Some Questions For John McCain

I kinda agree with one point. If global warming turns out to not be true because of some revolutionary finding, then reducing CO2 emissions was mostly a waste of resources.

Unless of course you end up with very high concentrations where it has other effects.

On carbon trade.
Monckton is a serial liar with a long history, fronting for the anti-science fossil and tobacco funded Heartland institute. I don't know the substance of his criticisms, because I didn't bother to even read any of this latest crap, it's always been a waste of time so far. You might find someone more credible (hell, anyone else) if you want to criticize carbon trade. Well, Cockburn won't do.

It's like taking your Mars rover science results from Hoagland.

...the anti-science fossil and tobacco funded Heartland institute.

All you've done here is highlight your own unreliability, because if you had a strong argument you wouldn't need to resort to name calling or to a crude attempt to discredit Heartland.

RSS appears to be broken, Rand. Last post on it is from April 23.

NB: I make no claims about anthropgenic climate change, just want to address the carbon tax issue.

Megan McArdle has had some good posts on her blog as to why most economists think cap-and-trade was a good model for acid rain control and a bad model for controlling CO2 emissions, instead preferring a carbon tax. It boils down to this:
- acid rain was caused by discrete easily identified point sources, so allocating the permits was easy
- CO2 emissions are distributed across a large number of mobile sources that will be difficult to quantify, so allocating permits will be a political decision that is subject to all kinds of gaming of the system
- cap-and-trade for CO2 would heavily favor established industries and give a windfall to declining industries that don't use as much energy as before. (e.g. I move a plant to another country not under cap-and-trade (or go out of business) and I can sell my carbon units. I startup a new company and have to go out and buy carbon permits.)
- permit trading has more uncertain costs than a carbon tax, making business planning difficult
- the cap-and-trade system will require a new agency to administer the permits, but a carbon tax can piggyback on the gasoline tax/sales tax/excise tax infrastructure already in place

So: carbon tax is easiest and most efficient to set up, cap-and-trade is a politician's dream

Where are all the trolls who complain you are a Neocon? Here your are critiquing McCain and not a peep to be heard!

Where are our chickenshit posters during this momentous occasion?

Obviously, I'm criticizing him for the wrong reasons.

Well I assumed that Rand was going to crit McCain on the principle that he's not a "republican" but McCain is the best of a bad lot and better than the alternatives.

Which is what he said about Bush.

In future I expect Rand to point at this post as he has with his occasional anti (with small "a") Bush posts.

Well I assumed that Rand was going to crit McCain on the principle that he's not a "republican" but McCain is the best of a bad lot and better than the alternatives.

I can't imagine why you would assume such nonsense. I'm not a "republican" myself. Why would I criticize someone else for it? Particularly when they clearly are a Republican? Perhaps you missed it, but he is the "Republican" nominee for president.

Which is what he said about Bush.

I'm quite confident that I've never said that President Bush is "not a 'republican'." Must be your reading comprehension problem rearing its ugly head again.

McCain is a republican. McCain is not a liberterian or conservative.

Yep, Jonathan, I don't have a strong argument about this article, since I haven't even bothered to read it. My comment was all an attack against the writer.

It would take too much time to dissect it all every time he blurts out something. Once you've read a few of his lies it becomes obvious. Monckton likes to make a claim, make a reference to an article that is supposed to support it. When you look at the referenced, article, it says the opposite that he claims. He's a liar.

Heartland has a list of 500 scientists whose work contradicts anthropogenic global warming. Except that the work doesn't. Liars again.

Heartland is funded by fossil fuel and tobacco industries, among others. It's a long "we deny things for money" line of business.

I don't read Hoagland's articles either although I am interested in Mars exploration. After looking at a few things he's proposing, it becomes obvious it's got nothing to offer.

Rand here sure keeps linking to Heartland, Monckton, et al.

mz has so many examples that he can't be bothered to post one. (No, claiming that Monckton misquoted an article isn't enough. You have to actually provide the supporting evidence.)

Yeah, it takes effort to search the links again. You, on the other hand, don't have to do a thing.

http://rabett.blogspot.com/2008/03/cornucopia-of-chocolate-as-guthrie-put.html

Eli Rabett looks how Monckton claims how increasing ocean acidity tells nothing about the source of CO2. Wrong. If the atmospheric CO2 was coming from the oceans (because they heat, even Ed Minchau favors that theory), the acidity would be lowering. Instead, currently, oceans slowly absorb CO2 and acidify because humans put it into the atmosphere at such a rate. (There are other lines of evidence too.)

Monckton also says acidification doesn't hurt corals. (and refers to Fine & Tchernov 2007.) Well, it hurts coral reefs, which Fine & Tchernov say. The article said some of the coral organisms can live without shells in an acidic sea but not form coral reefs, which are a huge biodiversity hot spot.

I'm not surprised anyone is not defending the Heartland 500 list. As a question, do you find Heartland's behavior in publishing and publicizing that list honest?

tobacco funded Heartland institute

So, why do we never hear any criticize of "tobacco funded global warming advocates"? Wasn't Al Gore funded by tobacco?

Didn't he once boast, "Throughout most of my life, I raised tobacco... with my own hands, all of my life, I put it in the plant beds and transferred it. I've hoed it. I've dug in it. I've sprayed it, I've chopped it, I've shredded it, spiked it, put it in the barn and stripped it and sold it"?

Also, hasn't John McCain built his public persona partly on boasts that he chain smokes Marlboro cigarettes? That doesn't make him tobacco-funded, I guess, but it does make him a tobacco funder -- and not exactly a role model for American youth. Why no criticism of that?

Your post is senseless, Ed.

Tobacco companies pay these "think tanks" to make press releases denying some health effects of second hand smoke. At the moment. There used to be paid doctors who would say smoking cigarettes would not have bad health effects or something similar. It's cheap and in the best interest of stockholders.

But you know all that.

Links to McCain and Gore? Strained.

Tobacco companies pay these "think tanks" to make press releases denying some health effects of second hand smoke.

You seem to be rather confused. Second-hand smoke has nothing to do with CO2 emissions causing global warming. Not even Al Gore has made that claim.

Links to McCain and Gore? Strained.

Hardly. Your statement simply shows that you don't know (or don't care) where Gore's money came from.

It's hypocrisy fot the Left to complain about "tobacco money" while fawning over tobacco grower Al Gore and "Marlboro Man" John McCain.

Ed,

It is Obama that smokes Marlboros, not McCain.

The tobacco is just another example, Ed. Heartland drives the position that the funders want, never mind the truth. (They probably want it to fit their general anti-regulation ideology though.) They have been shown to be very dishonest.

As for Gore, his tobacco farming history is shown quite well in his film, Inconvenient Truth. But it's not relevant to this discussion. In the film he claims the family stopped tobacco farming after Al's sister died of lung cancer.

I didn't even bring up Al. He is not relevant to the topic of Heartland's and Monckton's continuous lying.

The problem is that most of the time when Rand thinks he finds some great article about climate it's just shit. (Heartland, Chapman, Cockburn just to name a few.)

It's remarkable, considering how intelligent and rational he is on space matters, or science or the many other interesting things.

So, Rand, don't get your climate articles from the Hoaglands of the branch.

The tobacco is just another example, Ed. Heartland drives the position that the funders want, never mind the truth. (They probably want it to fit their general anti-regulation ideology though.) They have been shown to be very dishonest.

No, you haven't "shown" anything of the sort. All you've done is call names and make personal accusations, and you have a double standard in who you choose to smear.

Dr. Phil Chapman is a respected scientist with a long, distinguished career in both the public and private sector. He was chosen by NASA to be one of the first scientists on the Moon. But he's a "shit" because he published views, backed up by facts, that disagree with yours?

Right. :-)

Mike -- you're way behind the times. McCain has been billed as "The Marlboro Man" since the 1990's, at least.

In 1999, his supporters pointed to his smoking habit as proof that he had a "libertarian" streak. See http://www.reason.com/news/show/30873.html

I don't have the time now, but It's easy to show Heartland's dishonesty about the 500 climate scientists later.

mz, we understand; it is easier for you to repeat your religious teachings on climate change rather than back up any claim with individual facts. Take all the time you need, and don't bother letting us know it will take time. We gotcha.

Yeah, took about half an hour since I had other stuff to do. Leland already seized the opportunity. :D

You’re a senior New Zealand climate scientist. You shared in the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the IPCC last year. As a young scientist in the 1970s you did ground-breaking work on warming in New Zealand, and wrote a seminal paper in Nature pointing out that cooling experienced in the northern hemisphere might be due to aerosols. You wrote the first book on what global warming might mean for New Zealand. And then your name appears on a list of “500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares” published by the Heartland Institute. Would you not be a trifle irritated?

That is just one example.

http://www.desmogblog.com/outrage-in-the-climate-science-community-continues-over-the-500-scientist-list
http://hot-topic.co.nz/2008/05/08/your-cheatin-heartland/

Do you really view Heartland's list as honestly portraying the research? They've taken names at random it seems.

Oh, and Chapman, he is just wrong. Among the other mistakes, it's clear even to a knowledgeable layman you can't claim an ice age from a single cold year.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23612876-7583,00.html

His views were not backed up by facts. It is totally obvious.

Do you really view Heartland's list as honestly portraying the research?

Hm. You made one accusation against Heartland. Asked to produce evidence to back up your charge, you didn't.

Instead, you made another, completely unrelated accuastion.

That's called "hit and run."

Even if the Leftie blog you point to is correct, all you've shown is that Heartland was mistaken about one name in a list of 500. Mistaken on a point that has nothing to do with the *substance* of their arguments -- substance that you avoid, preferring a smear campaign.

Getting back to your original smear: "Your smear that Heartland "drives the position that the funders want, never mind the truth. (They probably want it to fit their general anti-regulation ideology though.)"

I don't know if that's true of Heartland or not. I do know it's an accurate description of Al Gore, if you replace "anti-regulation" with "anti-freedom", and I know that doesn't bother you a bit.

Even if your smear is true, it has nothing to do with the substance of the global warming issue or Heartland's arguments. When one side talks about the substance of an issue and the other resorts to smear tactics and personal attacks, which one should I believe?

Oh, and Chapman, he is just wrong. Among the other mistakes, it's clear even to a knowledgeable layman you can't claim an ice age from a single cold year.

"Just wrong"? That's not what you said before. He said he was "shit." Because he disagrees with you.

Chapman never claimed an Ice Age "from a singe cold year." You made that up. He cites evidence going back to the 1700's. That's not a single year, a fact that should be clear even to an unknowledgeable layman.

I value the opinion of a scientist who speaks to the substance of the issue and offers facts and data more than personal attacks from a driveby troll who calls anyone who disagrees with him "shit."

I also notice that you like to an op-ed from Prof. David Karoly, "a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists."

Funny thing. The Wentworth Group lists their members on their website. Guess who *isn't* a member?

http://www.wentworthgroup.org/wentworth-group-members/

Calling himself a "Concerned Scientist" is also interesting. The Union of Concerned Scientists has campaigned against nuclear power for decades. If carbon dioxide emissions are rising, and if that is causing long-term global warming, then the "Concerned Scientists" deserve a large part of the blame.

Ed, you're incapable of reading comprehension or discussion, it's evident to everyone here.

Do you really think the links provided info of *one* scientist on the list being totally falsely portrayed? There are dozens. Even from New Zealand already there are *five*.

Does anyone else share this viewpoint with you Ed that the links told of only one person?

Do you really believe that Heartland is right and the guys themselves wrong, about what they wrote? Heartland doesn't claim there are errors in the papers, but that they express doubts on global warming. They list the 500 scientists as co-authors in their report. Without asking them.

What has the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists to do with anything? Nuclear weapons? Nothing.

David Karoly is a scientist who knows what he is talking about. It's evident to everyone who is willing to spend even a little bit of time researching that Chapman is wrong and Karoly right. You can not deduce a coming ice age from one year's negative temperature trend. It's a completely ridiculous claim. Karoly also mentioned other errors in Chapman's work. Everybody can view the temperature data themselves to verify that for example significant short time downward trends are not unprecedented. Try this:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/

Heartland and Monckton have been shown as dishonest and that's it. I stand by that statement.

Heh, when you start digging a little on the Heartland guys, you're bound to find hilarious stuff.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Trashing_organic_foods

A long history of "interpreting" science there, Dennis Avery.

David Karoly, in his reply to Phil Chapman's article in "The Australian" newspaper completely misrepresented Phil Chapman's views.

Did you actually read both articles, mz?

I see the rest of your links are to websites run by the moonbat left of which you are obviously a member.

Nothing to see here, folks.

What has the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists to do with anything? Nuclear weapons? Nothing.

I never claimed it did (although, the Union of Concerned Scientists has protested nuclear weapons also).

I said "nuclear power," not "nuclear weapons."

You made that up words I didn't say. Just like you made up the part about Chapman saying you could deduce an Ice Age is coming from a single year's temperatures. Just like you accuse Hearland of making up statements. But it's okay for you to do it, because you're on the Side of Righ -- er, Left?

You have been shown as dishonest, MZ, and that's it.

Whether Heartland is dishonest or not is another matter. I never expressed a view on that one way or another; I simply pointed out the double standard by which you criticize Heartland for doing same things that you defend Al Gore for doing.

Even if Heartland is dishonest and takes tobacco money, that would not prove they're wrong about global warming, any more than Al Gore's dishonesty and tobacco money prove that he's wrong. The only way to prove a scientific theory is with evidence, not by namecalling and personal attacks.

Chapman says essentially that he would not normally predict an ice age from a cooling one year trend but now he does, because of sunspot data.

Here's the original article, everybody can read that themselves.
[the blog's antispam system won't let too many links through but everyone can search it via google.]

Of course, the sunspot people never show their graphs after the eighties where their variables strongly diverge from the temperature data.

And Chapman has been confused for some years already:
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2008/04/moron-poker-eli-is-stealing-this-from.html?showComment=1209346740000#c7004246819024151371

Here's a pic from a certain climate model how it takes into account different forcings.
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/a/a2/Climate_Change_Attribution.png

Solar forcing is taken into account. It isn't very big. Solar variables give some correlation with small temperature variations that become apparent once you remove the global warming trend, volcanoes and El Ninos etc from the data. The effect is small.

But yeah, get your science from the Heartland Institute, Mike. Second hand smoke doesn't cause cancer either. It doesn't matter what medical journals with extensive peer reviewed studies say, I've got this think tank funded by tobacco companies that informs my preferred media outlet, and it says otherwise.

Truth and facts are dangerous moonbat stuff for you.

You don't even know my political stance.

That was me above.

As for Al Gore, he made some mistakes in the film, yes, but it nevertheless portrays the science mostly right. Al Gore is not an extremist, he's on the middle of that science issue. That was said by a climatologist, Michael Tobis, who is not on an environmental organization's payroll.

Climate scientists are skeptical of the media
Only 1% of climate scientists rate either broadcast or cable television news about climate change as “very reliable.” Another 31% say broadcast news is “somewhat reliable,” compared to 25% for cable news. (The remainder rate TV news as “not very” or “not at all” reliable.) Local newspapers are rated as very reliable by 3% and somewhat reliable by 33% of scientists. Even the national press (New York Times, Wall St. Journal etc) is rated as very reliable by only 11%, although another 56% say it is at least somewhat reliable.

Former Vice President Al Gore’s documentary film “An Inconvenient Truth” rates better than any traditional news source, with 26% finding it “very reliable” and 38% as somewhat reliable. Other non-traditional information sources fare poorly: No more than 1% of climate experts rate the doomsday movie “The Day After Tomorrow” or Michael Crichton’s novel “State of Fear” as very reliable.

I wonder what response Heartland would get from the scientists?

How about asking lung cancer experts about smoking? Would they agree with the industry bought doctors? Some decades ago? It's a similar issue.

Truth is not always "in the middle".

That said, I wouldn't get my global warming science from Gore. Since there's the IPCC that's a much more accurate source.
http://www.ipcc.ch/

Al Gore is not an extremist, he's on the middle of that science issue. That was said by a climatologist, Michael Tobis, who is not on an environmental organization's payroll.

So what? You have a fixed idea that you can judge the accuracy of someone's statements based on who that person gets money from. That's nonsense. The only way to judge the accuracy of someone's statements is to compare those statements to observable facts.

Michael Tobis saying Al Gore is not an extremist doesn't prove that Al Gore is not an extremist. Michael Tobis is not God, and therefore not infallible. Also, I don't know if Tobis actually said that. He does *not* say that in the two paragraphs you quoted.

The paragraphs you quoted express no opinion about whether Al Gore is an extremist or a moderate. They cite a survey of that shows many climate scientists consider Al Gore to be a reliable source of information, more so than the press. That's not surprising since the press sometimes prints news that is skeptical of climate scientists, while Al Gore never does.

The survey did not ask if climate scientists considered Gore "extreme" (or if it did, that part is not included in the paragraphs you quoted). Even if it had, that would not tell me how extreme Al Gore is, only how extreme climate scientists believe him to be. (Most people consider anyone who agrees with them to be a "moderate.")

Most importantly, whether or not Al Gore is an extremist proves ***NOTHING*** about your beliefs about ***global warming***. If Al Gore were the most extreme person on Earth, that would not prove that you are wrong, and if Al Gore were the most moderate person on Earth, that would not prove that you are right.

But yeah, get your science from the Heartland Institute, Mike. Second hand smoke doesn't cause cancer either. It doesn't matter what medical journals with extensive peer reviewed studies say, I've got this think tank funded by tobacco companies that informs my preferred media outlet, and it says otherwise.

Once again, second-hand smoke has nothing to do with global warming.

Did Heartland get money from tobacco companies? I don't know. You haven't presented any evidence to back up that accusation. It doesn't matter, because who Heartland gets money from proves nothing about the accuracy or inaccuracy of their conclusions, just as who Al Gore gets money from proves nothing about the accuracy of his conclusions.

What's more interesting is the fact that you believe someone on the other side is tainted because they allegedly took tobacco money while you think it's completely okay that someone on your side took tobacco money. That double standard is sadly typical of the Left.

You don't even know my political stance.

If that's true, you must be a very poor communicator. I know what political stance your words convey. If your words do not convey your stance accurately, then perhaps you should choose your words more carefully.

No, not only who they get money from.

1) Factual wrongness - I didn't demonstrate this with Monckton regarding the topic Rand posted about, that I admit. I was lazy and went straight for Monckton's persona.
2) Lack of integrity - This I demonstrated both from Monckton and Heartland.
3) Motivation for the above - This can be demonstrated if one digs up at tobaccodocuments and exxonsecrets, there are leaked scans of internal documents from the whole policy institutes network affairs, dating from tobacco denial to climate change denial. Of course not all, so the picture is only partial. Fred Singer is a long time player.

You have not been able to refute any of the above. I have given reasonable proof when asked (when ignorant people have thought that I obviously have none), but I won't do it anymore, you can now do it yourself.

Your not believing me about Michael Tobis is especially amusing.

Lack of integrity - This I demonstrated both from Monckton and Heartland.

You mean you called them names. Yes, you "demonstrated" (insinuated) that Heartland took money from tobacco -- just as Al Gore did.

But it doesn't bother you that someone on your side gets tobacco money. You only consider it a "lack of integrity" when someone who disagrees with you gets tobacco money.

there are leaked scans of internal documents from the whole policy institutes network affairs

"Leaked scans." Stolen documents, in other words.

Let me guess, you think document theft is okay, too, as long as it's the Left doing the stealing?

Fred Singer is a long time player.

At least you didn't call him a "shit" like you did Phil Chapman and others.

I wonder what you would say if Fred Singer stol... excuse me, "leaked" documents from your friends?

Okay, MZ, you've convinced me. During the First Gulf War, Fred Singer debated Carl Sagan who claimed that Iraqi oil well fires would cause a Nuclear Winter. Since Left is right and Right is wrong and Fred Singer is a player, we can dismiss all of his arguments and any inconvenient facts. Sagan was right because Sagan was Left, and we did have a Nuclear Winter even if nobody noticed it. :-)

You still haven't offered a single fact to support your beliefs about global warming. Nothing but personal attacks. A 100% perfect record.