Denialism

Global warming crankery from co-founder of the weather channel

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by

MarkH
in ,

Just watching CNN, and saw them mindlessly parrot the latest rant from a crank. In this instance it’s the founder of the weather channel John Coleman, now a San Diego meteorologist, who peels off a doozy.

It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motivesmanipulated long term scientific data to create an allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the “research” to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.

Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them, then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild “scientific” scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda. Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmentally conscientious citizens. Only one reporter at ABC has been allowed to counter the Global Warming frenzy with one 15 minute documentary segment.
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I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismissal of counter arguments by the high priest of Global Warming.

Ahhh, that is some fine crankery. I speak as a connoisseur. We have a conspiracy theory that involves, well, everybody. I’m really impressed. Not only do we have every climate scientist lying, and their “friends in government” steering research grants their way (he doesn’t know how grants are awarded clearly), but he manages to pull in every single media organization short of Fox news and Governor Schwarzenegger! I think I even detect a little bit of the Galileo gambit mixed with Gore-derangement syndrome in that last bit.

Why are we listening to this nonsense? CNN might as well broadcast an editorial from a man convinced the FBI put a chip in his brain (or an intelligent design advocate – same arguments). I think we’ve got to break out the tinfoil hats for this guy.
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Comments

  1. Brendan S

    I know this is just going to invite GW denialists in to preach, but…. What exactly does anyone gain from lying about Global Warming happening?

    Now, I can SEE the money in denying GW. If there’s no Global Warming, then businesses and Industry don’t have to pay a bunch more money to make their stuff and be green. They can just spit out any old bile and sludge into the ecosystem and not care. SO I can see where there’s big money in convincing people that GW isn’t happening.

    I just don’t see where personal gain comes in from pretending like there’s GW if there isn’t.

    (Yes, I know GW is a fact, and the issue is the cause. I’m just speaking lazily.)

    Reply
  2. factician

    Brendan,

    The standard narrative is that scientists are in it for the lucrative research grants (you know, cause there aren’t any *real* things to study that we could get those grants for). If you’re involved in science in any way, you’ll know how ludicrous this is. Based on skill, work hours and level of education, scientists are (one of?) the poorest paid professions out there. If we were in it for the money, we’d have to be profoundly stupid. If I were to take one of these McKinsey business consultant fliers that I’m constantly getting, I could literally quadruple my income overnight *and* get to work fewer hours.

    Reply
  3. factician

    Mark,

    I think the day isn’t far off when CNN starts employing foil hat-wearing lunatics who claim they have chips in their brain. I think Glenn Beck is just one baby step from being just such a loony.

    Reply
  4. John McKay

    Why are so many television “meteorologists” climate change denialists? They’re getting to be as much of a stereotype as electrical engineer creationists.

    Reply
  5. Avenel

    John Coleman is the worst weatherman in San Diego. I won’t watch KUSI news just to avoid him.

    Reply
  6. Suricou Raven

    Is he actually a meteorologist? I thought he was just a presenter – someone who presents the real meteorologists’ predictions in a quick and convenient format anyone can understand.

    Reply
  7. decrepitoldfool

    I have commenters on my blog who absolutely believe that bit about “lucrative grants” to study global warming. Seems there’s no way to pry that idea out of their heads, and the wording is exactly the same so it’s a manufactured talking point from somewhere they find credible (meaning politically sympathetic).

    Reply
  8. ilya zlatkovsky

    You’re right Mark, that is a juicy conspiracy theory. When an author calls a group “dastardly”, can the rest of what the author writes be considered serious. I thought that “dastardly” was a term reserved for the actions of Wile E Coyote.

    Reply
  9. Dan

    I just hope you have that paper that you were writing done. You know what happens any time you touch this subject. 🙂

    Reply
  10. Herb

    Didn’t Senator Inhofe claim that climate change was a ploy by the Weather Channel to make money? It’s a crankery nexus!

    Reply
  11. Bronze Dog

    Sorry, ilya, but to be dastardly, you have to have a handlebar mustache and twirl it when you plot or brag.

    Reply
  12. Ex-drone

    Coleman has got to shut up. This conspiracy is balancing on a knife edge. It’s not easy to keep all these scientists, environmentalists, politicians and journalists in line. One TV weatherman can’t keep his mouth closed, and all this laundered research money will dry up. Shut it, Dude.

    Reply
  13. BrianR

    Perhaps there’s a chance if CNN airs the looniest stuff that it will get noticed as such by the general public … hmmm, on second thought.

    Reply
  14. DLC

    John McKay :

    Why are so many television “meteorologists” climate change denialists? They’re getting to be as much of a stereotype as electrical engineer creationists.

    Okay, I confess that I don’t read creationist blogs or websites, so could you enlighten me as to Electrical Engineers and IDiocy ? I know a few EEs and most of them are relatively sane and rational people, aside from the odd Babylon-5 Denier.

    Reply
  15. blf

    What exactly does anyone gain from lying about Global Warming happening?

    Some people like to be noticed? (Or at least think they would like to be noticed.) Ignoring that speculative guess, I wonder if it’s not so much a “gain” from the denialism, but fear of the imagined responses. To wit, some people seem to assume dealing with AGW and its consequences means no cars, no flying, dozens of noisy wind-generators on every house, no heating in the winter, and on and on and on, a rather dismal medieval-ish world. If that were true, or even close to true, then one response would be to deny the “cause”–AGW. There’s big gaps in logic with such a response, but it seems to me something along those lines is what’s driving a noticeable number of denialists.

    Now, I can SEE the money in denying GW. If there’s no Global Warming, then businesses and Industry don’t have to pay a bunch more money to make their stuff and be green.

    Yep, this is another form of the above speculation: Fear of the imagined responses to AGW.

    One of the many flaws in the idea “businesses and Industry don’t have to pay a bunch more money to make their stuff” is that it overlooks new product opportunities (e.g., the stuff and services to retrofit existing facilities). And it also presumes processes don’t evolve and change. (In some cases they don’t; e.g., cement manufacture is a very mature process and also a large emitter of GHGs.)

    Another flaw with that idea is it overlooks improved efficency: Improved efficiency can cut costs (e.g., if you burn less fuel to make the same amount of stuff, the costs of making that stuff are, naively, less, and you are, almost by definition, emitting fewer GHGs). Of course, it’s not always that simple; as one example, the costs of improving the efficency may swamp any savings.

    It some cases it can be that simple: CFL lighting, for instance, is much more efficient, and lasts much longer, than incandescent lightbulbs. The savings made by not having to replace bulbs so often, and by using less electricity, easily covers the higher initial purchase price.

    (I can say that from personal experience: I’ve been using CFLs essentially exclusively for over 10 years now (I calculate my oldest CFLs are c.17 years old), and have not had to replace any (yet!). Ten-plus years of using small-wattage bulbs adds up to a lot less electricity compared to ten-plus years of higher-wattage bulbs (the amount of light produced is about the same). It’s a no-brainer.)

    Another example of a evolved product is the astonishing demand for CFC-free refrigerators, esp. here in Europe. (I don’t know what the situation is now in the States, but the USA used to lag behind Europe by a wide margin in CFC-free refrigerator availability (and demand?).) CFC refrigerators disappeared almost overnight throughout Europe. Not because of regulation at the time, but because people simply didn’t want them. The newer CFC-free units cost about the same, were more efficient with better insulation, and didn’t contain CFCs (hence helping to deal with the ozone hole problem). Another no-brainer. (What this has caused is a major headache in how to dispose of all the CFCs in the older, discarded/replaced units. Which is yet another new industury; i.e., a potential gain (source of profit).)

    CFLs and CFC-free refrigerators are both examples of new(-ish) products whose demand is driven, in part, by rational responses to AGW and other environmental concerns. That is, there’s an example of gaining from dealing with (not denying?) AGW et al.

    Yet another flaw with “businesses and Industry don’t have to pay a bunch more money to make their stuff” is it overlooks dealing the consequences of AGW. More frequent extreme weather events, flooding, rising sea levels, et al., will (are) raising costs.

    Reply
  16. Alan Kellogg

    John Coleman? Our John Coleman? The John Coleman at KUSI? Aaahhh…yeah!

    And bad guys stole The Weather Channel from him.

    Mike Ambrose has more brain cells, and he’s dead.

    Reply
  17. davidp

    Sadly, some people believe this stuff – I just read ten favorable comments at http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/245945.php

    Reply
  18. Dr. Francis T. Manns. P.Geo. (Ontario)

    Argumentum ad hominem weakens your case. I only believe the people who speak on the topic, not about the ‘man’.

    Reply
  19. Boris

    Dr. Manns is right, Coleman’s argument is just an ad hominem. If he had a case, calling working scientists scam artists would certainly weaken it.

    Reply
  20. Sniderman

    Why are so many television “meteorologists” climate change denialists? They’re getting to be as much of a stereotype as electrical engineer creationists.

    I am a tv met… and I think that many of my colleagues who are terribly smart in the ways of weather (that is day-to-day, not long-range stuff, i.e. climatology) poo-poo GW since the day-to-day models can’t always get it right.

    Within 4-7 days out, many of our trusted computer forecast tools printout a forecast curved and weighted toward climatological norms, rather than the weather with increasing time.

    There are plenty of weather tools that DON’T do that, but they’re not as easy to read.

    Point here… is that the tools we use to predict weather aren’t he same type of models used to predict long-term climate change. (Obvious to readers here, I hope).

    But, for many of my colleagues… one model is as good as the next (and many times, they all suck). And if the weather models can’t make good on the weather in 7 days, how the hell can it be right for 100 years from now?

    I think that is truly the core issue for TV mets who oppose GW.

    The problem is they don’t entirely understand what they’re arguing. I’m fairly certain the forecast data I look at each day aren’t predicting CO2 emissions!
    —
    and WRT to Coleman, if every scientist is on the take, tell me how to sign up. I have to buy the kids some big toys this year.

    I guess he’s not sleeping with Heidi Cullen.

    Reply
  21. Suricou Raven

    On the electrical engineers: It comes from various lists of IDer scientists produced by the Discovery Institute, and of YECs produced by the AiG group. They produce very long lists of qualified scientists who support their theories – but they have very loose definitions of ‘qualified’ and ‘scientist.’ They make no distinction between fields, so if you flick through the DI list you find few biologists. But you do find a lot of everything else that could be considered vaguely scientific – they have even been known to include students. They particually like engineers from any discipline. But drawing their pool of supporters from as wide a range as possible, they can give the appearance of more widespread support than they would get if they merely looked at people who understand biology.

    I have yet to hear of a single ID proponent who isn’t a theist of some type – almost all Christians, but it does have a following among Turkish Muslims too.

    Reply
  22. Pieter B

    The problem is they don’t entirely understand what they’re arguing.

    Write on the blackboard 100 times: “Weather is not climate, climate is not weather.”

    @ Suricou Raven: I have seldom encountered a UFO nut who did not describe himself as “an engineer.”

    Reply
  23. Jim

    Does anyone here know of a place where I can find a model for climate change based on zero human activity? I’m looking for a baseline based mainly on solar activity so we know exactly what amount of warming can be attributed to man and what can’t.

    “Earth In The Balance” really let me down with bad predictions and I felt embarassed for Gore when he showed that absurdly truncated graph (all I do is evaluate nuclear core graphical data) which misled CO2 vs Temp, so please send me somewhere more sophisticated.

    Reply
  24. Jim

    I just read all the comments and no one answered the initial question. I like this blog and consider the authors and those who post to be smart, so I’m a bit let down.

    Brendan, the reason why so many people go out of their way to find flaws in the global warming argument is the major push to curb it can be taken straight out of the Democratic Party’s platform since the 1930’s. In other words, higher taxes and fees, more regulations and restrictions on business. It’s the political battle that provides the motive for propagandists on both sides.

    Cold War Europe showed us the answer to the capitalism vs socialism argument. The left needed a new way to package their agenda. The environmental movement became the new home of socialism.

    Those on the right will resist the advancement of that agenda because they feel their political opponents are using shotty science as a propaganda campaign for political gain. If you believe the reason is all the Republicans are bought and paid for by the oil companies, you’re fooling yourself. It has a lot more to do with free market vs government managed/controlled economics.

    That’s the battleground and that’s the motive for someone to lie about global warming.

    Reply
  25. Tyler DiPietro

    “Cold War Europe showed us the answer to the capitalism vs socialism argument. The left needed a new way to package their agenda. The environmental movement became the new home of socialism.”

    So essentially, the engine of AGW denialist crankery is abject conspiracy mongering? Who would’ve guessed?!

    Reply
  26. Ted

    Cold War Europe showed us the answer to the capitalism vs socialism argument. The left needed a new way to package their agenda. The environmental movement became the new home of socialism.

    Hey, he invoked the capitalism vs. socialism canard. Why isn’t there some Gowdinian-like law invoked here? (Self-interest ALWAYS morally trumps group interests without resort to mitigation. Because all group interests, even those aiding individual survival, are Stalinist.)

    Reply

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