Down Beat Climate Beat Down

I made the mistake of watching Larry King tonight. It's not like I didn't know better. I knew that nothing good can come from watching Larry King, but they were debating global warming and I got sucked into the vortex.

Debate is a game of matchups, and the first pairing didn't look promising. Wearing the black hat was our good buddy Richard Lindzen, while cast as his opponent was Bill Nye, the science guy. It was, as I feared, pretty much Jack the Ripper versus Mr. Rodgers. Whatever Bill's merits as a science popularizer, his command of rhetoric looked even worse than his command of climate science. Lindzen gutted him like a fish.

Next came the battling politicos: Barbara Boxer vs. James Inhofe. Now I knew that Inhofe was no brain surgeon, but he did have his AEI talking points down. Boxer, on the other hand, did a highly convincing immitation of a witless bimbo speaking meaningless platitudes.

I knew that the situation was hopeless, but by this time I was pretty much stunned myself. Some obscure economist was trotted out to explain how useful a rise of a degree or two F might be, and in supposed response, a TV weather guy allowed as he couldn't predict the weather five days ahead.

Inhofe claimed, and Lindzen agreed, that the IPCC summary was written by politicians and environmentalists not scientists. I don't know if that is true, but it was an effective claim, and nobody disputed it.

Lindzen's most telling point was his argument that whatever the truth of global warming, no action to address it had been seriously proposed that was likely to have more than symbolic effectiveness. This was also unchallenged, and I suspect, likely quite true.

If you're willing to play a little fast and loose with the facts, of course, it's a huge advantage - especially if your opponent don't know enough to correct you.

I know there are climate guys who could give a better account of themselves than our hopeless champions, so why weren't they there? Is nobody out their volunteering for this kind of gig or was Larry just making a little Colmes vs Hannity play?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-Libertarian: re-post

The most pointed critique of social security and liberalism in general is the libertarian critique. The problem with libertarians, for a liberal, is that we have too much in common. We both believe in individual rights, tolerance of individual differences, and dislike government prescription of religion. The basic difference, it seems to me, is the different answers we give to Cain's (with thanks to the Captain - my original version had the corpse asking the question!) famous question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's not really my basic bitch against the libertarians though. My real complaint is the same as my complaint against most religion - its premise is a fraud. For those who can't stand to wait for the punchline, I believe that trying to implement libertarian principles leads to tyranny or social disintegration. Demonstrating that takes some historical (and pre-historical) context. For all but the last 15,000 or so of the 100,000 years the human spec
Read more

Uneasy Lies The Head

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ........... Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II. So it is with us and our slightly distant primate cousins , so it seems. A 9-year study of wild baboons in Kenya by Princeton University and the Institute of Primate Research may turn conventional assumptions of alphas males upside down. The study found that alpha males have high testosterone levels, which allows them to dominate other baboons, get access to more food, and attract better mates. This is expected. Surprisingly, though, the alpha males also have high levels of stress hormone glucocorticoid, which scientists measured from their feces samples. In fact, the stress of alpha baboons was on par with low-ranking baboons. The convention wisdom is that access to food and females provides life security and thus less stress for dominant males. Conversely, weak males who are constantly threatened by starvation and physical violence from stronger males are thought to be more stressed. The st
Read more

We Call it Soccer

The US played its best, and maybe only good game of World Cup, but lost thanks to brilliant goalkeeping by the Swedish keeper and the bizarre method soccer uses to settle ties when three US stars could not put the ball on frame from the 12 yard spot.  At the end it came down to a blocked shot that spun in by maybe a couple of centimeters. Well, that's football - too much like life.   Which brings me to a modest proposal.  Replace the thirty minute overtimes with as many 7-player 15 minute periods as needed to settle it.  Scoring should be much easier with fewer players.
Read more