Thursday, July 30, 2009

Resisting Climate Hysteria: A Refutation


I'm passing on an article suggested to me by Jerome "Doom-Buster" Bastien.

It's written by
Richard S. Lindzen -- an AGW DENIER.

It's called "Resisting Climate Hysteria". To which I say, "No! We shall not resist climate hysteria!".

It's easily refuted, and, even though I'm just a new AGW Believer, I had no trouble doing so.

First of all, it's published by something called Quadrant Online. Never heard of it. And, never trust anything beginning with the letter "Q". Trust me.

Secondly, it's from Australia. Hello!

Here's just some of the whoppers that supposedly pass for argument among the Deniers:

"This further implies that all models predicting significant warming are greatly overestimating warming."

Hah! The models provide estimates. Over-estimating means, by definition, estimating over the estimate. So for the estimate to be an over-estimate, it would have to be something greater than itself and thus violate the laws of logic and physics. Are you saying that physicians are liars???!!!

"This is not to say that disasters will not occur; they always have occurred and this will not change in the future."

Disasters will continue to occur unless you change your light bulbs. We've got David Suzuki's word on this one. And, I've seen a picture of him holding a light bulb, and, read this slowly, the light-bulb was glowing!!!

"Fighting global warming with symbolic gestures will certainly not change this. However, history tells us that greater wealth and development can profoundly increase our resilience."

Ah. Now the truth comes out. This guy is in favour of continued CO2-spitting wealth-creation and the generation of wealth by third-world countries. What further proof do we need that this guy is an anti-social, earth-hating, wealth-creationist?! And notice that last word very carefully. Creationist!

"The interests of the environmental movement in acquiring more power, influence, and donations are reasonably clear."

And justified. Would I spend 4X as much to buy organic food if it weren't?!!!

"CO2 is a product of breathing itself".

And breathing generates hot air. And all this hot air must be stopped!!!

"ENRON had been one of the most intense lobbyists for Kyoto".

Yes, and when Kyoto wasn't implemented, look what happened to ENRON! Do you want this to happen to other companies? Do you want General Motors to go bankrupt? Is THAT what you want??!!

"It is probably no accident that Gore, himself, is associated with such activities."

He's only doing it to save the planet.

"the resulting demand for ethanol may already be contributing to large increases in corn prices and associated hardship in the developing world (not to mention poorer car performance)".

If we get our way, it will be the-world-formerly-known-as-developing. They're much happier without electricity. Believe me, electricity only leads to things like an electricity bill -- and who needs that?!

And finally, there are the numerous well meaning individuals who have allowed propagandists to convince them that in accepting the alarmist view of anthropogenic climate change, they are displaying intelligence and virtue For them, their psychic welfare is at stake.

Oh, so now you oppose the welfare of some poor soul's psychic? Have you no shame?!

"the need to courageously resist hysteria is clear."

There is no hysteria. The earth has a fever, the planet is on fire, and we have 5-10 years to save it or we are doomed. That's all we are saying.

And remember -- it's not hysteria if it's true.

"Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology"

Massacheusetts Institute of Technology -- yeah, right. It's not like it's M.I.T. or something.

And, wasn't Alfred P. Sloan the guy in Mad Magazine?

Sad.

Read the article.

5 comments:

Jerome Bastien said...

woops, missing a > somewhere

This is awesome.

BallBounces said...

Joe -- Jerome is picking on me. Please help.

Anonymous said...

"[...] bureaucrats for whom control of CO2 is a dream-come-true. After all, CO2 is a product of breathing itself."

Right. We're going to tax breathing.
The guys from Waco called, they want their paranoia back.

But apart from the conspiracy stuff, the article is quite interesting.

BallBounces said...

"[...] bureaucrats for whom control of CO2 is a dream-come-true. After all, CO2 is a product of breathing itself."

I noticed that too. Thought about it. Think he was using it metaphorically to indicate legislation could affect every detail of our lives.

BallBounces said...

E.g.,

"And just this year, the city of Madison, Wisc. was considering “climate change” ordinances to regulate development, tree removal, fast food restaurants and parking in the name of ecological sustainability."

"... nothing intellectually compelling or challenging.. bald assertions coupled to superstition... woefully pathetic"