Tuesday, January 30, 2007

MIT Links Global Warming to Rise in Bullies

Now Al Gore has a secret he doesn't want you to know. He stole lunch money from other kids. He wrote dirty words down about other kids on the bathroom walls. He tripped girls down the stairs if they didn't wear skirts and poured soda in the bookbags of kids he though might be fags. And then... he grew up to be a Senator, all so he could bully descent and respectable scientists from MIT. Or at least one of their "scientists" Richard Lindzen and a whole smaggle of conblogs are puffing out a lot of hot air in a smear campaign of Gore. So that anytime the former Senator is quoted about the science, the cons have a prepackaged story to "balance" the coverage on questions of character, since they've long lost on the actual science.

Like something out of a playbook, Lizden started with an op-ed for an online site of The Wall Street Journal, which the con-blogs have gone at lenths to conceal, quoting it by the site feed name of "OpinionJournal" to avoid the whole issue of the WSJ's interest in a lack of policy on global warming. Lizden claims that aside from not having the money to prove global warming is junk science (FOX term!!), scientists have been bullied into silence by just one little congressional hearing way back in 1992, where Gore led a "witch hunt" of "anti-alarmist scientists" who testified that global warming wasn't real.

Lizden's whole article got dumped in the comment section of a progressive blog. Lizden also went on FOX to promote his "Al Gore is a bully" featurette, which guarantees that it would be snapped up and pinged around the blogosphere creating a rumor campaign, till it trickled into almost every commentary about the movie, An Inconvienent Truth, due out that year. You know the effect of Nixon standing up and saying "I am not a crook..." The effect of seeing repeated characterizations is oft the same. Lizden's smear campaign seeks to link Gore's name with bully. The WashingtonTimes took it a step further when remarking on Lizden's commentary, and made the unprovable accusation that Al Gore had asked them to publish lies about Lizden and those who agreed with him.

Lizden also wrote a second article attacking Gore for The WallStreet Journal, which is really a defacto blog more than anything else. Lizden has himself here a campaign using swiftboat tactics to crusade against policy addressing global warming, and likely soon a book deal.

Interestingly enough, that MIT professor wrote an original statement on the hearings for the CATO Institute in 1992, and at the time stated that their was a misunderstanding and disagreement of what he meant in a remark in the hearing itself, Lizden himself does not characterize Gore's behavior as bullying him.
"Most recently, I testified at a Senate hearing conducted by Sen. Gore. There was a rather arcane discussion of the water vapor in the upper troposphere. Two years ago, I had pointed out that if the source of water vapor in that region in the tropics was from deep clouds, then surface warming would be accompanied by reduced upper level water vapor. Subsequent research has established that there must be an additional source--widely believed to be ice crystals thrown off by those deep clouds. I noted that that source too probably acts to produce less moisture in a warmer atmosphere. Both processes cause the major feedback process to become negative rather than positive. Sen. Gore asked whether I now rejected my suggestion of two years ago as a major factor. I answered that I did. Gore then called for the recording secretary to note that I had retracted my objections to "global warming.'' In the ensuing argument, involving mostly other participants in the hearing, Gore was told that he was confusing matters."


So, myth that Al Gore is a big fat bully? Busted. Still important? Yes. This myth on the part of Lizden and the cons plays its part in the grand scale myth that liberals have no values, first by portraying a key liberal figure as a violent person, and secondly by trying to paint one of modern liberals main talking points as a way to be cruel to people instead of being about saving the world.

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3 Comments:

Blogger VIPER1 said...

Its actually all George Bush's fault.. in fact the ruin of mankind can be directly linked to GWB Dick Cheney and Haliburton, you know thwy might be responsible for the crucifixion of Christ if we look into it... hmmm food for thought...

5:10:00 PM  
Blogger omelas said...

Hi Viper!! You're right now that I think about it.... ;) That does explain the ruin of mankind. Which is why womankind should just rule the earth. If you collaborate there could be something in it for you...

1:24:00 PM  
Blogger W. said...

How about pointing out the fact that many scientists question and outright criticize Gore's methods. They say he has misrepresented what is going on. If they are wrong, someone should be able to demonstrate why. If not, perhaps Gore is right to be criticized.

How he is criticized is important. If he is criticized how you caricature it, then folks are not dealing with the issue, but that is not what I see. From most and the ones I reference, Gore is not attacked through the ad hominem, as you seem to be doing at times. Rather, his science and methods are called into question.

How do you explain the recent upsurge of leftist and liberal scientists questioning the extent of global warming doing damage, the human factor, the extent to which we can do anything about it (without seriously doing damage to our civilizations), and the actual methods (termed "alarmist" by many on both sides of political aisle) that Gore and his side employ?

Since this is science, or supposed to be, shouldn't rational and demonstrative methods be used? If so, then Gore's claim that it is settled and his statements that questioning climate change is dishonest and other not so nice qualities really is not honest and scientific on his part. Rather, it is authoritarian, and by one without the proper credentials to be such an authority.

11:17:00 AM  

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