A new op-ed by Jeff Jacoby illustrates the rapid evolution of denialist lies. Not long ago, you'll recall, the IPCC corrected a forecast for glacial melting in the Himalayas. The Wall Street Journal noted the error, reassured us that the Himalayan glaciers are unlikely to disappear "anytime soon," and implied that the forecast was wrong primarily because it was too depressing. (The only alarming predictions that have any hope of being correct are those having to do with terrorism, socialism, and homosexuality.)
Jacoby takes the next logical step:
The case for global-warming alarmism is melting faster than those mythical disappearing Himalayan glaciers, but Al Gore isn’t backing down.Initially, they were disappearing more slowly than the IPCC said, bwahahaha. Now, it seems that they're not disappearing at all. I wonder how long it'll be 'til we hear that the Himalayas never actually had any glaciers?
The rest of the column is mere boilerplate: Algore is a fat alarmist liar who has made huge investments in alarmist technologies like solar power and therefore can't be trusted, so let's all listen to Jeff Jacoby instead.
We may as well look at the highlights anyhow. After all, Jacoby's not the only one with space to fill.
- If AGW is real, how come I can engage in arch semantic quibbling over the meaning of the word "pollutant"?
- If we reduce CO2 emissions, there'll be no more trees for you filthy hippies to hug!
- Thanks to CO2, the Chinese have enough money to buy US debt.
- Climategate! Climategate Climategate Climategate! Climategate Climategate Climategate Climategate Climategate! (PS: The significance of Climategate is that no one has doublechecked the evidence for AGW and if they ever do they'll find out it's all lies! OMG CLIMATEGATE!!!)
- The public feels that climate science is somewhat less credible than it used to be. Who, I ask you, would be so undemocratic as to gainsay them?
- We all remember how the Goracle said it would never snow again and each year would be hotter than the last, everywhere on earth, unless we gave him all our money and worshiped him as a god. But now that it's snowing, he suddenly changes his story!
- AGW is a religion because the scientific evidence for it vanishes if you ignore it or don't understand it, just like the scientific evidence for God.
- Glaciers are robust, just like public ignorance.
(Illustration: "The cumulative specific mass balance curves are shown for the mean of all glaciers and 30 ‘reference’ glaciers with (almost) continuous series since 1976. Source: Data from WGMS.")
4 comments:
The public feels that climate science is somewhat less credible than it used to be. Who, I ask you, would be so undemocratic as to gainsay them?
You know, there are times when I could wish for a return to the days when "democratic" acceptance of an idea was not the rule. Not to imagine some idealized past, but in some ways human societies weren't quite as stupid.
Or maybe it's the latent (and abused) Jeffersonian (not to say Jacksonian) nature of American culture. Either way, there are times when I've really had enough of it.
You know, there are times when I could wish for a return to the days when "democratic" acceptance of an idea was not the rule. Not to imagine some idealized past, but in some ways human societies weren't quite as stupid.
Well, it's not the rule now, exactly. Public opinion tends to matter when the media etc. want it to, and to be ignored when they don't. More Americans want a public healthcare option than deny AGW, I suspect, but the latter opinion is far more fascinating to the media.
Of course, you may be using the term "democratic" ironically, in which case forget I said anything.
As for the larger questions...I just don't know. I go back and forth on this stuff a lot. This week, I seem to be thinking that the amount of stupidity stays pretty level, but is concentrated in different areas. As a card-carrying melancholic and antiquarian pretty much from birth, I tend to agree that "in some ways human societies weren't quite as stupid" x number of years ago.
And then I think about eugenics, and mercury fumigation parlors, and Hans Horbiger's Welteislehre, and tetraethyl lead, and Alan Turing being hounded to his death by his sensible, civilized peers, and I'm not so sure. And I think about the fact that I'm neither female nor nonwhite nor gay, and wonder how that affects my perception of the past.
IIRC, some blogger a while back said we should be ruled by "sensible technocrats," which kind of makes my blood run cold. On the other hand, I do harbor fairly "undemocratic" notions in regard to an issue like AGW. So I'm really torn. I guess a lot of of it comes down to how good our educational system is and how honest our media are. I do think they were both better in many ways previously, as disciplines, even though the cultural knowledge they imparted was in some ways worse.
Eh, I don't know. It is all a darkness.
Well, we could go for Plato's benevolent dictators.
Er...no. We couldn't.
Speaking seriously (I wasn't really, in my previous comment): the pernicious side of accepting the democracy is in all things good is that, of course, it isn't. And I think most people understand that. So it is abused by persons who want to argue that, as you said, "the public feels that climate science is somewhat less credible than it used to be." And what does that have to do with climate change? Are we also less certain about antibiotic theory, because our abuse of antibiotics has bred super-germs? Uncertain we may be, but the theory is still sound.
OTOH, there is a bit more of "democratic" acceptance of ideas than sometimes there should be. Admittedly the community must take up the idea (it cannot be forced upon them), but the idea that the community at large is a valid arbiter of fundamental ideas (the theory of climate change is based on science, not a conspiracy of Luddites led by Al Gore, who is fat and therefore unreliable) is sometimes tacitly accepted when it should be fundamentally rejected.
That's where the Jeffersonian ideals become Jacksonian (and so abused) ideals, where "the common man" is considered wisest of all. When, of course, the wisest person knows how little she knows and is humble in her wisdom, rather than defiant and opinionated.
And the problem really is wisdom, ultimately, and it always was. John speaks of Jesus as Sophia in his Gospel; but the popular preference is for Jesus was Savior from Ourselves. Were we ever smarter? Well, we were smart enough not to start a thermo-nuclear war (so far), but still not smart enough to abjure nuclear generation of electricity (so we can run internet servers now, and live with the nuclear waste for millenia).
And were we ever wise? Ah, that is a darkness indeed....
Admittedly the community must take up the idea (it cannot be forced upon them)
Yes, with the caveat that sometimes you have to force ideas on communities to get them to take them up, or at least tolerate them. We forced desegregation on a lot of people, God knows...and I know from my own family that younger generations have easily taken up ideas that had to be forced down their parents' and grandparents' throats.
That's where the Jeffersonian ideals become Jacksonian (and so abused) ideals, where "the common man" is considered wisest of all. When, of course, the wisest person knows how little she knows and is humble in her wisdom, rather than defiant and opinionated.
I dunno, RMJ. It sounds like you're counseling "nuance," which all real Americans know died on 9/11 along with irony, law, and social justice.
Kidding aside...I agree, the lack of humility is a huge problem, along with identity politics (why be humble when you're speaking not for yourself but for "us"?).
Anyway, it's funny how all this "democratization" seems to uphold the power of the anti-democratic forces who are promoting it. Sometimes I almost think it's intentional.
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