Buchanan cites "record cold temperatures" to claim "that global warning [sic] is a crock"
May 12, 2009 8:11 am ET by Media Matters staff
From Buchanan's May 11 World Net Daily column:
More and more Americans are coming to conclude, after the record cold temperatures in many cities this winter, that global warning is a crock - that there is no conclusive proof it is happening, no conclusive proof man is the cause, no conclusive proof it would be a calamity for us or the polar bears.
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This is a strange discussion. People question Buchanan's credentials, but those same people seemingly have no issue that Al Gore has no credentials in Climatology. The counter-argument was that Al listens to PhDs, but so does Buchanan. Now someone says that a religious institution should be a credible source of scientific information on the topic.
Back to the science, please. Can any fans of Al Gore reconcile the misinformation he presented in "An Inconvenient Truth"? http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/10/30/35-scientific-errors-or-intentional-lies-in-an-inconvenient-truth/
But should we be regulating and reducing tailpipe and smokestack emissions?
I mean, those emissions are a serious health hazard, and we're just making more and more of them, and they have nowhere to go but in our atmosphere (obviously) and eventually into the water and soil too (you ever notice what happens to trees alongside heavily traveled roads), and the U.S. is the world leader by far in producing these emissions, and yet because of the political activities of the petroleum industry and the automobile industry, and because of their anti-regulatory lobbying, we lag behind stubbornly in regulating and reducing these ever-growing and toxic emissions, and we're wasting time and we're risking a serious public health problem, the longer we delay in the important and necessary regulation and reduction of tailpipe and smokestack emissions...
And so again, should we be regulating and reducing tailpipe and smokestack emissions?
"global warming is a crock!"
Just as I thought...
This stupid and inane argument about the climate is drawing us off from addressing the problem, and is in truth distracting us from the only real thing here that's within our power: the regulation and reduction of emissions.
We should definitely be regulating emissions coming from tailpipes and smokestacks that contain complex molecules containing sulfur and nitrogen. Those are the emissions that damage trees along highways. And we have been regulating those emissions for decades.
The question is if we should lump CO2 in with those compounds that are clearly toxic.
"Should we lump CO2 in with the other obviously toxic emissions?"
It seems the question must have to do with the burning of coal, as that's the only thing I can think of that we burn a lot of, and makes for CO2 as a byproduct, but is separated from the other toxic emissions (that as you point out, we have been regulating toward reduction for many years now).
I burn coal myself, all winter long in my Chubby Coal Stove (I burn anthracite of course, low sulfur nut coal, it comes out of Pennsylvania, and I buy it from Blaschak Coal Corp. in 40 pound bags at $7.25 per bag).
I love coal, it burns clean (I can even leave the door of the stove open, but not for too long though) and it burns hot and it burns cheap and it makes none of the smoky toxins that poison the air and I buy it from the U.S.A. and not from saudi arabia or anywhere else in the middle east.
As far as CO2 goes, it's a natural element and is processed in our environment naturally (unlike the toxins emitted from tailpipes).
But does CO2, especially as a byproduct of coal-fired electric power plants, eventually warm the atmosphere over time?
Truly I do not know.
But rather than waste any time arguing the matter, I'd just build a nuclear reactor and make electricity that way.
It's frustrating to see people so confused in this important matter of Public and National Policy, that they cannot see that nuclear power is such a wonderful solution to the issue of smokestack electric plants (coal-fired or otherwise), that it burns perfectly clean and is the magic bullet in this issue (and if anybody wants to bemoan the hazards of nuclear power, tell it to the People of Vermont, who generate more than half their State's electricity by way of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, and aren't afraid when instead they can just be very careful).
I'd replace my Chubby Coal Stove with a little nuclear reactor if I could: if CO2 is a problem, nuclear power is the solution.
I am concerned with phrases like "tailpipe and smokestack emissions" that lump CO2 in with all sorts of n-oxides and sulfides. I'm tremendously concerned that our schools are failing to make a distinction between those two things. What happens to those young schoolchildren when they realize that their dogs and cats and they themselves are "emitting a toxin" every second of their lives?
I doubt that few of them will immediately realize the nonsense of declaring CO2 as a toxin.
Fair enough then, distinguish the matter of CO2 from the matter of regulating and reducing tailpipe and smokestack emissions... distinguish the problems and distinguish the causes of the problems... and if CO2 levels in our atmosphere are in truth a serious problem (and I already said that I do not know that to be true), and if a problem, then that problem having its cause in the burning of coal (and I mention coal because its the only thing we burn a lot of that produces only CO2: those other emissions, tailpipe and smokestack, whatever CO2 is produced by them, is also regulated and reduced, when those emissions are regulated, which I am all for and which is long underway and is a no-brainer really... I digress), if CO2 should truly be a problem, and coal-fired electricity plants are in large or any part of the cause of that problem, then nuclear power is the solution (and that's why I mentioned nuclear, as the solve for whatever problems that burning great amounts of coal might cause, a cause that produces CO2, which is where we started and why I went there).
If CO2 levels in our atmosphere is truly is a problem, then nuclear power is the solution.
And yes, CO2 emissions by themselves, as distinct from tailpipe and smokestack emissions (and this distinction seems to be in the difference between coal and oil), the problems are different and so the solutions are different, and the distinction should be made, and the two things not lumped together... fair enough.
I wouldn't hold your ... toxic emissions ... waiting for our federal government to get in action on nuclear power.
Why in the world does this guy get time on MSNBC? Buchanan is the "crock".
It is simply laughable to take climatology science advice from Pat Buchanan, or anyone for that matter, who uses a 5-year sampling as proof of a climate pattern on a planet this is over 4 billion years old!
You see... you need to be careful how you say these thigns. Even though you're right, you still might end up sounding like an ignorant jackass.
Everybody needs to be careful how they say things. My question: do you apply the same standard to Al Gore? Has Media Matters reported on the little exaggerations, big exaggerations, and outright fabrications in "An Inconvenient Truth"? See http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/10/30/35-scientific-errors-or-intentional-lies-in-an-inconvenient-truth/
I have never seen Media Matters report on any of Al Gore's dubious claims from "An Inconvenient Truth". Did I miss that? Why the asymmetric attacks on Buchanan but no mention of Gore's whoppers?
The truth is that none of the models out there have predicted the lowering trend in global temperatures we've experienced over the last 10 years -- even though CO2 emissions continue. I do wish that Pat Buchanan had expressed that more clearly.
Read MM's mission statement.
If Media Matters for America has no interest to "systematically monitor a cross section of print, broadcast, cable, radio, and Internet media outlets" for liberal/progressive misinformation, then why do you think they're a competent source for the truth about climate change?
Rabbit: do you personally have any concern over the misinformation in "An Inconvenient Truth"?
Therefore, resources like this website are not a competent source for the truth about climate change. Are we in agreement on that?
Do any you or Rabbit or the others attacking Buchanan's claim have any concern whatsoever about the fundamental misinformation in Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth"?
Are you concerned that there is NO CLIMATE MODEL that predicted the drop in temperature over the last 10 years -- even though atmospheric CO2 continues to accumulate and record amounts were pumped out for most of that time?
I don't particularly like the way he said it, but Buchanan's claim does indeed seem accurate. If you disagree, please address the questions I asked above.
GORE: Well, I will be offering -- I'll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be.
But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.
I personally am far more interested in the exaggerations, misrepresentations, and outright lies in Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth". One enumeration of those whoppers can be found at
http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/10/30/35-scientific-errors-or-intentional-lies-in-an-inconvenient-truth/
What I notice in this discussion: nobody on the left is willing to engage in what the bleep has been happening over the past 10 years: temperatures have been trending downwards even though CO2 output remains unabated. NONE of the climate models predict such a thing.
Any substantive debunking of Buchanan's "crock" comment has been lacking here. Lots of heat, but little light. The "correction" of the "error" seems to be fundamentally misguided.
Solon: are you going to buck the trend? If you're so gosh darn certain of human-caused global warning, why have the models failed to predict the current cooling trend? How can anyone possibly claim they know what's going on?
The effect this has is more relevant to Man Made Global Warming theory. I accept that global warming is possible. But MMGW is so far a theory with great potential consequences and no compelling evidence to support it. I know, I've seen the reflectivity charts and the airborn carbon charts too. The problem is, dishonest people like Al Gore declared this "finished science", (a concept foreign to true scientific methodology), and too many people bought into that dishonesty. As a result they've closed their minds to the overwhelming evidence that this theory is without sufficient substance. I won't try to reitterate it for you here, it's readily available.
Part of the problem is that this has become intermingled with the ambitions of a number of political movements that seek the means to sell the idea of greater authority for various national governments political factions and for some form of international governing body. They have pushed a number of other environmental alarms in the past, (mostly now discredited). With this they have found a better vehicle and have invested great energy into selling the idea.
The problem is, evidence of warming does not necessarily argue man made warming. Most critics grant that there is evidence for a gradual though inconsistent trend toward warming over the last 10,000 years.
So you have to have a rationale to explain how something most people agree is happening anyway is being disasterously accelerated by man made causes. Thus the CO2 reflectivity and greenhouse effect theory.
And how do you measure that? You can estimate human caused additions to the atmosphere of CO2. One problem is, those estimates combined with estimates of naturally occuring CO2 additions show that humans, despite all of your awareness of smoggy cities, produce only a very small percentage of the annual CO2 addition. Then you have the problem of measuring reflectivity. The reflectivity of inversion layers is dependent on distinct variations in predominant density. To the degree this distinction is reduced the reflective qualities are reduced. If you read any critical arguments at all, one of the statements you'll come across is that oxygen is actually the most significant greenhouse gass. This is true in that nitrogen is by far the dominant gas in our atmosphere and oxygen is number two with CO1, CO2, Hydrogen, Helium and other gasses in varying lesser percentages. The concern is that CO2 is one of the more common, there is a layering effect in our gavitational sphere and if we add to the CO2 it will become more concentrated in the upper atmosphere and reflect back toward the earth heat that had been reflected spaceward and this heat will bounce back & forth catastrophically warming our climate.
But how do you measure this? You could take a bell jar filled with the gasses in our atmosphere in their approximate atmospheric percentages and simulate the stratifying effect of gravity by subjecting them to centrifical force. Then you could shine light through them and measure the occlusion and reflectivity factors in these controlled conditions then extrapolate them to real-world conditions, but the earth is not a bell jar. It's a dynamic system with atmospheric circulation patterns and disturbances, variations in solar radiation levels and tidal effects, etc. So to project experimental results to real world circumstances you need to develop calculations that account for these effects. These calculations become immensely complicated very quickly so you use computers to try to apply the factors in a matter that replicates reality. Using such modeling you try to project what would happen if you added more CO2. Then how do you verify your model? There are some atmospheric experiments that can be conducted using measurements of reflected or occluded light and they will give you a snapshot of a pinpoint and if that agrees with your model, then you may assume that your model has some validity. The other thing you can do is to use your model to predict future developments. But what happens if your predictions are wrong?
If your predictions are wrong, then your model is wrong. Some factor or factors have not yet been taken into account. The unexpected cool period we're passing through shows those models going wrong. Without reasonable reliability in these models we cannot predict man made global warming. We can't even say that the very small fraction of annual CO2 contribution made by humanity is a problem.
This is a simplistic explanation and I don't expect it to convince anyone that MMGW is not a real issue. But, for every example of why it is, the critics of this theory have equally viable data showing that this is not a reasonable conclusion. And this isn't a case where we can just act on the theory as a matter of caution because the curtailing or reduction of CO2 additions may have its own set of catastrophic consequences. In most of the world malnourishment and starvation are pressing issues, take away the main source of artificial energy and these numbers will skyrocket. We may cause the premature deaths of litterally tens of millions of human beings by reacting to MMGW theory. Sadly, those who try to point this out are jeered and mocked on sites like this one.
Alas, I have been educated this morning. This is not a topic that Media Matters would be interested in. On the other hand, anyone interested in an honest debate about climate change should definitely "follow the money".
This is exactly why I said that, because of its fundamental biases, Media Matters is an incompetent place to discuss the issue of global warming. It matters not what sort of nonsense Al Gore says, MM will give it all A Pass. Aren't the liberals better than the right-wingers? Doesn't MM's audience deserve to be educated on all sides of this issue, or are they incapable of realizing what they now believe may not be the truth?
When I and others ask questions about the science, the MM faithful won't engage. Yet that is exactly the way the Scientific Method works: you have a theory and you test to see if the theory matches the observed data. What climate models -- theories -- predict the 10-year-old weather trend we're on right now? If none of them do, what does that say about the science behind the models?
I have a suggestion: drop the ad hominem attacks. Pay attention to the science.