Friday, April 1, 2011

Another Scopes Trial, this time it's Global Warming

No more surprises, or I blow my brains out
In the Reichwing congress (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch), the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology continued this week it's Scopes trial of Science.  Yesterday the GOP brought in their big gun.  One of the top climate deniers to testify on his research into the hundreds of thousands of temperature readings gathered since thermometers were made.  Their "ringer" Richard Muller has been looking at NOAA, NASA and a set of European data.  His part in the drama was to show up and proclaim the GOP and Koch to be right, there was a conspiracy of junk science, the info bogus.  I wrote about this a while back that he had concluded the opposite of what he had been chosen for. I guess the GOP don't read the Yellow Fringe.

In the past Muller had been a darling of the GOP, Koch and the Chamber.  But shockingly, he said something else, he said "the datasets are tightly correlated with each other, they show a distinct warming trend.  We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups.....I believe that some of the most worrisome biases are less of a problem than I had previously thought".    Republican lawmakers fell slackjawed, stunned.  They faced a traitor, WTF.   Eventually one recovered and launched into a diatribe on shoddy science holding up a copy of a 1970 Time magazine predicting cooling.  So there, HA Ha ha.

Kerry Emanuel of MIT also testifying yesterday called out the Time mag. and the surrounding argument of cooling and warned Congress of picking unreviewed or very old studies and those who wrote them to champion their cause, saying "politicians who make mascots of mavericks are invariably engaging in advocacy".  This set a number of them on the edge of their seats, they were clearly hot.   The irony sank  in as aids whispered in committee members ears, Emanuel is a Republican. 
Koch and the fossil fuel industry will not let the beatdown at their Scopes trial on science change anything.  But the GOP global warming denial has been further isolated descredited as lies, and mascots with talking points, and no facts.  

8 comments:

  1. For decades we've cut down trees to create concrete jungles. We've sprayed various chemicals into the air we breathe via automobiles, smokestacks, cigarettes and aerosol cans, yet we seem not to accept that all this is damaging to our Earth. Amazing isn't it?

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  2. Be thankful for little things. At least they didn't go all the way back to the Bible.

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  3. If you go to www.TED.com and enter Global Warming in the search bar you get lots of hits. Here's one (won't inbed):

    http://www.ted.com/talks/david_keith_s_surprising_ideas_on_climate_change.html

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  4. Sherry,
    Currently the GOP is working like gremlin's on a med-evac flight to crash the EPA's already weak ability to protect the environment. This week they proposed easing the air and water polution standards, because........we can't afford it, thats code for corporations don't want to spend the money to do it.

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  5. Whit, One step at a time Whit, one step at a time.

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  6. NAC, Thanks, the guy in t he video is weird but interesting. Looking for a cure, throwing out ideas, the discussion is necessary.

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  7. fringe -

    Your post reminds me of two wonderful quotes from the movie, "The Outlaw Josey Wales" ( Clint Eastwood.) Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you're not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. 'Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That's just the way it is. Well, it time to get plumb dog mean!

    This one fits pretty well also - "Stop pissing down my back and telling me it's raining!"

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  8. IG,
    Mad-dog mean, if that's the alternative from rolling over and allowing ignorance to win and corporations to pollute whenever it would cost more not to, then mad-dog mean is needed. Thanks.

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