More for the fake but accurate file
Bookworm on Jan 15 2007 at 8:14 pm | Filed under: Bush Derangement Syndrome, Media matters
George Bush is such an easy target for the media that it often seems like just a waste of time to go for factual accuracy. Take the Kyto Protocol. A recent AP article makes the casual assertion that “The United States is no longer bound by Kyoto, which the Bush administration rejected after taking office in 2001.” It just sounds so right to the Left, doesn’t it? After all, George Bush, in thrall to big oil, is the enemy of all things green, right? Welllll… Not so fast. As Glenn Reynold’s points out, the story is just plain wrong in its assertion about Bush’s relationship to the Kyoto Protocol:
The United States was never bound by Kyoto, and it was not “rejected” by the Bush Administration. Once again, a webpage by unpaid amateurs is more accurate and nuanced than an effort by the Associated Press. Anyone can make a mistake, but the AP’s seem to lean heavily in an anti-Bush direction.
You can read more on this “just plain wrong” story here.
Hat tip: The Anchoress (who didn’t blog about it, but mentioned it in an email that passed my way)
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31 Responses to “More for the fake but accurate file”
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Jeez, not kyoto again. I swear, the Left needs to get some fresher propaganda topics or else.
Read recently that the Inuit of Banks Island Canada now regularly see species common much furhter south that previously were never seen on the island,such as barn swallows and robins.Thunder and lightning,never before recorded in Inuit oral history,have also been reported.Eh,but what the heck,President George Bush and Prime Minister Stephen Harper(peas in the pod) don’t know sqiddly squat whether Happy Feet are from tne Arctic or Antarctica(overheard George asking Stephen,isn’t this where Ants was filmed?).Now don’t get me started on the receding glaciers,and the disappearing ice shelves(okay get me started)!!
YM - it’s all the Left has left. Swampy, the climate changes, always has…so get a grip and stop worrying. Alaskan glaciers have been receding since the 1600s while Greenland’s ice cap is getting thicker, not thinner. I notice the MSM always screams about “record warmth” as a sign of global warming (Midwest, East Coast) but never about record cold (Australia, South Africa, West Coast) being a sign of global cooling - in fact, it doesn’t talk much about record cold…anywhere…at all.
The Left can say what it wants about Bush and Kyoto. So can the rest of the world. What is conspicuously absent is any acknowledgment of the 1st World contries who did ratify Kyoto that they’re going to meet the goals. A 5% reduction of 1995 levels of emmissions is substantial in today’s terms. Is anyone going to make it? Are any lefty cities in the U.S. who ‘ratified’ it in protest of the official U.S. position going to meet the goals?
Considering the level of doom & gloom rhetoric coming from the left regarding that while Kyoto purports to address, I can’t help but wonder when the ‘believers’ are going to get their ass in gear. Aren’t there any progressive European countries (say, France?) who are on target to meet their goals?
Hello? Is this thing on? You’ve got five years to go. Better get a move on.
swampacreage,
These weather, animal, and human speech events by themselves prove nothing. Just collecting random tid-bits of information and offering them as “proof” for someting is a trick of the Left. They rarely have factual proof to offer so they are forced to play this little game.
Growing up in Boston I remember a few summers when we saw seals on Cape Cod. I never saw them before ever. Does this prove global warming is untrue?
In winter during snow storms it was very common to see lightning and hear thunder. Does this prove global warming is not happening?
Excellent article on the statistical shortcomings of the global warming models here: http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/01/why_global_warming_is_probably.html
And, Swamp, if we’re cherry-picking ‘evidence’ I can point out that in my neck of the woods (North Central Florida) they used to grow oranges commercially up past Jacksonville, where now all the big groves have been pushed down south of Orlando because of freezes in the past 40 years. I’m surrounded by towns called “Citra” and “Island Grove” and “Grove Heights” for a reason.
All in all, it doesn’t matter because as soon as you point out cooling to these folks they switch to “Man-made climate change”, which encompasses everything.
Recall the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons. Huge. Made the covers of all sorts of mainstream newsmagazines. Even Al put a hurricane on the box of ‘his’ movie. 2006 was predicted to be a doozy. Then…nothing. Turns out it was a late-forming El Nino, which in early September ‘they’ didn’t even predict, and by October they were using it cover their faulty predictions. So…even yearly hurricane predictions are waaaaay off (even as modified all through the season)
And, in Kyoto, we’re supposed to be able to predict a 1 to 2 degree change in temperature 20 years out? And attribute it to ourselves? It is, on it’s face, both patently ludicrous and achingly arrogant.
Excellent article Danny. Everyone should read it, memorize it and consider it when discussing global warming.
Hey I got an idea.Let’s ask the oil and manufacturing industries of the world to connect the dots for us. Hmm . .wolf in charge of the hen house? Me think so.Hey,if I was making @#$%^&& polluting amount of money,I might gather scientistd(pay them) to refute global warming(pretty tricky).No one said capitalism had morals. The footprints and harbingers are in our face. And sir ,lightning and thunder in Boston winters are not the same as the Inuit facts(tid-bits are facts).Also,you were GROWING UP in Boston.
ps Athabasca Glacier has retreated i/3 mile since 1955 !
I have a thick file folder on both sides of the global warming issue and have determined that 1)the earth has a pattern of warming and cooling beginning long before SUVs were introduced 2)it is a natural phenomenon - as in - mother nature 3)it is used by the left to gain political objectives 4)the supporters of man-caused warming would be just as happy to bleat against cooling if it accomplilshed the real objective of 5)getting into the pockets of the country the world loves to hate.
Perfect, swampy - pick and choose the facts that fit your meme, like Kurt says. If the facts don’t agree, simply attribute them to malignant juju gods. Emoting is a lot easier than having to think. If you look at the National Park maps of Alaska’s Glacier Bay, they point out that most (not all) glaciers have been retreating since the Little Ice Age of 4,000 years ago. http://www.glacier.bay.national-park.com/info.htm#glac
Oh Danny Boy ,oh Danny Boy, oh yeah ,they are retreating and how !!!!
“And, in Kyoto, we’re supposed to be able to predict a 1 to 2 degree change in temperature 20 years out? And attribute it to ourselves? It is, on it’s face, both patently ludicrous and achingly arrogant.” (Kurt, 7)
Pithy! rebuttal.
Marguerite’s is an excellent summary, too. (10)
“No one said capitalism had morals.”
I have heard arguments that the Left wants to use wildly expensive global warming “solutions” to limit capitalism’s growth in America and the West. At the same time, leaving developing nations free to expand economically without any regulations on their CO2 production.
I am starting to believe that that argument may be valid.
“lightning and thunder in Boston winters are not the same as the Inuit facts”
Suggesting that lightning and thunder are warm weather events and that global warming is causing them to occur in cold weather environments is incorrect. Lightning and thunder occur in cold weather environments.
One more thing: if you stop splitting gramatical hairs with my writing I will forgive you for not using the space bar.
What about the black soot? Why does nobody seem to care about the black soot? It’s $%#@*ING POLLUTION AND IT CAUSES CANCER AND IT HURTS THE ENVIRONMENT!!!!
Get over it, we have to change the way we burn fossil fuels for energy no matter what you think about climate change. Quit avoiding the subject!
That subject is avoided, Al, because it is difficult to make political hay out of it. The left hates carpooling and loves air conditioning with the same abandon as the right.
Global Warming is an international issue, and therefore properly within federal jurisdiction. Nothing you or I can do because it’s Bush’s fault. See? Remove personal responsibily from it and even the most ardent lefty environmentalist can display their “Clean Air” bumper sticker on their car during their 3rd trip to Blockbuster this week. And if the air is dirty with soot because there are too many cars? Well, that is Bush’s fault.
I’m not having the whole weather discussion again, but will say this as regards glaciers: some are retreating, some are advancing, and 2,000 years ago there were none at all in California; now there a bunch of them. So what does that tell us: for the last 2,000 years the globe’s been cooling?
Kyoto - I don’t remember, but didn’t that get rejected during the Clinton years?
RIGHT ON L(we are going with the herd mentality and picking on D . . its our turn . . hey it is kind of fun not having to be open minded . . admittedly this is all new to me).The right continue to use bogus scientists(on the pay roll) as they do in other fields fooling their slavish dogmatic followers(not hard to do).But hey,if you’ve got more money than the next guy YOU GOTTA BE DOING IT RIGHT . . . NOT ! And it is grammatical D . NO TRUCE D ,space bar trumps kramer !
Political Hay?
I know what you’re saying but there’s nothing political about black soot. It is what it is—dangerous pollution.
My Grandfather worked for one of the largest oil refineries in the world in the 1940s thru 1960’s. Employees of the refinery were ordered to dump toxic waste and chemicals into the local river on a consistent basis. The oil company was forced to pay the community about 65 million in the 1990’s for retribution —although there is no amount of money that could make up for the damage caused to the health of the community–including countless human deaths and illnesses caused by the pollution–not to mention the effects it had on the local wildlife and plant-life.
Obviously—-IT IS NOW ILLEGAL AND CONSIDERED LUDICROUS TO DUMP TOXIC WASTE INTO RIVERS.
But before this was made illegal, there were so many people trying to justify why this pollution was not a big deal–and just trying to avoid the subject and accusing people of being leftists.
It’s the same old story, and someday everyone will look back and be amazed at the sick and twisted logic people tried to use to AVOID THE SUBJECT.
I recognize what you’re saying Al (Kum-ba-ya to follow soon). Your example, however, refers to a point source of pollution. A single factory…or a string of them along a river. Forcing them to clean up their act was and is certainly worthwhile.
The global issue, however, has to do with billions of tiny point source locations. Every automobile tailpipe is a contributer. Every chimney. All of them. That is the perspective I’m looking at it from. I don’t argue very well the science of global warming because I don’t have time. There are only 24 hours in the day.
I tend to believe that if anyone looks back in sickening amazement it won’t be necessarily at those who ignored (or denied)the problem, it’ll be at the ones who SO CLEARLY SAW the impending catastrophy and did little more than demand that someone else do something about it. I look towards the believers and wonder why they aren’t personally doing more. How can anyone, for example, justify burning coal to dry clothes? Most believers I see (yes, anecdotal) talk very well the talk…and not much else.
Kurt.
Blogging tends to be a bunch of people talking about problems and expressing our opinions (or as you put it “Demanding”) what SOMEONE ELSE should do about it–Or what we would do about it if we had the power. Individually, we all have the power to strive to not be hypocrites in our daily life choices (like riding our bikes instead of driving or air drying our clothes on the clothes line). But we do not have the power that, let’s say, Dick Cheney has to solve what IS an obvious problem. This doesn’t mean we can’t say we think something is wrong without feeling guilty. It just means we think Dick Cheney is an A-Hole who doesn’t care about helping to change things on large-scale levels.
Watch: “Who Killed the Electric Car?” and see what people in the Energy and Auto Industries have done and are proactively doing to prevent the reduction of black soot and pollution. It should make everyone sick and mad.
Yes…Cheney can do more about the problem than I could. Of that there is no doubt. And in many ways he is an A-hole (imgine…the nerve of suggesting that conservation is a personal virtue).
I look at it like this, though. It is difficult for me, as an example, to change U.S. policy towards the Palestinians. I have to have patience and work, through my vote, to bring about change. I have to convince the likes of Cheney to change his mind. It is a matter of U.S. policy. I’m just…me.
The environmental issue (largely as it relates to carbon emmissions) I see as having a much larger personal component. Part of the reason I have so much respect for vegans (as an example) is they are rearranging their lives in order to live up to their ideals. Generally they’re not wolfing down Whoppers and at the same time asking the government force people to go meatless. Generally they’re walking the walk.
To any large degree I don’t see that with regards to the global warming crowd. If carbon emmissions (and black soot) are the boogy men they’re purported to be…I’d expect to see far more people living their personal lives as if they believe it.
To restate it…I expect anti-war protestors (e.g.) to march in the streets and burn up the blogs. Besides the vote there is legally little left at their disposal to effect (affect?) change. Environmental issues, however, lend themselves to more personal changes.
To discount the large-scale effects of a large group of PERSONALLY committed people would be something, philosophically, that I think Helen would argue against.
The use of governement to make large scale changes all fine and good. But in the end it only implies that each and every one of us can continue as we are…consuming mass quantities…if only they’d enable it. Arguments for efficiency and alternative sources, again, only scratch the surface and imply that we can simply continue (as citizens) on our present course.
We can’t.
Our consumption (and therefore our economy) has to contract to a saner and more sustainable level. Which means we would all do well to consume less.
Swamp, please tell me English is not your first language.
What about the black soot? Why does nobody seem to care about the black soot? It’s $%#@*ING POLLUTION AND IT CAUSES CANCER AND IT HURTS THE ENVIRONMENT!!!!
And somebody please tell me Big didn’t just say that.
No, it is not .However its okay after one lesson.What is your xskoose ?
no Y, I did not just say that, you’re hallucinating as usual, lay off the acid.
To restate it…I expect pro-war supporters (e.g.) to immediately join the US Military and volunteer for service in Iraq or Afghanistan or strongly encourage their children to do so.
Environmental issues, however, lend themselves to more personal changes. And that’s why I’m personally willing to vocally disagree with anyone who is trying to say that black soot and other toxic pollutants are not problems created by (free-market-hating) energy company CEO’s who (after decades of technological advancement) continue to not invest adequate resources into creating alternative clean burning fuels—and constantly lie to the American people about the reasons behind it–which is truly about competition (or the lack thereof), money, and imperialistic war-profiteering —-and they want it to stay that way.
OK, not 100% created by these CEO’s, just saying these are the people with the power to change things on a large-scale—and they are not even trying in my opinion.
http://www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com
Having lived with a Green party in government, I am very sceptical of the almost religious fervor with which they identify solutions to environmental problems. There will always be problems, and the best approach is to listen to different points of view and be willing to change policies based on new information. Demonizing sceptics is not a good way to advance knowlege. Germans are now beginning to weigh the problem of atomic waste against dependence on Russian energy supplies. The Smart car may be great for single commuters, but it’s not great for the families that Germany is now trying to encourage. We need to keeping thinking and adapting.
My excuse is that English is my second language. Which doesn’t get you out of as many things as you might think it would.
you’re hallucinating as usual, lay off the acid.
But I already paid you the money for my fix. You trying to take my money without dealing?
The “scientific consensus” is (at least partially) manufactured. Check out http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm
and remember that speaking out against conventional wisdom can make you a non-person in fairly short order. If you’re in academia, where “publish or perish” reins, this means professional death. If you’re working for government, and your supervisors, at any point all the way of up line, don’t like what you are writing/saying, it means the same thing. And the supervisors are very often answerable to political types of one kind or another…..
This type of dynamic was widely recognized by the left when the issue was the endangered species act, or other similar environmental issue that the Dept. of the Interior was resisting — but I wonder whether they are willing to notice that when the shoe is on the other foot, it tends to work the same way. The reason that we tend to hear from the same few people on the skeptical side is that there is a lot to lose if you say things that are politically unpopular when your livelihood depends on people who take the politically popular view.
Right now, scary scenarios are a dime a dozen, and they come from giant computer models that are incapable of predicting current reality when fed data from the ’40s and ’50s. We simply don’t have the analytical abilities to make long-term predictions with any degree of certainty, and there is a LOT of contradictory data out there.
One of the strongest reasons that I am not willing to “get on board” is that the solutions being advocated for “Global Warming” are so much like those for Global Cooling in the ’70s, or “overpopulation” in the ’60s, and so on (and on and on). They all involve taking choices away from me and other just plain folks, and handing that decision-making to some government bureaucrat who is alleged to know much better than I what is good for me.
I’ve seen enough of that, and don’t want more of it. Whether it’s Republicans or Democrats doing the decreeing.
I don’t get it…what is all this delirium about “black soot”? The air has been getting cleaner, not more dirty? Fuels and cars have been getting cleaner, not more dirty? Is BigAl blogging about an alternate universe?
No, he’s just trying to con me out of my acid soot. Shame on him.