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Krugman: GOP has reached point of no return on climate
Houston Chronicle ^ | May 16, 2014 | By Paul Krugman

Posted on 05/17/2014 4:03:09 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

... Think of it this way: Once upon a time it was possible to take climate change seriously while remaining a Republican in good standing. Today, listening to climate scientists gets you excommunicated - hence Rubio's statement, which was effectively a partisan pledge of allegiance.

And truly crazy positions are becoming the norm. A decade ago, only the GOP's extremist fringe asserted that global warming was a hoax concocted by a vast global conspiracy of scientists (although even then that fringe included some powerful politicians). Today, such conspiracy theorizing is mainstream within the party, and rapidly becoming mandatory; witch hunts against scientists reporting evidence of warming have become standard procedure, and skepticism about climate science is turning into hostility toward science in general.

It's hard to see what could reverse this growing hostility to inconvenient science. As I said, the process of intellectual devolution seems to have reached a point of no return. And that scares me more than the news about that ice sheet.

(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: climategate; demagogicparty; globalwarminghoax; hoax; journalism; krugman; opec; paulkrugman; socialism
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To: AFreeBird
Just what is Earth’s average mean temp? Does anybody really know?

Good point. I was thinking the same thing about the Great Lakes freezing over. Who knows what the temperature was when Natty Bumppo was running around up there?

61 posted on 05/17/2014 5:26:40 PM PDT by MUDDOG
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To: ully2
Someone tell Krugman we aren’t as gullible as he is.

I'd substitute "evil" for "gullible." He knows very well what he's doing as a radical Marxist whore.

62 posted on 05/17/2014 5:27:46 PM PDT by Bernard Marx
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Krugman is the dirtbag that held Palin responsible for Jared Loehner’s insane killing spree. He’s deranged.


63 posted on 05/17/2014 5:27:58 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Dear Paul Krugman,
Please get painful pancreatic cancer and die.
Love,

Laz

64 posted on 05/17/2014 5:56:46 PM PDT by Lazamataz (Early 2009 to 7/21/2013 - RIP my little girl Cathy. You were the best cat ever. You will be missed.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

The leftist soldiers are clearly mounting a new coordinated effort to push the global warming propaganda meme. Why now?


65 posted on 05/17/2014 6:17:43 PM PDT by expat2
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To: FlingWingFlyer

“Inconvenient science” = 16-17 years of no global warming.


66 posted on 05/17/2014 6:20:53 PM PDT by TruthWillWin (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples money.)
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To: expat2
Why now?

Because the EPA is coming out with new CO2 regs.

(CO2 is "carbon pollution.")

67 posted on 05/17/2014 6:22:34 PM PDT by MUDDOG
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To: expat2

I think it is because they have had to keep very quiet during the brutal cold conditions suffered by much of the population this winter. Now, all that pent-up kvetching is spewing out.


68 posted on 05/17/2014 6:23:23 PM PDT by expat2
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Glad to see the Houston Comical hasn't changed a bit since I canceled 15 yrs ago.

...the only daily in the 4st largest US city.

69 posted on 05/17/2014 6:24:39 PM PDT by TexasCajun
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To: MUDDOG
Good read. I skip the hardest parts :^)

I hate to think what percentage of the book that would be for me. lol

Seriously though, thanks for the recommendation.

70 posted on 05/17/2014 6:40:43 PM PDT by TigersEye ("No man left behind" is more than an Army Ranger credo it's the character of America.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Pearls of wisdom from that noted climate scientist, Paul Krugman.


71 posted on 05/17/2014 6:45:08 PM PDT by headstamp 2 (What would Scooby do?)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Just one question, Mr. K. Well, make it two:
  1. How many coal-fired power plants are under construction in China today? Dozens, in fact.

  2. What possible difference does canceling the Keystone XL pipeline - or any other North American energy project - have on atmospheric CO2 in that context?
    If you’re not complaining about the Chinese - and Asians in general - burning coal, why should I care about CO2 from Natural Gas combustion in America????
Case closed - you have no point at all.

72 posted on 05/17/2014 6:57:12 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which “liberalism" coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR.)
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To: Raycpa; All
PK, IS still a torpid moron..despite
what a sheet of paper represents.
his parent paper, is still toilet paper.

73 posted on 05/17/2014 7:21:03 PM PDT by skinkinthegrass (The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun..0'Bathhouse/"Rustler" Reid? :-)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion

He is a raving fool. Doesn’t care about third world emissions, but wants us to pay carbon taxes and walk to work while he vacations where he pleases with his elitist carbon footprint. This stuff reminds me of France before the revolution.


74 posted on 05/17/2014 7:24:04 PM PDT by Luke21
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To: exit82

Those nuts will probably award him another Nobel for his contributions to climatology. PLUS let us not disparage the Norwegians as it is the Swedes that hand out the Nobel prizes.


75 posted on 05/17/2014 7:27:28 PM PDT by Cannoneer ( "..raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair.." GW)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer












Saturday, May 17, 2014


it snowed today in one state
- and it was not Alaska….













76 posted on 05/17/2014 8:09:18 PM PDT by devolve (-Tell VLADIMER after my ERECTION I have more 90% more FLEXIBILITY - pre-1899 Colt SAA frames needed)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
And truly crazy positions are becoming the norm. A decade ago, only the GOP's extremist fringe asserted that global warming was a hoax concocted by a vast global conspiracy of scientists (although even then that fringe included some powerful politicians). Today, such conspiracy theorizing is mainstream within the party, and rapidly becoming mandatory; witch hunts against scientists reporting evidence of warming have become standard procedure, and skepticism about climate science is turning into hostility toward science in general.

When frauds and charlatans appear to have hijacked "'science" for political ends, pushback from normal people is just a matter off time.
. Consider this :

Devastating Rising Sea Level Fraud Rebuttal --- by a real Science Expert

and this:

The Scam Artists' Version:

"An earlier survey published in the 2009 issue of Eos -- a publication of the American Geophysical Union -- surveyed scientists from a wide range of disciplines (approximately 3,146) and asked: "Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?" Approximately 82 percent of the surveyed scientists answered yes to this question. Of those climate change specialists surveyed, 97.4 percent answered yes to this question.

The reality :

97%??

REALLY??

77 posted on 05/17/2014 8:59:47 PM PDT by publius911 ( At least Nixon had the good grace to resign!)
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To: Cannoneer

Cannoneer, thanks for the correction about the Swedes.


78 posted on 05/17/2014 10:23:21 PM PDT by exit82 ("The Taliban is on the inside of the building" E. Nordstrom 10-10-12)
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To: Dilbert San Diego
I think that man definitely has had an impact on the environment. But, and it’s a big but, we just have no way of knowing if man has had an impact on long term climate trends.

And, to the extent that man has impact on climate trends, we don’t know how much is man made.

I agree with all of your points except that we do have a way of knowing the extent of man's influence.

While it is true that we don't fully understand Nature's role on climate, do not misunderstand this to mean we cannot assess the role of human activity. If we restrict our definition of the impact on global warming by human activity as through the mechanism of green house gases (CO2 emission) then we can say with certainty if this is significant or not. We are justified in restricting our definition of human activity to CO2 emissions because that is precisely the feature of human activity that the global warming policy issues are based on.

Let's take a moment to remind ourselves of the scientific process: When a hypothesis is proposed, it must be able to predict some non-trivial observables in order to test the hypothesis. By non-trivial, I mean that the reasoning should not be circular. For example, evidence of warming is not evidence of anthropogenic warming. As an illustration, one could propose a hypothesis that aliens are projecting an energy beam on the Earth causing the Earth to warm. Hence, evidence of warming would be evidence that our 'Alien' theory is correct. -Not! The point is, evidence of warming is not evidence of any particular cause of warming and is, hence, invalid in terms of answering the question of human influence on warming.

However, greenhouse gas warming theory does indeed predict certain non-trivial observables and we can in fact seek to observe them and test the theory. One of the predicted observables is that the temperature trend in the tropical troposphere round 10,000 ft should be increasing at a rate of three to four times the surface rate. We have over 60 years of balloon satellite date measurement to check this and we observe that the trend in the tropical troposphere is about half to three-quarters the surface rate. The exact opposite of what greenhouse gas theory predicts. From that observation alone we can conclude that temperature is not driven by greenhouse warming.

There is yet another prediction made by greenhouse gas theory which predicts that as the surface temperature increases, the amount of energy radiated into space will decrease by a certain amount. This prediction is based on the idea that increased temperature will cause more CO2 and water vapor to be produced by the oceans, resulting in a greater amount of radiation trapping. But again, we have decades of satellite data to test this observation and we find that the amount of radiation into space increases by an amount about three times what greenhouse gas theory predicts it should decrease. So again, greenhouse gas theory predicts the opposite of what we observe.

From these tests, even if we don't fully understand what is actually driving temperature, we can absolutely conclude that the warming (if any) is not driven by greenhouse gases. Independent of whatever else we don't know, this fact is incontrovertible.

79 posted on 05/18/2014 7:38:24 AM PDT by pjd
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To: pjd

Sorry, a couple of typos in 3rd from last paragraph, should read “balloon and satellite data”.


80 posted on 05/18/2014 7:44:14 AM PDT by pjd
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