Global Warming

Bjorn Lomborg chides Al Gore for bringing more heat than light to the global warming debate; the BBC chides the skeptics.  Their first nine point-counterpoints address controversies about the underlying science; only their point ten hits me where I live:

10. PROBLEMS SUCH AS HIV/AIDS AND POVERTY ARE MORE PRESSING THAN CLIMATE CHANGE

Skeptic:

The Kyoto Protocol will not reduce emissions of greenhouse gases noticeably. The targets were too low, applied only to certain countries, and have been rendered meaningless by loopholes. Many governments that enthuse about the treaty are not going to meet the reduction targets that they signed up to. Even if it is real, man-made climate change is just one problem among many facing the world's rich and poor alike. Governments and societies should respond proportionately, not pretend that climate is a special case. And some economists believe that a warmer climate would, on balance, improve lives.

Counter:

Arguments over the Kyoto Protocol are outside the realms of science, although it certainly will not reduce greenhouse gas emissions as far or as fast as the IPCC indicates is necessary. The latest IPCC Working Group 2 report suggest that the impact of man-made climate change will on balance be deleterious, particular to the poorer countries of the tropics, although colder regions may see benefits such as increased crop yields. Investment in energy efficiency, new energy technologies and renewables are likely to benefit the developing world.

Mr. Lomborg has been making point ten for years.

Comments

[Neo]

It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM.

This is John Coleman, the founder of The Weather Channel.

[hit and run]

Well, let me say this.

Because of the drought we are experiencing here, we have been under a state-wide open fire ban all fall (except for perhaps a week or two).

First, I Blame Bush

And second, I Blame Global Warming

But seriously, a ban on fires caused by the drought which is caused by this Global Warming.

Think about it.

Global Warming is causing me not to be able to fully contribute my part to Global Warming through our notorious bonfires.

If any of you run across this Global Warming, tell him that he's really messing up with this drought...I could be doing so much more without the drought and fire ban. So much more.

[Clarice]

We flatter ourselves that we are more rational than our ancestors who believed in witches , phlogiston, spells...don't we? Just as there is something dark at the heart of us all, there's something monumentally stupid and it busts out from time to time..Like now.

[PaulL]

Actually, Clarice, it's phlogiston that causes all this global warming. I hope Congress taxes the heck out of it.

[PaulL]

Actually, Clarice, it's phlogiston that causes all this global warming. I hope Congress taxes the heck out of it.

[Clarice]

Just light fires all over the place--gets rid of phlogiston every time.

[D'kian]

Actually phlogiston, as every schoolchild knows, has negative mass. Therefore the solution is to attach phlogistonic converters to all trains, planes and automobiles, thereby turning all the new-fangled carbon dioxide into phlogiston, which will then be repelled by the Earth's gravity and escape the planet. It might also make cars lighter, providing at least a 0.000001% increase in fuel efficiency, thereby offsetting the cost of the converter in no more than 150 years.

[Other Tom]

"Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds." This whole thing is of a piece with "Run, Bambi, it's man!"

Mankind, particularly white, industrial man, is simply evil. And he is a fat, almost defenseless target, and indeed is often eager to join in the flagellation. There are university professors out there (Kirkpatrick Sale comes to mind) who believe that Original Sin consists of the European migration to the New World. In his view, widely shared by the city councils of Boulder, Berkeley, Madison and a hundred like them, white man had a duty to remain poor in the teeming cities of Europe, in order that the tiny population of Stone-Age red men could continue to roam about the 3.5 million square miles of the modern-day US. (My brother-in-law's chldren up in the Bay Area attend a school which calls Columbus Day "Native American Day"). For these folks, it was fine for the natives to change their way of life for the better by appropriating the horses brought by Spaniards, but at that point the Spaniards were obliged to go home. Ditto the white man's firesticks.

Good God--I'm rambling. But what the hell...

[Other Tom]

Well, hell--why not ramble a little bit more?

Imagine, if you will, that there was a "scientific consensus" that the earth was, indeed, warming exactly to the extent that Al Gore says it is, but that mankind's activity was in fact preventing it from warming as fast as it would do naturally. Do you have any difficulty predicting what the Al Gores of the world would be saying. "Industrial pollution is standing athwart the coming of the New Age, in which Inuits and Greenlanders would be tilling their rich, black soil and reaping abundant harvests of every imaginable grain to feed the poor Africans, eliminate AIDS, and lead ultimately to the founding of a benificent world government and eternal peace among men." Or somethig like that...

[Clarice]

It's a good ramble.

I'm thumbing thru the history books trying to find a single example anywhere in the world--when confronted by agrarian societies, the nomads won.(See Esau/Jacob for an analogy)

[RichatUF]

I had to look this up- phlogiston-like hearing it for the first time.

Surprise, surprise that the green goons would be looking for witches and heretics, and with "sneer quotes" pointing out the "error of their ways"

[Rick Ballard]

The Mongols stayed ahead on points for a number of centuries in a number of places if I'm not mistaken.

It's just a darned shame that Hulagu didn't beat Berke and last a few decades longer - things would be different.

[centralcal]

O.T. said: "Mankind, particularly white, industrial man, is simply evil."

Hmm . . . what about white, democratic woman?

A state representative in a runoff election infuriated civil rights leaders after she ended a conversation with the mother of the NAACP's local president by saying, "Talk to you later, Buckwheat."

[RichatUF]

Clarice-

...when confronted by agrarian societies, the nomads won...

The Lands of Islam?

[MJW]

Skeptic:

The Kyoto Protocol will not reduce emissions of greenhouse gases noticeably.

Counter:

Arguments over the Kyoto Protocol are outside the realms of science, although it certainly will not reduce greenhouse gas emissions as far or as fast as the IPCC indicates is necessary.

That's just plain stupid. How is the statement that the Kyoto Protocol will not reduce emissions of greenhouse gases noticeably outside the realm of science If the skeptical statement were "The benefits of the Kyoto Protocol do not justify the costs" the response would be more valid. But even in that version, the question of Koyoto's benefits is clearly scientific.

To further add the nonsequiter, "The latest IPCC Working Group 2 report suggest that the impact of man-made climate change will on balance be deleterious, particularly to the poorer countries of the tropics," shows the calculated disingenuousness of of the answer. I guess if the impact is really, really bad, then even if Kyoto has no measurable effect, it should be implemented anyway.

[anduril]

Michael Barone discusses a problem that's more important than global warming, actually two problems: Leaving the Children Behind.

[RichatUF]

...Hulagu didn't beat Berke...

Going a bit far, all the way to Kerry's favorite historical figure...

[MJW]

I hate making corrections, but in the previous comment, there should be a question mark after the phrase 'outside the range of science'.

[Clarice]

Hulagulu may be the only example and yet, there are settlements now everywhere he ranged and we are probably--per geneologists--all his descendents.

[hit and run]

NCAA Women's Soccer Tournament Selection on after the break...

Going to break, the announcer gave the intro -- with a great shot of Jmax in action.

[hit and run]

Who's responsible for that NCAA football poll on the upper right?

Who will win the championship...and they put up Okalhoma St as a selection?

Er, OK.

That is, should be OU.

ESPNews lied, hit and run cried...baseball free agency, now NCAA men's basketball....come on, get on with it. UNC will be a #1 seed, no doubt. Where will they play?

[RichatUF]

anduril-
Great read--...Teacher unions are not the only public employee unions important to the Democrats — nearly half the union members in the country are public employees...

In another thread http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2007/11/in-which-i-spea.html#comment-89160992”> PRS had a great quote from Friedman that probably sums it all up-can always count on M. Barone to hit the right note.

[hit and run]

Here it is...

UNC No. 1 Seed.

WOOOOHOOOO!!!!! UNC plays High Point (local University here) in CHAPEL HILL on Friday!

I'm there. I'm SOOO There.

Ooooh, my alma mater plays Texas A&M on Thursday.

[Clarice]

Thnx for keeping us up to date, HIT..Go Gmax!!

That Barone article IS good, anduril.

[hit and run]

When UNC dispenses with High Point U, they may play UNC Greensboro in the 2nd round (if UNCG beats Memphis). It's on Sunday, which I won't be able to make....

...and another great shot of Jmax...

OOOOOH, Illinois is in the same bracket. You know Illinois, the team of 2nd place Ella Masar in the Senior Class Award....

THAT would make for an intriguing matchup!!!

[RichatUF]

Is anyone surprised at the really bad week that the Hillary! campaign had?

Everything from calling a waitress a liar to the attack of the American flag. I hope some good photoshoppers have been harvesting, because I expect to see come good commercials out if it

[Clarice]

Instapundit observes that people are starting to realize we're winning in Iraq--but it's BAD news:
"But it's also, paradoxically, bad news for the Republicans in that those who have held their nose and stuck with the GOP because of the war are likely to feel freer to vote for people they agree with on other issues. And while it's true that Iraq is not the war on terror, it's also likely that the post-2009 phase of the war on terror will involve less outright war and more spying, backstabbing, subtle undermining, bribery, extortion and cooptation. Hmm. What candidate might be good at that sort of thing?"

[hit and run]

(Ella is a forward, and leading scorer for Illinois with 11 goals, and thus she and Jmax would be squaring off.......)

[PaulL]

Other Tom,

If you go back far enough, the horse and early test-versions that God made of the horse *were* native to North America. So essentially the Spanish re-introduced the horse to our country.

[Rick Ballard]

MJW,

The whole of the BBC rebuttal side appears to have been written by Gavin Schmidt. It is as wretchedly obfuscatory as the initial inHansenment of the data which Mann used to splice up his hockey stick.

This ain't science - it's Lysenkoism writ large and around the world. Watermelon "science" was covered by Hayek in The Counter-Revolution of Science which carries the subtitle "Studies on the Abuse of Reason".

That would be an appropriate title for any book examining the Left from Hegel through this afternoon.

It's all a series of non sequiturs strung together with sophistry.

[Bill in AZ]

"That would be an appropriate title for any book examining the Left from Hegel through this afternoon."

dammit - I'm glad I buy keyboards by the case now...

[Porchlight]

I don't know from phlogiston, but once, having just given birth and lamentably under pressure from hippie friends, I took my infant daughter to see a cranio-sacral therapist. I dragged my very patient mom with me, and she must have phoned my dad about it, because when I got back I found an email from him asking how the visit to the phrenologist went. Let's just say he wasn't too far off in his intimation of quackery.

In my acquaintance, global warmongers and cranio-sacral enthusiasts tend to be one and the same people.

[GMax]

Hit

While the NCAA runs the tourney that has their name on it, and thus there are some restrictions on what can be done postgame and where, I still think we can get your girls autographs of a bunch of the players if they want them. Reminder now to find a permanent marker and whatever they want signed. Soccer jersey, soccer ball whatever. The girls are very compliant on this and they get hit up for signatures everywhere they play, but at home they usually stick around and please the locals a bunch with lots of attention.

Too bad you could not make it last time, with Heather OReilly roaming around with a stocking cap on, and most folks not even knowing who was walking by them! But maybe you will be lucky enough to sight a real legend like Overbeck or Lilly or even Ms Garciaparra ( nee Hamm ).

[GMax]

Hit

While the NCAA runs the tourney that has their name on it, and thus there are some restrictions on what can be done postgame and where, I still think we can get your girls autographs of a bunch of the players if they want them. Reminder now to find a permanent marker and whatever they want signed. Soccer jersey, soccer ball whatever. The girls are very compliant on this and they get hit up for signatures everywhere they play, but at home they usually stick around and please the locals a bunch with lots of attention.

Too bad you could not make it last time, with Heather OReilly roaming around with a stocking cap on, and most folks not even knowing who was walking by them! But maybe you will be lucky enough to sight a real legend like Overbeck or Lilly or even Ms Garciaparra ( nee Hamm ).

[Walter]

Yesterday, the kids and I spent the afternoon on the lake with my new kayak.

Today we drove to school with the top down.

I am really enjoying global warming in November.

[hit and run]

Gmax -- well, the game starts at 5. That's good as far as not keeping the kids out so late. Now all I have to do is slip out of work early...

[Other Tom]

PaulL, whatever. In any case the plains Indians wouldn't have had them if the Spanish hadn't brought them here.

Centralcal, I used "man" as a synecdoche. I suppose I should have set forth my favorite piece of gobbledygook from the California Civil Code:

"The present tense includes the past and future tenses. The singular includes the plural, and the plural includes the singular. 'All' means 'any and all'; 'any' means 'any and all.' 'Including' means 'including but not limited to.' 'And' and 'or' encompass both 'and' and 'or.' Words in the masculine, feminine or neuter form shall include each of the other genders."

All of which is shorthand for, words mean what I say they mean.

[Sue]

A few years ago, there were articles about skin cancer running out the wazoo. All attributed to the ozone layer being depleted. Whatever happened to that?

[hit and run]

Walter:
Yesterday, the kids and I spent the afternoon on the lake with my new kayak.

Good. Get some runs in the kayak in before our trip in the spring.

I need to check with my neighbor on how he's coming with the kayak he's building in his garage. That's pronounced GARE-idge. He's Scotish.

[Bill in AZ]

The high incidence of skin cancer (and ozone depletion - actually, compression of atmosphere) was due to high solar output. Can't say that because that will mess up the global warming meme which is due to teh CARBON.

Part of the reason the skin cancer noise has gone away is that we moved away from the 11 year solar max - and this last one was very intense and long lived. Several solar flares during this last cycle made the top 10 of recorded history.

[tryggth]

Remind me... what was the point? We are all fucked so we should spend the last days fucking (over) each other?

[Clarice]

Get a klepper, Hit. You can take it anywhere.It packs up in two duffle bags, and it's a gorgeous piece of work.

[Topsecretk9]

I am really enjoying global warming in November.

Me too! I LOVE this jogging in shorts in mid November. I went 2 extra miles yesterday just because it was so glorious.

[Topsecretk9]

Clarice

Instapundit observes that people are starting to realize we're winning in Iraq--but it's BAD news

More Democrat bad news:

U.S.: Indirect-fire attacks at lowest level in months

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=50227

Coalition forces disrupt al-Qaeda media networks; six killed, 15 detained:

http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15211&Itemid=128

Different- Coalition forces disrupt al-Qaeda network; 16 suspects detained

http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15188&Itemid=21

US forces arrest five Iranians - source

http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=1038330

[anduril]

Rich, glad you liked Barone's article.  I'm doing this post for two reasons: 1) to offer up a couple of other writings I came across today, and 2) because I'm playing around with an extension to Firefox called "Xinha Here!."

 First the two writings.  The first I listed on another thread.  It's by Stanley Kurtz, whose work I like very much and who writes from a sociologists point of view, it seems to me.  It's called Tribes of Terror and is a review of three books by Akbar S. Ahmed.  Ahmed is a professor at American U. but in the 1970's ran a tribal agency for Pakistan in Waziristan.  Kurtz discusses the Pushtun culture in light of these books: Resistance and Control in Pakistan, Islam Under Siege and Journey into Islam.  I'd love sometime to discuss with him my view that Islam represents what I like to call an ideologization of a way of life: the raiding way of life of the Bedouin--if you take the Bedouin to represent tribal peoples living on the margins and making their living by raiding.  Islam transforms this way of life into an ideology of world conquest, in a way not unlike what occurred with the Mongols.

 Anyway.  The other link is to a fourteen page study on the situation in Afghanistan by the NEFA Foundation: A Taliban Resurgence: The Destabilization of Kabul?

 Now, Xinha Here!  Xinha Here! is a very capable little html editor that can be installed as an extension to Firefox.  All you do to activate it is right click in the text box of any blog that you want to post to, and you get a pop-up menu asking where you want the editor to open.  I always chose to have it open in the bottom half of the screen.  When you're done typing and click "apply" it transfers what you've typed to the text box--voilà!  (We'll see if JOM includes my accent grave--Xinha has a little button for special characters. Ha! It did.)  The toolbar provides all the buttons you need to format what you write.  You could do this with another editor, too, but the neat thing with Xinha is that, by opening it in the bottom half of the screen it remains in view as you move from tab to tab.  For example, to do my links I opened up other tabs and moved to them to get the titles and the urls, copying them directly to Xinha's link dialogue. 

 I don't know how others do their posting, but Xinha is a pretty neat way to do it for Firefox users--and we're all Firefox users here, right?  (Sorry, Mac folks.  Maybe there're some stray people out on Safari or Opera.)  For Firefox users it's worth checking out, because it's so nicely integrated.



 

[anduril]

The two choices are: open Xinha in new window or in a bottom bar.

Heh, all that talk about skin cancer got people slobbering on the sun screen and now they're all suffering from shortages of Vitamin D. 

[RichatUF]

anduril-

LTC Peters had an interesting article that might be in the direction you are looking for.

I bookmarked the article you linked for later. The following is an interesting insight from the article:

Following the oil boom of the 1970s, Wazirs and Mahsuds alike migrated to the Persian Gulf to work the oil fields and send their remittances back home. Maliks from the most prestigious tribal lineages initially resisted the call of migration. So the oil boom created an opening that "depressed lineages" happily filled. By the time the maliks began to send their sons to the Gulf, intra-tribal disparities of wealth and influence were disappearing.

His work might be interesting to read with Sowell's "Ethnic America" [remittances from the US have always been a large component of keeping ethnic groups in the US, he had a very good write up regarding the Chinese in California] and another angle that might be interesting is "The Siege at Mecca" [someone here is reading it] and its blowback.

[anduril]

I find Peter's writing a frustrating mix of shrewd insight and over simplification. For example, to simply characterize the Chinese as an exception to the rule (regarding extended family based societies as losers) is neither helpful nor enlightening. Yet he has other useful things to say.

[Ralph L]

when confronted by agrarian societies, the nomads won
We follow in the footsteps of Cain and dispatch the herdsmen. Later we romantize them in movies with John Wayne.

Do the Goths count as nomads?
Did they adopt their black & white makeup style before or after contact with the Eqyptians?

[kim]

Charter schools. Public education with accountability, by contract, for students, teachers, and parents. The solution is simple.

To get there is not. It will require recruiting the teachers in a campaign to trade their present security and unaccountability for less security, and more accountability. With any luck, more money and prestige will then flow to them. Charter schools in cities which are establishing them have little trouble attracting the best and the brightest of the teachers.

Oh, by the way, we're cooling, folks.
========================

[kim]

Yesterday's RCP had a nice report from Morley Safer about 'the Millenials', the cohort born between 1980 and 1995, or so.
=================================

[anduril]

What a way to start the morning--a spy receives top honors: A Spy's Path--Iowa to A-Bomb to Kremlin Honor.

[Rick Ballard]

Take a second and Vote Jmax.

[GMax]

Days are growing short. The Illini have commented on the fact that they are coming up short. I expect a furious keyboard pounding today from them. If you can respond, it might just discourage them from doing so again.

Thanks again for all the support.

[MayBee]

Thanks again for all the support.

I just can't wait 'til she wins, and we all jump up and down and hug each other.

[Sue]

Is http://www.drudgereport.com/>this f'ng real? Don't pull a Russert? If I were Wolf, I'd tell them to hold the debate without me. As a matter of fact, just give Hillary the time to tell us all the answers to the questions she has planted across the country.

[MayBee]

What I love about that, Sue, is that we've just been subjected to years of journalism "experts" like Jay Rosen tell us that Bush was singularly trying to destroy a critical media.

I'm sure all of this is different, just like it was different before.

[RichatUF]

And in other election news-Kucinich is looking to lock up the kook-fringe vote and beat out the Paulian!

Sue,

I'm curious when the media will just tire of the strong armed tactics the Clinton campaign uses and lets the dam break. The next debate might almost be worth watching.

[kim]

It's not surprising that the authoritarian Hillary is emerging as a meme.
========================

[Sue]

One thing for sure, both the media and Hillary are going to be under a microscope from here on out.

[RichatUF]

anduril-

I understand your point-

graf-

At its most successful, this is the system of the Chinese diaspora, but that is a unique case. The Darwinian selection that led to the establishment and perpetuation of the great Chinese merchant families (and village networks), coupled with the steely power of southern China's culture, has made this example an exception to many rules.

The ever present Chinese exception. The best one I'm hearing nowadays is the "soverign fund". So let me see, if state owned enterprises operate poorly compared to private competition a state owned invstment fund would somehow do better over private management...but it is the Chinese, they never do wrong!!!!

[Topsecretk9]

They need a woman to moderate the debate. Then Hill can't pull the mean men bully crap she and Bill are whining about.

[Rick Ballard]

Tops,

Are there women exorcists? 'Cause that's what is really needed...

[centralcal]

Rick, Tops: They need a woman to moderate the debate ....

They have one - Suzanne (soozahn) Malveaux!

Barf.

[RichatUF]

It looks like the democrats have the winning issue after all-End the Iraq War we can't afford it! Just think with all that money all the programs...possibilities seem endless.

link

If memory serves this idea was kicked around last year and the year before...

[Porchlight]

Are there women exorcists? 'Cause that's what is really needed...

Let's hope Hill keeps her demons as long as possible, so they can torture her in the general. Wasn't that a Shirley Jackson novel - The Haunting of Hill House?

[RichatUF]

Here is the Senate Democrats spending plan.

bumbersticker version-

End the Iraq War. SCHIP for everyone.