Forbes.com has an article up called “The Fiction of Climate Science” (12/4/09). Thanks no doubt to a link from Drudge, it’s currently one of the website’s “top rated,” “most popular” and “most emailed” items. “Fiction” is a polite word for what the author, Gary Sutton, does with evidence.
Sutton grinds the already well-worn denialist ax about “global cooling”—scientists were predicting an imminent ice age in the 1970s, the argument goes, so why listen to those eggheads now about global warming? See FAIR’s Action Alert from last February 18 for a debunking of this myth.
But wait! Sutton provides a quote:
In 1974, the National Science Board announced: “During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end—leading into the next ice age.”
First of all, this isn’t one quote—this is two quotes from two separate National Science Board documents stapled together. The first comes from a 1974 report titled Science and the Challenges Ahead, and it was accurate at the time. The report goes on to talk about potential human impacts on the global climate—both in adding dust to the atmosphere for a potential cooling effect, and by “activities of the expanding human population—especially those involved with the burning of fossil fuels—[that] raised the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere, which acts as a ‘greenhouse’ for retaining the heat radiated from the Earth’s surface.” The report notes that “the state of knowledge regarding climate and its changes is too limited to predict reliably whether the present, unanticipated cooling trend will continue.”
The second half of the quote comes from another report, from 1972, called Patterns and Perspectives in Environmental Science. Reader David McManus pointed out the games Forbes played with this quote; here’s the sentence in full, with emphasis added:
Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end, to be followed by a long period of considerably colder temperatures leading into the next glacial age some 20,000 years from now.
The report immediately adds: “However, it is possible, or even likely that human interference has already altered the climate so much that the climatic pattern of the near future will follow a different path.” It goes on to discuss “increased atmospheric opacity” as a possible cooling factor, counterbalanced by the fact that “increasing concentration of industrial carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should lead to a temperature increase by absorption of infrared radiation from the Earth’s surface.”
Needless to say, someone who is unable to correctly report what a book says is unlikely to be able to perform the much more complicated task of independently analyzing climate data and pointing out where all those scientists went wrong.
Forbes only has everyone’s best interests at heart. Remember, the private sector can do no wrong.
A little history on the subject:
Jeff Masters | The Manufactured Doubt Industry and the Hacked Email Controversy
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/07-1
That’s not the worst of it…. The quotation attributed to Science magazine seems to be completely invented. At least there is no March 1st 1975, issue, and my search of other issues hasn’t yet turned up any article which mentions anything resembling the quotation. The two Science articles I found from from 1975 – 1976 in no way claim anything about catastrophic cooling. On the contrary they note that the recent ( and at the time still ambiguous) warming trend supported the C02 greenhouse effect.
Here’s a very good source debunking the “global cooling” claims:
Cooling Climate ‘consensus’ Of 1970s Never Was – Science News
Myth often cited by global warming skeptics debunked.
http://www.sciencenews.org/…/Cooling_climate_â┚¬Ã‹Å“consensus‘_of_1970s_never_was –
I subscribe to Science News and first read the article there a few months ago. Turns out the “consensus” on global cooling was only in the newspapers and not in the scientific community.
Thanks to you all for articles like this!
Someday I will be able to subscribe & support again!
John Atkeison
AAE Director of Climate and Clean Energy Programs
New Orleans, Louisiana
As human population grows exponentially, so does the rape and pollution of the planet’s soil and water. Reason compels us to hold “air” as part of the equation. Those among us that awake each morning to make their employer the most money that they possibly can know this; they are not ignorant. And they will work to create the systems to clean the earth’s soil, water, and air so that they can sell it back to you. This is the kind of capitalism we live under, and it is our predictable psychosis that will result in our irreversible suffering unless we use our intellect to progress through preservation.
An important THEME to continuously push is to ASK – What is the COST of being wrong?
If you are person or organization that believes in man made climate change and demands action – and you are wrong – the COST is that a few big energy companies loose a few million dollars and their investors loose a few thousand dollars.
If you are a DENIER of man made climate change, and you are influencial in stopping action on limiting green house gases, ie WRONG, the COST is HUGE human suffering and deaths and dislocation.
Hey, wouldn’t a few million bucks lost to the wealthiest of the wealthy be better than the 1) huge dislocation, death and suffering of millions of people through water levels rising, drought, fires etc. etc. and 2) the lose of thousands of valuable species of life such as, e.g. polar bears and redwood trees.
Yes seeing how this kind of misinformation is done in “context” to the overall policy of “denialism” is mind-boggling .. More so because you would think that Gary Sutton was the one who cut-n-pasted-assembled the Forbes story, and therefore would have read the reality of the science, and been humbled at least, if not downright terrified by what he was reading. Hard to believe that consumerism and corporatism (modern words for the eternal greed & power) can still hold so much sway over a human being’s emotions that he or she would risk the very existence of life on earth. It’s potential and eventual climate demise should his point of view prevail .. It reminds me of snake eating it’s own tail symbol. Sad. And as Mary said, and I have said this way: What’s the upside and downside of each position? What is the cost-benefit or loss should one side be right or wrong vs the other side’s right or wrong. Man-made or not, with peak oil upon us, doing something for the sake of replacing dwindling resources rather than for climate change still requires a similar timetable to avoid the worst economic catastrophes and human sufferings.
The opacity mentioned in the 1974 report likely refers to particulate pollution like soot that block incoming solar radiation. This engenders a cooling effect that has come to the popular name of ‘global dimming’. It counterbalances the warming instigated by greenhouse gases. Amounts of the these particulates have reduced in recent decades because of changes like those prompted by the Clean Air Act (with the rest of the world adopting similar policies thereafter); showing that adaptation can work –as does the Montreal Protocol, which also demonstrates that global cooperation can both be achieved and be efficacious. No serious scientists, much less a consensus, were arguing for an age of cooling in the 1970s, the idea existed only in select popular media productions as is well documented in this paper: http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F2008BAMS2370.1
We can’t really deal with climate change or any issue if there is no way to talk about what is really happening. That means we have to get rid of the cynics.
CYNICISM, HAS REPLACED RACISM
MORE CAN OPPRESS, MORE CAN BE OPPRESSED
Cynicism has become synonymous with how parents used to label discipline by saying, â┚¬Ã‹Å“’Welcome to â┚¬Ã‹Å“the real world’. Now, cynicism is as taken for granted as air pollution and just as deadly.
In politics, compromise used to be the model of exemplary behavior, that no longer happens. Parties are polarized between and among themselves in such grotesque positions that compromise with each other is not possible. Instead, people find a solution that they can both agree on and it is always cynical and unethical. That is what distinguishes compromise with accommodation. That accommodation:
1) It is an agreement, not a settlement.
2) It is unethical
3)It is cynical.
4) It is the easiest way out.
The progressive movement is not a political party despite its voting record in 2008. The task is waking up to that reality.
Progressives feel hurt and betrayed. Tea party activists have an inchoate anger in common. The two groups may be terrorized by the same tactic of cynicism; it does not mean that an alliance together is possible. An enslaved person could have been educated and another enslaved person could have been an illiterate field hand. That does not necessarily make allies out of victims. The social division between the two was still present as well as their different relationship with the slave owner.
So it is today when cynicism is being used as surely as racism was used to keep people enslaved, we are all in a struggle for freedom. Peoples’ bodies were freed after the civil war, now peoples’ minds have to be freed from cynicism.
It is the reason why Progressive initiative are needed in the first place. That is the unifying ethos of the progressive movement and no single initiative will survive with any integrity until we are freed as a nation from cynicism. There was light before there was fire, no burning issue sheds as much light as does freedom.
Examples of cynicism abound:
Economics: Exclusive bottom line profit/loss financial accounting.
Wall Street: Financial profit means more than existential survival.
Big Banks: Greed is morality, like true believers everywhere, they make their own rules.
Business: Corporate personhood is the kool-aid served served at the boardrooms.
Religion: Morality is mysteriously composed by God instead of Godliness.
National Defense: War is the last thing we think about and the first thing we do.
International relations: Realpolitic, this is our chance to show cynicism off to the world.
Science: Entropy, the great plan for automobiles and energy.
Marketing: Consumerism is created when people are reduced to manipulated statistics.
Entertainment: Hollywood, â┚¬Ã‹Å“’Welcome to the unreal world.”
Fashion: Illusion is the Sunday NYT advertising. All else is a pale imitation.
Social Networking: Self Delusion multiplied on a planetary scale. It’s normal, it’s what we do.
Relationships: Denial is the most powerful driving force in marriage.
News media: Profit motive surrounds them, it is sink or give someone a blow job.
Education: Expensive. Credentials for a fair price, your soul.
Marriage: Prop 8. The God before Godliness thing again.
Patriotism: Bravery (of politicians) is infinite but courage is usually absent.
Military: DADT describes the readiness of our forces to throw their lives away.
Medicine: Licensing confers protection by white coat syndrome to hide emotional stupidity.
Conservatives: Each offers the smartest idea, none claims to be smarter than the other.
Republicans: Hypocrisy is the easiest way to explain the dumbest decisions.
Democrats: Excuses we can count on for everyone and everything.
Liberals: Each offers something smarter, none claims to be smartest.
Everyone breathes cynicism in and breathes it out, co-mingling the fumes of cynicism until there is a consensus called the real world, as in â┚¬Ã‹Å“’Welcome to the real world.â┚¬Ã‚ Just as entropy is only a relative background effect, it is also not all that there is to reality.
Who wakes up in the morning thinking, â┚¬Ã‹Å“’I’m a consumer,” unless he or she has a big problem? Then it is, â┚¬Ã‹Å“’Welcome to the real world.”
Conservatives are not the only ones in the way of progressive politics. The cynical faction of the Democratic party, out of self preservation, has always held down the far Left. They were assisted by the fact that it has been open season on the Left for the last 100 years. Now, the Right is contending with the tea party faction, not as dangerous as the John Birchers or the LaRouchers but virulent in its populism and stupidity. It is catchy but benign.
There are more social justice organizations, big and small than there are cities or houses of worship in The United States . There are more people working for social justice in some way or another than there are Republicans and Democrats. There are more people working for social justice than there are Progressives. All are potential progressive voters.
It was the Progressives that elected Obama and it was Progressives that Obama has jilted in favor of the political center. He doesn’t believe in us but he needs us and we don’t need him.
We must recognize that our progressive movement has to choose a leader from the existing corps of grassroots directors from father Dan in inner city Cleveland to the esteemed Howard Zinn. The Backbone campaign has a roster of cabinet selections. So is there a movement without a leader or a presidential campaign huffing about being hijacked?
Once again that stupid, fat, arrogant bag of wind Rush Limbaugh thinks the American public, no less the world cares one bit what his opinion on anything is, (re: Haiti earthquake). If everyone would just ignore that idiot and others like him, (are you listening Pat Robertson?) the world and everyone in it would be a much better place. They and people (and I use the term loosely) like them should just go away, permanently, never to be heard from again. I am sure that God is as ashamed of them as everyone else should be.
Thanks for the recommendations you have discussed here. Something important I would like to talk about is that personal computer memory needs generally go up along with other developments in the technological know-how. For instance, if new generations of processors are made in the market, there’s usually a related increase in the type demands of both the laptop memory as well as hard drive space. This is because software program operated simply by these cpus will inevitably surge in power to take advantage of the new engineering.
The “highest” states of mind held up before mankind by christianity as of supreme value, are actually forms of convulsive epilepsy.