Thursday 24 January 2013

Clearly Andrew Bolt has missed a few things

I was browsing conservative media sites the other day, as I sometimes do, and came across this article on Andrew Bolt's blog. Andrew, for those who don't know, is one of Australia's most widely read journalists and prominent climate skeptics. I came across this curious post -


How dumb is warmist Friedman?

Tuesday, December, 25, 2012, (7:14am)

Thomas Friedman savages the Republicans as stupid, but for true stupidity readers should check out ... Thomas Friedman:

But if Republicans continue to be led around by, and live in fear of, a base that denies global warming after Hurricane Sandy and refuses to ban assault weapons after Sandy Hook — a base that would rather see every American’s taxes rise rather than increase taxes on millionaires — the party has no future. It can’t win with a base that is at war with math, physics, human biology, economics and common-sense gun laws all at the same time.
What makes Friedman’s brand of stupidity worse than most is that it is protected by the impregnable smugness of the group-thinking elite. Friedman would not even suspect he’d made an error or feel the slightest wish to check whether the comfortable pieties he repeats are well-founded. Why take the risk of becoming unpopular by advancing an unfashionable truth?

Fact: anyone who claims most sceptics are “deniers” of “global warming” are plainly fools or liars. None of the sceptics I know doubt at all that the planet has warmed in the past century. Most would agree man’s emissions are likely to have a warming influence. Friedman’s language suggest he simply does not understand the position held by those he so casually damns as stupid.

Is there anything more stupid than a man contradicting an argument he doesn’t even trouble himself to understand?

Well, yes. It’s a New York Times columnist who then claims Hurricane Sandy - actually just a storm at landfall - is proof of catastrophic man-made warming. That is a position not one in 10 warmist scientists would endorse, yet Friedman advances it as his ultimate proof of the idiocy of everyone else.

My God, is this man stupid



My eyes nearly jumped out of my skull when I saw the words 'Fact: anyone who claims most sceptics are “deniers” of “global warming” are plainly fools or liars. None of the sceptics I know doubt at all that the planet has warmed in the past century.'

Please Andrew, allow me to put you right!

“Those same people don’t say that when we have cold weather, like if there’s a cold snap, so they’re not being consistent. I don’t think we can say which direction the planet is going based on a few events one way or the other” - Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado)

“Look at the patterns. It gets cold, it gets warmer, it gets colder, gets warmer. God is still up there, and I think it’ll continue in the future” - Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma)

"I believe the earth gets warmer, and I also believe the earth gets cooler, and I think history points out that it does that and that the idea that man through the production of CO2 which is a trace gas in the atmosphere and the manmade part of that trace gas is itself a trace gas is somehow responsible for climate change is, I think, just patently absurd when you consider all of the other factors, El Nino, La Nina, sunspots, you know, moisture in the air" - Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania, and 2008 Republican presidential candidate)

Even more startling than this horde of delusional conservative politicians is the constituents they represent. This poll (http://news.yahoo.com/ap-gfk-poll-science-doubters-world-warming-080143113.html) taken just a month ago shows that a full 30% of Republican voters don't think the world is even warming, and this is still a significant improvement on surveys taken several years ago. The simple truth of it is that the skeptics side of the climate change debate is still widely populated with complete scientific illiterates, including not only everyday voters but its political leaders.
 
I'd advise Andrew Bolt to stick to debating Australian politics. Keep hounding Labor over wasteful spending and empty rhetoric. Steer clear of trying to defend Republicans in the US who are convinced the world is less than 10,000 years old and that universal healthcare is a socialist plot to dismantle the US constitution. While Andrew may be considered very conservative by Australian standards, in America he'd probably be a quite progressive Democrat. I haven't heard him say that Australia should abolish most of its gun laws, or double military spending, or de-fund its equivalent of the Environmental Protection Agency. These are positions which would bring him more in line with your typical Republican congressmen.

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