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Sen. John Kerry, Climate Expert

By: Steve Maley (Diary)  |  September 23rd, 2010 at 06:00 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

John Kerry in the Huffington Post (9/21) goes off on a “Climate is Not Weather” riff, and then says something quite revealing:

It’s next to impossible to attribute any single natural disaster or weather event entirely to climate change. But the pattern of recent events provides insights into the challenges we will face in a warming world. We may not know if flooding in Pakistan was worsened by climate change, but the best scientists tell us that climate change will bring more flooding and extreme weather events. We don’t know the precise role that competition over water played in intensifying conflict in Darfur, but we do know that climate change is projected to alter freshwater flows around the world.

“Best scientists”?!

I am reminded of a college acquaintance who bought only the “Greatest Hits” albums of artists he liked. Except he called them “best songs”; by buying an album of, say, “Grand Funk Railroad’s Best Songs” saved him the rather taxing critical thinking of deciding for himself whether or not he like a particular song. His music was pre-vetted for him, guaranteed to be commercial, catchy and worthy of Top 40 airplay.

Sen. Kerry wishes we would just put our brains on hold and listen to these “best scientists”. It would save so much trouble.

The problem with that is, good scientists are supposed to be skeptics. It’s difficult to identify with The Consensus and think outside the box at the same time.

We’ve seen examples during my lifetime.

Just fifty years ago, nearly all of the “best scientists” in the field of geology thought that the theory of Continental Drift (now known as Plate Tectonics) was strictly for kooks and cranks.

As recently as the mid-80s, none of the “best scientists” in medicine dreamed that stomach ulcers might have a bacterial cause.

In June of 2010, all of the “best scientists” in environmental science ignored clear evidence that the parameters of the BP spill might mitigate its impact and predicted dire consequences for the Gulf Coast for many years to come. Today, only five months since the blowout started and two months since it was capped, several of the major fishwraps (TIME, the NY Times and the LA Times) are acknowledging that the environmental consequences might not be as bad as previously thought.

I assume that you do not rank the likes of Richard Lindzen and Fred Singer among “best scientists”, Sen. Kerry. Is that because their views are not held by The Consensus? So much for diversity of thought.

Cross-posted at VladEnBlog.

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COMMENTS

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  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    are those who do not whore out their science to politics, or allow themselves to be brow beaten into a “consensus”.

  • izoneguy

    Applause for Ahmadinejad

    http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/09/23/applause-for-ahmadinejad/

    On Tuesday, when Ahmadinejad spoke during the global summit on poverty, the American delegation remained even as he predicted the defeat of capitalism.
    But true to form, he quickly went over the line with his 9/11 remarks and that prompted the U.S. diplomats, and others, to get up and walk out.
    ? It?s outrageous,? said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. ?a short distance from here, nine years ago, three-thousand people were killed in an attack perpetrated by nineteen people, and attack that was orchestrated by Al Qaeda. We know exactly who did it, they?ve admitted it, the facts are not in dispute, so for the President of Iran to come here and make the suggestion that somehow this was an American plot, is simply outrageous.?
    But as Ahmadinejad walked from the podium, he did so rewarded by applause.

  • graciegirl

    possiblly not being as bad as first thought, do you know why there is a media black out of news about the real condition of the water in the Gulf?

    My nephew thinks it is because there is MORE damage that the govenrment is trying to cover up and I think there might be less damage due to the lighter oil and the microbes, and the vegetation returning. i e there is not as much of a crisis as was thought?

    I would also love for you to address why we cannot drill if we have won in court two times. These are the questions I was dying to ask you and the panel at the Gathering. Hope I am not off topic; if so just ignore.

    Also will all the rigs have left by the nd of the six months? This is so frustrating it is making me crazy!

    • Adjoran

      and declare a moratorium by decree (as a dictator might) – when the law clearly requires a public disclosure of the exact measure, a public comment period, a review, etc.

      So once he lost on the Stalinist method, he goes back to basic bureaucracy. Unfortunately, in the regulatory regime we have built for ourselves, the Nomenklatura have close to dictatorial powers anyway, so long as they do the little dances required. Only
      Congress or the Courts can stop them from doing whatever the heck they want.

      Well, the President could, too – but who do you suppose is behind the moratorium in the first place.

      ~~~~~~~

      And yes, these rigs cost way too much to sit idle. Their owners face the prospect of a moratorium which may or may not be overturned in a year or more; for many of them, that long without pumping something puts them close to bankruptcy, so you’re darned right they are pulling out and going elsewhere – for instance, Brazil, where offshore drilling enjoys a $2 billion subsidy from the US via the ARRA (“stimulus bill”).

      • voxoreason

        Le mot juste.

  • renny

    The entire volcano of Krakatoa exploded in 1883, well before “global warming.”

    China had such a floods they killed 400,000 in the 1930s, a pre-global warming disaster of monster proportions.

    And the world over time has experienced both collapses of unstable buildups on the Azores and Hawaiian islands, for which we have the remains of their tsunamis imprinted on the Northwestern and New England coasts–incredible events having nothing to do with climate at all.

    The earth has even switched its poles. How do we think that will impact human society?

    A million years ago where I am was under water, and 10,000 years ago, glaciers were 30-minutes’ drive north.

    All the global warming “science” was originally based on late 1980s super-computer models that everyone knew could not account of all natural activities that may or may not indicate a change in climate. So, the science was corrupted to start.

    Supposedly, according to the Discovery Channel, the last ice age was precipitated by a shift in the earth’s axis that produced glaciers even in Hawaii. Well, if the earth shifts on its axis while our technological society is functioning, the disruption that will occur is incalculable and it will never show up in some climate computer model.

    Adding temperature readings from the tarmac at O’Hare Airport with readings from the sub-Saharan Desert is like adding phone book numbers and averaging them. Without context, they mean nothing.

    And what Kerry, the richest Senator in all of Congress, knows about climate science is much less than what he knows about playing giggilo to wealthy widows. He should stick to what he knows.

    • Locked and Loaded
  • bobmontgomery

    You recall the Dream Team fielded by JFK in the sixties. You recall Camelot. The Ivy League, the Junior League. The best clubs, “gravitas”.
    The leftist movement in this country was successful in commandeering the conservation/ anti-pollution movement and wedding it to the upper crust to give us “settled science”, resulting in justification for absolute power. The wealthy and privileged in this country, the “Ruling Class”, have brought America to the brink of what will almost surely be a drastic reduction in the standard of living for everyone. Cell phones and I-Pods are the new opiate of the masses.

    • Next93

      The wealthy and privileged in this country, the ?Ruling Class?, have brought America to the brink of what will almost surely be a drastic reduction in the standard of living for everyone

      Don’t be silly. It certainly won’t lower the standard of living for the wealthy and priveledged in the ruling class.

  • throwback59

    of our “best” presidents.

  • travelguy

    In the early 1900s, progressives backed by the best scientists thought forced sterilization was a good idea…

    http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/library/humanities/philosophy/applied-ethics/eugenics-and-progressives

  • Next93

    The gulf would have remained toxic if The Obamassiah hadn’t come down to Louisiana and poked his finger into the sand.

    You see, His healing touch “saved or created” the clean waters.

    Oh, and it also made the level of the gulf go down.

  • bobojake
  • admdavid

    The comment about “top men” studying the Ark while it is being hidden is some warehouse.

    Top men…best scientists…same drivel.

    • Wing Zero
  • http://church-discipline.blogspot.com/ cdhost

    Just fifty years ago, nearly all of the ?best scientists? in the field of geology thought that the theory of Continental Drift (now known as Plate Tectonics) was strictly for kooks and cranks.

    Let me just point out continental drift was first proposed in 1848. It began to be seen as a likely hypothesis in 1912 and was widely accepted by 1960. So replace 50 with 150 and yes this would be true.

    Anyway, yes best scientist makes sense for a politician. Kerry is not a scientist. He has to make judgements based on the consensus as it exists among scientists and trust that the consensus process is working reasonably well. Kerry is not an expert and shouldn’t be held to the standard of forming an independent position. That’s not to say they couldn’t be wrong, but it is to say that this is a realm where expertise is needed.

    Where Kerry could be of use is on modeling likely effects. I think the UN models tend to overstate costs because they understate adaption. IMHO this is where conservatives should focus their critiques on the issues of adaption not on the science.

    • http://vladenblog.tumblr.com Vladimir

      All these evidences, both from the ocean floor and from the continental margins made clear around 1965 that continental drift was feasible and the theory of plate tectonics, which was defined in a series of papers between 1965 and 1967, was born, with all its extraordinary explanatory and predictive power.

      That’s from Wikipedia.

      When I took my first course in geology in 1975, we learned that plate tectonics had crossed the line between fringe theory and accepted science sometime in the 60s. (1912 – no way. Described in the paper cited below as “widely discredited”.) And as the passage points out, the compelling evidence was the alternating bands of magnetism in the oceanic crust.

      Even then, there were still holdouts in the field of geophysics, notably Meyerhoff & Meyerhoff, who still adhered to conventional theory well into the 70s.

      Don’t believe me? Try here: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.122.620&rep=rep1&type=pdf

      “Where Kerry could be of use is on modeling likely effects.” What is that supposed to mean? Kerry’s highest and best use is as a doorstop, IMHO.

      Why hands off the science? There sure seems to have been plenty of bias in the data collection.

      • http://church-discipline.blogspot.com/ cdhost

        OK I checked it out more thoroughly and you were right I was wrong. I see articles as late as 1972 indicating acceptance as being recent.

        As for biases in the data I doubt it. Most of the data has been multiply verified. As far as biases in how to treat the data, there has been extensive scrutiny on this issue by very qualified and knowledgeable people who mostly all agree. I just don’t see what Kerry can add to this conversation nor that it is reasonable to expect him to.

  • dennism

    …accountants ran Arthur Andersen and Enron.
    …seamen helmed the Titanic.
    …lawyers got O. J. off.
    …stockbrokers and bankers got bailed out by TARP.

  • http://www.redstate.com/etcartman Kenny Solomon

    This would be a real belly laugh if they weren’t so dang-on serious.

    San Francisco (AP) – Regulators approved new regulations requiring utilities to draw a third of their power from alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and geothermal in 10 years.

    ==============

    “…..electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket…..”

    • eastbaylarry

      but this seems to be our imfamous AB32 bill which essentially handicaps California the way Cap and Trade was supposed to cripple the nation.

      We’re trying to get AB32 postponed until the unemployment drops below 5.5%, (prop. 23), but who knows in this crazy state?

  • jb13

    Consider: Not too long ago, someone like John Kerry would have said all the scientists believe as he does. So, the fact that he feels the need to claim that only bad scientists believe that the theory of manmade climate change is a bunch of politically-expedient hooey to provide a new modus operandi for would-be Marxist overlords means that he believes he can no longer deny that there are scientists who disagree with him.

  • l7squared

    and isn’t just saying this to make money on the sale of carbon credits.

    #1. He’s already got access to boatloads of money.
    #2. He just bought huge yacht.

    so he’s covered when the “floods” hit.

    >>>”climate change will bring more flooding and extreme weather events”<<<

    Kind of sad isn’t it?

  • Uma Richie

    Hilary Clinton finished menopause. Talk about hot flashes. It was gynoprogenic all along!

  • partyof1

    In the largest effort to date to document global warming dissent in the scientific community, 31,486 Americans with university degrees in science – including 9,029 PhD, 7,157 MS, 2,586 MD and DVM, and 12,714 BS or equivalent – have signed on with the Global Warming Petition Project to state ?the human-caused global warming hypothesis is without scientific validity.?

    http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/22624

  • izoneguy

    over “Global Warming”

    any different than the ancient Mayan practice of human sacrifice?
    Human sacrifice had a lot to do with social order and maintaining a highly stratified society.

  • Adjoran

    If the scientific data and evidence is on your side, there would be no reason to try to secretly block critical articles from publication in scholarly journals (so they can say “these aren’t peer-reviewed!” as if that meant something – nearly every major science fraud in the last 25 years passed “peer review” without detection). No reason to hide or discard original data. No reason to falsify graphs to “hide the decline.” No reason to violate the law by hiding emails showing their deceptions.

    There’s a reason cops stop people for “acting suspiciously.” And it isn’t because they are such upstanding citizens.

    Besides, the “best scientists” predicted a light year for hurricanes the year of Katrina – one of the worst since clear records have been kept. And they’ve predicted heavier than normal activity every year since, but only one was even up to the average.

    If they can’t predict this season’s hurricanes – or even if it will rain tomorrow – with any degree of certainty, why would anyone believe they can predict the global temperature 50 or 100 years from now?

    • seattle_ite

      I am reminded of when John Coleman came here from Chicago, and was consistently WRONG in predicting Seattle weather.

      I think he only stayed for about a year, before channel 7 booted his behind.

  • dennism

    …money can buy.

  • RedBeard

    I can imagine that in private, even avowed leftists are shaking their heads and wishing that Lurch Kerry would just go away, quietly. Nothing so destroys a movement as having a pretentious dumbbell blowing the trumpet and leading the parade.