CLIMATE CHAOS - Bush's climate of fear (BBC report)

Given that the UK signed on to the Kyoto treaty and that is already itself very fasr short of meeting the emission reduction targets it accepted in the treaty. it seems odd to me that its publically financed organs of propaganda in that country would devote so much energy to declaiming the efforts and actions of the U.S. government.

Moreover the proposition that our government can truly muzzle the protagonists in an intensely argued public matter such as this one is contradicted by an enormous pool of facts relating to both this and many other subjects.

I have little doubt that the television "documentary" is well-produced, entertaining and even convincing to uncritical minds. That, however doesn't mean it should be taken seriously. Indeed the hypocrisy of European nations generally on this subject and their all-too-evident prioclivity tio blame the U.S. for their own failures is - in my view - sufficient reason to ignore it and concentrate instead on the larger aspects of the problems of energy availability and meeting the needs of the world's population in and efficient manner.

This just happens to be a question that Europeans, with their current abundance of North Sea oil and Russian gas; ageing & declining populations; stagnant economies; blindness to the population pressures around them; and odd belief that they are somehow immune to the cultural and economic challenges facing the West; are disinclined to consider. Instead they focus on unrealistic fantasies of preserving things as they are in a world that is changing fact and is generally intolerant of those who will not adapt.

a little touchy on the subject of censorship?

Not at all. These questions are debated at great length here and there is no significant suppression of important information on the subject (unless you suppose that selected subunits of various U.S. government agencies are the sole source of crucuial information on the subject in the world, and that they have suppressed key information by refusing the right of dissident employees to append the government or agency imprimator to the public statements of dissident employees.) This canard is absurd on bioth points (1) The agencies in question are not the sole sources of critical information; and (2) Nothing prevents the expression of the opinions of these employees as long as they do not falsely imply that their vews are those of the agency that employs them in cases where this is not the fact.

The questions of greenhouse gasses; global warming; and alternatives for energy supply are hotly debated in this country - as they are in others in Europe. The difference is we didn't sign on to an absurd treaty; then fail to make even significant efforts to meret its provisions; while loudly proclaiming our virtue and criticising others who were merely less blatantly hypocritical.

Looks like the BBC hit a sensitive spot, eh?

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Ask any British government official to what extent the BBC lends itself to being an "organ of propaganda"..

The BBC is certainly publically financed. That the propaganda it so famously puts out is of its own design is something to which I will readily agree. I don't see that as a meaningful or relevant objection to the very apt points which I have made here.

Perhaps I have exhibited what appears to you as a bit of sensitivity to the central thesis here. However it arises only from amazement at the blindness and excess cerdulity given to this hypocritical horeseshit, and not from any criticism of the often clumsy actions of our government or concern that somehow we are deprived of significan information on a hotly debated subject. We are not deprived of such information, and low-level government employees who loudly complain that they do not have the unilateral right to speak in the name of the government on political issues are not an indication of the suppression of information.

I disagree that the subject is hotly debated. Nobody talks about global warming in any significant way.

And george, you do seem to be very sensitive about it. The only "points" you have made have been that other countries have problems. That really doesn't affect the central thesis at all, which is that the current administration (and probably past ones, too) have put a muzzle on global warming reports for political or other reasons that are not in the best interest of the country or the world. This isn't the first time we've heard this. There have been reports for years about the administration editing scientific reports to make it look as if there was no consensus on global warming. There have been reports that they've used studies financed by oil companies to "prove" that it's a natural phenomenon or that it isn't happening at all. I remember reading "reports" not so long ago that "scientists" had discovered that oil was in fact a renewable resource. I haven't heard any more about that in a while -- I wonder why. Maybe because it wouldn't survive the light of day.

Ah, the "Oh Yeah ? ! ? ! ? Well lookit you guys did" rebuttal . . . i love it . . .

The notion that global warming is not a hotly debated topic in the public discourse ignores the countless articles on the subject by the print media; films made about imaginary future consequences; numerous scientific or quasi scientific articles pro and con that are widely distributed;and even the considerable air time tie the subject gets on these threads.

The subject has also been a much debated political issue for well over a decade. The dialogues that went into the Kyoto negotiations were well-publicized, and soon after the Clinton administration initialled the treaty, the U.S. Senate voted 99-0 on a non-binding resolution rejecting the treaty and promising the defeat of any attempt to ratify it. Clinton sat on the treaty for well over a year without ever making any attempt to either explain or advocate it to the public or forward it to the Senate for debate or ratification. On assuming the presidency, Bush merely acknowledged the evident fact that the treaty was a dead letter in this country. However, his clear statement of intent not to pursue it, took the political debate here and abroad to new heights and fostered the various conspiracy fantasies that are the fuel for these censorship stories. There is no shortage of bias, both pro and con, in the so-called scientific pronouncements of individuals, organizations and advocacy groups on this subject. Most of the differences focus on the extent of warming, the magnitudes of the supposed consequences that may result, and the side effects of the proposed remedies. These are the least well-founded aspects of the question, and government functionaries, focused on only onee aspect of a complex matter, do not have the right to unilaterally assume the imprimatur of the government on expressions of their opinions on these matters.

It is simply the truth that the signatories of the Kyoto treaty have achieved very little in the way of meeting the committments they made in this ill-conceived and ineffective treaty. It is hardly believable that the supposed "censorship" of statements on the matter by the U.S. government is the cause for that failure. Moreover Elpus' statement to the effect that, "In the last six years most industrialised nations have cut greenhouse gas emissions but under Bush America's emissions have increased by an average of one per cent a year. ", is simply not true. I suppose that much depends on what one means by "industrialized nation", but by any realistic measure their emissions collectively have increased at a rate greater than the rate of increase in the U.S. alone. Certainly the Western European states have significantly slowed their rates of increase, but from the UK to China and Japan, emissions have significantly increased over the period. Why, in these circumstances, all the attention is focused on the U.S. (particularly given that our rate of economic output per unit of energy consumed leads the world) is a question that perplexes me.

The producers of Panorama evidently believe that warming is an underestimated and imminemnt hazard. and that the public should be aroused to immediate, priority action by all the propaganda neans available to government and private institutions, and that anything less constitutes censorship.

Governments face a broader spectrum of problems, ranging from energy supply, to economic activity, external threats, and many other matters. Single issue zealots can always fault the unwillingness of government to trumpet their favorite issues as the greatest and most urgent problem facing us, but that hardly constitutes censorship (since those individuals are still free to say whatever they wish as individuals).

My supposed sensitivity is instead a reasonable reaction to the hypocrisy, distortion, and superficiality of the argument at the core of this topic.

Europeans face a host of more threatening issues, ranging from depopulation and their failure to come to grips with the cultural and economic effects of the resulting mass immigration; to over-regulated, sclerotic economies; and the persistent failure of the intermnational institutions they so favoe (from the UN to the ICC) to deal effectively with serious issues. I suppose is is a relief to their anxiety to focus on a different problem and suppose that it is someone else's fault.

How you attribute a BBC program to all of Europe I will never quite understand. But again, that's not the issue.

The issue is that, although this administration keeps saying they are using "sound science" to evaluate global climate change, the aren't. I don't know if Kyoto is/was good, bad, ineffective, or just an excuse to party among world leaders. No idea. But what kind of solution can come out of a process that's flawed from the beginning by a too strong bias towards industry and a willingness to manipulate the science?

I did not attribute the BBC program to "all of Europe". However I did note that the dispute over Kyoto, and the continuing dispute over the the U.S. government's reluctance to directly regulate energy use, the design of automobiles, etc. is indeed one that affects our public and governmental relations with most of Europe.

All of the advocates of the whole spectrum of mostly divergent views on the matter of global warming and what should be done about it, claim to be using "sound science" as the basis for their predictions. The problem is that "sound science"does not yet provide a clear long-raange prediction, and that many other considerations, including economics and the competing political ambitions of nations also bear on this question. Another problem is that many of the propagandists of particular viewpoints do not assume any responsibility for even addressing, much less dealing with, the side effects of the "solutions" they advocate. Indeed some of their "solutions" are not solutions at all, merely fantasy.

As I read Lord Elpus's summary, I see two specific incidents the films appears to refer to. In one, a government agency (I think the EPA) issued reports about Global Warming. Before its publication, some political appointee in the Bush administration edited it to defuse their assessment of the extent of global warming.

In the second incident, Jim Hansen of NASA published and spoke on the issue of global warming. He did not claim to speak for NASA. Nevertheless, the PR department forbid him to talk without first clearing content cleared with them.

So, to answer your point #1, it is true that the agencies in question are not the sole source of information for public opinion. But that doesn't make it right to have scientific reports edited by politicians with no demonstrated competence in the matter. And your point #2, I think, is a non-issue. No scientists falsely claimed to speak for their agency. I could be wrong of course. Could you tell me specifically which scientist you had in mind?

It is obvious that the only person on this thread who knows about the alleged "global warming" arising from co2 is George Ob1. I would respectfully suggest that people like Lord Elpus,nimh and Freeduck, especially freeduck do some reading about Global warming.

This issue has been hotly debated.

Entering "Global Warming" in Google reveals over 22,000,000 entries

It is a very generous use of the term to refer to the policy documents issued in such abundance, for example, by various functionaries of the EPA as "scientific documents". They are scientific in the sense that they often make reference to certain molecules or observable natural processes, but in the main they refer to the regulatory processes they oversee and the justification of the enhanced reach of this or that branch of the EPA into public and private matters.

EPA is a rather odd organization with long-standing internal turf wars and a fairly broad internal spectrum of views with respect to the degree of activism they should apply to environmental issues. Examples of the decidedly unscientific use of scientific language to further their bureaucratic interests abound. These range from the use of the endangered Spotted Owl to prevent logging or any form of forest management in the Pacific Northwest (the result has been an enormous increase in the ground-level fuel load in the forests and extensive loss to forest fires, and, interestingly the accelerated decline of the Spotted Owl due to competition with the relatively ascendent Brown Owl), to the justification of the largely wasteful cleanup of PCBs from the sediments in the Hudson River (a decision made by the very EPA employees whose jobs depend on the cleanup activity in the river, and one that purports to eliminate a public hazard equivalent to eating a few pieces of toast each week.) I should note that overall EPA does a lot that is good, but it is no more free of the diseases of bureaucratic ambition and folly than any other agency of government.

The Jim Hansen matter is perhaps more arguable. He was indeed addressing observations he made based on NASA atjmospheric data and related geodatabases, and dong so in a field in which he has considerable professional qualification. Whether he claimed to be speaking for NASA or not, he was introduced as and cited as a prominent spokesman for the scientific findings of NASA itself. The association followed him quite well without much direct action on his part. He was (and is) free to leave NASA and take a position in the academic world from which he could continue his advocacy unabated. Instead he chose to remain in NASA and accept the restraints on his behavior that go weith it. Certainly no government can tolerate its staff functionaires becoming agents of political disputes -- indeed our Civil Service law forbids it. That was the basis for the restraints put on him.

This may well be true of agency reports in general. But in the specific case of the 2002 Climate Action Report, I thought it provided an evenhanded and objective summary of the known facts, as well as the science making sence of those. (Actually I was wrong on two points: It was the State Department, not the EPA, that published that report. And I should have referred to "science in the report", not "a scientific report".


(1) I would have thought that some organizations within NASA are part of the scientific community. Therefore you make a distinction without a difference when you suggest "He was (and is) free to leave NASA and take a position in the academic world".

(2) I respectfully suggest that in this paragraph, you are taking a political position you don't really believe in as a principle. To see why I believe this, consider a hypothetical case where the science plays in the same direction and the politics play the opposite way. For example, what if an economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes that the minimum wage does more harm than good to low-skill workers (a fairly uncontroversial position among economist.) President Gebhardt appoints a press secretary to the BLS who submits the economist to government message discipline. Which of the following choices best describes your reaction?

(2a) Boy those Democrats really are doctrinaire dorks!
(2b) Huh, they sure put this renitent economist guy in his place. I like it, that's leadership!

Thomas,

I had resolved to give up on A2K because most everything interesting had already been said, and the overall quality of the discorse appears to be winding down. You are confounding my purpose here.


NASA employees are civil servants, protected and restricted by our Civil Service law that does indeed restrict their public political activity. Hansen is subject to this law. I acknowledged that his case was arguable because of the scientific aspect of his interest. However the political component of both it and his obvious purpose is also undeniable. Sean O'Keefe, the NASA Director (and a close friend) was well within his rights and, indeed responsibility. to restrain him. It is noteworthy that this restraint was not applied until after Hansen had made numerous public comments and had moved on, past science to political advocacty.

In the hypothetical case you have given me, I would choose a synthesis of 2a and 2b. I would acknowledge the lawfulness of the suppression, if the right thinking government economist was indeed engaging in political advocacy, and do my best to get a better president than poor old Dick Gebhardt. You, of course, may doubt my sincerity in this, and I cannot guarantee my hypothetical freedom from hypocrisy either. -- However you asked the damn question: that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

I'd say I'm sorry, but that would be a lie.

Translation: my boys are getting the crap kicked out of them these days, and it is much harder to play defense than offense, so I'm taking my ball home...

Of course, this is merely more low-quality discourse, and will summarily be either ridiculed or ignored.

Cycloptichorn

Please don't. You're making the most sense of all the posters on this thread.