Today’s post is at The Stream: California To Make Global Warming Skepticism Illegal.
“All right, Briggsy. We know you’re in there! Throw out your notes on improved cloud parameterizations in general circulation models and come out with your hands up!”
You’ll never get me, copper! You want me? Come and get me!
“It’s no use, Skeptic! We’ve got the place surrounded. We’ve cut off your Twitter feed and deleted all your blog posts. There’s no way to win. Come out now and you still have a chance.”
Says you! What’s the charge, copper?
“Disseminating publicity casting doubt on the scientific understanding of climate change which has delayed public understanding of the risks of continuing to emit high levels of greenhouse gases, and which confused and polarized the public.”
You EPA agents think you’re so tough with those automatic weapons in your hands. I come out now, and you’d gun me down in cold blood!
“Nah, we’ll…
—————
California has either three devious scheming duplicitous underhanded finagling conniving state senators, or it has three foolish stupid bug-witted imbecilic mouth-breathing scientifically illiterate state senators. (I’ll prove this contention below.) For only two explanations—malicious Machiavellian maneuvering or inexcusable ineducable ignorance—are possible to explain the introduction of the “California Climate Science Truth and Accountability Act of 2016” by senators Ben Allen, Hannah-Beth Jackson, and Mark Leno (all Democrats)…
Now for the proof I promised. The Bill (as of 10 May 2016) states “There is broad scientific consensus that anthropogenic global warming is occurring and changing the world’s climate patterns, and that the primary cause is the emission of greenhouse gases from the production and combustion of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas.”
This is false. It is untrue. Worse, it is easily seen to be false by anybody taking even a moment’s effort…
“But, say, Briggs, isn’t this the same as cigarette smoking? The government rightly holds accountable those scientists who say smoking doesn’t cause ill health.”
No, it isn’t the same. Leaving aside the merits of whether the government has the right to ban scientists from saying anything in their competence, those scientists who say smoking causes ill health at least make good predictions. Smokers get sick.
The few scientists who claim the primary cause of climate change are greenhouse gases make lousy predictions. Heck, lousy is understating it. Their predictions stink.
This is another thing the senators knew of, or should have. Before government decided scientific “Truth” through legislative action, scientists used to say that when a theory made rotten predictions, the theory was surely false. That climate scientists (whether or not there is a consensus) can’t say with any reliability what day follows Wednesday means that their theory of global warming is almost certainly wrong.
Yet California tried to decree that no uncertainty in Climate “Truth” is allowed.
That isn’t science. It’s thuggery masking as politics.
Go there to read the rest—while it’s still legal.
Incidentally, the smoking bit was cut at Stream, but it’s here for completeness.
“For only two explanations — malicious Machiavellian maneuvering or inexcusable ineducable ignorance — are possible for explaining….” I’d have gone with “It’s California” as an explanation. Everyone knows the like-minded sheep all flock together and cower if anyone from the outside comes by. Hey, it’s what sheep do.
“Most scientists would cave” The smart ones will leave the sheep herd and thrive in freedom. There are many states where people aren’t treated like animals.
I’m not sure arguing “the theory makes lousy predicitions” will have any influence in a state starving its occupants of water to save a fish and burning billions on a high speed rail that is useful only to make Moonbeam look good and further bankrupt the state. Rational thought is not actually a characteristic of sheep.
It may be good they cut the “smoking causes ill health”. How a big a percentage of smokers get sick compared to non-smokers, especially if you only look at cancer. What kind of an accurate prediction is that? Can the same be said for global warming? I’d be curious to see the comparison. (I’m guessing you went with “ill health” because cancer alone would give you 10% or less and we know that’s not significantly larger than global warming. A better comparison would have been they just wanted money from cigarette companies and did not really care about what cigarettes did. That’s shown by the fact that cigarettes are still for sale. Same could apply to global warming—you can’t oppose it because it cuts into revenues.)
I agree it was not a bad call for the smoking part to be pulled but it was more likely because of space considerations than anything else.
I’m guessing you went with “ill health” because cancer alone would give you 10% or less
It’s actually more like 0.05%. It has been said that smokers have a 20x higher rate of lung cancer than non-smokers. Buying 20 lottery tickets increases your chances of winning by 20x (assuming the tickets aren’t the same) but your chances of losing aren’t much different than those of the guy who bought only one. Same with the chance of NOT getting lung cancer. Little difference between smokers and non-smokers. Something else must be going on. Smoking might help pull the trigger but the gun has to be loaded too. This used to be on the CDC site but vanished long ago. The power of consensus.
Lol! Made it ma, top of the world! But instead of getting blown up on top of an oil refinery, drones would annihilate you with hell fire missiles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzKiEs_pHI
I love to point out that according to the National Cancer Institute the cause of cancer is unknown. When somebody tells me that something causes cancer I ask them to explain how it does it. What’s the causal mechanism and etiology? They can’t explain.
http://training.seer.cancer.gov/disease/war/
Well, I think they’re trying to make it a civil offense for a business to hide scientific data that gives them an unfair competitive edge. It’s a bit of a stretch, and it could suppress R&D, I suppose, so it’s probably not the best way to approach this. But your spin is just silliness. You should know better. Trumping your readers, Briggs? Looking for a gig on FOX?
JMJ
I would think California would be in the forefront banning hotdogs:
http://www.pcrm.org/nbBlog/keep-hot-dogs-off-your-plate-this-baseball-season
Key content:
a report declaring hot dogs and other processed meats “carcinogenic to humans.” Studies show that consuming one daily 50-gram serving of processed meat—about the size of a typical hot dog—increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 21 percent (and THAT is daily!)…Unfortunately, some stadiums have taken baseball’s deadly hot dog addiction to a new extreme this year.
This from the bogus vegan physician group – PCRM
I would be very careful discussing “hiding the data”. O so careful. Every publication that has content in it that derives from epidemiology has hidden data. Every scientist that stuffs a study in the drawer because there are “no correlations” has hidden data.
The real data is not the data that shows correlations. It is the data that shows non-correlations. It might be common sense that the positive correlations represent interest. I think our host has demonstrated repeatedly that correlations and the pursuit of wee p-values is idiotic.
Making the hiding of data illegal though will put every scientist in the country on notice for suppression. Every publication will go broke because they have to publish too many pages to prevent themselves for being liable for failure to publish the real results…
He ain’t hidin’ in dis stove
DAV: Yes, it probably was space considerations. I hadn’t thought of that. Word limits are tough to work with.
Ray: True. That became apparent when Opdivo came out for lung cancer and it was made very clear smoking was not the only factor. I wonder why no one is going after Opdivo…..
JMJ: They are trying to suppress opposition. That’s it—plain and simple. There is NO suppression of global warming gospel—it’s everywhere. Only the skeptics get the short shrift, yet they are feared. The skeptics must be super powerful, right? Or maybe they just have a logical, factual basis for their opposition and present a more convincing argument.
The proposed legislation attempts to suppress any for-profit entity from asserting ‘no climate change’ and thereby gain an unfair competitive advantage:
“…or other organization of persons that has directly or indirectly engaged in unfair competition, as defined in Section 17200 of the Business and Professions Code, with respect to scientific evidence regarding the existence, extent, or current or future impacts of anthropogenic-induced climate change that would otherwise be barred as of January 1, 2017, solely because the statute of limitation has or had expired, is revived and, in that case, the action may be commenced within four years of January 1, 2017. Nothing in this subdivision shall be construed to alter the applicable limitation period of an action that is not time barred as of January 1, 2017.”
What one needs to do is review Section 17200 and see if all the hoopla really makes any difference, or, if this is just so much political posturing to no real effect.
Ken, it’s the latter.
Sheri, this entire subject is way over your head. You are the target type for Briggs propaganda here.
JMJ
JMJ: Thank God I’m not the target type for your kind of propaganda. I’d hate to think I’d sank to blind obedience and faith in the government. BTW: Propagandists try to suppress opposition. California is doing this, but not Briggs (or you wouldn’t be allowed to comment here). Guess it’s California with the sheep people and the lies, isn’t it?
Speaking of propaganda and limiting knowledge, it’s a bit OT, but there is a natural healing/natural foods website out there with a search engine that will only take you to “safe sites” that tell the facts that are what said site knows to be true, so you won’t be confused (you morons, you) with other silly facts and ideas. Yes, it’s come to that.
There are so many types of cancer, there is no known single cause.
Genetics plays the biggest role or most commonly so.
Recurrent cell trauma for whatever reason seems to me to be the common theme. The more times an organ has to repair the higher the possibility of cell division resulting in a faulty cell.
Cancer is familial. Some are so rare that their cause is a complete mystery.
MDF dust and asbestos are far more dangerous than smoking with regards to lung cancer. Smoking’s a very bad scene for the cardiovascular system and hampers the healing process and therefore affects disease and injury response.
Most people don’t smoke the numbers of cigarettes they used to.
60 or 40 a day used to be common. I’m sure that number’s a third nowadays for most people. It’s that last one they can’t do without.
If the governments, in this case California, worried about drugs of all classes more than they worry about naughty truth telling climate heroes , life would be more pleasant and more free for a lot more people.
(six months for being caught with equipment or in possession.)
Sheri, you do not understand the law. For instance, lets say you make baby food. There are, thankfully, regulatory conditions for doing such. To comply with those regulations you must provide quality assurance, so you perform tests to make sure no dangerous contaminants get in the food, and perhaps tests to make sure no toxic pollutants are coming out the other end. Now, let’s say during these tests you find something wrong, something unacceptable, or something new, not yet quantifiable. But you keep it secret. Do you see a problem here, somewhere, Sheri?
JMJ
Of course, if the insanely perverse ideologues proclaiming that one extra colourless, odourless, practically inert CO2 molecule in 1000 other colourless, odourless, practically inert air molecules could make any difference to climate (other than reducing the amount of solar radiation trapped as heat by stimulating plant photosynthesis and thereby increasing the amount of solar energy “trapped” in the biosphere) they wouldn’t have to be anywhere near as angry at us that question their essentially superstitious accusations and demands.
However, it is abundantly clear to anyone who has sneaked a peek at what they would like to be kept secret that their real motivation is a loathing of humanity and particularly what’s left of Christendom. Anything at all that is judged by the strategists to promote guilt, fear, cultural cringe and eventually cultural suicide is a tactical weapon.
To lurk in the dark protected from scrutiny serves their purpose admirably.
JMJ: Are you sure you’re not a tailor? You’re very good with whole cloth.
Wow, how do you guys understand half of what Briggs writes?
Oldavid, a far smaller percentage of lead in our water. Would kill us all. You’re being idiotically subjective.
Steve, see, see my reply above to Oldavid, then look up the word “analogy.”
JMJ
a far smaller percentage of lead in our water. Would kill us all.
The Romans used lead to carry their water. It’s where we get the plumber. Not a particularly good idea perhaps but would the concentration of lead in the Roman water be less than the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere? It apparently didn’t kill them all.
Don’t bother with that, Dav. The assertion is entirely spurious.
Lead is easily, conclusively demonstrated to be cumulative and poisonous to mammalian biochemistry. CO2 is not.
Lead in pipes.
An enormous number of houses in England still have lead pipes.
Once the inside of the pipe is coated with oxide and scale there is no danger.
There is hysteria about lead.
Lead free solder is another example. An expert ‘health and safety’ individual tasked with checking that R and D didn’t use lead solder explained that the temperature has to be so many thousand degrees like the inside of an engine to be hot enough to appear in fumes and then to be transmitted. Lead solder doesn’t reach those temperatures. Yet it’s banned by the EU (and countries that want an excuse to reject the product for spurious reasons.) So components fail and lead free solder is often the reason. Meanwhile the chinese and probably the competitors are using it anyway and getting away with it.
Ingesting lead is a problem. It is poisonous.
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