Beck cited debunked scientists to back his doubts that "we're the ones causing" global warming
SUMMARY: Glenn Beck cited two global-warming skeptics -- William M. Gray and Bjorn Lomborg -- to support his doubts that humans are "the ones causing" global warming, and that "even if" humans are causing global warming, there isn't much they can "realistically do about it." But the methodology and results of studies by both Gray and Lomborg have been debunked by the overwhelming majority of environmental scientists.
On the September 21 edition of his CNN Headline News program, Glenn Beck cited two global-warming skeptics -- William M. Gray and Bjørn Lomborg -- to support his doubts that humans are "the ones causing" global warming, and that "even if" humans are causing global warming, there isn't much they can "realistically do about it." But the methodology and results of studies by both Gray and Lomborg have been debunked by the overwhelming majority of environmental scientists, as Media Matters for America has documented.
Beck began his segment on global warming by declaring: "Global warming is real. My issue is whether or not we're the ones causing it, and, even if we are, what can you realistically do about it?" As purported evidence that humans might not be "the ones causing" global warming, Beck cited Gray, professor emeritus of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, whom Beck described as "a respected scientist." But as Media Matters for America has noted, a May 28 Washington Post Magazine article by Joel Achenbach reported that Gray's methodology regarding climate change "is increasingly on the fringe" and noted that even global warming skeptics have distanced themselves from Gray. Further, Beck claimed that the "best he [Gray] could do for a media platform ... was a speech at the Larimer County Republican Club breakfast in front of about 50 people." In fact, in addition to the Washington Post Magazine, Gray was also mentioned as recently as September 20 on Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume and was quoted on CNN's The Situation Room as recently as September 12.
Later in the program, Beck hosted Lomborg, an associate professor of statistics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, to discuss how U.S. efforts to combat global warming demonstrate that, in Beck's words, "our priorities are all mixed up." Lomborg stated that "[w]e actually had some of the world's top economists" look at how to handle global warming, and that they concluded it would be very costly and "do very little good." Lomborg similarly argued in his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World (Cambridge University Press, 2001), which purported to conduct a "non-partisan evaluation" of environmental data in the hope of offering the public and policymakers a guide for "clear-headed prioritization of resources to tackle real, not imagined, problems," that the concerns of scientists regarding the world's environmental problems -- including global warming -- were universally overblown. Yet as Media Matters documented, Scientific American magazine ran a series of articles from four well-known environmental specialists that lambasted Lomborg's book for "egregious distortions," "elementary blunders of quantitative manipulation and presentation that no self-respecting statistician ought to commit," and sections "poorly researched and ... rife with careless mistakes." The Union of Concerned Scientists similarly reported that Lomborg's findings and methodology "fail[] to meet basic standards of credible scientific analysis."
From the September 21 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck:
BECK: I actually do believe that global warming exists. Did you hear that? Global warming is real. My issue is whether or not we're the ones causing it and, even if we are, what can you realistically do about it?
Now, you know why that probably sounds controversial is because all of the scientists who are out there saying, "Hold on, hold on, wait a second," when it comes to this stuff, their voice is never heard. It's the other side, the fear-mongering side, the "Oh, we're going to burn to death" side that gets the media attention and gets the grant money flowing.
For example, Bill Gray, he's a respected scientist. He's from the -- he's from Colorado State University. He recently said that global warming is due to natural changes in ocean circulation patterns and, that even if he's wrong, there's nothing humans can do to stop it. Unfortunately, the best he could do for a media platform -- you know, I mean, until now -- was a speech at the Larimer County Republican Club breakfast in front of about 50 people.
[...]
BECK: Bjørn Lomborg, he is the -- the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist. He was once known as deep-green environmentalist, but now he's switched sides. He believes our priorities are all mixed up. Bjørn, what was it that changed your mind?
LOMBORG: Well, Glenn, I thought everything was going to hell. I thought air pollution was getting worse, that our chemical load was causing explosive cancer rates. Turns out not to be true. And so, of course, you've got to start thinking and rethinking our understanding of the environment, and that applies particularly to climate change.
[...]
BECK: Here is one of the things that have convinced me that global warming is happening. I mean, you look at the glaciers, and you see them melting. How do you explain that?
LOMBORG: Well, part of the melting is definitely due to the fact that we're coming out of a little ice age, but you are also seeing at least an extended melt-off, so part of this is probably due to climate change now.
So, as you say, climate change is happening, but the real question we have to ask ourselves is: How much can we do against it? And how much is it going to cost?
We actually had some of the world's top economists look at this, and their answer was it's going to cost $150 billion a year trying to do the Kyoto Protocol, but it will do very little good. It will basically postpone global warming six years in 2100.
$150 billion / year... how much does Iraq cost us per day? What the hell is wrong with these idiots? Child's logic at work. I've said it many times... why not once more. Beck is a dolt.
the educational background ( physics, mathematics, atmospheric science degree ) to intelligently discuss and probe such complicated multi-variable science.
BECK: "Unfortunately, the best [Bill Gray] could do for a media platform -- you know, I mean, until now -- was a speech at the Larimer County Republican Club breakfast in front of about 50 people."
Well, perhaps there was a reason for that. The one reason that comes to my mind is Gray is in such a small minority among his peers. It takes an moron like Beck to give him a platform and credibility.
Watching MMFA try to trash a respected scientist is comical.
Gray says it is a hoax just like nuclear winter and the global cooling of the 70s. He's right and MMFA is a joke for trying to trash a legend in the field of hurricane forecasting.
Watching MMFA try to trash a respected scientist is comical.
Gray says it is a hoax just like nuclear winter and the global cooling of the 70s. He's right and MMFA is a joke for trying to trash a legend in the field of hurricane forecasting. - from Leatherhelmet
Gray may have once been exceptional at hurricane forecasting, but he's never been published on climate change in a peer reviewed journal and his level of knowledge of the subject is many years out of date. In discussions with scientists active in the field of global climate change he demonstrates his ignorance. You can find some details of what he doesn't know here.
I'm afraid he's an out of touch scientist past his prime who's found some brief notoriety as a global warming skeptic without the scientific knowledge to back up his position.
And I think I'm going to hurl the next time I see some moron think he's making some significant point by mentioning that Newsweek article in 1975. The scientific community never predicted an ice age and it's either ignorant or dishonest to say so. That's in sharp contrast to modern global warming science which is well-founded enough to be the scientific consensus.
Watching Beck try to trash an overwhelming consensus of scientists who have studied global warming is comical.
a large part of which are social scientists. In fact, early in this hysteria, the majority on the list of 1200 or so were social scientists. Surprise.
Used to be an overwhelming consensus that the earth was flat.
Earth Day was founded about the time of the global COOLING fad.
What happened to the Killer Hurricane season? Big Oil and Bush are messin' with us there, too--holding it back in an election year.
What exactly is a 'large part'? What percentage? Human-caused global warming was trumped up by the social sciences community? Have you informed Fox News of this? They'd jump all over it.
"Used to be an overwhelming consensus that the earth was flat."
Wow, no s**t? Used to be there were no satellites, weather balloons, computers, thermometers, or for that matter, the science of climatology.
"Earth Day was founded about the time of the global COOLING fad"
True, but what other basis do you have for linking the two?
According to Santa Barbara Community Environmental Council:
"The story goes that Earth Day was conceived by Senator Gaylord Nelson after a trip he took to Santa Barbara right after that horrific oil spill off our coast in 1969. He was so outraged by what he saw that he went back to Washington and passed a bill designating April 22 as a national day to celebrate the earth."
I don't see global cooling mentioned here. Do you have another source that describes Nelson as a global cooling nut?
"What happened to the Killer Hurricane season?
I don't recall anyone predicting that this season would be a "killer". Source?
has had an extremely violent thyphoon season. it is called global warming.
typhoon.
So this too, is global warming?
This is broken logic. The strength and frequency of corialis storms are driven by the temperature difference between the poles and the equator. In the AGW model, this difference is reduced, therefore reducing the power supply feeding these storms. They should diminish world wide but they haven't. They are essentially the same as they have been in recorded history, as far as we have data to tell.
Read what Drs William Gray and Joe Bustardi have to say on this subject. They are the real experts in hurricanes. And notice also both of these noted hurricane experts don't buy the GW argument.
What 12,000 are you talking about?
The National Academy of Sciences will be shocked to know that they are comprised of social sciences, as will the American Geophysical Union.
Feel free to find a peer reviewed article that argues against global warming.
Ooops, I'm sure you didn't mean to create a straw man argument with the "killer hurricane season" comment.
When the NOAA predicted it would be mild, yet it was the more violent season of all times. Explain how then if these scientists are part of some obscure agenda, did they underestimate last hurricane season?
Gray works for a foundation funded by:
-Exxonmobile -General Electric -General Motors -Shell
The name of the company is Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment.
[link to www.sourcewatch.org]
I can't prove it of course,but it seems reasonable considering almost all the people who claim GW is a myth are paid by Exxonmobile and other energy companies to make this claim hoping their so called degrees will make them more palatable.
Beck is also CNN's attempt at luring away the brain dead trailer trash that make Rush Osamabinlimbaugh, Handjobity, and B.O. such ratings winners. I guess integrity will always take a back seat to ad revenues.
Beck and Nancy Graceless are the bottom of the barrel in journalistic circles and I apologize to real journalists for putting those two morons in the same sentence.
take a deep breath, rolla joint, stop reading those conspiracy dime novels. You probably own oil companies yourself with-out realizing it.
But I know you're no hypocrite. I saw you the other day with that sail on toppa your car. You're not part of the problem, nah.
for not being a global warming lemming.
...why Glenn Beck is so annoying is that when he pulls these sorts of rhetorical shenanigans he can sound convincing, because (and I have to give him credit for this) he has a talent for presentation. He's very typical of pseudoscientists and anti-scientists in this regard.
Hell, look at creationists and HIV/AIDS deniers, they have the exact same penchant for linguistic hand-waving that Beck does. With science education in the poor shape it currently is in this country, people like Beck have plently of credulous ears for their words.
When all fails and you want status quo, convince the public that there is nothing you can do.
"Politicians are all corrupt, so why vote." (don't mess with the corrupt 2 party system)
For those that vote: "Don't waste your vote on independent parties, they can't win." (don't mess with the corrupt 2 party system).
"Social Security is inevitably going to go bankrupt, there is nothing you can do." (don't raise taxes to save it, continue to use social security surplus to offset deficit spending, let social security go bankrupt since the rich don't need it)
"Those people (countries) have always been fighting (war), there is nothing you can do. "(despite the fact we provide arms to one of the parties of the war)
"Regarding global warming (if it is occurring), there is nothing you can do about it." (let us continue using fossil fuels, fight wars for fossil fuels, and not disturb the US fossil fuel infrastructure)
to save a chain letter dignified w/a name like SOCIAL SECURITY, promoted by hucksters telling the gullible that there's a trust fund. Add basic arithmetic, bookkeeping(as well as science) to the woefully inadequate list in our public schools.
Also add a class on "How to Spot Flim-Flam Men with a Robin Hood Complex".
a
he issued a couple years of hurricane forecasts that turned out to be fairly close. but like a stockbroker who hits on a couple stocks and then recommends a group of dogs, he has been wrong more than once since. he also makes beginning of the season forecasts and then produces mid season "updates", when things haven't turned out quite as predicted. i could probably make a reasonably good yearly prediction of where the market will end the year if i did it on december 1.
While recent evidence shows Greenland's glaciers melting at far faster rates than previously suspected.
God forbid we cut down on personal or industrial pollution! Who needs clean air and water anyway? The poor can all die in their 40's or 50's from toxin inhalation or ingestion, without any access to health care. The rich will live in bubbles with purified air and drink filtered water and have the best doctors on their private staffs.
Anyone who is actually for pollution is a poisoner.
Another Al Gore convert with a sail on toppa your car, I'm sure. I know you have a heart for the poor--you can feel their pain--and you stopped polluting just before you stepped up to the podium to start your sermon.
Did you know...eating one can of tuna a week is hazardous to your health? Can't eat swordfish, shark, or other big predator fish either. The mercury contents of the fish are causing poison cases all over the country. The mercury is coming from human industrial operations, namely coal-fired power plants. The US is still heavily dependent on them, so is Europe, and China is about to explode with the things. The scale of it all does affect us. It is showing up in our food.
And you're wrong. I hate Al Gore. He's a party to war crimes.
Ok, Redking--you've motivated me to get back up to speed on the fish question, and I'll do it. You're a gentleman.
"The mercury contents of the fish are causing poison cases all over the country"
I hope it is these lying bastards:
[link to ga3.org]
The truth about mercury emissions:
total US emissions from burning coal: 48 tons/year total US emissions from all sources: 120 tons
Worlwide emissions: 5500 tons/ year
Chinese emissions: 2200 tons/year
source: US DOE
Then there are these numbers:
"Global mercury emissions range from 4,400 metric tons to 7,500 metric tons annually, according to the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP). The EPA estimates that 50 percent to 70 percent of the world’s human-generated mercury emissions come from fuel combustion, particularly coal burning, and primarily from China, India and other Asian countries."
source: [link to usinfo.state.gov]
"Some scientists have estimated that 30% or more of the mercury settling into America's ecosystems comes from abroad – China, in particular"
source: [link to yaleglobal.yale.edu]
This guy would deny Global Warming even if NY had a Christmas Day of 85 degrees. He is not even credible.
he 's just asking if maybe Earth has been warm before, or is it a good idea for all of you ,who have not read the Kyoto Treaty, to be in favor of signing onto it and then bitching because it lowers your standard of living while giving a free ride to China, Russia, etc. (you wanna talk major league pollution, take a look @ those places).
Can you spell NO BRAINER?
"he 's just asking if maybe Earth has been warm before"
Well, we know it has. How is it relevant? The issue is the cause. Climate scientists agree that this century's warming is caused by an increase in CO2 from fossil fuel burning. Read the NAS report.
Ok, and you read the Kyoto Treaty.
1. it was heavily influenced by Dr. James Hansen, the guru of anthropogenic global warming, best known for his alarmist testimony on the subject before Congress in 1988. He has since been proven wroong in his predictions and has recently retracted his wild predictions of 5 degree celsius tempurature increases by 2050.
2. It relies upon and accepts the validity on the Mann work including the 'hockey stick' graph which has also been debunked recently.
3. It also draws upon various computer simulations for its predictions. These models are all flawed. None of them that I am aware of can correctly regress both the data for the period 1975-2000 and the period 1920-1940. Indeed, most of them fail in the interval 1998-present.
4. The report relies on assumptions about the future use of fossil fuels to forecast human CO2 emissions. As we have seen recently, the price of these fuels is now volatile. Free markets will effect a reduction in their consumption when the price is higher. The NAS report does not comprehend any sensible economic model in forecasting fossil fuel usage, instead, relying on an exponmential growth model.
In short, if its printed it on very thin paper, this report will be useful to you in the bathroom, but not much of anywhere else.
who have started to initiate Kyoto treaty recommendations are seeing some benefits of lower Co2 emmissions, etc..AND their economy is the better for it. No lowered standard of living evident there. Prescient people will always take the day. Progress can not be stopped.
And Beck is contributing to GW by running his imbecilic mouth.
In particular, Lomborg is right in his assessment of the net impact of the Kyoto protocol. Since it fails to include China, India, and Russia it is meaningless. Over 40% of the world's population lives in these countries and China and India have two of the fastest growing economies in the world. China is the world's number one polluter considering heavy metals and sulfur dioxide emissions.
With Lomborg's misrepresentation of the science, I'm not going to trust him on the economics.
He is not a physical scientist, per se. His field is most correctly described a s branch of mathematics.
Have you read his book? He once believed as you and many other envirnmentalist mindsets do. When he set out to write his book hs intention was to debunk conservatives. When he evaluated his own data, collected almost 100% from official goevrnment and leading industry sources around the world, he concluded his original position was wrong. He says this much in the preface to his book.
What is it you don't trust? It ought to be that ignoramus Al Gore, not Bjorn Lomborg.
I do agree that Kyoto is flawed and needs to amended, but the reason China, India and Russia are consuming as much of the world's remaining fossil fuels is primarily because they feel they have a green-light from us. The United States has done virtually nothing to curb it's GHG emissions or scale back fossil dependency.
We as individuals expect those who lead us to set examples, and we as the global leader (the position that neocons always tout when they want another war) should set an example by devoting our massive economic power to R&D and other efforts to solve this problem. Others will follow.
powers what fossil fuel usages they must adhere to. Attempting to control an economic resource like that with political force is the very definition of fascism.
In short, unless you plan for the United States to wage war on China, India, or Russia, or at least threaten the use of force, the United States isn't going to control their consumpton of fossil fuels.
Attempts to cajole these countries into imposing such price and supply controls is to encourage the expansion of facism in other parts of the world. One of these countries is already fascist, one of them is trying to recover from a failed fascist regime, and the third would do well to avoid any more of this than they already have.
Some foreign policy.
That is NOT what Carlo said. Don't put words into his mouth.
Carlos basically said that the world tends to follow our example. If we are going to be leaders, then we need to set positive examples. He said nothing about forcing other countries to follow our rules. Big difference. Next time, get the argument straight.
We main our economic system with fascist government controls, surrendering many basic freedoms in choosing what we will buy are not buy, in the hope that some foreign country will follow us into this madness? This presupposes these foreigners are insane and/or self-destructive.
I think these foreigners will follow a more sensible human behavior model, one guided by invoking their own self interests.
So how is this misinterpretting Carlos? His proposal IMPLIES all of these things or it requires the Russians, Chinese, and Indians are either crazy or stupid. I prefer to think they are not crazy or stupid.
Ahh...but watching real scientists deliver Gray's views a sound thrashing shouldn't be. Check the following link.
[link to www.realclimate.org]
... not sign their work. I don't see any science at all, just rhetoric.
I am not impressed. It contains garbage like this:
"Thus, Gray's statement that "The average THC circulation cools the ocean by about 3 W/m2" is a scientific absurdity"
Why is it an absurdity? 3 watts is a trivial power dissipation. Put this in terms of a light bulb, its about the same as 6 miniature lamps on your Christmas tree.
And there is this gem:
"if Gray's old theory was really testable, where were the tests to show that it was wrong in the years he was touting it? How is one to put any confidence in the new theory?"
This same criticism can be leveled at nearly everything the esteemd proponents of global warming have had to say. No one cxan set up truly controlled scientific experiments on large scale weather systems because man cannot control the weather.
And the author quotes this:
"see also en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation"
No reputable scientist woould ever quote the wikipedia on anything, because it is not authoritative or peer reviewed and ANYBODY can modify it. It is far better to quote the original sources even for things that the Wikipedia has right.
More collassal bologna:
"He claims flatly and without supporting evidence that models cannot simulate the THC properly, neglecting the fact that the models employed in the IPCC reports yield a rather wide variety of different possible THC behaviors, "
This is an admission that the models the author is using as a reference to criticize Gray do not produce any consistent results.
And it also contains this shattering bit of detail:
"physics going back at least to Arrhenius-- yields a surface warming of about 1C in response to a doubling of CO2, when water vapor feedback is neglected. "
Here's the dirty little secret: Human contributions CO2 in the atmosphere since the dawn of the industrial age, have amounted to no more than 105ppm. The pre-industrial baseline is 280ppm. What you expert has silently admitted in his or her zeal to impeach Gray is this: Any human contribution to the increase in global temprature caused so far is limited to about 0.4 degree celsius [and if you study this carefully, it could be as low as 0.15 degree celsius], yet you socialists want to turn human history upside down because of this.
But your quarrel is not with me. And, may I suggest that there are a couple of solutions to your problem. First you could actually go to the Real Climate website and post your observations. I am sure one or more of the scientists there would be eager to reply to your complaints especially where they they are supported by actual data. Secondly you could publish your own research in a peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps, since you seem to have such vast and deep knowledge of the subject, you and Gray could co-author a paper that would set the rest of the world straight. This would be helpful to Gray's reputation since he has yet to submit his current positions to the rigors of the peer review process. Since you are not "impressed" with the work of the folks at Real Climate I invite you to go there and dazzle them. Please use NL207 when you sign your work so the rest of us will also be impressed as you systematically dismantle their arguments and reduce them to mere mumbling and gesturing. By the way since you seem invested in this discussion you might want to deal with some of the legitimate questions that can be raised about Lomborg's work:
[link to espm.berkeley.edu]
[link to www.economist.com]
[link to www.grist.org]
[link to www.mylinkspage.com]
[link to tompaine.com]
[link to tompaine.com]
[link to www.ucsusa.org]
[link to www.sciam.com]
[link to www.sciam.com]
Your rhetoric doesn't address anything in your links.
Lomborg's book isn't doesn't focus on anyone aspect of the environment. If you take the trouble to read it, he is looking at all sorts of statistics, like percentages of forestation, tons of fish caught per year, heavy metal pollution, SiO2 pollution, soot and many other things that governments and private agencies measure. The underlying theme of his book is that the environment is doing much better than the enviro-activists and their media allies tell the general public. He claims that statistical measures back this up and he explains in his book why he thinks this is so.
My problem is exactly with morons who want to impose state controls on private property, indeed, on the entire energy economy, under the guise of solving some crisis. You, and everyone else who buys into this global warming scare campaign are a serious threat to liberty as a result of your ignorance. My problem is with voters who think we should trample private property rights in this country to solve a crisis that (1) isn't actually a crisis and (2) over which the United States of America has no control at all, and (3) he entire human cummunity on this planet has relatively small input to. Most of what has happening climate-wise in the last 150 years is natural. Even your experts will admit that when pressed. I argue that the forces which shape this planet and the climate upon it dwarf man and his works and will simply sweep aside what man does.
I am pleased you want merely to rely on the opinions of others instead of engaging in critical thinking on your own. That makes your pitiful arguments so much easiert to dash to pieces.
Who are you to suppose that I don't have a presence in the scientific community?
Go to Real Climate and post your opinions and engage in the dialog. If you are part of the scientific community as you (rhetorically) imply in your last sentence this should not present too much of a challenge should it? As for the rest of your response, you have fallen into name calling and invective (morons, socialist, etc. etc.---the usual garbage); hardly the mark of rationality, not a response that anyone could characterize as substantive and, in the end, rather pointless. Furthermore may I suggest that your accusation that I, or any of the regular contributors to this site, are incapable of engaging in independent thinking is at best arrogant and presumtuous and perhaps something of a projection, given that you have presented no data in support of your arguments. Rather laughable actually. As for me I have better things to do with my time than respond to that. I have provided visitors to this site links to reliable sites and articles that tend to vitiate Gray's and Lomborg's claims. What have you provided? I look forward to your exhchange with the scientists at Real Climate--and please let us all know when your article (perhaps one of many you have already published) goes to press.
Thanks for posting the link to Real Climate, it's an excellent resource for those who wish to learn more about AGW, much like Panda's Thumb is for evolution. Both written by real scientists in the fields, not by denialist trolls who post to political message boards.
<a href="http://www.pandasthumb.org>Link to PT</a></p>
incomplete link:
[link to www.pandasthumb.org]
from a hole in the ground:
"to save a chain letter dignified w/a name like SOCIAL SECURITY, promoted by hucksters telling the gullible that there's a trust fund. Add basic arithmetic, bookkeeping(as well as science) to the woefully inadequate list in our public schools."
there is a trust fund for social security surpluses built up over the past decade. like all trust funds, it isn't just sitting there in bag, under someone's bed, it's invested. it happens to be invested in u.s. gov't bonds, because that's what congress deemed it be invested in.
to claim it doesn't exist shows your total ignorance of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). since i'm a cpa, i have some passing knowledge of the subject.
further, unless FICA taxes stop getting withheld/deposited period, social security will never go bankrupt, it'll just have less funds available for disbursement, absent some action by congress.
if this is the level of knowledge you display, about a relatively simple issue, i feel pretty safe and secure ignoring anything else you have to say.
whyever would i take anything a statistician (lomborg) has to say, regarding global warming, seriously? who thought this clown was even worth listening to in the first place, aside from "recovering alcoholic" (sure) glenn beck?
absent some additional credentials (maybe a degree in physics, etc), statisticians are as knowledgable about the environment and atmosphere as, well............... accountants.
Nice screed. What does it have to do with the theory of AGW?