"ALL CAPS IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY IS NO VICE."

Friday, January 18, 2008

You couldn't make this stuff up: "Global warming protest frosted with snow"

News report:

It snowed, but they still came. A heavy snowfall blanketed a global warming protest outside the State House in Annapolis this morning, but it did not dampen the shouts of about 400 activists who urged lawmakers to pass the nation's toughest greenhouse gas control law. As supporters waved signs, chanted and banged drums, 18 legislators walked down a symbolic green carpet to sign up as co-sporsors to a bill that would mandate that all businesses in Maryland cut emissions of global warming pollution by 25 percent by 2020 and 90 percent by 2050.

"We are going to pass this bill this year," said State Sen. Paul Pinsky, a Democrat from Prince George's County and chairman of the senate's environmental matters subcommittee. "We are not going to rest, we are not going to stop....We are going to keep going until we pass this bill." Pinsky and co-author Del. Kumar Barve, the house Democratic leader, proposed a similar but unsuccessful Global Warming Solutions Act last year. It would have created a system of financial rewards and punishments (known as a "cap and trade" system) to force all businesses to reduce their emissions.

The Maryland legislature over the last two year has approved more limited cuts in carbon dioxide pollution from coal-fired power plants and cars. Together, these add up to an expected 25 percent reduction.

The Maryland Chamber of Commerce, Constellation Energy and many Republicans oppose the 90 percent mandate, saying such aggressive regulation could cripple the states economy if other states don't have such limits. "It would be harmful for employment," said Senate Republican Leader David R. Brinkley. "We have a conscientious business community, and nobody wants to contribute to pollution, but these guys are intent on making Maryland uncompetitive."

Rob Gould, a spokesman for Constellation Energy, the state's biggest owner of power plants, said federal or international regulation of greenhouse gases makes more sense. And he suggested that power shortages could result from excessive state regulation. "Constellation Energy is very supportive of federal and international regulation. Our concern with last year's bill was that it limited the ability to trade to sources inside Maryland. Given that the only way to reduce CO2 from non-nuclear power plants is to run those plants less, our concern remains that a single small state like Maryland cannot meet these aggressive targets without reliability impacts occurring." ....

Many of the protesters who endured the cold to chant "Stop Global Warming!" said they didn't think the snowfall conflicted with their message. Davey Rogner, a 22 year old student at the University of Maryland College Park, beat on an African Djembe drum to rev up the crowd. He said the snow was a "gift" to remind eveyone about how rarely Maryland has been blanketed with beautiful white in recent years as temperatures have increased. "Its only the second snow of the year, which is very sad," said Rogner, from Silver Spring. "Global warming is the most improtant issue of our generation. The state of Maryland should be taking a leadership role in it, because of our vulerability with all our shoreline." Barve said the snow was a good sign: "At least we have weather appropriate for winter time, finally." ....

A nonpartisan analysis of last year's proposal, by the Maryland Department of Legislative Services, said the law would impose new regulations on "all businesses, small and large" across the state. "Accordingly, costs could increase significantly, but any such increase cannot be reliability calculated at this time."

More here





It's all happened before: An explanation from psychology of why the global warming cult shows little response to contrary evidence

On noting the unfazed response of the demonstrators above to their patently ludicrous situation, I thought it was time to draw attention to some old wisdom from psychology. Problematical global warming is a prophecy, not a reality, so studies of what adherents to prophecies do when the evidence is against them are very relevant:

In studying this phenomenon, credit must be given to Leon Festinger for his cognitive dissonance theory, as developed in his book When Prophecy Fails, originally published in 1956 and co-authored by Festinger, Henry W. Riecken and Stanley Schachter. The authors comprised a research team who conducted a study of a small cult-following of a Mrs. Marian Keech, a housewife who claimed to receive messages from aliens via automatic writing. The message of the aliens was one of a coming world cataclysm, but with the hope of surviving for the elect who listened to them through Keech and selected other mediums. What Festinger and his associates demonstrated in the end was that the failure of prophecy often has the opposite effect of what the average person might expect; the cult following often gets stronger and the members even more convinced of the truth of their actions and beliefs! This unique paradox is the focus of attention in this article.

Festinger observes:
"A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.

"We have all experienced the futility of trying to change a strong conviction, especially if the convinced person has some investment in his belief. We are familiar with the variety of ingenious defenses with which people protect their convictions, managing to keep them unscathed through the most devastating attacks.

"But man's resourcefulness goes beyond simply protecting a belief. Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view.

When Prophecy Fails focuses on the failure of prophecies to come true, termed disconfirmation by Festinger, and the accompanied renewal of energy and faith in their source of divine guidance. His theory presupposes the cult having certain identifying features, such as:

(a) belief held with deep conviction along with respective actions taken,

(b) the belief or prediction must be specific enough to be disconfirmed (i.e., it didn't happen),

(c) the believer is a member of a group of like-minded believers who support one another and even proselytize. All of these characteristics were present in the saucer cult.

Of particular interest in Festinger's book is how the followers of Mrs. Keech reacted to each disconfirmation (failed date). Little attempt was made to deny the failure. The strength to continue in the movement was derived, not largely from the rationalizations , but from the very energy of the group itself and its dedication to the cause. This explains why proselytizing was so successful later in reinforcing the group's sagging belief system. Festinger relates:
"But whatever explanation is made it is still by itself not sufficient. The dissonance is too important and though they may try to hide it, even from themselves, the believers still know that the prediction was false and all their preparations were in vain. The dissonance cannot be eliminated completely by denying or rationalizing the disconfirmation. But there is a way in which the remaining dissonance can be reduced. If more and more people can be persuaded that the system of belief is correct, then clearly it must, after all, be correct. Consider the extreme case: if everyone in the whole world believed something there would be no question at all as to the validity of this belief. It is for this reason that we observe the increase in proselytizing following disconfirmation. If the proselytizing proves successful, then by gathering more adherents and effectively surrounding himself with supporters, the believer reduces dissonance to the point where he can live with it."

In the end, the members of the flying saucer cult did not give up their faith in the Guardians from outer space with their promises of a new world. Despite numerous prophecies and the resultant disappointment accentuated by many personal sacrifices, the group remained strong. Summarizing the final stages of the flying saucer cult, Festinger says:
"Summarizing the evidence on the effect that disconfirmation had on the conviction of group members, we find that, of the eleven members of the Lake City group who faced unequivocal disconfirmation, only two, Kurt Freund and Arthur Bergen, both of whom were lightly committed to begin with, completely gave up their belief in Mrs. Keech's writings. Five members of the group, the Posts, the Armstrongs, and Mrs. Keech, all of whom entered the pre-cataclysm period strongly convinced and heavily committed, passed through this period of disconfirmation and its aftermath with their faith firm, unshaken, and lasting. Cleo Armstrong and Bob Eastman, who had come to Lake City heavily committed but with their conviction shaken by Ella Lowell, emerged from the disconfirmation of December 21 more strongly convinced than before..."

Excerpt above from here

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16 comments:

David said...

This is idiotic. No one has said that global warming means that it will never snow again, anywhere. Drawing attention to single incidents like this, you may as well also mention last year's record-setting summer in Ireland where temps broke above 100 F. Since we're being anecdotal and all.

Furthermore: global warming also does not mean that all parts of the globe will become uniformly hotter. The -mean- temp of the earth is what's rising, which carries a lot of chaotic effects. The jet stream and ocean currents are being interrupted, so in addition to droughts and warming, isolated spots of flooding and cooling are also to be expected. These counter-indicators are -already predicted- in current models that demonstrate global warming. There is an overall warming trend, but "climate change" is probably a better term to describe what's happening.

Climate change deniers so often accuse others of ignoring the evidence, but the model you are opposing is 10-15 years old, if that. Try to catch up.

(www.sciencedaily.com is a good source. and if you doubt their objectivity, it's full of ads for organizations denying climate change, even though the majority of the actual science supports it).

Reliapundit said...

gore's firts law of geothermaldynamics:

heat = climate; cold = weather.

David said...

Reliapundit,

Did you actually read what I just wrote? There is room for cold weather in climate change models. There's even an element of -extreme- cold weather events when normal weather systems are disrupted. As usual, however, a right-wing type is politicizing what is fundamentally an engineering problem and personalizing it around Al Gore.

Al Gore is not the the scientific community, and all the axe-grinding is juvenile. Scientists from all over the world, receiving their funding from their own governments, universities, and private grants, have slowly come to a consensus that anthroprogenic climate change is a reality.

The latest from the NASA Goddard institute: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080116114150.htm

2007 was tied with 1998 as the second-warmest year on record.

Reliapundit said...

david:

bwahahahaha!

do you realize that there is no such thing as "mean temp of the earth"!?!?!?!?!

"mean temp of the earth is an abstract - a heuristic device; it has no ontological veracity. it is a construct made of discrete and REAL measurements.

where you measnure measn a lot.

and the fact is that mankind has NOT been measuring in many places for very long.

while there ate tem records for many places in the northern hemisphere for the last few hundred years, there are scant measurements for most of the earth in the same period.

also, david, did you know that global temps now are no higher than many previous eras!?
eras with no man-made co2.

climate change is completely normal. always has been.

always will be.

FUNNY HOW THE REMEDY THAT THE LEFT PROPOSES TO COMBAT AGW IS COMPRISED OF THE VERY SAME THINGS THEY'VE BEEN ARGUING WE DO FOR DECADES - BUT FOR OTHER REASONS.

now that's convenient.

David said...

Climate change is normal. It's the pace of climate change that is the problem. Life can adapt if the change is gradual enough, but if the pace of change is too fast, species go extinct. Humans are no different.

Climate change is just as normal as mass extinction. It doesn't mean I want my grandkids to live in that world.

You also said "FUNNY HOW THE REMEDY THAT THE LEFT PROPOSES TO COMBAT AGW IS COMPRISED OF THE VERY SAME THINGS THEY'VE BEEN ARGUING WE DO FOR DECADES - BUT FOR OTHER REASONS."

Again, you're politicizing what is an engineering problem. I haven't proposed any remedies, leftist or otherwise... but you've got no problem assuming, do you? You're going to try and score political points no matter what the conversation is. "Al Gore is a liberal and he says global warming is real... so it must be a vast left-wing conspiracy". Remedies can be left, right, or center. I'm inclined to think that market-based solutions might be the best way to go.

Besides that, there are other benefits to developing alternative energy sources. It's not just a climate issue, it's become a national security issue. A portion of every dollar you pay at the pump is going to people like Ahmedinijad and Chavez. It's also a pocketbook issue. In just 15 years I've seen gas go from $1.70 to $3.50.

Paying hostile dictators to develop nuclear weapons. $100 a barrel oil. You're okay with this? What's wrong with looking for sources of alternative energy? You can just ignore the benefits to the environment if you like.

Reliapundit said...

1 - the pace and degree of change are both probs for the left. not just pace as you assert, david. the left claims what is happening is unprecedneted and will get worse - and bad for ALL LIFE ON EARTH, and this is utter BULLSHIT. flase. a lie.

2 - "I haven't proposed any remedies, leftist or otherwise... but you've got no problem assuming, do you?"

DAVID: oh puleeeeze! i didn't attack you or assume anything about you.

but the entire movement is directed by the left for the left to promote leftist policies.

the movement has always been leftist. i was there at the start.

earth day is lenin's birthday. no coincidence.

marlet basewd soultions to a problem which doesn;t exost are idiotic and DISTORT the market.

OIL PRICES ARE VERY VERY VERY HIGH NOW BECAUSE THE USA WON'T

DRILL IN ANWR
OR OFF OUR COAST
OR BUILD COAL-BURNING POWER PLANTS
OR NUKE PLANTS
OR REFINERIES
ETC.

the LEFT prevents all that.

the left has directly DECREASED energy supplies essentially made the market raise oil prices EMPOWERED OPEC and thereby the global jihad

the market is already DISTORTED.
and will get even more distorted if we enact more leftist/green policies/rules/regs.

3 - "It's not just a climate issue, it's become a national security issue. A portion of every dollar you pay at the pump is going to people like Ahmedinijad and Chavez. It's also a pocketbook issue. In just 15 years I've seen gas go from $1.70 to $3.50"

SEE ABOVE. we need to exploit more oil and coal and nukes - the left/the green prevent this, not the right.

WAKE UP DAVID! START THINKING FOR YOURSELF. STOP BLINDLY FOLLOWING THE CW/THE MSM PROPAGANDA.

or get lost and get out of the way.

David said...

The highest estimates for the ANWR estimate they can produce 10 billion bbl of oil - enough to supply our energy needs for 18 months.

True, the number of refineries in this country is the lowest it's been since 1981. Building more would lower energy costs, but only in the near term. The medium-term picture revolves around this fact: there are now over 1 billion Chinese and nearly as many Indians poised to adopt a Western lifestyle. Last week saw the announcement of the Tata, a car being sold in India for only $2200. For the first time, it's become affordable for lower-middle class Indians to own their own cars: and they WANT them. Drop the polemics for a second and think about what's going to happen to the price of oil when hundreds of millions of people who didn't used to drive cars begin doing so. Supply has barely remained stable, and demand for oil is about to skyrocket. It doesn't take a genius to see you don't want to spend massive amounts on new refineries when, just like any other commodity in this scenario, oil is only going to get more expensive. If any money is going into new infrastructure, it would make a lot more sense to invest in something not based on a raw material that will -inevitably- go up in price.

Nuclear -is- a solution, but it can only be part of the mix and won't be available at the scale that oil has been. For starters, what are you going to do with all the waste? And where does it fit into the GWOT? Do you really think it's a good idea to build more nuke plants outside population centers? Try and connect two Republican talking points together, hold two ideas in your head at the same time: we are fighting a global war on terror, and we are going to build more WMDs in easily targeted facilities right outside our cities.

You mentioned building more coal plants. Look up "Asian Brown Cloud" sometime. If you want to see what a predominantly coal-based infrastructure looks like, look at China today. Cities where streetlights come on in the daytime because of the smog and millions who have never touched a cigarette die of lung cancer and emphysema.

Look, you keep banging away at the same straw men. "WAKE UP! START THINKING FOR YOURSELF" is something I can just as easily throw right back at you, and it would be just as valid or invalid. So I'm just reciting liberal talking points by rote, but you're exercising pure reason? Please. If you can't see the hypocrisy in this then a conversation with someone who disagrees with you is going to be impossible.

I'm saying that this is not a left/right issue. If Earth Day was begun by Leninists, -it doesn't matter-. It's so simple it's ridiculous: you save for a rainy day. You hope for the best and plan for the worst. You don't shit where you eat.

David said...

A minor point, in response to this:

"also, david, did you know that global temps now are no higher than many previous eras!?
eras with no man-made co2."

Which "eras" are you talking about? If you mean recently, there have been localized spots of extreme warming... for example, Chaucer wrote of vineyards in England. The emphasis is on -local-. The science is demonstrating that this warming is -not- local. Going back further, there have been Greenhouse periods before. But this was also before we were even here, and before most of the food chain that we depend on was here. Global warming is not "bad for all life on earth" (straw man). The Earth is going to be fine one way or the other. The question is whether it's going to be the Earth that we're used to, that's comfortable for us.

Example: jellyfish accustomed to warm water are invading coastal fisheries in the Monterey Bay near to where I live. This is devastating the salmon catch. The same is happening to fisheries in the Pacific Northwest and in the North Atlantic. If you can move beyond the politics, the evidence is there that the natural systems we depend on are changing in way that doesn't suit us.

Your comment about the mean temp shows your ignorance of basic earth science. You don't need a paper record of temps recorded off a thermometer to understand climate change in a given location. Ice cores, peat bogs, old growth forests, and many other elements can tell a history of global temp change over time. This is high-school level science. Yes, the Earth does have a mean temp. According to the NOAA, it's 53.6 F.

Reliapundit said...

extrapolated local temp data is suspect and highly interpretative.

ice cores PROVE co2 is a lagging indicator. and that agw is BS.

PERIOD.

the ice caps FORMED during a global warming era 91 million years ago.


wake up or stfu.

Reliapundit said...

there is NO MEAN EARTH TEMP.

it's a construct.

wake up or stfu.

Reliapundit said...

http://www.john-daly.com
/ges/surftmp/surftemp.htm

AND THERE'S A HUGE DIFF BETWEEN SURFACE AND ATMOSPHERE TEMPS.

David said...

I'm not sure what you mean exactly by "mean temp is a construct". Any mathematical mean is a "construct" - what's your point? Anyway, you're not arguing with me on this one, you're arguing with the NOAA... you know, that department of the federal government that is just a hotbed of damn libruls.

CO2 is neither a lagging nor a leading indicator. It's part of a feedback loop. What matters is that we are actively accelerating that feedback ourselves with our emissions.

What I find completely unsurprising is that in the wake of specific arguments why investment in renewable energy is a good idea... whether it's for the climate, or national security, or for the pocketbook, you basically didn't declined to offer counter evidence to any of this. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and thought it might be possible to have an actual conversation on a political blog. Instead, you just went with STFU. Brilliant. "Shut the fuck up" means you just gave the fuck up, and this conversation is over.

Don't leave the echo chamber, it's scary out here - at least for you.

Reliapundit said...

THE EARTH IS NOT A SINGLE UNIFORM BODY - TEMP-WISE - WITH A STEADY TEMP ANYWHERE; EARTH TEMPS ARE ALL LOCAL AND ALWAYS IN CONSTANT FLUX.

WHERE YOU MEASURE AND HOW; THE ALTITUDE, TIME, ETC ALL EFFECT THE LOCAL TEMP. IF A SPOT IS UNDER A CLOUD IT WILL BE COOLER THAN A SPOT ONE FOOT AWAY IN THE SUN. LIGHTER AREAS WILL BE COOLER THAN DARKER - AND THIS ALL SHIFTS - CONSTANTLY.

IT IS NOT LIKE TAKING YOUR BODY TEMP.

THERE ARE MANY SCIENTIFIC PAPERS ON THIS FACT.

THE TEMPS IN THE PARTS OF THE ATMOSPHERE WHICH MATTER AS FAR AS CLIMATE IS CONCERNED ARE NOT EVEN GOING UP.

AND AIR TEMPS IN THE POLAR REGIONS ARE NOT GOING UP.

THE ARCTIC ICE MELTS ARE UNDERSEA/OEANINC/VOLCANIC, NOT ATMOSPHERIC.

BUT EVEN IF THE AIR TEMPS WENT UP IT WOULD MEAN BUPKUS: THE POLAR ICE CAPS FORMED DURING A "GLOBAL WAR ERA" 91 MILLION YEARS AGO.

BTW: WE HAVE POSTED EXCERPTS OF ARTICLES BY GEOPHYSICISTS AND CLIMATOLOGISTS DEBUNKING THE NOTION OF GLOBAL TEMPERATURE.

Reliapundit said...

RENEWABLE ENERGY IS FINE.

ANYONE WHO WANTS TO INVEST SHOULD.

BUT NOT WITH MY TAX DOLLARS!

LETS ALLOW THE USDA TO HAVE AS MUCH POWER FROM NUKE-PLANTS AS FRANCE - WHICH GETS 4X AS MUCH OF THEIR POWER FROM NUKES AS THE USA.

LETS DRILL IN ANWR: THE CANADIANS DO RIGHT NEXT DOOR!

LET'S DRILL OFF THE COASTS OF CA AND FLA - THE BRITS AND NORSE DRILL SAFELY IN MUCH MORE DANGEROUS WATERS IN THE NORTH SEA.

AND NUKE PLATS AND OIL IS A KNOWN QUANTITY NOW AND WILL BRING PRICES DOWN NOW.

NOT LIKE,THE PIE-IN-THE-SKY RENEWABLES YOU ARE SO SO SO SO SO ENAMORED OF.

Reliapundit said...

DAVID, YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE FOR MAKING COMMENTS LIKE THIS:

What I find completely unsurprising is that in the wake of specific arguments why investment in renewable energy is a good idea... whether it's for the climate, or national security, or for the pocketbook, you basically didn't declined to offer counter evidence to any of this.

THE LEFT IS WHY WE SEND SO MUCH OF OUR MONEY OVERSEAS FOR OIL.

AS I WROTE ABOVE.

AND WE SEND VERY LITTLE AS A % TO THE MIDDLE EAST. WE GET MLOSTY FROM MEXICO AND CANADA AND VENEZUELA AND AFRICA. AND WE MAKE A LOT OF OIL HERE. WE ARE #2 OR THREE OIL PRODUCER IN THE WORLD.

WE CAN PRODUCE MORE IF THE LEFT WOULD GET OUT OF THE WAY.

THE LEFT HAS BEEN IN THE WAY FOR DECADES - THE LEFT WAS AGAINST IT LONG BEFORE AGW WAS EVER EVEN DREAMT UP.

Reliapundit said...

WE CAN DIVERSIFY AND EXPAND OUR ENERGY SOURCES WITHOUT ANY TAX DOLLARS AND WITHOUT RENEWABLES.

JUST HAVE TE DEMS STOP BLOCKING OIL DRILLING IN ANWR, OFF THE COASTS OF CA AND FLA AND LET FOLKS BUILD 20 NUKE POWER PLANTS.

AND SINCE MAN-MADE CO2 HAS VIRTUALLY NO EFFECT ON THE ENVIRONMENT THESE WOULD HAVE ZERO EFFECT ON GLOBAL CLIMATE.

BUHBYEEE.