Joseph Butson

I have presented several posts on the topic of Climate Change, mainly as a skeptic of the herd of activists, politicians, bureaucrats and media types pushing on the string of catastrophic warming of the earth’s climate.

At the leading Canadian blog, Small Dead Animals, a recent post leads to a thoughtful piece by Mike Hulme, an academic from the UK.

My abiding respect for science is equal to thoughtful and open discourse on science. I have excerpted the conclusion of the article and encourage you to read it all.

If only climate change were such a phenomenon and if only science held such an ascendancy over our personal, social and political life and decisions. In fact, in order to make progress about how we manage climate change we have to take science off centre stage.

This is not a comfortable thing to say - either to those scientists who still hold an uncritical view of their privileged enterprise and who relish the status society affords them, or to politicians whose instinct is so often to hide behind the experts when confronted by difficult and genuine policy alternatives.

Two years ago, Tony Blair announced the large, government-backed international climate change conference in Exeter by asking for the conference scientists to “identify what level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is self-evidently too much”.

This is the wrong question to ask of science. Self-evidently dangerous climate change will not emerge from a normal scientific process of truth seeking, although science will gain some insights into the question if it recognises the socially contingent dimensions of a post-normal science. But to proffer such insights, scientists - and politicians - must trade (normal) truth for influence. If scientists want to remain listened to, to bear influence on policy, they must recognise the social limits of their truth seeking and reveal fully the values and beliefs they bring to their scientific activity.

Chink of weakness

Lack of such reflective transparency is the problem with “unstoppable global warming”, and with some other scientific commentators on climate change. Such a perspective also opens a chink of weakness in the authority of the latest IPCC science findings.

What matters about climate change is not whether we can predict the future with some desired level of certainty and accuracy; it is whether we have sufficient foresight, supported by wisdom, to allow our perspective about the future, and our responsibility for it, to be altered. All of us alive today have a stake in the future, and so we should all play a role in generating sufficient, inclusive and imposing knowledge about the future. Climate change is too important to be left to scientists - least of all the normal ones.

As a follow on to my recent post, today the NY Times discussed Al Gore’s approach to climate science within “An Inconvenient Truth.”

I urge the open minded to view “The Great Global Warming Swindle” broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK.

Update:3/11/07 Reason Magazine - November 2004

Update:3/13/07 Shattered Consensus: True State of Global Warming - December 2005

Update:3/14/07 Melanie Phillips responds to the program; as does The Telegraph.

Be careful out there people!

The “so-called” consensus on climate warming can’t stand the heat. The truth is beginning to eke out.

But Professor Paul Reiter, of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, said it was a “sham” given that this list included the names of scientists who disagreed with its findings.

Professor Reiter, an expert in malaria, said his name was removed from an assessment only when he threatened legal action against the panel.

“That is how they make it seem that all the top scientists are agreed,” he said. “It’s not true.”

Gary Calder, a former editor of New Scientist, claims clouds and solar activity are the real reason behind climate change.

“The government’s chief scientific adviser Sir David King is supposed to be the representative of all that is good in British science, so it is disturbing he and the government are ignoring a raft of evidence against the greenhouse effect being the main driver against climate change,” he said.

Philip Stott, emeritus professor of biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, said climate change is too complicated to be caused by just one factor, whether CO2 or clouds.

He said: “The system is too complex to say exactly what the effect of cutting back on CO2 production would be or indeed of continuing to produce CO2.

“It is ridiculous to see politicians arguing over whether they will allow the global temperature to rise by 2c or 3c.”

Something tells me that Al Gore will soon have some ’splainin’ to do considering the inconvenient truths of science!

Update: 10:45 PM CST

Please stay tined for the controversial British Documentary: The Great Global Warning Swindle.

Here follows a post from cbc.ca. It is a comment in the hockey section discussing a recent episode of Coach’s Corner.

I grew up in St. Catharines, Ontario, about 25 miles from Buffalo. I visited Western New York so frequently during those years that Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Lewiston, Youngstown and Orchard Park were as much my community as the rest of the Niagara Peninsula.

I live a thousand miles from there now [in the US] but I visit at least once a year, more if I can. Like most Canadians, I love the game of hockey. I learned the game there and watched the Sabres from the time the team was formed. I, like the author of the post, also feel very close to the people of that part of the world and know the sentiment in the post to be common across the Niagara Frontier.

The post “is what it is” but I appreciate it very much for its sincerity and earnestness. It is also why I hate anti-american rhetoric from smug Canadians.

John Fee

Here in Buffalo, we love Canada. We Love Don Cherry and we love hockey night in Canada. I think we are one of only a few US cities to get CBC on cable and we are truly grateful. My 8-year old son and I watch hockey on Saturday nights and it has been great for us. I have season tickets to the Sabres and we all stand, hold our hands to our hearts and sing O Canada before every game. My father’s family came through Canada before they settled in the US and we love our northern neighbor. As far as I know, we are the only NHL rink in the US to sing the Canadian National Anthem before every game - regardless of which teams are playing. And this is how it should be.
I say all of this because I think you should recognize this. As much as Leafs and Habs fans come down and give us a hard time during the games, we have been your biggest supporters over the years. Now as the Sabres are the best in the NHL, we know that our greatest players are Canadian and we hope that you know that your greatest fans reside in Buffalo! Thanks to the CBC for keeping hockey strong and thanks to Canada!-You friendly neighbors from Buffalo

Posted March 3, 2007 11:25 PM

An excellent example of smear journalism by Canada’s public broadcaster!

Veteran CBC journalist Neil MacDonald, an anti-Zionist and anti-American, celebrates Canada’s other national pastime, bashing the US with a wretchedly negative piece that the anti-war, anit-corporatist left wing of the DNC could call their own.

Forget the strength of the overall economy [also here, here and here] in the US and the strength of the most stable capital markets anywhere, Neil bashes American’s penchant for loving their mortgage tax deductible and materialism. He takes a shot at the cost of the war and the lack of apparent sacrifice by average Americans.

It is as if conspicuous consumption wasn’t the norm in urban and suburban Canada or as if Canadians should not enjoy their success as the counterparty to the world’s most profitable trade relationship and current account surplus.

Time to revoke his Neil’s visa and send him to back home to Montreal where he can cover the Quebec election.

Canada’s real national game features a beauty tonight in the Battle of Alberta!

We live in interesting times. The highest tribute the nation can bestow was recently delivered to an American nearly 40 years after it occurred. Yet it was almost forgotten.

The tribute wasn’t front page news at all. It was buried by all major media outlets. So this is the “now” of my post.

The “then” was a time when students at all levels of schools were taught of individuals whose selflessness and contribution to the nation were nearly without peer. These individuals defined the character of America and Americans. They had struggled against great odds and succeeded. The exploits of these individuals needed to be told, and retold, to generations of Americans to give the country shape.

But in our “now,” school children won’t learn about Bruce Crandall. The students might not ever learn of the Medal of Honor. The students will be taught that “non-binding” resolutions, debated at length in the past few week by the House of Representatives, has been passed by Congress. The media will likely cover the Senate’s debate of a similar resolution.
It isn’t a debate at all. It is a chance for politicians to talk some more about a war that is unpopular, as if war ever is anything other than pure hell. They aren’t going to decide anything and they aren’t even going to affect the progress of the war.

What they should be doing is showing leadership, doing something that will matter 40 years from now. But they will not do anything but pander. They won’t sacrifice or ask anyone to commit themselves to solving the problems of the nation.

Please read about Bruce Crandall and the Medal of Honor and decide if your children or friends or colleagues need to know about more about him. I certainly think so. In no small way do Americans like him matter more than ever.

It isn’t a question of being for a war or against it. My blog is about picking a side especially when it is difficult to do so. But mostly its about being on the side of America and its allies. I am going to tell everyone I know about Bruce Crandall.