Expert credibility in climate change, as told by expert snarks

Expert credibility in climate change
an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)

Just to make sure I have this correctly:

People who study climate like to have an income.
The income comes mostly from the government.
The government "grants" income if the answer is what they want (not being scientists, facts and evidence are not an issue of consequence to politics and revenue).
If you don't have the right answer, you don't get grants (economic forcing?).
If you don't get grants, you don't get published.
Leading to fewer grants, thereby having negative feedback on "prominence," reputation and credibility.
Or you go study something else because food and shelter are good things.
Therefore, you aren't qualified to debate the matter, having failed to develop relevant expertise, like railroad engineering for example.

Do I have this right? Just checking.

Political Theater Where the Findings are Preordained

Jerry Taylor of the libertarian Cato Institute described the investigation as "an exercise in political theater where the findings are preordained by the people put on the commission."

This should not surprise anyone. A commission appointed by OB doesn't seem to have much technical expertise. Rather, it seems to have a lot of policy wonks who have already have the answers.
Like I said, those of you in Gulf states, I hope you like your commission. After all, the prez knows best.

Obama spill panel big on policy, not engineering

About energy policy: get government out of the business.

Going (way) back to my issue about having government choose the winners and losers (especially when it is apparent the motives are anything but transparent, possibly criminal, and benefit the companies who are not in energy businesses to begin with). What BO has stated for years is that the path to alternative energy and a cleaner environment is to make carbon-based energy so expensive and/or scarce that you don't have an alternative (choice) except for what the government has developed for you (with your tax dollars, but without input from the very industry it destroys).

When was the last time government developed a successful product? Atom bomb (wait, that was technically "successful," just not an allowable source of energy)? Cure for cancer? Even decoding the human genome has produced nothing life changing for the billions we spent. The moon program produced a lot of valuable engineering, but it was private industry that produced products. Take the core research and patents behind Kevin Costner's oil separation centrifuges, one he bought from the Dept. of Energy after Valdez. My point is not about the effectiveness of his product, it is that DOE and the other government agencies failed to do anything with it (or anything else) where there was a clear need, and compelling government interest. An actor and dreamer built it instead. So why do we expect the government to produce any effective carbon energy alternatives?

What started this rant? Two articles from the same blog, Master Resource.

One is an excellent explanation about effective grass roots activism that goes contrary to what we usually expect from the green side. This approach addresses how to deal with the emotional blackmail like save the polar bears. The subject in this case is wind energy. The writer is equally passionate on the subject of why not wind turbines. Grass roots strategy: go for the juggler.

The other is an article that explains just how losers become winners by applying political influence they obtain, not by being knowledgeable about energy or alternative energy, rather by using credibility from being perceived as successful doing something else. Do they have energy solutions? No, they are spouting off the same drivel we have been getting for years: more committees, more theoretical speculators -- people who have your skin in the game not theirs, and who benefit from that whole process, not from the results.  These people are always around to make sure their interests and friends are first in line at the government trough. It has nothing to do with party.

This regime is a poster child for "the ends justifies the means" (classic Alinsky), with the post-modern twist of the means is the end. In other words, keep spending your tax dollars and never get anywhere, just drive around for a few decades. Let the good times roll on. And if having committees who borrow the credibility of scientists to promote their political agenda doesn't scare you, you haven't read my post here.

What are the priorities again?

Make BP pay.
Have the government give people BPs money.
Make BP capture the oil in a few weeks.
Watch what amounts to 10,000 people per state pick up tar balls.
Make BP pay.
Stop drilling.
Have BP give money to people that the government layed off by putting a moratorium on offshore drilling for 6 months (huh?!?).
Have people study the accident.
Have people study the gulf coast other crises and problems (hey Gulf Coast, hope you enjoy DC studying you and deciding what you need, like they did with Katrina).
Reorganize minerals management - whip those slackers into shape (butts to kick).
More regulations, standards and enforcement.
End our oil addiction (because we have run out of safe places to drill?!? NOT)
Embrace clean energy (go ahead, give it a big hug and a kiss).
Spend another $80 billion we don't have. Tax oil so we can pay for more unemployment benefits and medicare and tax benefits and...
Legislate more efficient buildings, make power companies use solar and wind (which not only costs more but is less efficient and has a bigger carbon footprint) and conduct R&D (if you know carbon or hydraulic operations, how are you qualified to do something unknown? It's like having your drug store perform cancer research.)
Pray for courage.

Yup, just read that over and I don't see anything about plugging the damn hole. Or saving the wildlife and wetlands. Or protecting the coasts. Or get the oil out of the water. Nope, don't see any of that.

This presidency: Reasons why what seemed like a great idea isn't working

An interesting article in American Thinker. HT to Doug
Selected text from the article:

How could a new president riding in on a wave of unprecedented promise and goodwill have forfeited his tenure and become a lame duck in six months? His poll ratings are in free fall. In generic balloting, the Republicans have now seized a five point advantage. This truly is unbelievable. What's going on?

No narrative. Obama doesn't have a narrative. No, not a narrative about himself. He has a self-narrative, much of it fabricated, cleverly disguised or written by someone else. But this self-narrative is isolated and doesn't connect with us.  He doesn't have an American narrative that draws upon the rest of us. All successful presidents have a narrative about the American character that intersects with their own where they display a command of history and reveal an authenticity at the core of their personality that resonates in a positive endearing way with the majority of Americans.

Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal points out: He is failing because he has no understanding of the American people, and may indeed loathe them.

... he's dissed just about every one of us--financiers, energy producers, banks, insurance executives, police officers, doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, post office workers, and anybody else who has a non-green job.

If this much intrigues you, please click over to AT and read the rest.

This is open transparent government?!? Despicable!

Claiming “scientific consensus” and “peer reveiw” for findings that have neither

The seven experts who advised President Obama on how to deal with offshore drilling safety after the Deepwater Horizon explosion are accusing his administration of misrepresenting their views to make it appear that they supported a six-month drilling moratorium — something they actually oppose.
The experts, recommended by the National Academy of Engineering, say Interior Secretary Ken Salazar modified their report last month, after they signed it, to include two paragraphs calling for the moratorium on existing drilling and new permits.
Salazar’s report to Obama said a panel of seven experts “peer reviewed” his recommendations, which included a six-month moratorium on permits for new wells being drilled using floating rigs and an immediate halt to drilling operations.
“None of us actually reviewed the memorandum as it is in the report,” oil expert Ken Arnold told Fox News. “What was in the report at the time it was reviewed was quite a bit different in its impact to what there is now. So we wanted to distance ourselves from that recommendation.”
Salazar apologized to those experts Thursday.

Gosh, sorry to put words in your mouth. But don't expect us to change the policy.

Ack! Stop the breathing!

“CO2 is not a pollutant and it is not a poison and we should not corrupt the English language by depriving ‘pollutant’ and ‘poison’ of their original meaning. Our exhaled breath contains about 4 percent CO2. That is 40,000 parts per million, or about 100 times the current atmospheric concentration. CO2 is absolutely essential for life on earth.” – William Happer, Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton University, May 20, 2010.

HT Climate Change Fraud

How many is 1 billion?

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of
 putting that figure into some perspective in one of it's releases.

 A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

 B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

 C A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age..

 D. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

 E. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government  is spending it.

 While this thought is still fresh in our brain let's take a look at New Orleans ...
 It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division.

 Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D)  is presently askingCongress for 250 BILLION DOLLARS
to rebuild New Orleans. Interesting number...  what does it mean?

A. Well... if you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, and child) you each get $516,528.

 B. Or... if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787.

 C. Or... if you are a family of four... your family gets$2,066,012.

I wonder how much Mary Landrieu got?