Sunday, March 01, 2009
John Kerry calls out George Will
John Kerry has challenged George Will to a debate on global warming: "I’d happily debate him any day on this question so critical to our survival." I would literally pay to see that. It would not be nearly as awesome as the Hitchens/Galloway "Grapple in the Apple," but I'd be delighted if any of the politicians who champion greenhouse gas regulation would stand up and debate the subject with non-specialist opponents.
11 Comments:
By 
JPMcT, at
Sun Mar 01, 11:36:00 AM:
Heavens!! How could such a debate ever occur without a handicap? Kerry would have to bring an anesthesiologist on site to perform conscious sedation on Will to bring his IQ down to a competetive range!!
Otherwise it would be like a kick boxing match between Chuck Norris and Steve Urkel!!!
By 
, at
Sun Mar 01, 02:22:00 PM:
Kerry recognises that making the challenge is what the media reports and what influences people.
The actual debate, if it ever occurred, would be unwatched and the media would report Kerry won. End of story. Columnists would mail their analysis in weeks before the event.
Kerry now seems intent on becoming more visible. He is now completely overshadowed by Obama. But with Ted going away he sees a chance to be the new Liberal Lion of the Senate. Sound and fury signifying .....
K
By , at
Sun Mar 01, 02:44:00 PM:
Good things that come from the Iranian nuclear bomb:
1. I won't have to listen to faith based climate change activism, from the AlGore or anyone else.
2. I won't have to listen to John Kerry, on any subject.
3. I'll stop worrying about how much money the government will let me have.
4. My neighbors mortgage will no longer be my problem.
5. The authors of last years infamous treachery, the NIE claiming the Iranians were years away from having enough fissile material for a bomb, will be "sorry". Really sorry.
By Brian, at
Sun Mar 01, 06:59:00 PM:
I agree that Kerry's not my choice for a debater. That's not enough to give Will a fighting chance though, since Will wrote deliberately deceptive (and outright wrong) pile of nonsense about global warming.
One of the ones that's not received as much notice is his saying a Science magazine article in the 1970s predicted a new ice age, while omitting the prediction was for sometime in the next few thousand years.
Will may not understand the furor, because this type of argument is standard among denialists.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Mon Mar 02, 02:37:00 AM:
This comment has been removed by the author.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Mon Mar 02, 02:49:00 AM:
It's a little more complicated than that, Brian. Here are three Time magazine "snapshots" from the 1970s.
First, a Time article ("Another Ice Age?" - Nov, 13, 1972) about the Science magazine piece:
"Thus, Emiliani warns, the present period of 'amiable climate,' which has already lasted 12,000 years, may soon come to an end, perhaps within the next 2,000 or 3,000 years.
"In what direction will the earth's climate then turn? Emiliani refuses to speculate. But if man continues his 'interference with climate through deforestation, urban development and pollution,' says Emiliani in typical scientific jargon, 'we may soon be confronted with either a runaway glaciation or a runaway deglaciation, both of which would generate unacceptable environmental stresses.' "
Second,this is from a Time article, June 24, 1974, also titled "Another Ice Age?":
"However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing."
Third, this is from a Time article, Jan. 31, 1977, titled "Forecast: Unsettled Weather Ahead":
"Unless man somehow unbalances the equation, these scientists concluded, the trend over the next 20,000 years will be toward a cooler global climate and the spread of glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere—a new Ice Age.
"Other scientists believe that the earth is actually getting warmer."
In the case of the current debate, Nicholas D. Kristof (not a conservative) hit the target with his New York Times column "I Have a Nightmare" on March 12, 2005:
"The fundamental problem, as I see it, is that environmental groups are too often alarmists. They have an awful track record, so they've lost credibility with the public. Some do great work, but others can be the left's equivalents of the neocons: brimming with moral clarity and ideological zeal, but empty of nuance."
Kristof adds:
"When I first began to worry about climate change, global cooling and nuclear winter seemed the main risks. As Newsweek said in 1975: 'Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend ... but they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century.'
"This record should teach environmentalists some humility. The problems are real, but so is the uncertainty. Environmentalists were right about DDT's threat to bald eagles, for example, but blocking all spraying in the third world has led to hundreds of thousands of malaria deaths."
Links:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,910467,00.html#?iid=perma_share
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html?iid=perma_share
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,918621-2,00.html?iid=perma_share
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/12/opinion/12kristof.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq='i%20have%20a%20nightmare%22&st=cse
By Brian, at
Mon Mar 02, 12:52:00 PM:
DEC, what you're written doesn't do George Will any help. The first cite just reinforces that Will is being deliberately deceptive (or maybe is just incompetent).
As for linking to mainstream media reports overemphasizing cooling, I don't care. I care about the scientific view at the time. The National Academy of Sciences said in the mid-1970's that they were concerned about human influences and didn't know the direction it would turn. A review of published scientific literature at the time shows more concern for warming than cooling:
http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/89/9/pdf/i1520-0477-89-9-1325.pdf
So to prove your point you need to find equally authoritative scientific bodies from the 1970s announcing a cooling consensus, and to disprove the literature review.
Have fun!
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Mon Mar 02, 01:46:00 PM:
This comment has been removed by the author.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Mon Mar 02, 02:03:00 PM:
George Will"
I don't care about George Will, Brian. I haven't read any of his work in 20 years.
My point is simply this: The know-it-alls don't know it all.
Almost every day I come across reports about scientists changing their minds about something.
Here is an example from the National Science Foundation today:
"New scientific findings by geologist Robert Gastaldo of Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and colleagues call into question popular theories about the largest mass extinction in Earth's history."
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=114276&org=NSF&from=news
At the end of the day, scientists are just hired help. They are advisers. Other people will make the final decisions. In politics, truth is often irrelevant.
By Brian, at
Mon Mar 02, 10:39:00 PM:
"My point is simply this: The know-it-alls don't know it all."
That's my opinion of the people who think they know more than the vast majority of climatologists.
By JPMcT, at
Wed Mar 04, 04:13:00 PM:
I sure could have used some help from your "vast majority" over the past three days of blizzard conditions in March in Richmond, Virginia. I spent the past two nights, the COLDEST ON RECORD for this city, without heat.
How cold does it have to get before the foolishness stops?
I remember the "cooling scare" from the mid-70's. That was the panic about aerosols, roughly coinciding with the panic about the "hole in the ozone". That, in turn, was near the panic about the Population Bomb that should have starved us all to death by now. Did I forget about nuclear winter?
Such abject foolishness!
Brian, Science is not "consensus"...science is hard facts and the art of proving (or disproving) a hypothesis.
So far, I have seen nothing approaching science on the subject of global warming.
Just a lot of bad data, panic in the media, political posturing, asinine movies and no visible or measurable change in the weather.
Kind of like it was in the 1970's, with one big difference...Today, we are taking all this sillyness and bad data and making huge economic decisions.
That's bad...REALLY, REALLY BAD!
