Monday, February 15, 2010

The global warming crowd is in big trouble (2)

The Global Warming agenda continues to disintegrate, having passed an "extremely important inflection point" as I noted last November. The news just keeps getting worse. They don't have the data. They were making things up. The computer models were fudged and tinkered with. There has been no warming since 1995. The Medieval Warming Period, way before mankind started blowing carbon into the atmosphere, was likely much warmer than the current period. Governments are slowly coming to the conclusion that heroic attempts to alter their economies in the name of saving the planet don't make sense if there is no science to guide them.

This is good news for the economy because it greatly reduces the threat of punitive legislation that would force us to use more expensive energy sources. It is also good news because it contributes to the growing sense, felt acutely by those of Tea Party persuasion, that government has gone to far in regulating, taxing, and otherwise controlling our lives. It takes big things like this to move the public by enough to achieve transformative change in our politics. Have you noticed the growing list of long-time senators and congressman who are deciding to retire (Evan Bayh being the latest).

The political winds are shifting because the electorate is fed up with big government and all of its intrusions into our lives. The realization that this was coming helped propel the market higher beginning last March, and I believe there is still a lot more upside potential as the new reality of shrinking government begins to take shape. I can't think of anything right now that is more significant for the future of the economy than this emerging change in the mood of the electorate. The retreat of Climate Change is a small but important part of a larger movement that believes that Big Government promised way too much all along and has failed miserably to deliver.

4 comments:

W.E. Heasley said...

Mr. Grannis:

Try this one: SCEPTICISM STREETS THE FIELD.

Link: http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/scepticism_streets_the_field/

This is funny!

Instant said...

Thanks for bringing this up, Scott.

I reckon the climate change hoax are everywhere. But nobody listened For instant, the ozone hole is another hoax.

We have the satellite since 1966 to monitor the ozone layer. They found Ozone depletion on the top of Australia was first reported in 1984. The ozone "hole" is the average ozone concentration is lower than the surrounding.

1. From the limited satellite data we collected from 1966, there is no data showing from the stage of beginning of no depletion to the present stage. We do not know whether it is a natural phenomenon or a human activities related phenomenon.

2. If ozone depletion is really caused by CFC, then why only southern hemisphere has ozone depletion. The human population in the northern hemisphere clearly is much higher than that in the southern hemisphere.

3. Darwin's natural selection theory suggests only the fitness survive. All species are mutated in a way that most suitable for their environment. For example, the dark skin of Africans is a way to protect them from sunburn.
Then what is the skill color of Australia aboriginal? Dark!! It implies the ultra-violet level in Australia was already very high for millions of years.

Douglas said...

I am glad to see that the right has an echo chamber that is just as effective as the one on the left. Among climate scientists climate change due to effects introduced by humans is certainly alive and well. There is plenty of room for debate, but the underlying concepts are well developed.

In geology the fact that meteorologists would begin to have doubts about continental drift, and even gain a wide public following influenced by the opinions of dissenting archaeologists and specialists in particle physics, would not make a lot of difference to the geologists who study tectonic movements. If some of the debate between geologists about whether continental drift answers as many questions as some think it does, and whether earthquake prediction had advanced to the point where entire cities should be evacuated because certain signs had been seen. The fact that boneheaded politicians might propose legislation requiring all cities within ten miles of a fault be moved would not discredit the science. There was an earthquake over 4 on the Richter scale a couple of days ago in Illinois probably on the same fault that had the largest recorded earthquake in North America in the early 1800s. Geology, a notably "settled" science has been roiled with a revival of catastrophism since the discovery of the K-T layer and the Alvarez asteroid stike, upsetting the Uniformatarian hypothesis, and still alive with debate... and then there are those that firmly be;lieve the Earth is only about 6000 years old and busily find scientific evidence to debunk the geologists.

All of which is a way of sounding a cautionary note: don't be so smug. If most climate scientists, who have been studying the situation for a few decades are convinced I would be very cautious about dismissing the science based on objections that have their origins in political/economic motives working backward to search for support in the data. With the potential consequences being as large as they might be caution is advisable. Would you rather make large changes in the structure of the economy and society (something I do not believe we will do) in an organized and rational manner or in a chaotic crazy manner when it is forced by disastrous changes in, say rainfall in agricultural belts or when northern Europe goes into a deep freeze due to changes in the Gulf Stream?

Be less sure that right-wing commentators who are not climate scientists have the answers. (I don't think the left-wing has all the answers either. Does a bird not need both wings to fly?)

Douglas said...

My apologies for the errors of grammar and flow in my previous post, as I hit the wrong button. This discussion deserves quality, and I don't know how to go back and edit.