November 2007

It is often suggested that global warming and/or the environment is becoming more important in deciding how Americans vote. The latest poll figures, from the Washington Post and ABC News, suggest that for Democrats in the crucial state of Iowa, that is far from the case.

In a state where ethanol and energy are important issues, too few people to register mentioned global warming as the most important issue in determining their choice of candidate. Taking the top two issues together, 4 percent said the Environment, 3 percent said Energy/Ethanol and 2 percent global warming. There may be some overlap between these groups, so it is impossible to add these up even to 9 percent.

And that’s the Democrats. Now admittedly, this is from a Midwest state but the figures for environmentally “aware” New Hampshire aren’t much different. In the latest CNN poll there, just 4 percent of Democrats make it their #1 issue, with 3 percent their #2 (an additional 5 percent named it their #3 issue, something that wasn’t asked in the Iowa poll).

In South Carolina, a Winthrop University poll in October found just 0.8 percent of Democrats mentioning the Environment as their most important issue – lower (though meaninglessly so) than the 1 percent of Republicans!

I just was forwarded this transcript of NASA/Gore advisor James Hansen, apparently having slipped the “muzzle” momentarily, and Cato's Pat Michaels on CNN’s “360 with Anderson Coopper”, from November 8. 

The topic was a question from Cooper to Hansen about what horribles might befall us if the IPCC is right.  He said not to worry about that, the IPCC is wrong…we’re looking at 20 meters of sea level rise.  Michaels reminded him that:

MICHAELS: Actually, the United Nations median carbon dioxide projection in sea level works out to about eight to 19 inches. That's the range. The median value there is about 13 inches.

(CROSSTALK)

HANSEN: That does not include ice sheet disintegration, which is the main…

MICHAELS: It does not.

HANSEN: … which is the main problem.

MICHAELS: And they did not include that because they said that we just did not have enough scientific evidence for this.

 So far, so good.  But what was Hansen's response to having his doomsaying challenged with facts?

HANSEN: We are going to have to get beyond fossil fuels at some point. And it's to our advantage to do that much sooner.

Is it just me, or did anyone else immediately think of: 

Show us what you’re doing, Kim Jong II.
                  
Do something, Arec Barrwin!
                  
The…Global warming and…Corporate America…
                  
You are worthress, Arec Barrwin.

Greenwire reports today, “As global monitoring expands, questions about U.S. satellites linger” (password required).  Yes.  Of course.  Questions will continue to linger about these temperature measurements unless and until they conform to the idea that appreciable warming is taking place, which they continue to refuse to do, notwithstanding claims that by narrowing the disagreement between surface and atmospheric readings the disagreement thereby no longer exists.  It does (see, e.g., Christy, J.R. and R.W. Spencer, 2005: Correcting temperature data sets. Science, 310, 972).

Distilled, this specific complaint as per usual is that funding is going more toward space research instead of climate satellites.  Since policymakers ignore the satellite evidence, one wonders why all of the money shouldn’t be redirected.  After all, the science is also settled.

Most important to this debate, however, is that anthropogenic greenhouse warming theory involves atmospheric warming, not surface warming, and measurement of the latter is subject to so many other corrupting factors including Urban Heat Island influences and, best of all, absurdly misplaced surface temperature instruments.  Take a tour at www.Surface.Stations.org of the preponderance of instruments sitting on or near black tar roofs, parking lots, next to air conditioning vents and even trash-burn barrels and barbeque grills, next to structures and other corrupting influences and ask, if we are going to drop any element of the related research, shouldn’t it be the one that has been proven as unreliably and serially violating every standard to ensure data integrity?

My brother in Denver is very much the everyman. He’s blue collar-John Melencamp-middle America, and I value his opinion as a bellwether of the nation’s mood.

On Thanksgiving, my bro gave me an earful. For one, he is sick and tired of “this green bull****.” He manages a catering company, so he deals with a lot of sales people, and he says that every Tom, Dick and Harry is selling the environmental angle. As his only concerns are cost and quality, he finds these green pitches excruciating.

He also talked about his utility bills, which he says have increased significantly in only the last few years. The increase worried him.

Curiously, he did not once mention global warming.

However he did bring up an idea that had been churning about in his head for a while. To stick it to the “green phonies,” my brother wants to establish a “pro-pollution non-profit.”

I thought that was pretty funny, but then it got really funny, because my brother elaborated. He told me that the “pro-pollution non-profit,” would agitate to have McDonald’s bring back the Styrofoam container for the Big Mac, because “it tastes better.” It would also strive to make landfills “bigger, deeper, and better.” He went on, but I can only remember laughing so hard that I was doubled over.