Great post, Bill.

So-called “scientists” with their “science facts” have had power over us long enough. I agree that these “scientists” have it wrong about global warming. If it is real, why isn’t it in the Bible,? Surely God would want us to deal with this if it was a real danger, right? He never talked about, so I don’t believe if. ‘Nuff said.
Also, isn’t it outrageous how these so-called “scientists” try to convince us the world is round? Why do we put up with their nonsense.? For over 400 years they have been deceiving us about the idea that the world is a globe. Anyone can see it’s flat- just walk outside and look around. I have never seen one little bit of evidence that the world is round.
There is a good group that has proven that the earth is flat: here is the proof: http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm which the “scientists” haven’t been able to refute.
Thanks for all your work in exposing the global warming myth. Please help expose the myth of a round earth too, so we can stop the “scientists” from controlling our minds.

Dear Nut,

Ahh! You fooled me. I thought you were one of those folks who had absolutely no grasp of the scientific method. So good to see you've mastered the rudiments of epistemology and logic. And it's a good thing you wrote pseudonymously. I am certain you'd be harassed by those "scientists" you deplore had you posted your real name (as it is, I AM harassed for my transparency).

Good luck in your pursuit of intellectual honesty. I can tell it hasn't come easy.

I thank you for giving me a good laugh.

Peace and mirth!

Gnade

PS. To all other readers, I would like to point out how vapid -- and easy -- sarcasm is, especially when dressed up as intellectual strength. Usually, I think, it is a sign of weakness, especially if used as a principal polemical device. Of course, I better quit, before I fall into a contradiction.

To readers of this post:

I am not a big sarcasm fan, as evidenced by my response above to Nut. I am not opposed to a little sarcasm, but when sarcasm is used as my interlocutor, Nut, has used it above, it readily becomes an argumentum ad hominem-abusive fallacy. Moreover it reveals that Nut does not feel comfortable with the material: He (or she) lashes out, not able, or not willing, to engage in a meaningful and frank discussion about the philosophy of science, the scientific method, and the politics of global warming science (or what is culled from science for political purposes, and what is ignored). And it comes off ridiculously haughty.

My sarcastic reply to Nut was simply to show how easy and cheap sarcasm of this sort is; I was following his example. It is not my preferred modus operandi, and I promise you all that you will see very little of it from me here. Again, the occasional flourish, the occasional dalliance with sarcasm is OK: very little goes a long way. But as a principal polemic designed to engage, convince or enlighten, well, it falls very short.

Peace.

BG

No doubt IAmAlsoANut thought he/she had found a soulmate, based on the lack of substance in your original post. I presume your annointing the quote equating a light carbon footprint with abstinence as a "gem" might have temprarily deranged him or her,

Interesting that you were able to determine Nut is unwillingly to discuss the philosophy of knowledge based on such a short post. Bravo for your powers of analysis. I am guessing, and obviously it is only a guess, that Nut was sufficiently dismissive of your original post that he/she wrote his/her response as a parody. That's all.

You don't need to use "modus operandi". "Approach" and "method" work just as well. "Pseudonymously" just means anonymously, and "epistemology" stripped of excess only means philospohy of knowledge. Consider using these simpler terms if you are trying to communicate rather than overawe your readers.

Dear Nut, or Serious Scientist,

Again, you bring nothing interesting to this discussion. I appreciate that you would like to play editor; if you like, I will drop the sesquipedalian terms. But I do generally like my own word choice. Diction, as you know, is largely personal. For me, it is also great fun.

Now, to the substance of your argument. Unfortunately, there is none. Your post is merely an ad hominem: you've fixed on the writer and not on the message. If you'd like to tell me what is wrong -- just one thing -- with Mr. Stephens' or Mr. Kerian's essays, I urge you to highlight it.

Perhaps you would care to enlarge upon the control groups for global warming studies; perhaps you could tell us when, if ever, any climate was stable or any temperature steady. Maybe you would like to critique a celebrated mathematician's capital claim that discussing an "average global temperature" is like discussing the average phone number (I like to think of it as akin to discussing the average metaphor in all Romance languages.) Maybe, just maybe, you would explain how it is that consensus equals "science" in light of the logical rule that appeals to majorities are fallacious. I would encourage you to even explore how it is that appeals to authority are scientific, when such appeals commit the fallacy ad verecundiam.

And I would love to hear you, or anyone else, explain how it is scientific to conflate correlation and causality, e.g., that increased atmospheric levels of CO2 are directly proportional to alleged increases in global temperatures, and hence MUST be the cause of those increases. Such non causa pro causa arguments are a dime-a-dozen in the literature of those claiming they're certain of the anthropogenic sources of atmospheric warming; surely you have something to say about that rather common fact.

I am open to anything you want to discuss here. It's your opportunity to show me that I am in the same camp as the flat-earthers you referenced earlier (or was that someone else?). I am all ears, eyes, whatever. You've ample time to make a case, to post a defense.

Peace,

BG

Perhaps the previous posters wrote nonsense as a reasonable respone to the nonsensicalness of the blog. That scientists think the way they do about global climate change is because they suffer from psychological weakness, as the WSJ editorial writer asserts, is also an ad hominem attack- going after the people and not the theory they expound. Without the slightest evidentiary proof, the author equates the desire for reducing carbon emissions to either sexual abstinance or a need to do penance. And you approve of this malarkey?

Very little of use comes out of the WSJ editorial page. This article was no exception.

Bill:

Regarding the responses your article.

Me thinks you may have flushed someone's EnviroKoran down the toilet.

Dear Nut/SeriousScientist/Neither,

I thank you for continuing the discussion, but what you have written is simply not true. The locus of Mr. Stephens' argument is indeed evidentiary: he quite clearly says that the evidence does NOT match up with global warming "science." Apparently you did not read the article with scientific scrutiny. Moreover, his argument is not simply one of name-calling: it is clearly not an attack on a person or persons.

You misunderstand his sexual abstinence analogy. He is asserting that global warming alarmism is cousin to dire population explosion prognostications of old; he believes such prognostications -- and their attendant calls to procreative restraint and abstinence -- are fundamentally rooted in an anti-human, misanthropic ideology: humans are bad, noxious, toxic. They are depicted by many "analysts" today in similar terms as those used by the drones in "The Matrix"; humans are a virus. Such an attitude is not solely the stuff of fiction but of much political thought. Global warming alarmism, according to someone like Stephens, is undeniably a return to the misanthropy of the past: It is bolstered by quasi-scientific arguments that are essentially political in nature. As such, global warming alarmism is a call for humans to stop spreading their scourge by simply not being procreative (among other things).

What I believe we are witnessing in the political and scientific communities is a huge philosophical blunder, and it has been committed by the Democratic National Party. For that party has accepted, in total, the global warming package. Hence, to maintain power and its political survival, the Democratic Party in the United States MUST and WILL suppress and deny all countervailing opinions and evidence regarding climate. The Republican Party, at least in this one area, has not as a party made this mistake; hence, as a political party, it is the only one of the two that can actually be trusted in the dialogue. Since the Democrats have WITHOUT QUESTION or even a HEALTHY SKEPTICISM embraced the whole global warming thing, the worst thing that can happen to that party is for the earth to actually get colder -- and remain so for an extended period. Republicans cannot be nearly as damaged politically by a global warm-up as Democrats will be by global cooling, precisely because the majority of Republicans have actually taken a genuinely scientific approach: they are open-minded and skeptical: they are not blatant deniers (and I, an independent, am not a denier, either), but reasonably open, and reasonably circumspect. At least, that is what I have noticed in my interactions with members of the two parties.

What I am also witnessing is this: that those who at all costs defend global warming scenarios are not doing so because they love the planet. They are doing so because they love their party, and they can't afford that party to be wrong. (I know a couple of exceptions here, which is good: that John McCain is a global warming alarmist and Bret Stephens is not is actually proof of the health of the Republican party, whereas the lack of any obvious Democratic skeptics is a sign of philosophical problems within the DNC.)

I am disappointed you did not go a step further and actually show us what was "scientifically" wrong with either of the essays cited in my post. Have you nothing to say about what Mr. Kerian asserted?

Peace,

BG

Dear Ed Naile,

I don't know about an "Enviro-Koran," but I sure hope we are moving closer to accepting the bold claim that Truth is actually convenient.

Peace and mirth,

BG

"Global warming" is Progressivism's latest "crisis" which is used as a lever to push social change.

Dear John,

Politically, you are absolutely right. As Vaclav Klaus has warned, the "Greens" are the new "Reds."

Peace,

BG