Sunday, October 26, 2008
A cautionary tale
If you are a climate change activist, it is probably best not to make specific predictions that will be quickly proven wrong.
8 Comments:
By 
JPMcT, at
Mon Oct 27, 07:08:00 AM:
The sad thing about the AGW issue is that these dire predictions are given the sanctity of instant truth by the media.
On the other hand, the failure of temperatures to rise over the past several years, the failure of global temps to correlate with CO2 emissions, the failure of the arctic ice to melt and the sea levels to rise...all of that is barely given a footnote.
I was in San Francisco recently and went over to the new California Academy of Sciences Museum. A remarkable digital planetarium, a four story rainforest reproduction, fabulous aquarium...all very well done...and plunked down on one corner was an entire "climate change" exhibition containing videos of dire predictions of our extinction akin to the dinosaurs. It was really over the top...and not terribly accurate.
I guess if one tries to use "science" as a vehicle to promote social change, the facts become irrelevant.
By 
, at
Mon Oct 27, 05:02:00 PM:
James Hansen said in 1988 that AGW had arrived. What do you know, he was right, as his scenario B projection showed.
By JPMcT, at
Mon Oct 27, 09:36:00 PM:
The only thing that James Hansen has been able to predict is the arrival of the next 6 figure check from liberal advocacy groups. He's a hack.
By , at
Tue Oct 28, 09:41:00 AM:
JP-
My proof for my Hansen assertion:
http://www.pewclimate.org/state_of_fear.cfm
Looking forward to your proof of your Hansen assertion.
By JPMcT, at
Wed Oct 29, 01:52:00 PM:
Link to an analysis of Hansen's "Science":
http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2008/06/gret-moments-in.html
Link to a summary of George Soros' largesse in regard to Mr. hansen's "science":
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/jake-gontesky/2007/09/26/global-warming-alarmist-james-hansen-shill-george-soros
Sorry, Brian, but I like to keep my science and my politics and my religion separate. So should we all.
By , at
Thu Oct 30, 03:28:00 PM:
JP- your first link says Hansen got as much as $720k from Soros, and doesn't say how it knows that. It gives a link to this:
http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=275526219598836
Which also doesn't say how it knows that.
But here's Hansen's statement:
"The latest swift-boating (unless there is a new one among seven unanswered calls on my
cell) is the whacko claim that I received $720,000.00 from George Soros. Here is the real deal,
with the order of things as well as I can remember without wasting even more time digging into
papers and records.
Sometime after giving a potentially provocative interview to Sixty Minutes, but before it
aired, I tried to get legal advice on my rights of free speech. I made two or three attempts to
contact people at Freedom Forum, who I had given permission to use a quote (something like “in
my thirty-some years in the government, I have never seen anything like the present restrictions on
the flow of information from scientists to the public”) on their calendar. I wanted to know where I
could get, preferably inexpensive, legal advice. Never got a reply.
But then I received a call from the President of the Government Accountability Project
(GAP) telling me that I had won the Ridenaur Award (including a moderate amount of cash --
$10,000 I believe; the award is named for the guy who exposed the Viet Nam My Lai massacre),
and offering pro bono legal advice. I agreed to accept the latter (temporarily), signing something
to let them represent me (which had an escape clause that I later exercised).
I started to get the feeling that there may be expectations (strings) coming with the award,
and I was concerned that it may create the appearance that I had spoken out about government
censorship for the sake of the $. So I called the President of GAP, asking how the nomination
process worked and who made the selection. He mentioned that he either nominated or selected
me. So I declined the award, but I continued to accept pro bono legal advice for a while."
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20070927_Lawlessness.pdf
By , at
Thu Oct 30, 03:29:00 PM:
Sorry, should've said the newsbuster link.
By JPMcT, at
Sat Nov 01, 10:43:00 PM:
Page 125 of the 2006 Soros Foundation network Report contractict's Hansen's denial of service:
And I quote:
"James E. Hansen, the director of
the Goddard Institute for Space
Studies at NASA, protested
attempts to silence him after
officials at NASA ordered him
to refer press inquiries to the
public affairs office and required
the presence of a public affairs
representative at any interview.
The Government Accountability
Project, a whistleblower protection
organization and OSI grantee,
came to Hansen’s defense by
providing legal and media advice.
The campaign on Hansen’s behalf
resulted in a decision by NASA to
revisit its media policy.
Report Documents Special"
Either Soros or Hansen is playing with the truth...seems like that's a big problem with this guy.
How about the quarter million he got from the Heinz Foundation...just before voting for John Kerry?
As a general rule, if people go public and say silly and outragous things, either they are inherently stupid, or are being hansomely rewarded. Hansen is certainly not stupid.
How about we rely on peer-reviewed scientific literature rather than Hansen's musings on a Commadore 64 computer with laughable programming code.
I'll take my science served raw, thank you...not cooked on the editorial page of the New York Times.
