Other blog to roundup

The MEC managed to have the last word on Poor Schmuck's blog posting about Al Gore saying that cigarettes caused Global Warming. A good deal was learnt in the process. To summarize one side of the discussion, which was usually ignored by the other side, the problem of Climate Change is a lot like finding out about cancer.

You can be diagnosed of cancer, even if when you can't feel it. If the doctor who informs you of the lab results that prove you have cancer is a smoker, and is in the process of giving himself cancer, that is of no significance.

The most important lesson is the knowledge that the treatment you may have to undergo to cure yourself the cancer -- if it is in fact possible in your case -- has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not you have cancer.

No one should ever claim Global Warming is not occurring because they can't countenance the idea of stopping car use.

There's more. There is no official qualification for being called a "scientist". And nor is there a qualification for being called a musician. There doesn't need to be. If these Climate Change deniers need to travel all night to find some pissed bloke called Myron Ebell in a karaoke bar in Oregon who's singing the tune they want to hear, while John Lennon is in the stage next door, then so be it. But it says something when you go far out of your way to get crap.

Good news

The Myron Ebell Climate is pleased to welcome jiminhotwater.blogspot.com a blog devoted to US Senator Jim Inhofe, the man who takes testimony from a science fiction writer as well as the scientifically dishonest Bjorn Lomborg. The scientists are all part of a global conspiracy to impose on the world a great Global Warming Hoax.

There's a neat interview by CNN with the Senator embedded in the page, where he starts with the bold accusation that the newspresenter he is speaking to is an extremist.

The Climate is also glad to read in DeSmogBlog that a CEI insider said they "were pummelled for weeks with irate viewers," and that CEI staffers were "afraid to pick up their phones." after they broadcast their two crap attack ads

From the sound of it, it seems that the world is tired of having these astro-turf groups around. They can do no right, whenever they do anything these days apart from cower in their offices. They have served their purpose of delaying progress for a number of years until it's a thousand times more expensive, whilst enabling a few multimillionaires to become billionaires.

A job well done. Just remember it when the biosphere is cracking up and making life difficult for human beings to live, and these same people are being all wise and telling us that it must be a fatal flaw in the human species that allowed this inevitable disaster to occur. Ask them what they were doing at the time in the early years of the 21st century. Make sure they're not trying to pass off their personal responsibility onto the rest of us. Make sure they weren't part of the lying machine that was consciously at work to keep us misinformed, covering our eyes as we approached the bend in the road and continued on straight so as to drive our society right of a cliff. Make it personal. This form of argument requires it to be. Responsibility is shared in proportion to political power, especially on those who knowingly lied at the time.

No science but the science

I received a copy of the formerly prestigious Science magazine of the AAAS where I was disappointed to find a short note on page 1717 of Volume 313 Issue 5794, 22 September 2006, where there was a lie from Myron Ebell's pal in a ScienceScope piece authored by Eli Kintisch:

Cutting greenhouse emissions requires both research on new technologies as well as market limits on carbon usage, says the Congressional Budget Office in a new report.
The report implicitly criticizes the Bush Administration's emphasis on energy research, arguing that "relying exclusively on R&D funding in the near term... would increase the overall cost of reducing emissions in the long run." Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-MN), who requested the study with independent James Jeffords (VT), says the work validates his call for carbon limits. The Competitive Enterprise Institute's Chris Horner thinks that strategy is unwise, pointing out that high gas prices in Europe, for example, have not lead to lower emissions.

This is not the first time Kintisch has dipped into the lie factory; according to the search engine, he quoted Myron Ebell on 26 June 2006. For this he has his name dropped in the Myron hole.

Just to unpick how this lie works, Horner's fallback lie will be to claim that although Europe's gas prices are higher than in the US, carbon emissions have increased. It is true that gas prices are higher in Europe than in the US. It is true that carbon emissions are lower in Europe than in the US. It is also true that gas prices in Europe have not been rising; due to the high tax, the price rises in the raw materials have not made as much of a percentage difference as they have to Americans.

For an institute who pretends to be all into market solutions, they scant respect for the effect of price signals when it comes to affecting their sponsors such as Exxon. They're just such complete wallies.

Meanwhile, the work on Poor Schmuck - The More People I Meet, The More I Like Nuclear Weapons continues. All good stuff.

The truth must not be restricted by copyright

For my sins, I check out extreme blogs such as Just Some Poor Schmuck - "The More People I Meet, The More I Like Nuclear Weapons", and noticed this allegation:

GORE: CIGARETTE SMOKING 'SIGNIFICANT' CONTRIBUTOR TO GLOBAL WARMING

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore warned hundreds of U.N. diplomats and staff on Thursday evening about the perils of climate change, claiming: Cigarette smoking is a "significant contributor to global warming!"

Gore is quickly sinking into self-parody. Who're his handlers, the South Park guys?

Did he start going on about "Manbearpig" as well?

It was echoed everywhere on the interweb, and appears to be sourced from Newsmax.

For some reason, this joke caught the imagination of the wingnuts because it fits their level of comprehension. Setting aside what is already known of their contempt for facts, it's possible what was actually said was something along the lines of: "the tobacco lobby was a significant contributor of money to the global warming denial industry," for which there is plenty of evidence.

I tracked down the lecture schedule:

As part of the Secretary-General's Lecture Series, former United States Vice-President Mr. Al Gore, will sepak on the topic of global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth".

The Secretary-General hosts this lecture series on topics at the forefront of the humanities and natural sciences, as part of a continuing effort to create a strengthened framework for dialogue and mutual understanding within the United Nations community.

All accredited journalists are welcome to attend.There will be a still camera photo-spray at the start of the event, however; for reasons of copyright, the event can not be recorded for television.

And the press release afterward:

"We have to change everything in the way we go about burning energy, designing products and going about the architecture of buildings," Mr. Gore said. "With the new tools coming out of the information revolution," he added, "we can shift our economies away from the massive flows of waste that are themselves mainly responsible for this problem."

I've also found a couple of discussions here and here about the allegation.

But there is no on-line recording of the Question and Answer session with which to prove -- not just suspect -- that Mr Schmuck's claim is a lie.

The Myron Ebell Climate has been forced to draft a letter on a dead tree to the father of the internet who does not have an email contact to point out that if he insists on keeping the facts off-line, then we'll be left standing in a windswept plain of lies forever.

In order for us to stand a chance, the truth should be at least as accessible as the lies. That means if the CEI can distribute its lies about AIN for free, then there should be enough of the contents of AIN available to neutralize it.