Say what you will but this Op Ed by Buchanan is seriously stupid. He trots out one logical fallacy after another to demonstrate that AGW Theory can’t possibility be valid because:
(1) People fell for caveman style missing link hoaxes 100 years ago;
(2) A report by the IPCC published in 2007 may have contained some imprecise predictions of the effects of AGW on Climate,
(3) There was once a short period in Europe during the dark ages where the WEATHER was warm enough to allow awesome crop yields and the Vikings to hang out in Greenland (of course he does not address GLOBAL CLIMATE during this period).
And when you add this all up, Buchanan’s pining for the dark ages aside, you get the greatest hoax of the (young) 21st century, so to speak. There is too much stupid to debunk in one post so let’s address these points briefly.
(1) People on occasion, so the YouTube tells me, still dress up as Big Foot and run around in the woods trying to fool folks. 50 years ago this may have frightened the bee-jesus out of some folks, but today it is just a lame joke. Nobody believes in Bigfoot anymore.
I am sorry Buchanan or someone he knew got duped by a huckster selling missing link pseudo-science. This is not my fault and it has nothing to do with AGW theory today.
(2) The 2007 IPCC report was not perfect in its predictions. One such prediction indicated that Himalayan Glaciers could disappear by 2035 instead of 2350 as reported by an Indian Report that was not ready for prime time. This is a fuck up that should have been caught before the report went to print. In fact, by noting that a minor league report was included in the 2007 Report bolsters the importance of peer reviewed science over conjecture by people like Buchanan. And of course, attacking errors in the predictions on the effects of AGW is not the same as an attack on the underlying science.
(3) Buchanan cites a decade old report on weather in the dark ages from a Conservative Economist from a Wingnut Welfare Institution called the Hudson Institute as proof that AGW is a Hoax. If Buchanan is going to complain about the report on Himalayan Glaciers, he can’t have it both ways and use a report from an Economist as a basis to prove the climate scientists are wrong. Actually, reports from Climate Scientist demonstrate that Europe and parts of
Global Warming Denial is appearing to be more and more like a religion with people like Buchanan (and Hinderaker).
“When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors , shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the actions that follows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
ReplyDelete“People who see their lives as irremediably spoiled cannot find a worth-while purpose in self-advancement...Their innermost craving is for a new life – a rebirth – or failing this, a chance to acquire new elements of pride, confidence, hope, a sense of purpose and worth by an identification with a holy cause. An active mass movement offers them opportunities for both...”
“ It is true that in the early adherents of a mass movement there are also adventurers who join in the hope that that the movement will give a spin to their wheel of fortune and whirl them to fame and power.”
Eric Hoffer, 1951 – “The True Believer – Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”
Interesting observation on the motivation to the Anti-AGW's.
ReplyDeleteBuchanan is an old time ideologue and afraid that any government action (e.g., to pricing carbon) will lead to more regulation and less personal freedom.
He and the other old-timers are not joining the Anti-AGW effort for the fun of it, IMO. They are fighting for their cause, such as it is. And AGW gets in the way of the ideology.
Their cause, btw, has been described by Buchanan as having degenerated into a "Racket."