Curious as always, I naturally looked around this Young America’s Foundation place to see what it’s like. I found a link titled UCSB Students Believe Global Warming is One of the Biggest Threats to the World. I could feel the scorn rising off the words. Silly silly UCSB students – what does it matter if sea levels rise and glaciers melt and rivers dry up and crops fail?
And yet, I was still surprised by Ashley Pratte’s style of argument.
According to Weather Channel founder John Coleman, man-made climate change is a myth. Well, college students at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) would strongly disagree.
In a statement Coleman said, “The ocean is not rising significantly. The polar ice is increasing, not melting away. Polar bears are increasing in number. Heat waves have diminished, not increased.”
However, the students at UCSB feel very differently.
Uh? A tv weather guy said something, and that’s supposed to be conclusive?
Snopes has a page on Coleman.
As Coleman’s critics have noted, he does not hold a degree in climatology or any related discipline, nor has he studied or conducted any research in that field; he merely parrots arguments advanced by others.
So just saying “In a statement Coleman said” isn’t quite good enough.
Critics of Coleman who do study and work in the field of climate science have produced detailed line-by-line rebuttals of his arguments against global warming.
Young America’s Foundation people please take a look.
Now back to Ashley Pratte:
There were a few students who made it clear they are doing all they can to reduce their individual carbon footprint. One student claimed that he bikes 15 miles to school everyday, and another student said she’s vegan.
When asked what they would say to climate change deniers the answers were unanimous, “Educate yourselves.”
Well, maybe these students should take their own advice and realize that science isn’t on their side. Over the years global warming has become a policy agenda spurred on by leftists and environmentalists, but the science just isn’t there.
This year marks, an 18-year “pause” in global warming-which leaves environmentalists scratching their heads to come up with excuses to combat climate-change deniers.
They can keep their computer models and we will keep our science-based in fact, not projections.
Yeah none of your god damn computer models for projecting what’s going to happen next, we prefer surprises!
It is a FACT that the sun rose in the east this morning, but projecting that it will do so tomorrow is hardly science! Such silliness!
I’m ready for my check, Young America’s Foundation!
Ah ha, now we can link Sommers to climate change denial via the YAF. Are you still behind her, Richard Dawkins?
BTW, on the story behind the false “pause” story, here’s an explanation from Grist.
http://grist.org/climate-energy/who-created-the-global-warming-pause/
In particular check out the animated graph of temps in the “Numbers game” section down the page a bit.
John Coleman doesn’t even have a degree in meteorology, his BA is in journalism.
And we should all feel some sympathy for The Weather Channel. John Coleman was only involved with it for its first year, way back 30 years ago. But every. single. time. he makes one of his half-assed comments on climate, that connection is mentioned. They’re fed up enough that they’ve publicly disowned him.
http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/02/media/weather-channel-global-warming-john-coleman/
They’re kinda right about precision in the models. But the next step in their argument is one of the stupidest going around today.
The fact that the consequences are hard to foresee should make us more worried than less. I would point out to libertarian friends that changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere is an intervention in a complex system. And that it seems to violate the property rights of people who don’t want the composition of their atmosphere changed.
I remember John Coleman when he was on NBC here in Chicago. The spousal unit and I always used to laugh and laugh at his hyperbolic forecasts. He would always predict the worst catastrophes that just never came to be. I’m surprised that he’s not a big climate change guy, because then some of his crazy predictions might actually come true. I believe he was eventually fired for being wildly inaccurate and just plain crazy. Which is apparently not an impediment to a successful career in forecasting.
An 18 year pause? When each year is one of the hottest years on record? Yes, measure everything against 1998, an unusually hot year, rather than looking at the climate as a long lasting phenomenon. In 2012, over 1000 temperature records were broken around the world in the FIRST WEEK of July. This is not a pause. And here in Nebraska, we had our hottest and driest year ever. Our agricultural belt is drying up. Even if you’ve never seen food outside of Wal-Mart, you still have to be realistic enough to realize corporations can’t provide food in the stores if the bread basket is destroyed.
Randroids and Libertarians are categorically incapable of addressing an issue like global warming. Since no one can solve it by making themselves richer, the issue MUST be dismissed or rationalized away.
Environmental concerns, violence and domination in personal relationships, and addiction. All three are paralyzing questions for this strange tribe. And it seems to go straight back to Rand herself.
I find it hard to believe that Sommers doesn’t have a heavily thumbed copy of Atlas Shrugged on her bedside table. The universal token of sociopaths.
I think one reason why laypeople sometimes find it difficult to trust the conclusions of climatologists wrt climate change is because of the nonintuitive and often sometimes bizarre behavior of dynamical nonlinear systems (like global weather and climate patterns). An analogous example in academics would be probability theory: often students first encountering the weird solutions to some probability problems become angry and even refuse to admit the validity of the solution until they are lead through it, point by point, and even then I’ve had situations where the student reverts back to their original objection.
Of course, add an emotional response and tribal political leaning on top of the difficult-to-grok science issues of climate change research, and the stage is set for a period of protracted ignorance.
Interesting. One of the major parts of my job is running computer models. In my industry, it’s to save cost/time that testing real live (in this case, aircraft) would take. Most industries that make the things these assholes use on a daily basis use computer modeling as part of their R&D. It saves millions, at least, compared to building and testing actual prototypes.
I would invite them to fly in aircraft, drive in cars, live in buildings, etc. that haven’t been modeled in any way. Then again, the morons that say stuff like that think there are too many government regulations already.
That is, of course, until something happens to one of them, then they start screaming and demanding that laws be passed. Cognitive dissonance, it’s not just for breakfast anymore.