“What a difference three years makes: In 2005, I led the charge against a massive global warming cap-and-trade bill. It was a lonely battle with few GOP members willing to join me on the Senate floor to publicly oppose it.
“Fast forward to June 2008: Not only was I joined by dozens of GOP Senators, but nearly 30% of the Democratic Senators rebelled against their leadership and opposed the Boxer Climate Tax Bill. In the end, Senator Boxer only had at most 35 Democratic Senators willing to vote for final passage on the largest tax bill in U.S. history. The Boxer Climate Tax Bill was so thoroughly disowned by Democratic Leadership that proponents of climate taxes will now be forced to start from scratch next year.
“Republicans were prepared to debate the bill and were ready to offer amendments. But the Democrats did not want to debate, much less vote, on our amendments that were aimed at protecting American families and workers from the devastating economic impacts of this bill. When faced with the inconvenient truth of the bill’s impact on skyrocketing gas prices, it was Democratic Senators who wanted to see this bill die a quick death…
Read more here: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=27000
Dems Running on Empty, in HumanEvents.com, by Sen. James Inhofe (more by this author)
Posted 06/16/2008 ET
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
The politics roll on …
Rudderless was interviewed on 7:30 last night, with O’Brien asking his usual carefully husbanded “toughie” questions, like:
“Why won’t you reduce fuel tax ?”
Rudderless refused to address that one, but he was distinctly uncomfortable.
Completely absent was a question like: “Will the forthcoming carbon tax add 20c/litre to the bowser price ?”
One may be tempted to think that Rudderless vetoed a question like that as the price for his appearance on the program.
The global warming hoax has lost it’s scientific foundation, except for the most rabid Goracle disciples.
If Clinton hadn’t vetoed that bill, petrol would be half the price it is now.
The problem is Ruddimentary, my dear Watson. A 20 cent/litre (13%) carbon tax will have minimal impact because we have just digested a 70% increase in just the last year. It will take a much larger increase to seriously reduce emissions and that will boost food prices, supply chain transport costs, and inflation to the point where additional rises in interest rates will put ALL of Rudd’s swing voters out backwards.
It would be very, very interesting to see an analysis of household debt exposure by voting patterns. Especially of swing voters in electorates that recently changed hands.
And he only has another 28 months before he MUST hold another election.
Welcome to reality, Kevvy.
While James Inhofe may be feeling less lonely … there is still a long way to go. Consider this:
“Why Your “Skeptical” Comment on Climate Change Got Deleted
Alex Steffen
June 16, 2008 3:49 PM
Climate “skepticism” is not a morally defensible position. The debate is over, and it’s been over for quite some time, especially on this blog.
We will delete comments which deny the absolutely overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, just as we would delete comments which questioned the reality of the Holocaust or the equal mental capacities and worth of human beings of different ethnic groups. Such “debates” are merely the morally indefensible trying to cover itself in the cloth of intellectual tolerance.
So, if you’re a climate skeptic, you may be well-intentioned and you’re certainly welcome to your opinion, but we’re not interested.
Thanks.
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008132.html
from Brian Valentine:
“The important issue is the realm to which Mr. Steffen applies moral or ethical considerations.
Certainly not all scientific issues have been resolved and it would be difficult to understand, for example, how morality would influence a resolution of the apparent deficiency in the expected number of electron neutrinos from the Sun (given the standard model fusion based on a carbon cycle)..
In another example, it is known there is possible deficiency of mass in matter if the property of mass is transmitted by a Higgs vector boson … and many other examples.
No one (in their right mind) would claim resolutions to these problems would carry moral (or value) considerations with them.
For some people however this climate issue seems to carry a moral imperative. But the same people stress that the issue is scientific – and can therefore be resolved by purely rational considerations (rather they claim that the issue has already been resolved by such means, despite overwhelming evidence that this is not so).
To what other issues, which reside wholly in the physical world, would these people ascribe a moral imperative, I wonder. I suppose the answer depends on who assigns it such value. I would probably not have such authority, although Albert Gore seems to have such authority, and what is it that makes people accept that?
end comment from Brian.
“A 20 cent/litre (13%) carbon tax will have minimal impact because we have just digested a 70% increase in just the last year.”
That’s true, but its not meant to necessarily reduce fuel use. Its meant to put a cost on emitting – or in econo-twaddle: internalise the externalities.
If there is a 20c/l carbon tax, and everyone pays without reducing fuel consumption, then this just means that there will be a big wad of collected tax to be used for reducing emissions in a more cost effective / more amenable fashion than by reducing petrol use.
This is how emissions trading is supposed to work – it doesnt necessarily reduce consumption (though that may happen), it tries to ensure that any emissions reductions come from least cost / least hassle measures.
Jennifer, one of the hallmarks of the watermelons is their moral vanity.
I generally ask them:
1) what exactly is the moral here ?
(Whitlam once stated at a geological conference that the Native Title Act was highly principled, so I asked him what, exactly, the principle was … Whitlam bridling at his grandest is a truly entertaining sight. He didn’t answer the question, of course)
2) from whence came it, please ? That is, who giveth this moral ?
That’s always enough to have them censor me.
“Higgs vector boson” – wow Jen is a dark horse. I’m impressed.
“The Wall Street Journal aptly noted that environmentalists are “stunned that their global warming agenda is in collapse.” The paper added, “The green groups now look as politically intimidating as the skinny kid on the beach who gets sand kicked in his face.” The paper quoted a political analyst, noting that “this issue is starting to feel like the Hillary health care plan.” ”
You’d laugh, if you didn’t cry. What an apt summary of the situation. People try to get change happening, only to find out that, yes, the business bullies are out there, and will do whatever it takes to defeat a rational appraisal of our situation. It’s not me I worry about so much, it’s my children. We are going to leave them a smoking ruin, because nothing can be allowed to stand in the way of entrenched power and self absorption. Where’s this scary, awful greenie menace, then?
‘Where’s this scary, awful greenie menace, then?’
Telling us we’re going to leave our kids a ‘smoking ruin’ might qualify…
What a beat up. Some blog no-one here has ever heard of doesn’t want to hear from people who have no idea what they are talking about. I’ve got an idea, Jen, start you’re on blog, that’ll show ’em. Oh, you already did.
Actually, it has an Alexa rating of 78,038, so it’s a quite significant blog. Perhaps you should read more widely SJT? You’re spending too much time here. 😉
I have heard a number of variants of possible carbon tax/emissions trading features. A common denominator appears to be a $40 per ton tax.
if this transpires, it would appear to render uneconomic pretty well all the Victorian brown coal power generators. i.e. they will close.
This won’t happen because at the end of the day no government will shut down a State economy. Watching the political gyrations as two irreconcilable objectives crunch together will be rivetting.
By the way, the current solar magnetic field is lower than ever seen before.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/more-signs-of-the-sun-slowing-down/
This may well end up rendering the whole debate ridiculous.
Regarding comment #5
It makes me wonder if they really would delete commentary questioning the holocaust.
Think I’ll check it out.
I’m back. That dude is hillarious.
He wants somebody to challenge his views, but not so much that he is forced to review his inner beliefs.
This alarmist guy (he calls himself “Revere”: named after the famous horseback alarmist – which is a nice touch) is more fair about the climate change stuff.
http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2008/06/why_the_right_wing_attacks_sci.php
After I attacked his scientific basis, instead of deleting me, he moved the topic over here,
http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2008/06/reiterating_the_main_point_of.php
, then soldiered on with his pendantic smearing of Senator Inhoff, The Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, The Cato Institute and any of that ilk (his words).
He even slipped in a jab at Karl Rove (which I don’t understand at all really – since when has Karl been active in the climate change debate?)
Yes it’s an invitation.
SJT I am surprised that you express concern for the future of your kids.
This is a win win situation.
If the AGW theory is wrong, then all that will have happened is that our economy will have taken a battering for nought, and our standard of living would be decimated.
If the AGW theory is right, and all of the ice on the planet has melted, the land currently covered by ice will be ice free, and the increase in land area will be in excess of the area flooded by the rising sea levels. More land to feed the increasing global population. Of course, this will take thousands of hears to happen, so there will be plenty of time for nature to acclimatise to the new environment.
Simple.
Jennifer postings of Brian Valentine’s comment re science and morality was a good idea. However we will have to wait a little while for the results from CERN re actions of the Higgs Vector Boson so for now how we react to the upcoming data with present theory has a marginal effect on morality (well perhaps apart from some intellectual reputations perhaps). However the whole climate change debate is in the public sphere with all its vested interests, outside of science (not neglecting that areas of science can have vested interests). Its how we deal with the science of climate crossing over into the public sphere is where the issue of morality comes in.
Well James – you were talking utter crap so the masked avenger was just telling you so. And if Inhoff is your little mate do try to spell his name properly.
Jennifer,
that posting of the worldchanging is indeed interesting, especially the repartee following your post on it, linking to the analysis of Garnaut’s Heinz Arndt Lecture.
Dissenters, heretics, deniers, are all descriptions of apostostates, those who do not believe the deliberations of the authorities.
The benighted among us confuse this with scepticism over “ideas” not based on empiricism.
For example Arrhennius proposed that ice ages were caused by a reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere which caused a drop in global meant temperature of up to 5 degrees Celsius.
His proof was inverted, he expected others to disprove his hypothesis while not offering any proof of his.
In science when someone frames an hypothesis, the burden of proof falls on the proposer.
In Arrehenius’ case, the demands he made of any objections to his hyopthesis rested on their inability to falsify his assertion.
The late John Wheeler, author of the black hole theory, did the same. He proposed the existence of black holes by proposing they were the physical equivalent of a mathematical naked singularity.
His argument was the fallacy of “argumentum ad ignoratntiam”, which occurs when it is argued thath something must be true, simply because it hasn’t been proved false.
Arrehennius adopted the same position, as have his academic successors in climate science.
It is simply not science.
Waffle on Louis as usual – get back on acid rain and don’t do your usual runner waiting for the thread to expire.
Arrhenius got us into this mess in the first place by claiming that the world’s atmosphere was a greenhouse.
I think it was Gerlich and Tscheuchner who said that a greenhouse was like leaving your car in the sun with the windows up.
That’s sure not how the earth’s atmosphere works.
Luke,
I’ve done my homework on acid rain and you stink with ignorance.
No you haven’t you total charlatan – I want your comprehensive response on that thread. Failure to do so will be taken as admission of sulking defeat.
Luke,
and so you have fallen into the trap.
The proof is your burden, not mine.
My naivety is a great asset when venturing into the lion’s den. Nothing like getting right to the heart of the matter. William H. Connolley the RC comptroller of Wikipedia, is a resident contributor to scienceblog. What are the chances that “Revere” is Will’s part time beard?
Better odds then the world melting.
None – he’s not American. Thanks for smearing.
Any question of physical laws and their application exist quite outside the realm of morality or asthetics or abstraction or any other filter or process that only humans are (sometimes) capable of applying –
the laws of thermodynamics apply to automobiles (and everything else) involving the conversion of heat to work – automoniles have a great impact on society, and most people don’t extrapolate this to conclude, “morality therefore influences the validity of applications of thermodynamics”
Any question of physical laws and their application exist quite outside the realm of morality or asthetics or abstraction or any other filter or process that only humans are (sometimes) capable of applying –
the laws of thermodynamics apply to automobiles (and everything else) involving the conversion of heat to work – automobiles have a great impact on society, and most people don’t extrapolate this to conclude, “morality therefore influences the validity of applications of thermodynamics”
Note: J A Wheeler certainly didn’t “invent” black holes or their theory; in fact deSiiter and Eddington were aware of singularities to Einstein’s field equations, and there are many varieties.
I’m certain Riemann was aware of the singularities in the equations of curvature of (3+1) dimensions.
I don’t think anybody knows what physical entity (if any) these singularities might correspond to; for that matter, I don’t think anybody knows if the solution to these equations exist in the case of a TWO body problem
It seems John Wheeler did, sort of –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackholes
The term black hole to describe this phenomenon dates from the mid-1960s, though its precise origins are unclear. Physicist John Wheeler is widely credited with coining it in his 1967 public lecture Our Universe: the Known and Unknown, as an alternative to the more cumbersome “gravitationally completely collapsed star”. However, Wheeler himself insisted that the term had actually been coined by someone else at the conference and adopted by him as a useful shorthand. The term was also cited in a 1964 letter by Anne Ewing to the AAAS:[11]
Not only are those who question the accepted doctrine akin to Nazis, fascists and holocaust deniers they are now also kidnappers, pederasts and incestuous abusers, according to the Bishop of Stafford
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7430684.stm
The most pious Right Reverend Bishop’s little theatre provides an interesting diversion of public attention away from sexual scandal and the Gracious Anglican Communion, doesn’t it