi royal family – do, the Kochs have decided to backchat the screaming meemies of the environ-wacko left in public. How unsporting of them.
Geez Yale, can you lay off with your anti-conservative screeds. I consider myself a moderate, but your constant political pot-shots are getting tiring. Yale, you are a smart guy, and you have a lot to contribute, here. I have read and been impressed with many of your informative posts about NASA and space exploration and technology. But my eyes glaze over when you make your frequent digressions to attack those who don’t share your political world view.
I think many conservatives would agree that Breibart is a whack-job. However, it is a bit ridiculous, and disingenuous (IMHO) to paint Fox News with the same brush. Heck, MSNBC is not my personal cup of tea, but you won’t see me calling them lying BS slingers.
There are policies I don’t agree with on both sides of the political spectrum. But I keep an open mind, and make it a deliberate point to listen to many points of view. Consequently, I share my news intake equally between CNN, PBS, BBC, and Fox News.
MSNBC is not like Fox. Rachel Maddow, for example, a strong partisan progressive pundit, does try to be HONEST. She actually has an occasional segment named Debunction Junction which sometimes features times when she got something wrong or inappropriate. She shows what was wrong and corrects it.
Also MSNBC does not, as a network, predetermine the “official” talking points for its day.
Fox News is totally different. There is a daily outline of specific talking points that the pundits are to follow, designed by GOP hatchetman Roger Ailes, to further the GOP. Direct and deliberate lies are easy to find lists.
You are not getting a “point of view” from Fox. You are getting a deliberate manipulation without regard for any ethics. CNN, PBS, BBC, DW, etc., fine. Just don’t confuse fox “news” with real news or independent commentary and analysis.
Also if I glaze you eyes, make a point of skipping my posts, or directly comment on a mistaken fact or poorly supported analysis of mine.
Yep, my eyes just glazed over again…this time accompanied by a face-palm. No offense mean’t, Yale. I don’t wish to skip your posts, especially when you are participating in discussions related to NASA, space exploration and research, etc. You are a valued contributor, here. However, I will cordially hit the rip cord whenever you segue into one of your political rants.
That’s your choice. Actually I prefer political talk, but again read or ignore as you choose.
Science vs How Fox Changed Media+Politics
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3…
“Fox News became the only news source for millions of Americans. This has had profound political implications that are only starting to be appreciated. Indeed, it can almost be called self-brainwashing – many conservatives now refuse to even listen to any news or opinion not vetted through Fox, and to believe whatever appears on it as the gospel truth.”
” A 2015 Farleigh Dickinson national poll again found that Republicans and Fox viewers were
more likely to be misinformed about factual matters relating to public policy such as the false beliefs that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Barack Obama is not a citizen of the United States.”
“In effect, conservatives engage in self brainwashing, where certain ideas are repeated so often and with no contrary or alternative point
of view that it fulfills the classic definition of brainwashing. Conservative critics of this argument, such as Rush Limbaugh, implicitly confirm it by saying that no conservative needs to know anything other than what he tells them to get all the news they need. Every aspect of liberalism any conservative needs to know is explained by him in such a way that they will understand how wrong it is without ever having to check a liberal source for themselves.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016…
“The Koch-sponsored advocacy group Americans for Prosperity has been at the forefront of climate-change opposition over the past decade. When the Republicans took over the House of Representatives in 2011, Americans for Prosperity lobbied lawmakers to support a “no climate tax” pledge, and by the time Congress convened that year, 156 House and Senate members had signed on.”
George Carlin –> The American Dream.
http://www.politifact.com/t…
Fox News: “..about 60 percent of the claims checked have been rated Mostly False or worse..
http://mediamatters.org/blo…
http://mediamatters.org/blo…
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W…
What is this ‘debate’ of which you speak? about what to do about it, one supposes?
I agree. My view is that warming don’t seem to predict anything with any accuracy and I doubt they understand anywhere near the amount necessary to make meaningful predictions, especially regarding what impact humans have vs sun/earth effects and how the earth responds. I think more should be done as to how to mitigate any warming or cope with it rather than bankrupt the US when countries producing more CO2 are not likely to reduce their output. And any dissenters are called deniers in an attempt to shut down any opposition. Not the scientific method.
Dissenters can be either “skeptics” or “deniers”. The former is commendable, the latter is deplorable.
“I think more should be done as to how to mitigate any warming or cope with it rather than bankrupt the US “
https://www.ted.com/talks/a…
Breitbart.com isn’t journalism and does not employ qualified journalists. Hardly a ‘ news agency ‘ when your mission statement purposely limits publication to filtered items from a narrow exclusionary highly polarized agenda . A shame there is so much of that these days, all around.
relay sad to hear this , I had the honer of meeting peirs Sellers when when he visited Dundee University a few years back he one of few UK born Astronauts to have flown in space.
I met Piers back in the late 80’s when he came to visit the University where I was working. Amazing guy and it was obvious then he was going places. Hang in there Piers and thanks!
Breitbart is a conservative cesspool, nothing good can be found there, why bother reading it…
Actually as recently pointed out in the case of Mr. Trump, there is a brand of noise parading as ‘conservative’ or ‘right-wing’ that is actually without any sort of thoughtful anchor or as the National review says “a philosophically unmoored political opportunist”.
It’s a phrase that distinguishes quite a bit of noise.