Monday, March 15, 2010

Sac Bee editorial board beclowns itself on global warming and AB-32

I know it's Monday night - almost Tuesday - but I finally got an opportunity to read the Sunday paper. This is how I roll in the Chanman household! What can I say? I have kids, a wife, and a life.

As usual, I was treated to my expected helping of left-wing statist nonsense in the Bee's Forum section. Quite often, the nonsense comes from syndicated columnists - *cough* Paul Krugman - or those wackos at the New America Foundation. This time, however, the nonsense comes straight from the editorial board of the Bee itself.

With an editorial entitled AB 32 foes are slick - and predictable, how can I not find something to criticize?

I mentioned this legal monstrosity the other day, but just to recap, I will let the California Air Resources Board (CARB) explain this one:
In 2006, the Legislature passed and Governor Schwarzenegger signed AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which set the 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal into law. It directed the California Air Resources Board (ARB or Board) to begin developing discrete early actions to reduce greenhouse gases while also preparing a scoping plan to identify how best to reach the 2020 limit. The reduction measures to meet the 2020 target are to be adopted by the start of 2011.
In short, this law is the Cap-and-Tax crap that the statists in the federal government only wish they could pass.

The Bee gets it wrong in the very first paragraph:
Looking for hot air about global warming?

You don't have to look very far.

You can find it in columns by George Will and other pundits who dismiss the preponderance of scientific literature that global climate change is happening, and that human activities are contributing to it....
Really, guys? You haven't heard at all about ClimateGate? You haven't heard about the attempts by so-called scientists within the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in England who attempted to "hide the decline [in world temperatures]" by hiding data, destroying data, distorting data, and working to stop dissenting views from being peer-reviewed and published?

You haven't heard that Phil Jones - the primary so-called scientist from CRU has recently admitted that global temperatures haven't warmed significantly since 1995 and that average global temperatures during the middle ages - commonly called the Medieval Warming Period - may have been warmer than today after all? Eat your heart out, Hockey Stick!

You haven't been reading recently that other agencies - such as NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) - used CRU's tainted data because NASA felt that the data from GISS wasn't accurate enough?

Those controversies that I just listed only touch the surface regarding the carefully crafted cavalcade of crooked concoctions that have been forced upon us by these global warming hucksters and swallowed whole by the true-believing cultists from the Church of Global Warming, some of whose devout members apparently belong to the editorial board of the Sacramento Bee.

But why let a little counterfactual information get in the way of a good narrative. When you believe so strongly in something, I realize that it can be difficult to let it go. That happened to me when I found out that Santa Claus wasn't real, and that it had really been my parents stuffing my stocking all those Christmases. However, I was nine when I stopped believing in Santa Claus. How old must you be to stop believing in this man-made global warming nonsense? I'm talking to you, Sac Bee editorial board.

The editorial goes on to explain how any critic of AB-32 or global warming is in the pockets of the oil companies and that AB-32 won't hurt our state's economy that badly. The problem is that after reading the very first freaking paragraph of the editorial, I don't really care what else the writer has to say.

To just barrel ahead and state unequivocally that global warming is happening (so, how do you think the Yosemite glacier melted?) and that we humans are causing it with our civilization-advancing carbon dioxide-producing emissions (trees thank you), it is so disingenuous to do so and not even acknowledge that not only is there an opposing point of view, but that the integrity of the so-called global warming science upon which the Bee plants its standard has been found to be seriously flawed.

If you read the damning CRU emails or Phil Jones' admissions, you will realize that the opposing viewpoints are not just being provided by George Will or others who have accepted money from companies that use or produce fossil fuels.

I would love to see an editorial from the Bee that acknowledges that many doubts have arisen in the debate over global warming and the role of humans in that warming (that hasn't risen significantly since 1995).

I would love to see the Bee acknowledge that when AB-32 was passed in 2006, human-caused global warming hysteria was at fever pitch, and the lies and fabrications of the CRU and GISS would not be known to the public for another three years.

I would love to see the Bee declare that in light of this new information, perhaps it is time to rethink and repeal AB-32.

Good Day to You, Sir

10 comments:

Donalbain said...

I see the creationists are, as so often, relyoing on a misquote and a misunderstanding of science:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/02/daily_mail_caught_in_another_l.php

http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/02/journalism.html

Donalbain said...

Ooops! Did I say creationists. I meant global warming skeptics. The two groups are so similar, I often get them confused.. :)

W.R. Chandler said...

I'm sorry. You actually think all the anthropogenic global warming skeptics are creationists?

Once again, your ramblings do not compute.

Donalbain said...

No. I just think that the two groups are similar.
You can tell that because I said "The two groups are so similar"

I know that might be tricky for you to parse, but have another go, reading more slowly this time.

W.R. Chandler said...

Ah, I see: a distinction without a difference.

So, even though the data from CRU has been corrupted and destroyed. Even though the so-called scientists from CRU and elsewhere have been caught in their collusions to shut up the opposition, your faith in global warming hasn't been dented in the slightest?

Tell me again who is more similar to a creationist?

Donalbain said...

The data has not been destroyed.

W.R. Chandler said...

Again, a distinction without a difference.

OK, the data was thrown away

"SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation."

Don't you teach science? If you do, then you have obviously heard about the scientific method and all that. Isn't it very important that other scientists should be able to take your raw data and be able to replicate the outcome for a theory to be sound?

Keep the faith, Donalbain, keep the faith... or don't

W.R. Chandler said...

The link malfunctioned; here is the URL:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece

Darren said...

They have heard of Climategate, they just don't let facts get in the way.

And you still entertain Donalbain? You're a better man than I am, Chanman.

W.R. Chandler said...

Donalbain is fun, Darren. I always feel like one of those killer whales tossing a seal into the air.