Lovley’s day for a climate bunfight - November 26, 2008
There’s nothing like a good climate change-denial article to get the internet all riled up, and boy has Erika Lovley done some riling.
She’s penned not one but two articles for the right-leaning Politico newspaper, which are being torn to shreds as we speak.
The one generating most ire is the frankly spectacular ‘Scientists urge caution on global warming’. This claims there is “a growing accumulation of global cooling science and other findings that could signal that the science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation”.
David Roberts on the Gristmill blog calls Lovley’s pieces, “two of the most jaw-droppingly moronic stories I've ever seen”. The version of his story on the Huffington Post website comes with the headline, “Politico Reporter Erika Lovley Embarrasses Politico, Self, Profession of Journalism, Humanity”.
You know this isn't going to end well for her don't you?
In by far the most sensible two lines of her first piece, Lovley writes:
The National Academy of Sciences and most major scientific bodies agree that global warming is caused by man-made carbon emissions. But a small, growing number of scientists, including [Weather Channel co-founder Joseph] D’Aleo, are questioning how quickly the warming is happening and whether humans are actually the leading cause.
...
More than 31,000 scientists across the world have signed the Global Warming Petition Project, a declaration started by a group of American scientists that states man’s impact on climate change can’t be reasonably proven.
Roberts notes, “The most notable feature of this "growing accumulation of global cooling science" is that Lovley doesn't cite a single piece of it. Seriously. Not one.”
Now that’s a little unfair. Lovley does note that:
... D’Aleo reported in the 2009 Old Farmer’s Almanac that the U.S. annual mean temperature has fluctuated for decades and has only risen 0.21 degrees since 1930 — which he says is caused by fluctuating solar activity levels and ocean temperatures, not carbon emissions.
Over to Joseph Romm on the Climate Progress blog [Link now fixed, sorry.]:
Here’s where the Politico jumps the shark into the territory best left to The Onion. The story actually builds its case around D’Aleo’s article in that well-known, highly credible, peer-reviewed scientific climate journal, The 2009 Old Farmer’s Almanac.You can’t make this stuff up. Well, maybe you can’t, but deniers can. They can make stuff up, print it in places like the Almanac ...
The second of Lovley’s pieces is so bizarre it really might be a spoof. In it she looks as ‘The Gore Effect’:
The so-called Gore Effect happens when a global warming-related event, or appearance by the former vice president and climate change crusader, Al Gore, is marked by exceedingly cold weather or unseasonably winter weather.
...
While there’s no scientific proof that The Gore Effect is anything more than a humorous coincidence, some climate skeptics say it may offer a snapshot of proof that the planet isn’t warming as quickly as some climate change advocates say.
Over to Steve Benen on the Washington Monthly blog:
The second piece -- same publication, same writer, same topic -- is even more insulting.
...
For crying out loud. A few global warming deniers think cold weather undermines climate change, and the Politico feels comfortable telling readers that snowstorms "may offer a snapshot of proof"? Seriously?
I actually feel sorry for Lovley now...
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“Scientists” and the media - The Way Things Break
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Comments
Your hypocrisy will soon be on full display when you cite storms and heat waves and other weather as proof of global warming. Trying to play it both ways is going to get you in the end.
Posted by: Rick | November 26, 2008 03:57 PM
Sunspot faculae absense couples to historical global cooling: Oort 1010-1050, Wolf 1280-1340, Spörer 1420-1570, Maunder 1645-1715 and Dalton 1790-1820 Minima. The Medieval Maximim 1100-1250 enjoyed vigorous sunspot and faculae activity - as has 1975-2005. Projected sunspot activity
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict_l.gif
is empirical faery dust given a record string of zero sunspot days. The Carbon Tax on Everything and its carbon credit arbitrageur Al Gore are bunko artists. Expect early and long winters with cool short growing seasons. The Green Revolution will fail and a billion marginal humans will die.
Posted by: Uncle Al | November 26, 2008 04:36 PM
Well recently, even the Royal Society of London, the 350 year old United Kingdom National Academy of Science says that glaciations were casued by the sun. They write on their website “It is true, that the fluctuations in temperatures that caused the ice ages were caused by changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun which, in turn, drove changes in levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is backed up by data from ice cores which show that rises in temperature came first, and were then followed by rises in concentrations of carbon dioxide up to several hundred years later.” That is straight cut and paste.
There truly is a growing number of scientists who say that global warming is not caused by humans. So you had better get Cap & Trade pushed through now, before the tide turns. Otherwise you'll miss the true goal of all of this, to make money...I mean to save the planet.
Posted by: Ken | November 27, 2008 08:58 PM
I am a weather scientist, and based on my analysis of the latest numbers, I think we are in the start of global cooling period, perhaps lasting 50 years.
Posted by: Bart V | November 27, 2008 11:25 PM
The Gore Effect? Exceeding cold weather when Gore raises his head or opens his mouth? Hmmmm... there maybe something in that - watching the snowfall in Brittan and Europe in November.
Posted by: Richard | November 28, 2008 04:33 AM