Eric Steig, the author of the recent Antarctic is now warming paper, put this in his comment thread over at real climate. I love how he pretends to not have an opinion on the politics.
[Response: Mike. Thanks for your thoughts. We don’t have much to say here about taxes vs. cap and trade, etc., because we’re scientists, not economists. I will say that I think this is a really difficult problem, and solving it is going to involve ideological clashes about *how* to solve it. That’s inevitable. We’re seeing it right now in a small way with the debate in congress and the senate over Obama’s stimulus package. I have no reason to doubt that opinions on both sides of the aisle are sincere, and that the vast majority want to do what is right. My own inclination is to agree with you on taxes vs. cap-and-trade, but I don’t know. There are a lot of problems that will arise with either one. But that’s not a reason to sit idly buy. My advice is stop reading about the “debate” because there isn’t one. Instead, get involved in the policy debate. Help the world figure out what to do.
As for your not being able to tell “which side is right and which side is wrong” in the global warming debate, consider this: When you go to the dentist, and he tells you to put fluoride on your kids teeth, do you do it? If not, why not? The reason some people don’t is that they live in a world where dentists are part of a vast conspiracy to poison our kids minds, or at the very least are complete idiots. Me, I live on a planet where dentists actually want to help me and my kids have healthy teeth. Maybe I’m wrong, and the members of the National Academy of Sciences, the leadership of the American Geophysical Union, etc. are all deluded, and the people that publish papers in professional scientific journals are frauds, and I make up data and enter it into my computer in my sleep while preparing my work for publication. On the other hand, maybe the money groups like Heartland Institute and the folks they list as part of their personnel are influenced by the money they get from Exxon Mobil. If you care about your kids, you probably need to think this out, and then go and make your voice heard on the right solution (either buy a Hummer, or get involved in efforts to get the right solution (carbon taxes, carbon trading, whatever) to happen.–eric]
His coauthor Mann was the lead author on a 2008 hockey stick paper which in my opinion was deliberately in error, something anyone who can do a bit of math realizes right away. He really exposed his leftist tendencies at the end though(either buy a Hummer, or get involved in efforts to get the right solution (carbon taxes, carbon trading, whatever) to happen.–eric]
His concept that there’s nothing to discuss is asinine on a good day and a lie if you are honest. There are over 31,000 scientists who disagree directly and 650 who just presented their case to congress. I was willing to look openly at his paper but when he promotes false information in a public setting the way he does here and blocks my request for data, I think less of him than I care to express.
He then pulls the biggest piece of bull and claims Exon mobile, any scientist who disagrees is employed by oil. Horse shit sir. Naming a few government agencies who need this issue to keep their funding as though they would somehow be unbiased then followed by the claim of consensus, it is bogus in an extreme. How can there be consensus if disagreement is cut from the discussion? I don’t even care a whit if the antarctic is warming. It is nothing far left extremism no longer hidden behind the surface, I’m guessing that when this data is released it will be another case of the scientists believing the ends justify the means, we’ll find a pile of it underneath.