The U.S. Chamber of Commerce wants the Environmental Protection Agency to hold a public hearing to put “the science of climate change on trial,” the Los Angeles Times reports today. And the Chamber already has another famous trial in mind:
Chamber officials say it would be “the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” — complete with witnesses, cross-examinations and a judge who would rule, essentially, on whether humans are warming the planet to dangerous effect. “It would be evolution versus creationism,” said William Kovacs, the chamber’s senior vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs.
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Richard Feynman was a delightful national treasure and Nobel Prize winning Physicist. You many remember him as the thoughtful scientist who nailed the root cause of the Challenger space shuttle disaster – cold 0-rings – which he demonstrated live during a presentation covered by the media by dropping some of the same 0-ring material into his glass of ice water. He also worked on the Manhattan Project. For Richard, being a scientist meant the truth was more important than being right. Integrity in science is paramount. Without it, science isn’t science and it will fail us. Or worse. We live in troubled pivotal times where money, politics and environmental fervor have created a heady cocktail that may be luring too many scientists – and society – astray. Richard warned his fellow scientist about going over to the dark side during his famous “Cargo Cult Science” commencement address that he gave at Caltech in 1974. If, like me, you’re grappling with all we’ve been told to date regarding global warming, climate change, carbon, and mankind’s role in it all, you could do a lot worse than read Feynman’s address regarding the slippery slope to bad science that he refers to as “Cargo Cult Science”.
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Perhaps most surprising to me personally is the Vostok ice core data that goes back 100’s of thousands of years as shown plotted in the graph below. You’d be right if you concluded that this data shows a clear correlation between Co2 and temperature. But a closer analysis reveals (not discernible in the graph) that the CO2 lags behind the temperature by an average of 800 years! Temperatures do indeed appear to control carbon and not the other way around (perhaps through temperature driven solubility changes in sea water). And while it’s possible that carbon also influences temperature the data don’t show much evidence of that. As temperatures rise, on average it takes 800 years before carbon starts to move. The extraordinary thing is that this CO2 lag is well accepted by climatologists, yet virtually unknown outside these circles.
As of August 23, I have received and responded to 27 bills from the hospital this year. It’s about a co-pay they didn’t credit, or a mistake made by the new office assistant to the surgeon who did my shoulder repair in putting down the wrong codes for four office visits. Sometimes, the insurer throws the hospital a curve, rejecting claims that the hospital routinely expects to be paid without problem. I discovered, for instance, that certain services can demand a facilities fee, a kind of rent on the office where the provider ministers to the patient. It’s a bit like in the movies when the prostitute expects the John to pay for the room, except in the hospital, nobody tells the John.
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Just because you win an Oscar doesn’t mean you’re right – even if you’re a true “believer”. In this last of 4 videos, myth making is revealed in Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” (his book and movie). He runs fast and loose with the Vostok CO2 vs. Temp data (doesn’t everybody?!!). He projects a fantastic 20 foot rise in sea level by the end of the century when the best guess is 3 feet. There’s more but why spoil the fun.
Continue reading about Climate Change – Parts III & IV – Evolution of Myths
Part I showed how ice core drillings in Vostok/Antarctica going back 420,000 years show undeniable correlation between CO2 and temperature in the atmosphere throughout numerous cooling/warming cycles. However, the temperature changes occurred 800 years ahead of the CO2 changes; not the other way around. It’s noteworthy that Al Gore used this same data in support of his core argument that carbon is driving global warming in his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, but failed to point out that CO2 changes lagged behind temperature changes by 800 years (perhaps another inconvenient truth). Part II discusses how some scientists see solar and clouds (water vapor) as alternative (to CO2) drivers of climate change.
Continue reading about Climate Change – Part II – Looking Beyond Carbon
If you try to sort through the clutter of fact and fiction surrounding climate change, much of what you hear and read is all too often seen through the distorted lenses of “believers” and “deniers”. Believers approach climate change with the glazed over ferver of religious zealots. Ever try to have a rational conversation with a true believer? Now there’s an oxymoron. Deniers on the other hand, while they give off an entirely different vibe, are just as vested in their own earnest beliefs that climate change is a fabricated hoax.
Continue reading about Climate Change – Part 1 – The Scientific Debate
To date, electric cars have either been too expensive or incapable of going very far (or fast) before needing another charge. In short, impractical and uneconomical. That may be changing and changing fast. The race to come out with a truly affordable electric car is on and it’s hot and getting hotter. Eighteen months ago there were already 30 different electric car companies burning up investor dollars in search of this battery operated holy grail.
As a lifelong guitar player, music lover and student of the blues riff, I wanted to take a moment to recognize the passing of the father of the electric guitar – the original axe man – Les Paul. Les was the consummate tinkerer. His first cut at a solid body electric guitar became known as the “Log” – a bare bones prototype built out of a 4 x 4 piece of lumber. Things got a bit snazier after that. Maybe somebody else would have eventually invented the electric guitar but Les Paul did it first. He was also the first to use multi-track recording techniques which revolutionized the music recording industry. Stop and imagine a world without the electric guitar and multi-track recording – no Beatles, no Rolling Stones, no….the list would be endless. Thank you Les. You made all of our lives richer and more interesting. I think I’ll listen to some Eric Clapton tonight and toast to your very cool life. Rest in peace man.
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Ask the political scientists and you will be told that there is damning, hard evidence pointing incontrovertibly to the conclusion that millions are embarrassingly ill-informed and that they do not care that they are. There is enough evidence that one could almost conclude — though admittedly this is a stretch — that we are living in an Age of Ignorance.
