Hurricanes, Global Warming, Politics and the News
There was a news story on my ‘news home page’ the other day about a weather expert/scientist speaking before a congressional committee about the prediction that hurricanes will occur more frequently over the next 10 years as a part of the Atlantic Ocean weather cycle. He indicated that another such high-incidence period was recorded earlier in the 20th century and that this anticipated cycle is part of normal Atlantic weather. But a congressman still wanted to know if this could be attributable to ‘Global Warming?’ The scientist was quoted as saying no, it was a normal weather pattern.
When I tried to refer Mark to the news story, it was no longer posted to the internet – and had been replaced by a different story about a different weather expert claiming that global warming is likely responsible for the expected increase in hurricane activity.
That was interesting. So was the fact that the first one only appeared to be on the internet for a few hours. Mark has been saying for years that there isn't any 'good' science to back up the Global Warming scare. And a year or so ago, I read Michael Crichton’s book, ‘State of Fear,’ asserting that global warming is a political myth designed to create ‘fear’ – a necessary condition for control of the masses. The book debunks ‘climate science’ as having been created with computer models rather than any real facts, and insists that most legitimate scientists have abandoned the theory. It persists because of government funding for research to make SURE that it persists.
I hate conspiracy theories. Especially when I start to wonder about them!
posted by Cathy @ 6:57 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Agreed. What's interesting to me about global warming, as well as a lot of "scientific fact" that we are subjected to (and yes, subjected is the correct word here) is that we, the public, have little access to the raw scientific data that is used to come to the conclusions that we are presented with.
A few years ago I became interested in the "Cholesterol Conspiracy". My little foray into trying to discover what was really going on led to my scepticism of much of what's presented in the media as scientific fact. Did the medical community lie? Well, not exactly. For example (I am making these numbers up, as the actual figures are in storage in California!), let's pretend that they did a study of 10,000 men, and 5,000 ate a low-fat diet, the other 5,000 ate a normal diet. And they found that for the low-fat diet, 1 in 5000 had a heart attack. From the normal diet men, 2 in 5000 had a heart attack. Now, what they report is that there is a 100% increase in your chance of heart attack if you eat this diet. But are the numbers actually statistically significant? No. They didn't actually lie, however, did they? No. But they did manipulate the truth.
We saw this as well in the Crichton book you mentioned, State of Fear. After I read it, I tried to get a hold of raw data in a number of areas related to the environment and global warming. Unless you have many dollars to purchase the results of studies, you can't get a hold of this data. So the public is at the mercy of forces that have ulterior motives.
But, I blame this on the masses, really I do. If we do not, as a society, demand the truth from our sources of information, and we allow ourselves to be continually manipulated, then we get what we deserve.
BTW, I am not a conspiracy theorist. I don't think there's a conspiracy. There is no mystery here. Follow the money. Who gains from the misleading of the public? It's not a conspiracy, the whole thing is motivated by greed.
FYI, your missing news story? This information can be found on weather related websites, but not in mainstream media (proving my point?)
Here's a link to one.
I share your frustration with the lack of access to the data - and it is complicated by the internet's facilitation of bogus reporting as well. Not only do I not trust the mainstream media ("follow the money" is an excellent suggestion - and the reason I now DON'T trust the mainstream media) but I find that the internet can be a frustrating source of fraud besides being a wealth of information. And even if we finally access the raw data, the statistical analysis and the interpretation are often beyond our scope of investigation because of the sophistication of the field.
But Climate Science is particularly interesting because of the political implications as well as the price of oil. I do think the rationale is more complicated than just the money trail one. 'Power' is as corruptible as money.
The medical field is more clearly a case of financial benefit (a John Le Carre book, and now movie - The Constant Gardener - is an interesting way to get the gist of this, if you prefer.) Data misinterpretation, research design faults, legal requirements (liability as well as regulations) all play a part in the consumer conundrum. As the Baby Boomers age and medical costs skyrocket, we have to get a handle on this!
All exellent points, and you are right, power is as corruptible as money. But I think climate studies are still about money..who benefits?
Recently I did a little investigation on the Energy Bill. I went directly to the source for this one, and investigated on various government web sites, especially the white house and the OMB. Not all of my findings were bad...but most of them were.
An example is Enhanced Oil Recovery. In very basic terms, EOR is a process that is used to extract oil from difficult fields, usually because most of the oil has already been taken out. The process is expensive and time-consuming, and in the past has resulted in a total increase of 2% of oil produced in this country over 22 years (that's total, not 2% per year). The OMB has made it very clear that this program is designed to benefit only private companies. Furthermore, it provides tax breaks to oil companies for doing something they would be doing anyway. This program provides no incentive. It's just a payoff.
Yet the President takes credit for it as a being a program that addresses climate change. No evidence exists that this is the case...where's the media in all this? Where's the public. The information is readily available, it took me all of 5 minutes to find it.
No one cares. Or at least, no one cares enough to do anything about it. There are real problems in many areas here, not only energy or global warming or the government's unwavering position on low-fat diets. Tell me the food pyramid isn't a joke. *sigh* Oh the food pyramid...I forgot all about that one. Off to write a post to my blog!
OK, MJ - I can't wait to hear your position on the food pyramid, given your "follow the money" position! I think I know already where it will go, having followed that trail myself a while back when the 'new food triangle' came out.
But getting back to the core point - I don't think we know how to impact change any longer. Our bureaucracies are so established, pork-barrel politics so entrenched, the media so biased, the elections so much a "lesser of two evils" choice, so much of the population uninformed or swayed by immediate gratification of welfare-type programs...
Well, OK maybe I can backtrack and say that the internet is making inroads - and blogging is a significant one - into "demanding the truth" and bypassing the spoon-fed 'line' of mainstream media. Is there hope?
Mark thinks 'all out revolution' but I so wanted to travel in my retirement instead!
I agree with Mark, and I think it will eventually either come to all out revolution or the blind acceptance of an Orwellian state. While the advent of the internet has produced discussion, it has also produced an easier way for the non-truths to be distributed. I'm no Bush fan, for example, but an organization like MoveOn.org doesn't further honest debate either. The one-sidedness and manipulation of the facts by both sides only hinders progress.
Wouldn't it be nice if voters would make decisions based on what's best for the country rather than using their own self-interest as their only method of choice?
For example, I am against social security, I think it's a drain on economic resources, a burden on the working middle-class, as well as a crutch that keeps people dependent on gov't entitlement programs. That said, I also understand that you cannot just abandon a social program that many have become dependent upon; that would be devasting to society and the economy. Why can't we find a middle-ground, and move Social Security into an insurance program for the truly poor? Why should I continue to have to pay for those that can actually afford to pay for their own retirement? I would vote for such a compromise in the best interest of my country, even though it doesn't further my personal cause.
The only thing that I can see that will stop revolution or an Orwellian state is a true, deep, economic depression. This would be a wake-up call. However, being a (admittedly beginning) student of economics, that's unlikely to happen, at least not anytime soon.
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