Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) seized on the portion of the decision that upheld EPA’s “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases are a threat to human health and welfare.
Waxman, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, called the decision a “resounding victory for science.” The court found that EPA “relied on a substantial record of empirical data and scientific evidence.”
“Today’s ruling is a message to Congress that it’s time to stop denying science. Extreme events like the wildfires in Colorado and the floods in Florida are going to get worse unless the Republican-controlled Congress changes course soon,” Waxman said in a statement.
Waxman is a typical global warming idiot. Colorado just went through a decade of unusually low fire activity, and had record snow in the mountains at this time last year. Florida is currently experiencing the longest period on record without a hurricane landfall.
US CO2 emissions are on the decline, while Chinese emissions are increasing. Even if you believe the climate models, there is no indication that there is anything the US could do to have a significant impact on climate, much less directly impact Colorado fires or Florida floods.
“How does the AMO affect Florida?
The AMO has a strong effect on Florida rainfall. Rainfall in central and south Florida becomes more plentiful when the Atlantic is in its warm phase and droughts and wildfires are more frequent in the cool phase. As a result of these variations, the inflow to Lake Okeechobee – which regulates South Florida’s water supply – changes by 40% between AMO extremes. In northern Florida the relationship begins to reverse – less rainfall when the Atlantic is warm.”
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/d2m_shift/amo_faq.php#faq_8
Reality doesn’t matter to fools Like Waxman and the rest of the Climate Liars. They believe what they believe and nothing will change their mind. It’s a cult. Crtical thinking is not required to be a member of a cult. The stupidity won’t end until they’ve destroyed the country.
It’s all about control. Global warming just gives leftists and excuse to control the public.
Yes, that is why the British Conservative Party, the CIA, the NSA, the Pentagon, the US Navy, 868 university presidents and all (as in every single one) of the world’s peak scientific bodies, the American Petroleum Institute and the Vatican are card carrying members of this “leftist” cult — this is their “excuse to control the public”.
Possibly the stupidest appeal to authority I have seen yet. Here is a CIA report for you
http://www.climatemonitor.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1974.pdf
Yes, Religions spread far and wide. The Catholics and Mormons are everywhere. The main difference here is that the Gaia Cult has this self eviscerating fixation on Doom.
Oh, and they keep talking about how there are too many people on the planet to be “sustainable”. ….and several Billion need to disappear….. and they’re convinced that Wealth Redistribution will somehow change the weather.
So, yeah, very, uh…. “sciency”. The very essence of credibility.
This is better
“How does the AMO affect rainfall and droughts?
Recent research suggests that the AMO is related to the past occurrence of major droughts in the Midwest and the Southwest. When the AMO is in its warm phase, these droughts tend to be more frequent and/or severe (prolonged?). Vice-versa for negative AMO. Two of the most severe droughts of the 20th century occurred during the positive AMO between 1925 and 1965: The Dustbowl of the 1930s and the 1950s drought. Florida and the Pacific Northwest tend to be the opposite – warm AMO, more rainfall.”
I think it is too easy to criticize Waxman when the NCSE is touting the reasoning of the Federal Courts ruling[http://ncse.com/news/2012/06/court-dismisses-attacks-climate-science-007480]. AGW is not dead when influential groups like the NCSE are now stepping up to bat for it. What we need to do is grapple with the NCSE and with the reasoning of the court.
The NCSE shares this from the ruling:
As part of its eighty-two-page decision issued on June 26, 2012, the court wrote (PDF), “The body of scientific evidence marshalled by EPA … is substantial. EPA’s scientific evidence of record included support for the proposition that greenhouse gases trap heat on earth that would otherwise dissipate into space; that this ‘greenhouse effect’ warms the climate; that human activity is contributing to increased atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases; and that the climate system is warming. Based on this scientific record, EPA made the linchpin finding: in its judgment, the ‘root cause’ of the recently observed climate change is ‘very likely’ the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions” (pp. 28-29).
As The New York Times (June 26, 2012) summarized, “The judges unanimously dismissed arguments from industry that the science of global warming was not well supported and that the agency had based its judgment on unreliable studies. ‘This is how science works,’ they wrote. ‘The E.P.A. is not required to reprove the existence of the atom every time it approaches a scientific question.'” The Times added, “The plaintiffs could still ask for a hearing by the full appeals court or decide to appeal to the Supreme Court, but it is not clear whether they will do so, given the emphatic nature of the decision.”
All this ruling proves is the judges bought the junk science of global warming hook, line and sinker because they aren’t qualified to judge anything scientific and they are gullible fools like the rest of Hansen’s groupies.
The EPA is about as scientific as tarot cards or crystal ball gazing.
Even most scientists are clever enough to put their projections decades into the future. (At least they are now.)
It never seems to occur to people like Waxman that even if CAGW were true, it’s too early in the game for all hell to be breaking loose. Which demonstrates that this is all magical thinking.
Oh those crazy cult scientists who “relied on a substantial record of empirical data and scientific evidence”. Such big scary words. Those fact cults are so horrible. Let’s just make up some stuff and believe in that. Let’s just live in our own reality. Let’s get rid of labor laws and environmental regulations so we can provide cheap products and beat China at their own game. We can’t be smarter and lead with new technological innovations so… let’s reduce the less fortunate to grunt work under poor conditions and poison ourselves in the process. Awesome!
There is no evidence or empirical data pointing towards one metre of sea level rise. Your rhetoric is typical of alarmists – you bypass any discussion of data and jump directly to appeals to authority.
Our only hope is to get Romney in in November. He says he will gut the EPA.
While I think that the importance of removing the dog-eating Kenyan cannot be underscored enough, Romney will never do any such thing. Not that I wouldn’t wish it, but he simply doesn’t have the will or the backing to curtail any of the monstrous alphabet-soup leviathans. (well, he might be able to reign in the DOJ a tad, fat lot of good that’ll do)
The judges aren’t scientists and thus got roped in with the “science consensus” nonsense.
Strange, I recall dozens of comments on this site about how “qualified” a judge was when he found 9 exaggerations of scientific point (out of hundreds) within Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Either judges have become less qualified or there is a bit of hypocrisy going on here.
One ruling proves that all judges are smart.
If Colorado forestry management is anything like that in Australia, then we can expect forest fires to break loose every 30 years or so. Roughly 30 years ago, forestry management in Australia that was done with controlled burns to mimic nature was curtailed due to complaints from “nature lovers” for want of a better term. Farmers were supportive of the fires. The tourist industry wasn’t. As a result, the brush wasn’t cleared. Small spot fires were extingushed almost immediately. Undergrowth continued to build up without the natural fires to keep it contained. Just a matter of time before any little fire gets totally out of hand. I assume it’s the same in Colorado.
Stephen, When has an appeal to authority become stupid? If ALL the world’s peak bodies (plus hundreds of university presidents, dozens of the world’s largest corporations, etc, etc, and so on) agree that man is contributing to a changing climate, logic dictates that you would have to be a little stupid NOT to listen to the experts.
Liberals used to have bumper stickers that said “question authority” Since Obama was elected, they prepended the word “never”
This blog is about looking at historical records and actual data. The subtitle of this blog is a Richard Feynman quote “Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.”
Appeals to authority annoy me to no end.
Another Richard Feynman quote: “In this age of specialization men who thoroughly know one field are often incompetent to discuss another.”
So Steve, if you live by the words of Richard Feynman, I take it then that you must a highly-respected climate scientist. Care to show us your your credentials?
You are certainly obsessed with appeals to authority and apparently incapable of looking at the data for yourself. That is why you cling to this scam.
I suggest you read the story “The Emperor’s New Clothes”
Waxman is proof that ManBearPig is real! Well, ManPig anyway. Thank you for not posting his photo.
Yes Steve,
I am obsessed with trusting the experts when it comes to them knowing their own jobs. When a doctor tells me I have cancer, I don’t question his motives and believe that he is only telling me that so he can jack up my bill. When a pilot tells the passengers that they will have to deviate around a storm front, I don’t hijack the plane and tell him that he must be lying because he gets paid by the hour or when a group of scientists with multiple Ph.D.s in a multiple of disciplines and who are all 20-year veterans of glacier exploration want to tell me that 90% of the world’s glaciers are retreating because of a warmer climate, I don’t think it is because they are looking for more grant money.
Call me crazy.
Sorry to hear that you have cancer.
Remind me again, who is stupid?
Whatever
Sorry guys, I really must be slow today — I finally get it! It is SO SIMPLE!!!
Now if I understand you correctly — a person is smart if they DON’T trust the experts and they are stupid if they DO. Is that about right?
This blog is about analyzing data and history. I have seen no indication that anyone on this planet is a climate “expert” Appeals to non-existent authority are absurd.
“when a group of scientists with multiple Ph.D.s in a multiple of disciplines and who are all 20-year veterans of glacier exploration want to tell me that 90% of the world’s glaciers are retreating because of a warmer climate, I don’t think it is because they are looking for more grant money.”
You don’t know much about academia do you? That is all PhDs do is look for more grant money.
Researchers don’t get grant money by simply repeating what others before them have already established, they get money for attempting to quantify something that isn’t yet known. No department would pay money for something they already know, especially when there are dozens of other post grads competing for that same money with some clever new study of their own. Uncertainty is what drives the granting of money — that is University 101.
It is also why the whole notion of researchers corrupting studies to cement the status quo is so preposterous.
The University of Colorado received $800,000 to study the effects of global warming on Prairie Dogs in Boulder – a place which has seen no warming over the last sixty years. Ingenious, eh!
Nobody said anything about cementing the status quo. Those are your words. What percentage of grants today in physical science are not related to global warming? If they already know it is fact, as you say, why so much money? Are you asserting that all that research money is going to disprove AGW?
By the way, why are those researchers you referenced talking about glacial retreat? We all know that they have been retreating for more than 10,000 years. What are they doing the research for if the reasons are well known and understood? You are talking out of both sides of your mouth.
“I have seen no indication that anyone on this planet is a climate “expert” “. No experts in analyzing data? No experts in analyzing history? There is only Steven Goddard and Real Science?
You mean that the oil companies have been wasting their time on those stupid geological reports that indicate when and where deposits were laid down? No one out there who can tell you when the temperatures were warmer or colder from ice core data or no one to tell us if the CO2 really is rising? Come to think of it, how do we really know if it is oxygen we breath?
OMG! This really is a world-wide conspiracy. I have wasted so much of my life believing that a university degree actually meant that you would become more capable in understanding data and science. And now I find out that it is a TOTAL SCAM.
Thanks for setting us straight Steve. I can understand now why you don’t need a qualification.
Wow! So the climate changed in the past without humans! But now it is caused by humans – because funding depends on it.
Steve, in reference to your prairie dog story:
“The massive grant — from the Division of Environmental Biology at the National Science Foundation — is designed to give the researchers three years in the field to try and figure out how climate change is altering prairie dog habitat and how the rodents are responding to those changes. The study also will examine the interactions between native and non-native plants, including whether new species are taking up water used by the native variety.
Heather Swanson, Boulder’s wildlife ecologist, said some of the changes reported in recent years include loss of topsoil and changes in plant species where prairie dogs can be found. One of the primary questions is whether those changes are causing prairie dogs to change their habits, including being more active during the winter — which can lead to soil erosion after the rodents eat plants to the bare ground.
“I’m concerned that our management plan has not been informed by science that would look at what’s happening on these fragmented parcels” of open space, Wilson said. “We’ve seen some impacts that are disturbing, where (prairie dogs) totally defoliate these areas. We need to understand why that’s happening so that we can manage our grasslands better.”
I suppose prairie dogs are kind of like the nation’s grasslands equivalent to the canaries in the coal mines.
My favorite Prairie Dog town in Boulder (there aren’t very many) is at the corner of Arapahoe and Foothills. It is on about 1/4th of an acre and is blocked in on all sides by two major roads, a bike trail and a University of Colorado building. The fat Prairie Dogs eat all the grass because they are overpopulated and have no place else to go.
The natural predators are gone and the rodents are protected from harm by humans, so they have overpopulated.
“The massive grant — from the Division of Environmental Biology at the National Science Foundation — is designed to give the researchers three years in the field to try and figure out how climate change is altering prairie dog habitat and how the rodents are responding to those changes. The study also will examine the interactions between native and non-native plants, including whether new species are taking up water used by the native variety.
Heather Swanson, Boulder’s wildlife ecologist, said some of the changes reported in recent years include loss of topsoil and changes in plant species where prairie dogs can be found. One of the primary questions is whether those changes are causing prairie dogs to change their habits, including being more active during the winter — which can lead to soil erosion after the rodents eat plants to the bare ground.
So, the study starts off accepting a false premise – that the climate is changing and that change is affecting the prarie dog’s habitat (actually two false premises). That is the problem, the climate isn’t changing, so what are they studying? Maybe they should do some real science and investigate why their habitat is changing…..oh, but that would not lead back to the evil CO2 molecule which can be used to alter people’s behavior by controling the cost of energy.
Glacierman: “We all know that they have been retreating for more than 10,000 years.”
Do you have a reference for such a bold claim?
“What are they doing the research for if the reasons are well known and understood?”
Science evolves most often in little steps and there are always things that were not explained in a particular study. Indeed, studies usually raise more questions than they answer and that is how science has advanced since the dark ages. For example, amongst people who have actual degrees in climate science, the debate is not over whether CO2 is warming the atmosphere but rather it is over by how much and which feedback mechanisms get triggered and when they nwill be triggered and by how much, etc, etc, and so on.
Now, I am not certain how much money was spent in the United States on climate studies, but I do know that coal has been subidized between $74 billion and $345 billion depending on your source I’ll wager that is many times higher than the cost of all the climate studies ever made: http://climatecommercial.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/us-coal-subsidy-345-billion-harvard-study/
You have got to be kidding. 15,000 years ago Chicago was buried under a mile of ice. I see why you rely on others so much.
Whatever,
If you really don’t understand that a study like the prarie dog study would not have gotten funded if it didn’t have an AGW aspect to it, well, you are either lying to us and maybe yourself, or are hopelessly ignorant of what is going on in government funded science.
Good Gawd, are you serious about this ridiculous “study” ….which attempts to establish the “Environmental” and “Social” “Costs” of coal? Among them, the FANTASY that C02 is harming someone, or costing ANYTHING?? So after FANTASIZING “Costs”, this IMAGINARY number is then a “Subsidy”? Are you out of your mind? Clearly YES. You’ve entered the ECO-Psycho Twilight zone of alternate reality.
Harvard has ceased to be a credible authority. This, the place of Milktoast Cherokee natives. A place where alternate reality has become the norm.
Whatever says: “We all know that they have been retreating for more than 10,000 years.” “Do you have a reference for such a bold claim? ”
Yes, the fact that Chicago is not under ice. Do you really need a reference for that, or are you that deft?
Also, on your prarie dog study, how is it a study of how climate change is affecting them when the climate where they live isn’t getting warmer? Maybe something other than CO2 is involved, such as habitat loss.
As for bringing up yet another subject – Coal – At least coal provides something useful that has advanced the human condition – Climate science just advances a few rent seeking elitist’s careers that produce nothing but guilt driven advocacy.
Sorry guys — I forgot who the audience was when I asked for that reference for retreating glaciers.
You may have thought I was talking about Ice Sheets (or continental glaciers) in which case you would be correct — Chicago was under ice many thousands of years ago from an ice sheet glacier. However, my reference to trusting veteran glaciologists was meant to express their work with all types of glaciers — Ice Shelves, Ice Caps, Ice Streams/Outlet, Icefields, Mountain Glaciers, Valley Glaciers, Piedmont Glaciers, Cirque Glaciers, Hanging Glaciers, Tidewater Glaciers AND Ice Sheets.
I am sure that such an illustrious group that populates this site would have known that these various types glaciers are considerably different in the way they are created, grow and recede which is why I was I was so bemused by Glacierman’s (an oxymoron if I ever heard one) sweeping statement that all glaciers have retreated for the past 10,000 years and that it was pointless to have further study. That is why I asked for a reference — BTW, I am still waiting for that citation.
judging by the reaction to my request, I find it strange that a site that prides itself on “looking at historical records and actual data” would make such a glaring mistake.
Alaska’s most famous glacier retreated five feet per day from the late 18th century until the middle of the 19th century. http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/06/30/cru-illinoiswisconsin-temperatures-barely-rising/
Glacial retreat has been observed for hundreds of years over the whole planet. http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/polar-meltdown/