Comments on: Confessions of a Former Environmental Skeptic

By: John McAdams

John McAdams — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 21:21:43 +0000

So you think David Suzuki is a great fellow?

What do you think about this?

Frankly, your conversion proves what Chesterton said:
“When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing — they believe in anything.” Global warming is the new religion.

By: John McAdams

John McAdams — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 21:14:42 +0000

The “evangelical Christians” you are talking about are in fact basically liberals who use religious language, but vote for liberal Democrats, and favor a liberal Democratic agenda.

People are free to call themselves “evangelical” if they want, but any critical observer will notice that the particular ones you are touting are politically liberal.

By: Sharpshooter

Sharpshooter — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 04:37:22 +0000

What a chump, falling for Algore’s claptrap!

By: Jay Davis

Jay Davis — Thu, 26 May 2011 20:29:03 +0000

Michael,
Do you really still believe in AGW? Have you looked at any other evidence other that Al Gore’s? Do you know that CO2 levels FOLLOW temperature (that’s just one small fact)?
I believe you are sceptical about a lot of things, which makes me wonder why the blind belief? What are you getting out of endorsing this? I realise that if global warming were proved false with evidence enough to convince even you, that thousands and probably tens of thousands of people will lose a lot of money. Will you?

By: Robert L Hamilton, Engineer

Robert L Hamilton, Engineer — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 14:11:59 +0000

First, the Physical Facts of the matter: The earth’s atmosphere weighs about 10**19 pounds; at 300 parts per million by volume the CO2 weighs about 5*(10**15) pounds. We add annually about 10**11 pounds of CO2. (This is high school Physics.) Global Warming Perps rely on two graphs and a ‘noncept’ to prove AGW: One of the graphs – MBH98 – was summarily deconstructed and shown to be a fraud; The other – Keeling Curve – requires an annual addition of 10**13 pounds of CO2 which is preposterous. The Greenhouse Noncept requires that a molecule radiating energy does not cool, which is nonsense. (This was proven experimentally in 1909 by Prof. R. W. Wood of Johns Hopkins.) Mr Shermer, I quit reading SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN when you developed your ‘Belief’ and if you need further instruction in high school science please contact me by e-mail. Thanks for your time and Enjoy your Day. DR Robert L Hamilton, Engineer.

By: Eric Reynolds

Eric Reynolds — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 18:39:05 +0000

Mr. Shermer,

Thank you for your temerity in so clearly outlining your “conversion” on this matter. As a leading figure of rational thought, I am sure this will carry weight with the public.

I am also curious. In one of the comments you posted in the body of this article by Ben Haller of Menlo Park, he stated that “It might be worthwhile to devote a little time and introspection to exactly why you stuck to a dangerously irrational point of view for so long.” You address this to a degree by talking about the off putting tactics of enviornmental extremists in the past. However, were you a perfect rational being (I am not implying the existence of such a creature), you would have been able to sepearte the hype and emotion from fact long ago. Indeed, given your position as a leading skeptic and science writer, you’ve had far more access to those doing said research than most. One would think a self descrbided rational skeptic would have been a bit quicker on the uptake.

Please understand, that my intent is in no way to offer judgement here. Instead, I am far more interested in what insight you may have garnered in the past two years since posting this article, specifically as related to the above statement by Mr. Haller. I must assume that you have given this some thought.

Is there any insight you might offer to others wishing to see past personal assumptions and emotional responses, in order to get at the Truth? Also, I wonder if a former fundamentalist christian may have converted to a fundamentalist skeptic, too some degree? And lastly, has this change of mind on such a large issue caused you to rethink your stance in other matters, or was this a one time affair?

Thank you again for your clarity, and for a career devoted to the pursuit of knowledge.

Sincerely,

Eric Reynolds
Rohnert Park, CA

By: R King

R King — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 04:28:04 +0000

As a Canuck, it might be surprising to some that I’m not a huge Suzuki fan, although I used to be. When I heard his comment about deniers being ‘inter-generational criminals’, I heard echoes of my late father in the early stages of dementia. Sadly, the host of the show, Jian Ghomeshi not only didn’t challenge Suzuki, he didn’t ask him to define an appropriate sentence for these ‘deniers’ – gag-orders? Imprisonment? Execution?

By: OFBandG

OFBandG — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 21:34:37 +0000

As someone who has been involved in major environmental causes since the late seventies, and subsequently did graduate work in Environmental Studies at Huxley College of the Environment, I truly enjoy hearing opposing arguments on environmental issues. They are so educational in a theoretical sort of way. If only we could arrive at a place in time where decisions were made based on those arguments. Most of what drove me crazy as a young activist and proponent of conservationist causes was the ease with which people opposed to our position could find “facts” denying, or superseding, our “facts”. It would take us weeks or months to research and reconstruct our presentations in such a way as to overcome these hurdles – and then they would throw something at us from an entirely different direction leaving us flatfooted and fumbling again. Industry and government have staff experts whose task is to accomplish exactly this outcome. Gradually the weight of for and against arguments confuses all but the most dedicated and, as a naturally conservative species, we decide, in the face of confusion, no action is the best action. No action translates into maintenance of the status quo and, thus, the logging, mining, polluting, land filling, or whatever goes ahead. Unfortunately, the perceived cure is to ramp up the message to the heights of exaggeration and rhetoric – an area where industry and government experts show less proficiency – and inflame the passions of the citizenry. Extremism may border on dishonesty but it brings politics into the fray and, ultimately, it is politicians who decide the issues based not on scientific understanding but on their need to be re-elected. I don’t advocate this strategy for every environmental controversy but when stonewalled by powerful organizations in command of superior resources and, in particular, when facing time sensitive decisions, there isn’t much else you can do – except sit by and watch the destruction of something irreplaceable and beyond the ownership of one selfish generation.

With regard to your assessment of David Suzuki: He is a treasure of rational thought and action who has brought commitment, passion, and energy to his role as a leader in the search for truth and wisdom. I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with him once and found he displays all of the qualities listed above whether in conversation with thousands or just a few.

By: Orson Olson

Orson Olson — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 11:10:49 +0000

Tim Flannery is pressured to account for his wildly alarmist predictions (expectations?) by interviewer Andrew Bolt in this excerpt:

Andrew: All that’s lovely, Tim. But I think you need to be held to account for the alarmism that is in part your stock in trade, your shtick, and is responsible for what you now see-the retreat from global warming policies.

Flannery: You want to paint me as an alarmist.

Bolt: You are an alarmist.

Flannery: I’m a very practical person.

Bolt: I’m asking you to defend these quotes.

Flannery: Well, I’ve done that already

Bolt: You said the Arctic could be ice free two years ago. [Actually, last year.]

Flannery: No I didn’t…

[The show host, Steve Price interrupts, and they argue over the questioning.]

Bolt: I’m asking Tim whether he repents from all these allegations about cities running out of water, cities turning into ghost cities, sea level rises up to an eight-story-high building. Don’t you think that is in part why people have got more skeptical?

Flannery: I don’t, actually, because some of those things are possibilities in the future if we continue polluting as we do. And we’ve already seen impacts in southern Australia on all of those cities. Everyone remembers the water restrictions and so forth. Just because we get a good, wet year doesn’t mean we should forget about the problem. We actually have to deal with this long term drying trend and that means securing our water supply.

Bolt: You warn about sea level rises up to an eight-story building. How soon will that happen?

Flannery: Asking that question is it’s a bit like asking a stock analyst when the next stock market crash is going to happen and how big it’s going to be. No one can. We can all see the underlying weakness in the market in the months before the crash.

Bolt: Thousands of years?

Flannery: Could be thousands of years.

Bolt: Tens of thousands of years?

Flannery: Could be hundreds of years.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/06/20/how_to_expose_a_warmist_andrew_bolt_interviews_australias_al_gore_106015.html

By: Orson Olson

Orson Olson — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 04:23:54 +0000

If the Science Is Solid, Why Stoop? – February 12, 2010
By Stanley W. Trimble,
Prof. of Geography, UCLA

“I must preface my remarks by saying that I believe that there has indeed been climate warming over the past few decades and I believe that human action may be one of the causes. While Climategate may bring into greater question some of the work underlying climate warming, it decidedly does not disprove it.

“Having said that, I must add that Climategate is, in my view, the greatest science scandal in my lifetime. Beyond any scientific implications are the implications of the behavior of the East Anglia scientists and their correspondents – suppressing information, denigrating those who don’t agree with them, trying to deny others access to scientific journals, questioning motives, and conniving to disfellow skeptical colleagues. These are the earmarks of zealotry. While maybe not illegal, they are most certainly unethical. Civilized people, much less scientists, just don’t do those things – but then, apparently they do.”
_ _ _

He goes on to show how climategate proves environmentalists enforce double standards of science.

“As we can see from Climategate, climate warmers can do some dastardly things to the scientific process and to scientific colleagues. But the most despicable thing they do is to call skeptics ‘deniers.’

“What they are doing, of course, is trying to connect environmental skeptics with Holocaust deniers. If their science is so solid, why must they stoop to such measures? And why hasn’t the rest of the climate warming establishment condemned this and other vilification tactics? I’m proud to be a skeptic. Skepticism, in my view, is the watchword of good science. It is the process of challenging, perhaps even if Hegelian, that keeps the scientific enterprise honest and moving forward. The recent editorial by Donald Kennedy, then editor-in-chief of Science, proclaiming that the climate war was over, that the “warmers” had won and no one else need apply, is in my view a travesty – and Orwellian. (Donald Kennedy, editorial, ‘Climate: Game Over,’ Science 317, issue 5387, July 27, 2007, 425-27.)

“Any idea in applied science is always open to question. Period.

SOURCE
http://springerlink.com/content/p3128wk8x6041101/fulltext.pdf
Acad. Quest. (2010) 23:54–56

WHY CAN’T THE ‘SKEPTIC’ ESTABLISHMENT AIR LIKE GRIEVANCES?