Important point: The precautionary principle or precautionary approach states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus, the burden of proof that an action is not harmful falls on those taking the action, not on science or the public being put at risk by the action.
Browsing Posts tagged Climate Change
Well known climate change skeptic, Anthony Watts, endorsed a new climate study back in March, saying …
I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong. I’m taking this bold step because the method has promise. So let’s not pay attention to the little yippers who want to tear it down before they even see the results. I haven’t seen the global result, nobody has, not even the home team, but the method isn’t the madness that we’ve seen from NOAA, NCDC, GISS, and CRU …
But now that the study’s results are being made public and are statistically identical with those produced at NOAA, NASA, CRU, well …
I consider the paper fatally flawed as it now stands, and thus I recommend it be removed from publication consideration by JGR until such time that it can be reworked.
The former governor of Utah and current GOP presidential candidate has got some pretty crazy ideas …
In an interview on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, Jake Tapper asked Huntsman about his shots at Tex. Gov. Rick Perry’s contention that evolution is “a theory that’s out there,” but not a sure thing, nor is the idea of climate change. Last week Huntsman tweeted his take, “To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.”
OK. Jon Huntsman, you are crazy. Crazy to be running as a Republican in this day and age where anti-science ignorance is worn as a badge of honor.
Brian Nieves “Call Me Crazy” ringtone
Call me crazy but does the weather just seem to be getting more and more extreme every year? Extreme precipitation, extreme storms, extreme drought, extreme heat. What could be causing it? El Niño? La Niña? Sun Spots? NASA space debris? Biblical prophecy? One thing we know for sure is that it has nothing to do with the fact the humans are pumping 35 billion metric tons of CO2 into the Earth’s atmosphere every year. The fossil fuel industry can even back this up with scientific research it has funded that concludes it doesn’t does.
Brian Nieves “Call Me Crazy” ringtone
Note: This is an extended version of a letter to the editor that was published in today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Watching the local TV newscasts about the widespread devastation in the St. Louis and surrounding areas it is not unusual to hear meteorologists casually reference some manor of divine intervention as a possible reason no one was killed by the extreme weather on Good Friday. But what you will never hear, as we witness what might turn out to be a record number of tornadoes for a single month in U.S history, and record rainfall from coast to coast, is any reference to global warming or climate change as a possible factor for the extreme weather itself.
Well, the idiocy just never stops. On Saturday, climate change denialist extraordinaire, Republican Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-9), succeeded in attaching an amendment to the House budget bill that would prohibit the United States from contributing our share of funding to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The Republican-controlled House also passed a separate amendment to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
Simultaneously, Republicans have been conducting Congressional hearings on climate science, inviting “expert witnesses” who unsurprisingly think man-made climate change is a bunch of hooey.
But something went horribly wrong with their star witness:
Prof. Richard Muller of Berkeley, a physicist who has gotten into the climate skeptic game, has been leading the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, an effort partially financed by none other than the Koch foundation. And climate deniers — who claim that researchers at NASA and other groups analyzing climate trends have massaged and distorted the data — had been hoping that the Berkeley project would conclude that global warming is a myth.
Instead, however, Professor Muller reported that his group’s preliminary results find a global warming trend “very similar to that reported by the prior groups.”
So while House Republicans are busy defunding research to study climate science and deregulating greenhouse gas emissions for their pals in the fossil fuel industry, a study headed by one of the foremost skeptics of global warming is essentially producing the same results that climate scientists have been producing for decades. Oops.
Just a follow-up to my post from the other day regarding the disturbing number of representatives in the 112th Congress who do not believe in climate change (or science in general).
Below is an example of what we have to look forward to during the next two years. Rep. John Shimkus (R-Il) uses his time at the March 25, 2009 hearing of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment to read passages from the Old Testament to make the point that God will decide when the earth will end — not man. Therefore, man-made climate change is none of our concern.
Mr. Shimkus will most likely be the incoming chairman of the House Energy Committee in the 112th Congress. Pray.
Republican Members of the House of Representatives are set to take on a larger role in setting environmental priorities and funding scientific research in the 112th Congress, in the wake of a blue-ribbon report that once again warned that the U.S. is in danger of slipping in global science and technology.
So it’s a bit troubling that some of them don’t believe in climate change and still others want to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of some of its power to regulate pollution. And then, of course, there’s the guy who apologized to BP on behalf of the government after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
When George W. Bush took control of the White House in 2000 a very good friend of mine predicted he would turn out to be the worst possible person for the job at the worst possible time in American history. Boy, was he proved right. I’m afraid, the same thing just happened with Congress.
At the very moment we need serious policymakers in charge of government we have just elected a group of political neophytes, conspiracy theorists, and global warming denialists who openly state their top political priority over the next two years is to deny President Obama a second term in office.
Meanwhile, tomorrow is Nov. 9, 2010. The temperature will hover near 80 degrees. The clock is ticking.
