Posted on 03/30/2010 5:08:24 AM PDT by RogerFGay
Leaders of a contrarian environmental think tank, The Breakthrough Institute, have a way to get beyond the climate science wars: Break the link between global warming research and the push for low-carbon energy.
Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, in a new essay in Yale Environment 360, argue that environmentalists are too eager to link natural disasters and dangerous weather to man-made climate change.
They say this is a losing hand that has been made even weaker by the furor over the now-infamous hacked climate science emails, and controversy surrounding the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.They write:
Climate science, even at its most uncontroversial, could never motivate the remaking of the entire global energy economy. Efforts to use climate science to threaten an apocalyptic future should we fail to embrace green proposals, and to characterize present-day natural disasters as terrifying previews of an impending day of reckoning, have only served to undermine the credibility of both climate science and progressive energy policy.
The essay also suggests that climate advocacy and research have become too intertwined, with environmentalists seeking to represent the science as “apocalyptic, imminent, and certain.” The science has been harmed as a result, they argue, stating:
Greens pushed climate scientists to become outspoken advocates of action to address global warming. Captivated by the notion that their voices and expertise were singularly necessary to save the world, some climate scientists attempted to oblige. The result is that the use, and misuse, of climate science by advocates began to wash back into the science itself.They later conclude:
Climate science can still usefully inform us about the possible trajectories of the global climate and help us prepare for extreme weather and natural disasters, whether climate change ultimately results in their intensification or not. And understood in its proper role, as one of many reasons why we should decarbonize the global economy, climate science can even help contribute to the case for taking such action. But so long as environmentalists continue to demand that climate science drive the transformation of the global energy economy, neither the science, nor efforts to address climate change, will be well served.
Shellenberger and Nordhaus are a contrarian pair with a years-long penchant for telling the mainstream environmental movement that it’s screwing up the climate fight in one way or another. Several of their past essays have been controversial, notably 2004’s "The Death of Environmentalism."
The Yale Environment 360 website has a comments section below the articles. Look for a lively response to their new piece.
OK - Here’s one that’s kind of a sick joke. I read an article yesterday based on an interview with Michael Mann. He’s trying to distance himself from Phil Jones by saying he just wasn’t clear enough about his ethical objections to what Jones proposed. Uh-huh! Yeah sure. Mann is an ethical scientist - victim of circumstances .....
You missed the second paragraph!
Population control? They think there are too many people (and of the "kind we don't want", in Ruth Bader Ginsburg's happy phrase!). Hasn't the left used starvation before (I'm thinking of the early Soviet Union, but there are probably other examples)? It's way too powerful a tool to waste!
No but i find it amazing that they are admitting it. Well not exactly admitting it, but at least trying to blame each other for having done it. In the process admitting to the lie, but saying it was the other guys idea.
Forcing you to turn over the green in your wallet is everything the Green Movement has always been about.
Partly.
The Green Movement is REALLY about depopulation of planet Earth,by any means necessary, according to the hard core members.
ping
bttt
Endgame?
Toshiba eyes nuke alliance with Gates start-up
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20000966-54.html
Green movement! The last time I had a green movement the doctor told me to change my diet.
If the green movement is serious about depopulation of earth then they should immediately set the example by removing themselves from earth’s population.
I love it, what’s that saying about failure being an orphan? AGW is fast becoming an orphan.
The hysterical hi-jacking by the left has discredited any serious environmental movement.
bump
Excellent. I'm stealing that line for my home page.
James Lovelock: 'Fudging data is a sin against science'
James Lovelock is the man who first developed the "Gaia theory" in the late 1960s:
fyi
Always remember, slime is green.
I'll try to remember that....thanks.
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