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A Skeptic's Guide to Copenhagen
Tunku Varadarajan is a national affairs correspondent and writer at large for The Daily Beast. He is also the Virginia Hobbs Carpenter Fellow in Journalism at Stanford's Hoover Institution and a professor at NYU's Stern Business School. He is a former assistant managing editor at The Wall Street Journal. (Follow him on Twitter here.)
Jonathan Hayward, The Canadian Press / AP Photo
As the global summit on climate change gets under way in Copenhagen, Tunku Varadarajan offers an eyebrow-raising A-Z guide to the proceedings.
Very nearly a hundred years ago, Ambrose Bierce compiled A Devil's Dictionary, in which he sought to puncture the cultural cant of his time. Here is an attempt—at much shorter length—to prick a very contemporary kind of cant, that which has swollen the debate on climate change to ungovernable proportions.
A is for anthropogenic: (as in anthropogenic global warming, or “AGW”), a $10 word for "man-made" which global-warmists wield as proof of expertise—no one more so than Al Gore, who, after having invented the Internet, turned his prodigious mind to the conundrum of AGW.
B is for Björn Lomborg, the Danish professor whose book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, should have put Al Gore out of business forever; for the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) that aren’t ready to abandon the good, carbon-burning life just yet; and for boondoggle (see "ethanol," infra).
C is for the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, the now-discredited source of much of the data used to fuel climate hysteria. In November, in an episode that was oh-so-predictably dubbed Climategate, a cache of leaked emails showed that researchers systematically hid or manipulated data that was inconsistent with the accepted narrative of man-made climate change. (Read John Tierney's clear-headed critique here.) Don't forget carbon dioxide, a colorless, odorless gas once considered essential to life on earth, not to mention bubbles in Champagne. (Although it's now regarded as a poisonous pollutant, you can, however, trade it.) Think also of consensus—the idea that science is settled by an asserted poll of experts after all objections from dissenting scientists have been suppressed.
D is for deniers. A mere notch above Holocaust deniers, these are the people who refuse to accept that climate change is largely man-induced. Heretics, they'd be burned at the stake if that were not such a bad thing for the ozone layer.
E is for environmentalism, which the philosopher Harvey Mansfield has defined as “school prayer for liberals,” ecoterrorists (who believe that all life, except yours, is sacred, and who tend to have names like "Swampy"), and ethanol (see "boondoggle," supra).
F is for fossil fuels, the consumption of which, over the last century, has powered prosperity and growth the world over, and for dear old Freeman Dyson, a distinguished scientist who copped some fearful flak for dissenting from the warmist consensus. ("I'm not saying the warming doesn't cause problems, obviously it does. Obviously we should be trying to understand it. I'm saying that the problems are being grossly exaggerated.")
G is for green, a mantra, a shibboleth, a way of life; the Guardian (house journal of the global-warming platoons); and Gwyneth Paltrow, who has said that she can "just feel" it getting globally warmer in her bones…Maybe her husband's band, Coldplay, should be re-named. Foreplay?
H is "hide the decline", (referring to a temperature graph that appeared on the cover of a 1999 report from the World Meteorological Organization). The phrase has been embraced by deniers as proof that the warmists are charlatans, as, previously, was the "hockey stick"—a graph that shows warming in the Northern Hemisphere, and which was featured in the 2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report. Since its publication, the scientific methodology used to create it has been a source of intense dispute.
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gameon
Wow,the Global Warmers are going to really hate this article.You'll probably get called a lot of names, but what's new.
gak001
Meh. It's like getting called names by the losing side in a game - when you have science on your side, it's hard to let that kind of thing bother you.
wolverine1987
Unfortunately with regard to man made warming, vs. the fact of warming. you have zero science on your side. That's the whole point. Man-made warming is "school prayer for liberals." Beautiful.
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gak001
Keep dreaming. Peer-reviewed science is overwhelmingly on the side of anthropomorphic global warming. Just because you keep saying it isn't, doesn't make it so. You can scream the world is flat all you want, but it's still an oblongal spheroid.
gameon
The more I read this article ,the less I like it.I think it's an offering to placate the skeptics in the TDB crowd,but done in such a way that it has no credibility.
I want real scientific debate,not opinions.I mean there are thousands of scientists who could bring up actual facts that would disprove APG.Why did TDB find a business professor instead of a climate expert?Surely TDB can do better than this.I would like an article that focuses on Climategate specifically and the science that is being discussed whithin those E-mails and how the collusion between the people involved in those e-mails has been the basis for other claims about the climate from Global Warmers.
This is an attempt to portray skeptics ideas as incomplete and this is just not the case.
AlexHamilton
However the argument that scientists are the only ones who should write about this is a nonsense. If you want it, there's endless scientific claptrap out there to "prove" or "disprove" both sides of the debate, and really it's all fairly redundant, since ultimately there is no consensus (although one would have to admit more people for it than against it).
Furthermore, even if there was a "consensus", what the hell do scientists know anyway? Just think back to the apocalyptic visions set in place for these ethereal tidbits:
- Global cooling
- Acid rain
- SARs
- Mad cow disease
- Foot in mouth disease (did you have that one in the States?)
- Bird Flu
- Swine Flu
... and so on.
All effectively vanished because there was an expiry date on them. We waited for the devastation that a "majority" of scientists promised, only for it not to emerge, and for us to all get on with our lives. With climate change, however, it's gonna take, what? 5 years? umm, no, that didn't happen... ok, 10 years. no again. 50? and so on. Thus we can't get rid of it.
Bearing all this in mind, the "science" is really irrelevant, and I doubt there's even one man on this planet who understands all the arguments from both sides, so why should we draw conclusions from a TDB article, or something similar?
The reason that guys like this fellow need to be listened to (and other notable deniers), is that it's important to consider, outside of the science, what is likely. For example:
- Is climate change in the interests of most governments? Yes.
- Can a politician ever possibly succeed if he's a sceptic? No.
- Is this whole saga catnip for the media? Yes.
- Do people love to get themselves worked up about this kind of thing? Certainly.
- Will a "climate scientist" naturally relish proposing a theory that could hypothetically make him rich and influential, and at the very least take his specialization into uncharted reaches of kudos for what was once a science that barely registered in people's thoughts? Are you kidding? - imagine the fawning these guys enjoy at fancy dinner parties.
- In an increasingly secular age, are people looking elsewhere for their dogma? Of course (people now are no different than those 500 years ago, remember that).
- Is it a coincidence that Kyoto was designed to cripple America before actually making a difference to the environment? Doubtful.
- Would the proposed changes needed to fight climate change be welcomed with open arms by the left, even if nobody had ever heard of it? Absolutely.
- When it's clear that two of the most obvious long term solutions are nuclear power and not taxing corporations who will eventually provide the solutions, why are these not considered? Perhaps because they'd undermine the political goals involved.
I don't believe it's a conspiracy, or that it's made up, or that there aren't plenty of informed individuals who believe it entirely apolitically. However I also believe that the left desperately want it to be true, and would be crushed if some miraculous evidence came to light that disproved it beyond question. We saw a similar philosophy that obliquely prayed for failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, especially here in Europe, subconsciously relishing every setback.
They're not "evil", just human, and it's perfectly understandable. But that's why the non-scientific argument is just as important as the scientific.
gameon
If you disprove the science you will be able to disprove the theory,if you disprove the theory you can delegitimize the entire AGW movement.By allowing bad science to go unchallenged,it creates the perception among the public that the false assurtion is accurate,perception then becomes reality .Then the Government uses the false sense of scientific consensus to intrude into the private sector in ways that would not have been possible had the falsehood been dealt with in the beginning .The way you deal with it in the beginning is by following proper sientific method and by having an open and honest debate with a free exchange of ideas and information.That hasn't happened up to this point.
I'm not saying that non-scientists shouldn't write on the subject.I'm just saying it is a more efficient use of time to concentrate on the underlying science which will in the end take the wind out of all the Government shennanigans.Leave them without a leg to stand on and there arguments will break down.Skeptics are losing because we have been shut out of mainstream liberal media.It's a conspiracy of exclusion for the express purpose of fooling the public.If we do have the opportunity to express our sides opinions we need to make it count by making our points concisely and from an"expert" in the field.This is the only article on the subject i've seen on this site and I think failed in those aspects.
I don't hire a dentist to fix my car,why have a business professor discuss any aspect of the science associated with AGW.
stjam8
Alex Hamilton: After 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl, most people said not in my backyard. Nuclear power plants are heavily subsidized and are becoming cost prohibitive, as the price to build one goes up 15% each year. New technology has shorten the time it takes for nuclear fuel to go to weapons grade., which makes it a danger for weapons proliferation. *********NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL: Many nuclear power plants around the world are nearing the end of their operating lives. This is particularly true in the U.S. The end of the cold war has left us with radioactive waste from decommissioned missiles. The disposal of radioactive waste from nuclear power plants and the missiles themsevles is as politically intense an issue as the power plants and the missiles themselves. Yet few debates discuss the nuclear waste problems. High level radioactive waste is generaly material from the core of the nuclear reactor or nuclear weapon. This waste includes uranium,plutonium and other highly radioactive elements made during fission. Most of the radioactive isotopes in high level waste emit large amounts of radiation and have extremely long half-life( some longer then 100,000 years) creating long periods before the waste will settle to safe levels of radioactivity. The full text can be found at,http;//w.w.w.history.rochester.edu/class/ERZA/
dareg08
AlexHamilton: "Furthermore, even if there was a "consensus", what the hell do scientists know anyway?"
Did you really just write that? And then you kept writing, a lot in fact, as if that's not all we needed to read to understand you have absolutely nothing intelligent to contribute.
What's wrong with this country?? Do we have to have another WW to regain our curiosity and respect for science? Do we have to get cancer to realize what "the hell" scientists know, "anyway"??
maximilian
so... if i understand this correctly...one should disbelieve every scientist who actually understands the subject (to the advantage of lomborg, whose book is reviled across the world as a sham: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lomborg ), because of their alarmism (serving a self-promoting purpose of which i am unaware...?); using as proof a set of emails whose referents are either unknown or inexplicable to a layman; and of course your stunning rhetorical strategy (note: owl creek bridge was about ignoring the REALITY of a situation).
bierce would be ashamed.
flavor13
Wow, I'd always been told the main tactic against the evidence for global warming was to confuse the issue rather than disprove it. Reading all this, I guess it must be true.
fenngibbon
Whatever questions there may be about whether Earth is warming, Hell must have frozen over for TDB to print this.
dsycks
This could have been a well thought out and interesting piece but what we get is a jr high school version of an a-z manifest of disjointed crap. Lots of points made but zero to back up most of them... Sad and amateurish.
asg1962
An outstanding contribution to the debate.
sandwiches
this isn't debate, it's frivolous.
he's a business professor, not a scientist
ndspinelli
sandwiches, And Al Gore is a bloated, sanctimonious politician who couldn't even win his home state in a prez election! How in the name of everything righteous did he become the expert on ANYTHING..much less a complex scientific topic.
atwork
no, but he could win florida.
BOOM!
jomama
That's great - more emotional effort to confuse and discredit, and you call that 'outstanding contribution'? The internet was invented by scientists as well, so any of you who doubt the overwhelming number of scientists who promote the theory of global warming should consider not using the internet, airplanes, automobiles, running water, soap, pencils, paper books. You can keep the stone tools.
crypto
Another reason to stop reading and posting on the beast. I left a comment on What Holbrooke thinks for everybody. ManMade global warming is an Al Gore farce.
wolverine1987
Wow. Great article, this is why I liked The Beast at its beginning--provocative articles from both sides. If The Beast only stuck to that philosophy more often, instead of mostly publishing from the moderate left, they would enjoy a far greater readership. If I wanted to only read one view I'd go to National Review or Huffington. The Beast an be very valuable if they keep posting from both sides.
ndspinelli
wolverine, Great point. TDB is certainly more balanced than just about anything out there.
Beasto
Yes sir! TDB is just so balanced. A momentously important, complex issue arises and they hire as a columnist a stooge from the HOOVER INSTITUTE, a cosmic shit magnet for fraudulent demogogues.
torodad
You have Beck and Hannity to stoke the furnace with their lies and misrepresentations. Why do you insist that this site be polluted too?
jomama
This is the problem with the 'right' - not the real political right, but the group of Palin-loving dupes who think they ascribe to the political 'right' - They see everything as 'us vs. them', 'left vs. right', everything is on that polar scale. It's haplessly narrow minded, and I think it gives some insight into how they think. It's also a quintessentially American problem, due to their (maybe well-intentioned but) isolated view of the world. These issues are far more complex than can be graded on a scale of 'black' and 'white' or even shades of grey. It's rainbow of many, many colours. I don't think that the group of people who see the world as 'my colour' or 'that other colour' are contributing to the debate.
flyoverland
"I" should have been for income redistribution. That's what this is all about.
bobizwild
Truth is like cream, always rises to the top. Today is my day off, tomorrow I go to work to support the masses. Never once have I gotten a thank you note from one of my beneficiaries...
flyoverland
The masses are now in control. Your only defense is to go on strike. Who is John Galt?
sophia5
" G " is for G.E. (General Electric's) potential for trading carbon tax credits ?
" R " is for the possible main purpose behind this movement . . . REDISTRIBUTION ?
" E " is for the possibility of ELEVATING the hysteria to expedite Cap & Trade ?
" E " is for the EAST ANGLIA email scandal that the media largely ignores ?
" D " is for questionable DATA to push an agenda for millions, perhaps Billions ?
" G - R - E - E - D " ?????
tolatetocry
that was good Sophia!
clearthinker
now now Sophia, greed is only for those mean old CEO's and small business people that we need to pilage their taxes from.
atwork
wow. you do realize that this kind of wordplay is absolutely meaningless and really just shows how ignorant you are (and how much you watch glenn beck, who himself confesses he's not news). if you are going to do this, at least use statements that aren't wild, ridiculous speculations or patently wrong. congratulations, people like you are dumbing down this entire debate and the entire country.
drumsavvy
Clinton did sign the Kyoto Protocol - Congress wouldn't pass it.
TunkuVaradarajan
Dear drumsavvy: He did sign it, but signature is entirely symbolic if a treaty isn't submitted to Congress for ratification. Under the separation of powers, only Congress can "make law": so a president isn't allowed to commit the US to new law (in a treaty) without Congressional ratification.
Thanks for reading the piece. Best, Tunku Varadarajan
atwork
correct. but dont you think it's a little misleading to compare the actions of a president who blatantly refused to sign after his false promises of carbon reduction in 2000, and a president who tried to support it, whose v.p. helped put it together, but was blocked by his congress? it's kind of like comparing apples to oranges, but then saying they're both rotten.
by the way, great to see you commenting on your own article! i'd like to see more of that here.
Holden
I've got a wild idea.
How about we leave climate science articles to be written by columnists with a background in relevant fields, such as (but not limited to): atmospheric and oceanic physics, oceanography, (paleo)climatology, ecology, chemistry, etc.
This columnist clearly has no scientific background and it shows.
Please play to your strengths, Mr. Varadarajan, and stick to business writings. Leave the science to those with relevant research experience and knowledge.
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clearthinker
Scientists get grants (money) from the government. The government, by payment, get scientists to come up with any kind of crap they want. It is completely sad that science has become a political game and, I'm afraid, become a "boy who cried wolf" scenario some day.
Holden
Also, CRU is one climate research entity.
One.
Just saying.
escomments
NASA for two years has refused to release their data on Global Climate Change per Freedom of Information Act.
Just saying.
magoo363
I was able to find some data from NASA:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
USGovtRetiree
Tunku says:
A is for anthropogenic: (as in anthropogenic global warming, or "AGW"), a $10 word for "man-made" which global-warmists wield as proof of expertise-no one more so than Al Gore, who, after having invented the Internet, turned his prodigious mind to the conundrum of AGW.
Not that that's wrong, strictly speaking, but a few of us remember that after losing the 2000 election, Al and Tipper decided to save, not the planet from global warming, but The American Family. It was only after their books Joined at the Heart: The Transformation of the American Family and its coffee-table companion picture book The Spirit of Family turned out D.O.A. when they were published in 2002 that Al abandoned the American Family to its fate and turned to his current racket.
I was in Washington in the federal government from 1971 to 2006, and learned early on to measure the phoniness of an issue by Al Gore's closeness to it.
Beasto
I was at the University of Alabama in Huntsville from 1976 to 2009, and learned early to measure the phoniness of fundamentalist and creationist yahoos posing as climatologists. I was an academic for those years, and learned early to measure the phoniness of idle ideologues posing as scholars and public intellectuals. T is for Tunku, at home at Hoover, America's stink tank.
heartlessnunlover
Joined at the Heart didn't even move once it landed in the bargain bin.
I am glad people have started to understand Gore's primary motivation is to line his pocket. This man has absolutely no background in science, and recently claim geothermal power would work because the Earth's core was several million degrees. Gore flunked out of law school and even left divinity school before he was drummed out.
My point here isn't to dump on Gore per se, but to demonstrate how woefully ignorant so many of the AGW advocates are. I'm not lumping the scientists in here with them but it also needs to be understood many of them have monetary as well as political incentives to "hide the decline."
jomama
Yeah, those super-elite wealthy researchers running around on secret private jets are just in it for the money yo! That they beg for research grants, hole up in labs with sweaty undergrads, write 'papers' and don't have any profit/loss responsibilities, man that's just a front. Don't you know they own all the hotels in Vegas and meet there 4 times a year to do hookers and drugs? If you don't listen to Glenn Beck you're obviously a faggy communist self-hating idiot.
jomama
Al Gore is a politician, but has done more to raise awareness and to influence public opinion on global warming in America than anyone. Given that there is only a baseline of support for Obama's participation at Copenhagen, Obama might not have be able to participate if it were not for Al Gore, moreover, Copenhagen would have been doomed otherwise: no Obama means no China or India, which means no working treaty. Al Gore has been pushing this agenda since the 1980's, and has burned political capital for 30 years on the subject. Future historians will write him up as a visionary, whatever we may think or whatever his personal motivations.
Robert-the-Engineer
Al Gore's film was challenged in a British court when shown in schools. The challenge was that it was unscientific propoganda. Only some of the issues were challenged, and all these were shown in court to be junk science. The judge decreed that when the film was to be shown in a British school, it had to be accompanied by a disclaimer (77 pages) to correct the scientific untruths in the film. More about this is available in an interview with Lord Christopher Monckton (http://www.coralridge.org/medialibrary/default.aspx?mediaID=TTT091203). But Al gore is a socialist politician, and has gone around claiming that he won that case. One proof that the Al Gore side lost was that they had to pay the legal costs of the other side. The "visionary" Al Gore's personal carbon footprint is on record as increasing. But the Copenhagen agenda is along the lines of the Cloward-Piven strategy, to use AGW to impose global government with fearsome tax and punish powers.
DrEvil
NASA being sued by Chris Horner he has been waiting for NASA to respond to his FOI for about 2 years now. They don't want to comply now he is suing them. I wonder why NASA just didn't comply I mean usually this takes 30 days?
This isn't the end of Climategate It's the beginning
http://youhavetobethistalltogoonthisride.blogspot.com/2009/12/hide-decli ne-climategate-parody.html
magoo363
I was able to find NASA data online within two minutes:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
SnowBound
"O" is also for October 2008, the warmest on record according to the original GISS figures... except that the data was from September 2008, which wasn't all that remarkable. This leads to another "O" word, oops.
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