From a letter to jonah goldberg at the corner, linked from the always
informative watts up with that?:
to be science something has to be testable and falsifiable. It must produce a predicted data point, interaction or outcome that is unique to the theory and can be verified or falsified. Would you bet your future on the accuracy of day seven of a seven day weather forecast? That is essentially what we are being told by the AGW proponents we absolutely must do without delay.
I agree wholeheartedly that AGW isn't science any more.
I use geological models to predict what will happen while drilling a well, once the measurements deviate from the model, if the measurements appear to be working correctly then I know the model is wrong. The AGW crowd has a model that doesn't predict what is happening now, and
their model is using data from temperature measurements that have bad data in them.
Global warming hysteria is nothing but chartmanship and pigs wanting to take their place
at the trough.
They should go back to doing science. Review the temperature record, make more measurements and come back in ten years.
The actions we should be taking should be rational and should have a different set
of priorities than reducing CO2:
- Energy independence
- prepare for the possibility of peak oil. (total oil production may or may not have peaked,
but the most important one, production in North America has peaked)
- assure cheap energy for the future
- minimize pollution and increase sustainability
Meeting those kind of goals will take planning, foresight and wisdom, and will
not be reached by sticking 300 pages in an already bloated bill at 2 am in the morning.
Unfortunately, I don't think the current government is capable of planning, forsight or
wisdom.
1 comment:
I thought you would like these thoughts....
The hypocrisy of U.S. energy policy
AP
U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is urging Angola to increase its transparency in reporting oil revenue. While it's certainly worthwhile to press emerging oil powers for more accurate reporting, Clinton's very presence in Angola underscores a disturbing irony in our energy policy.
As Robert Rapier points out, too often U.S. policy punishes domestic oil producers while courting foreign ones. U.S. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, for example, warns OPEC not to cut production, even as he's snubbing domestic producers.
Rapier says:
I certainly understand the need to work with other countries to keep the supply chain open, but those policies don't seem to extend to our own country. How about sending Clinton or Chu on a mission to ExxonMobil to figure out how to better work with domestic producers?
The result is that many foreign producers are increasing access to new drilling in waters from which the U.S. has banned drilling for domestic companies. The Russians may soon be able to drill closer to our shores in certain areas than many of our own companies, the American Petroleum Institute warns.
Rapier concludes:
If you think we need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels - and I do - then that's one thing. Adopt policies that encourage this. But don't adopt schizophrenic policies that result in us treating foreign producers better than we do our own domestic industry. The result could be that we will end up buying oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico from Russia, creating jobs for them and advancing their economy - at the expense of our own. And that is simply asinine.
That's why I've argued for a while now that if we're serious about reducing foreign dependence on oil and developing viable alternatives, we need a multi-faceted approach that doesn't deny reality: we're going to need new sources of oil and natural gas while we're developing economical technology for replacing them.
We may never become energy independent, but we can develop a cohesive policy that decreases our foreign dependence and increases an array of alternative fuels. First, though, we have to end our policy hypocrisy.
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