SubscribeThink Tank Calls Textbook ‘Too Conservative’
From Phoenix, Arizona’s local television station KTAR:
Teacher Defends Controversial Government Textbook
April 10th, 2008
by Bob McClay/KTAR
A New York-based think tank is criticizing a high school textbook as being “too conservative.”
The Center for Inquiry says the book, “American Government,” contains numerous erroneous statements, including one that scientists aren’t sure global warning exists. The center issued a scathing report about the book after a New Jersey high school senior raised concerns about its content.
The book is used in some Arizona high schools, and the state Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Horne, says there’s no reason to pull it from classes.
“The mere fact that a textbook may have a statement that can be argued about doesn’t mean anything because it’s up to the teacher to present the student with a lot of different sides about all kinds of issues,” Horne said.
He added, “I wouild say the claims made for conservative bias are very mild, compared to the liberal bias that I see in most of the textbooks. To the extent it (the book) says that there’s a dispute about global warming, I would say it’s up to the teacher to present the students with the evidence and let the students make up their own minds.”
Washington High School teacher Dan Darrow uses the textbook in his advanced placement government class and says, “To say it has a conservative slant, I think is incorrect.”
Darrow says it is difficult to find a textbook without some sort of bias “because we’re talking about those issues that drive our society, those issues that are important to our society, that get to the fundamental root of who we are as individuals.”
Darrow says he will continue to use the book to prepare students for the advance placement exam “which is what it was written for and what it’s intended for. It gives the basic fundamental ideas of what our government was founded on and what our government is about.”
He plans to talk about the controversy with his students.
“American Government” was written by John Dilulio, a University of Pennsylvania professor, and James Wilson, the Ronald Reagan Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University. The publisher, Houghton Mifflin Co., said it will work with the authors to evaluate the criticism.
Yes, even suggesting that some scientists might doubt global warming is certainly heresy.
From the Center for Inquiry’s spittle-flecked report (pdf file):
ANALYSIS
I. Global Warming
The discussion of global warming contained in Chapter 21 (“Environmental Policy”) suffers from egregious flaws and clear factual errors. The textbook wrongly portrays the settled, firmly-established science of global warming as a product of “activist scientists” and the source of “profound disagreement” within the scientific community. The textbook levels the outrageous charge that global warming “has resulted in a conflict among elites who often base their arguments as much on ideology as on facts.” Astonishingly, the textbook questions whether the greenhouse effect itself “exists at all.”
The textbook’s discussion of the science of global warming is devastatingly inaccurate. As explained below, the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence establishes that global climate change caused by global warming is already underway and requires immediate attention. The international scientific community is united in recognizing the extremely high probability that human generated greenhouse gases, with carbon dioxide as the major offender, are the primary cause of global warming and that this global warming will produce harmful climate change.
The textbook grossly misinforms students about one of most important policy issues facing American government and society.
In its current form, the textbook can only feed the existing ignorance and confusion about global warming. Its factually erroneous treatment of global warming should be corrected immediately.
A. The Textbook Repeatedly Casts Doubt on the Fact of Global Warming
The textbook uniformly misstates the science of global warming. Every passage addressing the issue attempts to cast doubt on the relevant facts and science by inaccurately portraying global warming as a topic of ongoing, heated debate within the scientific community…
Burn this dangerous book!
By the way, this is how the so-called Center For Inquiry describes itself:
A Global Federation Committed to Science, Reason, Free Inquiry, Secularism, and Planetary Ethics
The Center for Inquiry is a daring new concept. Although modern world civilization is based upon the achievements of science and technology, until this time there has been no authoritative and credible voice defending the scientific outlook in examining religion, human values, and the borderlands of science. If the naturalistic outlook is to supplant the ancient mythological narratives of the past, it needs a new institution devoted to its articulation and dramatization to the public. The Center for Inquiry is that institution.
It is to laugh.
Related Articles:
- Frog Deaths Not Related To Global Warming
- Obama To End Big Oil, Start Carbon Credits
- NPR Shocker: Global Warming's Missing Heat
- New Vatican "Social Sins" Include Pollution
- Climate Change To Be Taught In CA Schools
- Global Warming 'Will Kill Thousands' In UK
- Bill Clinton: Have To Slow Down Economy
- NYT Wants More Climate Change Agit-Prop
- 'Climate Change' Hysteric Busts Out Crying
- Sob Story: ABC's Victims Of Climate Change
17 Responses to “Think Tank Calls Textbook ‘Too Conservative’”
Leave a Reply
You must be registered and logged in to post a comment.
April 10th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Wrong is Right, Up is Down and now the fiberals are attempting to silence anyone who even hints that their ‘To Do List’ might be questionable.
Be Afraid, very Afaid - because I think too many in America want to live with their hands out regardless of the freedoms, rights and opportunities they sacrifice to achieve their vision of nirvana. . .
April 10th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
“…scientists aren’t sure global warning exists…”
This is the conservative bias they found? Maybe this textbook isn’t conservative enough.
Evidently this textbook tells the truth about the history of government in this country without lying about the founders being deists, proclaiming FDR as god and doesn’t give Algore his crown as saviour.
April 10th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
I actually have to use that book in AP Government this year. It’s really not all that conservative, but definitely better than the other textbooks we could have used.
April 11th, 2008 at 2:53 am
The problem is that the Global Warmers (the Evil Algore as their leader) are the ones defining what Global Warming is.
Temps up a little bit? Global Warming!
Temps down a little bit? Global Warming!
Too many storms? Global Warming!
Not enough storms? Global warming!
Heck, I used to just think of it as “weather”.
April 11th, 2008 at 7:11 am
The more these things happen, the clearer it becomes that Global Warming is truly the religion of the left.
Those that dare blaspheme Global Warming shall be destroyed.
They’ve even got their own martyrs.
Sound like any other militant religious types we know?
April 11th, 2008 at 8:20 am
There is a difference between Global warming and the claims and concerns of the progressive movement. The average temperature of the plant is not one of those things that is easy to dispute in this day and age. That is where the book is being criticized. Have you recently heard scientists still claiming that the average temperature of the plant is not increasing?
The phrase “activist scientist” does suggest a political agenda since “activist” is a label the right has repeatedly uses to demean experts who disagree with them.
The “Global Warming” controversy I have seen is not over it’s existence but the degree to which human activity is the cause. Most climate scientist agree, but there are still some who dispute this. I think the doubters get a lot of attention and support given their relative size.
The question I tend to ask first is who has and interest in deceiving me. Al Gore has been on this wagon when he was all alone, so chances are he believes it. But even if he doesn’t he is just one fairly wealthy man. Chevron, Kuwait and the Auto industry all have billions at stake and fortunes to spend on PR firms to keep the world using fossil fuels.
Does anyone still believe that smoking does not cause cancer?
But the debate over whether or not man is the cause is a red herring at this point. We know the consequences of runaway warming are devastating. If you are on the railroad tracks and a train is coming, you don’t sit around hoping the train will turn out to be on a second set of tracks a few feet away. You get the heck off the tracks!
-S
April 11th, 2008 at 8:54 am
In addition, the claim that every scientist agrees with Global Warming is both untrue and irrelevant.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/TP38.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L....._consensus
The truth is, a small percentage of scientists believe (or claim to believe) in the Global Warming hoax,and those are the ones that get airtime. And as far as “the majority of scientists” is concerned, let me quote Micheal Chrichton…..
I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.
In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let’s review a few cases.
In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no. In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent “skeptics” around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.
There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the “pellagra germ.” The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory. Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called “Goldberger’s filth parties.” Nobody contracted pellagra. The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light…….
And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy…the list of consensus errors goes on and on.
Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.
But back to our main subject. (Emphasis mine)
April 12th, 2008 at 2:45 am
Red, reread your article. I said ‘The “Global Warming” controversy I have seen is not over it’s existence but the degree to which human activity is the cause. ‘ the wikipedia article you cite says. “Climate scientists AGREE that the global average surface temperature has risen over the last century. Within this general agreement, some individual scientists disagree with the scientific consensus that most of this warming is attributable to human activities.[1]”
So there is no dissent about the warming. However there is some questioning over the DETAILS of the science used to prove we are causing MOST of it.
Second. The opening paragraph says “It should not be interpreted as a list of global warming skeptics. Inclusion is based on specific technical criteria that do not necessarily reflect a broader skepticism toward climate change caused by human activity,”
Your other source is a conservative PR and lobbying group that calls itself a think tank. Just do a bit of reading on it’s members and it’s track record. Heavy ties to Jack Abramoff ( on their board of directors). The laundered money for him, financing lobbying junkets to Asia for him and other lobbyist (no doubt to get around the federal lobbying laws.) etc. I don’t think they have never taken a stand that was not in the interest of Large American Corporate profits and/or a large donor such as Exxon/Mobil. When you read from an NCPPR press release, just think “cigarettes do not cause cancer.”
I truth they approached the tobacco industry to offer those merchants of death some help in the 90’s.
In short, the book critics were on target in this area.
Micheal Chrichton is certainly no epistomologist (really wish I could spell). But a list of examples where consensus was wrong is of little value. At one point we thought the earth was flat. At another the church threatened those to said the earth went around the sun. Scientific consensus does not equal undisputed fact. Is that suppose to be news? There is something worse. Public consensus on a technical area. Under those circumstances you have manipulative PR firms and non-experts who write well influencing thought far more than they should. This is a policy decision that must be made, and the standards are different than being canonized beside the basic laws of physics.
As I said. The problem is that we are lying on the tracks and a train is coming. There is a small group who says the train is not on our tracks, and another that says there is no hope of escaping even if we try to get off the tracks. But the people who see the smoke and hear the rumble, then tell you to keep sunbathing until you are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN the train is about to run you over? Those people are not your friends!
The link between smoking and cancer is consensus. I wonder what percentage of the public still doubts it?
-S
April 12th, 2008 at 6:01 am
@Sojourner - “The average temperature of the plant is not one of those things that is easy to dispute in this day and age.” On the contrary - how do you accurately determine the average temperature of an oblate spheroid with a mean circumference of about 24,000 miles? How many points do you need to sample, over how long a period of time? There are a lot of holes that can be poked in the data if you care to.
Given that, I’ll grant you that what statistics we have indicate an increase in the overall temperature of the planet of something like 0.1 C per decade. What statistics we have also indicate that the Twentieth Century had an unusually mild climate, historically speaking. The weather we’ve been seeing the past few years is much more like what it was before 1901. Add to that the fact that what statistics we have indicate a comparable increase in the temperatures on Mars and Jupiter, and what conclusion seems most reasonable?
The whole “Global warming disaster” scenario as exemplified by Mr. Gore is entirely driven by the assumption that human activity is causing it. This is a dubious assumption at best, but I’ve seen similar assumptions take root in people whose primary education in science came from Star Trek, i.e. people who don’t really understand the complexities of a non-linear system like the climate on our planet. It does make a better story to run screaming that the sky is falling and we all need to drop everything and run for cover, but what makes a better story is, perhaps, not the best indicator of how public policy should be set.
April 13th, 2008 at 3:13 am
Wow Diane,
You really have a gift for conciseness and clarity. Let me apologies in advance if my response is lacking in those areas.
I think the most important issues are in your final paragraph. To dismiss the notion of anhuman-caused global warming as ‘dubious’ is strong given the large percentage of climate scientists who have expressed support for it and the number of pier-reviewed papers suggesting it is a likely outcome. We can argue whether the chances are 50% or 99%, but the key is that this is a matter, as you point out, of public policy, and therefore the decision is a question of risk analysis.
As I said, we are on the railroad tracks and a train is coming. We can debate if there is a track beside us (50/50 chance), or 2 sets on either side, (20% chance) but sitting on our bottoms enjoying the sun because there are still a few people who have reason to believe it might not be on our track is not the proper POLICY response. We know the consensus may be wrong, (chances are it is not.) but even if the odds are 20% we would be stupid to sit on the tracks waiting for evidence that will make all the skeptics happy.
This debate is a drift away from responsible policy analysis. It is part of the tactic used by the tobacco companies and other powerful institutions to resist decisions that are in the public interest but not in theirs- Bog people down in a technical debate and keep paying a few guys to say “smoking does not cause cancer”, “the evidence is inconclusive”, “We need better research”, “It hasn’t really been proven”…
What some Star Trek fan believes is not the point. The point is that though there is some doubt, the experts make it clear that there is a high likelihood of a problem. Policy is about making decisions when the outcomes are not certain.
The .1 degree increase you talk about is true, but it is an average. The acceleration in temperature is more important. the temperature increased .2 C for the first half of the century and nearly that much every DECADE in the last 30 years.
Temperature charts show a recurring cycle, but also a longer trend. We may be at the same temp as we were on the last cycle, but this time, but we have seen ice shelfs that are thousands of years old collapse into the sea and we are looking at a greener Greenland than anyone seems to recall.
Yes you can debate sample sizes and techniques, it is a big planet, but statistics are not always intuitive. Sample sizes can be smaller than you think. We have a big country, yet major national surveys usually poll only 1000 to 1,400 people because there is little statistical improvement to be had beyond that size when dealing with very large populations. Weather patterns are a bit more chaotic and less understood than the US population, but I don’t think it is as tough as it may seem at first glance.
-S
April 13th, 2008 at 4:31 am
Anyone here who believes the man-made global warming hoax, even if just for the sake of discussion I except the premise that the Earth is warming at all, please just answer a couple of questions for me.
(1) What caused and ended the ice ages?
(2) Why is the temperature of Mars, Jupiter and even Pluto rising also?
You answer these questions and convince me that as a result of man living on Earth these things took place and I’ll donate my entire 401K to Al Gore!
Also, anyone who thinks that man has so much sway over the natural functions of this great creation we know as Earth, then you should read what A. Cressy Morrison, Former President of the New York Academy of Sciences has written here.
Please, just read at least the first few paragraphs to see the overwhelming complexity, yet simplicity of our creation and who we owe the glory to. It’s eye opening to say the least.
April 13th, 2008 at 5:10 am
Sojourner, “Global Warming: may be occurring but there is very little proof that it is man-made or is at all related to carbon dioxide emissions.
In fact we have no proof whatsoever that it’s anything but natural temperature cyclic activity.
The planet has in fact been warmer in the past - without the aid of man or auto emissions, of course.
Climate scientists “agree” because if they don’t they will be fired and/or will never receive a grant again. It’s like expressing that evolution might not explain all - you are a blasphemer in the church and shall be sent out to pasture.
Colorado State University’s William Gray has expressed this in the past. He (of the annual hurricane forecast fame) has expressed this in the past - he can dispute Global Warming, but his daughter cannot because if she did she would not be hired at any lab and would never receive another grant. Her career would be over for simply questioning whether we have enough data.
Note also that Global Warming is predicated upon climate models - models programmed with an assumption of anthropomorphic warming already built in. Now here’s what gets me - people won’t (with good reason) trust weather models predicting the weather five or more days out yet they’re more than willing to believe similar models predicting doom 10, 20, 30 or more years down the road based on dubious data and model assumptions that are just that.
With a system as complex as the atmosphere it’s impossible to know what to model and to know which variables affect those models. For example, global climate models completely ignore fluctuations in deep sea currents - something Dr. Gray feels is much more significant player in the world’s climate than CO2 levels. Models are only as good as the variables modeled and what the models represent. Architectural models for the World Trade Center took into account what would happen if a fueled 707 were to fly into the building. Alas, they couldn’t account for the effects of a plane that wouldn’t be designed for decades carrying multiples of its fuel capacity being flown into the building on purpose at high speed.
Scientists, alas, are as guilty as anyone else in following the money trail, and the way to guarantee funding is to show how horrible global warming is becoming. Study the opposite and you must be bought and paid for by industry or are just too stupid to know better.
Current global warming forecasts are like taking the rise in gas prices that have occured in the past year and extrapolating them to say 20 years from now gas will be $30/gallon. You just can’t make those assumptions.
We are not lying on the tracks while a train is coming; we are lying on the tracks while being warned of a train coming on tracks that are not even in use.
April 14th, 2008 at 7:24 am
Noiz
I think we all understand that planet temps cycle. without any help from man, but the question is are we making matters worse for ourselves.
1)I will differ to the American Institute of Physics which says that no one knows what caused the Ice Ages, but they are on a 100,000 year cycle. We do believe that the recovery happens when there is an increase in light which sparks a feedback loop in which features CO2 increases and leads to re-warming the planet.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/cycles.htm
(the best part is at the end.)
2) If planets cycle we decide our solar system has 9 planets (counting Pluto) then we would expect some to be getting warmer, some to be cooling and 1 or 2 to stay the same 4 warming sounds about right. Though if sun cycles dominate it could be more.
This has little to do with whether or not we can also influence the cycles though. Events can have multiple causes and contributors.
Bill,
I assume Gray’s daughter a relatively young professor so of course she is going to hurt her reputation if she jumps out against a generally accepted principal without some strong evidence. Claiming there is not enough data, is not evidence at all. It would be received like asserting “All my more experienced colleagus are just too credulous”.
That it is a complexed system only suggests that they might have missed something, but is just as assertion of skepticism and nothing more. As for the underwater flows, it is like saying “Cigarettes cause cancer so I sunbath and eat all the fatty pork I want ” There are many factor that affect the situation. We are responsible for dealing with what you can control.
You may be right about the changing mood in the academic community. It is a long ways from how hostile they were/are about cigarettes. But they grew hostile to the pseudo research because it was becoming clear that it was part of a larger campaign of deception. The bias is reflects the confidence in theory among the scientists.
We know that there are pressures from corporations and from academics. We know that Corporations have billions at stake and their mission in life is not to make you happier or better informed. Academics are not perfect, but they deal in process and attempting to find the truth.
If Clinton were in office we might have to consider that there was some bias against global warming based on a political agenda. But Bush has been by far the worst president in our time at interfering with science to serve his political agenda and the criticism is that he has been PREVENTING science including information in support of Global Warming from coming out.
What is the motive for a Global warming Hoax? Who are the powerful people promoting it? The only people with a motivation to lie are loosing their PR battle after over a decade of bamboozling the public. Even many Auto and energy companies are coming around.
Your thesis that co2 is not the cause of global warming is not a denial of the problem (oncoming train.) just our ability to solve it. You are saying yes it might be coming, but we probably cant get out of the way. and your evidence only says it is very hard to know if we can or not.
-S
April 14th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Sojourner writes… “I think we all understand that planet temps cycle. without any help from man…”
Obviously you don’t because if you and your ilk did this hoax wouldn’t have any legs.
I still haven’t got an answer to my challenge and no doubt never will.
April 14th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Ah, it’s time for the “Bush is the worst President of all time because lines.”
Bush interfering with science to serve his political agenda? Unlike say the left constantly pushing embryonic stem cell research as the future cure for all things that must be paid for with federal dollars despite the fact that embryonic stem cell research has a history of exactly zero successful trials in humans for anything. Yet adult stem cell research, which has yielded positive results, withers on the vine because the left and many in the scientific community have adopted the “embryonic stem cells or nothing” approach to the issue.
No one has been prevented from saying anything. Perhaps the Bush administration asked scientists to rephrase something, but then again if those scientists hadn’t been able to speak up on the issue you wouldn’t even know about it, would you?
What is the motive for a Global Warming hoax? Let’s see, enviros get the SUVs they hate so much off the road. People are forced into the cities and towards mass transit as “city planners” have wanted for decades (the left always hated suburbs.) Corporations are into it now - there’s not much profit in a fifty cent incandescent bulb, but a $6 CFL? Ka-ching! Why are oil companies now supporting global warming treaties? Because there’s huge money to be made in the new carbon credit market! Meanwhile auto companies are thrilled - there’s now a “reason” everyone will “have to” replace their car with a new hybrid, and there’s built-in obsolescence there too - no one is really going to replace the batteries in their hybrid, they’re going to buy a new one. Instead of having ten year used cars on the road, ten year old used cars will be useless. Ka-ching again!
Evidence is showing that CO2 isn’t a causal factor in “global warming” yet that’s what has been drummed into the public’s head for years now. When evidence comes along showing one factor isn’t important, the discussion quickly changes to other topics. Global temperatures down? Must be an anomaly. Ice melting on one side of Antarctica means doom (never mind ice thickness increases elsewhere.) Greenland getting warmer? Never mind the records that show historically it was much warmer there in the past.
The crusaders are like the old Henny Youngman joke about the doctor giving a guy six months to live and when he couldn’t pay his bill, gave him another six months. According to enviros like Ted Danson, we’re now past the point he said would be “too late” to do anything about Global Warming, yet he’s still fighting for people to take action. If it’s “too late,” why?
It just goes on and on.
The bottom line is we have no proof of anthropogenic Global Warming, yet an entire industry has sprung up on the basis of computer models that, frankly, are only as good as the assumptions programmed into them. “The data suggests…” statements are being spread as gospel. All in the name of “science” where science is going to be horrifically discredited when people see in the long term that the forecasted effects just aren’t happening; of course then scientists will claim it’s “because we took action!”
Study and analysis of long term observational trends has been entirely tossed out the window in recent years in favor of computer modeling based on what the modelers’ peers believe to be true. That’s not what I’d call true science.
What is going on now is, as I said before, literally like watching gas prices for a week and using that to extrapolate what gas prices will be in the year 2080. You just can’t do that, but that hasn’t stopped folks from jumping on the political bandwagon because, after all, we’re “protecting the environment.”
Indoctrinate the kids and what parent is going to resist their child in tears because they’ve been shown a picture of a polar bear on an iceberg given a wrong caption and being told if they just change to the more expensive light bulbs, they”ll save the planet. Yeah.
April 14th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Speaking of conservative teaching, Here’s a way all of us can help. Let’s enter every leftist Teacher
“The Ten Worst
Union-Protected Teachers”
“Thanks to outmoded, union-defended employment laws and policies, it can be impossible to fire a bad union-protected teacher. That’s why the Center for Union Facts is going to pay the ten worst union-protected teachers in America $10,000 apiece to get out of the classroom - for good. Dedicated, professional teachers have nothing to fear from this contest (in fact, it’s teachers unions who oppose paying better teachers more money); we’re here to showcase the worst of the worst. Tell us your story below!”
April 15th, 2008 at 4:24 am
Noiz,
I did read your questions and I answered them. Please read again. Note that the first two paragraphs start out ‘1)’ and ‘2)’ in response to your 2 questions. If you think the existence of a cycle disproves global warming you are mistaken. The ocean has a tidal cycle that causes the water to rise and fall, on the ocean there are waves which cause the water to rise and fall. These cycles do not prove that a big battleship going buy will not make the water rise and fall.
Bill we are talking about Global warming now. We can discuss your ideas on stem cell research and whether Bush is the worst of all time or merely the last century some time in the future. The energy and Auto industries DID fund a lot of Global Warming denial groups in the 90’s and still do. Though not as much. Their concern was to keep us from doing anything about it any for as long as possible. Check http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind....._Coalition
This was one of those front organizations. I am sure wikipedia has info on them as well.
Claiming that “the fact that we know, proves it was not being kept secret” makes no sense. It imagines that all attempts to suppress are completely successful and that once suppressed it can never leak out later. There have been several scientists who have complained that they were brow-beaten or threatened if the told the truth. But it was not limited to scientists. Remember General Shinseki? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Shinseki). The four-star General told the truth about troop requirements for invading Iraq. He was out of a job the next day. The budget analyst who was told that if he gave the US Congress the correct numbers for the costs of a pharmacy bill, he would be fired. The list of abuses is long and the abuse has led to a set of statements by American Scientists.
“The integrity of science statement has grown steadily since it was first released in February 2004. Signatories now include 52 Nobel Laureates, 63 National Medal of Science recipients, and almost 200 members of the National Academies of Science. Meanwhile, the new UCS compendium details censorship and political interference in federal science on issues as diverse as air quality, childhood lead poisoning, and prescription drug safety.”
You also said that Greenland has been warmer in the past, but. when? 12,000 years ago? and what are you trying to imply with this? That the earth cycles? Granted, but we have to deal with our part.
In your explanations you seem to put the cart before the horse- Why do environmentalist hate SUV? Because they are wasteful, polluting and could increase global warming.
Where I am CFL light-bulbs are 75 cents. and ask your self how much you spend on lightbulbs in a year. Then ask yourself how much you spend on gas. No comparison. same with pollution credits vs $4 a gallon gas in the future.
Hybrid batteries are expensive now, but their price will drop as the demand for high performance batteries grows, look at laptop batteries. You might pass buying a new battery for a on a beat-up Prius, but if your hybrid Lexus has been well cared for you will buy a replacement battery. It becomes the transmission of the hybrid vehicles.
Long term observation trends are not dead in climate science. But as a science becomes better understood it tends to move towards modeling. And like the Engineer who builds a building on computer models he might be wrong, but generally he is not. We are not positive that we are experienceing co2 based warming, but it is very likely.
You seem so certain it is not possible to get off the tracks and angry at those who try. You take defeatism to a new level, and to what benefit?
Ted Danson while funny may not be the most learned scholar on the subject of global warming. That said, I am amazed to see you completely dismiss what you know is the prospective of most scientist in the field and cling to a denial based on arguments you could make about any causal discussion. It is like smoking and cancer for the new century..