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Thursday, September 20, 2012

PBS Gives Venue To A Climate Change "Skeptic"

PBS you've disappointed.  What's next a homeopath skeptical of medicine?  An astrologer skeptical of astronomy?

Anthony Watts was a T.V. weatherman and is associated with the right-wing, anti-science, anti-regulation group Heartland Institute. In case you're not familiar with this despicable group, watch this:



Here's the PBS clip:


I always enjoy the hubris associated with people like Watts.  He's "been investigating" the urban heating effect, that's what he's been working on.  Well Sherlock, the International Panel On Climate Change is well aware of this effect and corrects their models appropriately.  But you keep at it,  Inspector.



Watts says global warming has become a business...how do those business assets compare to Exxon/Mobile ($418B capitalization), BP ($137B capitalization), and other fossil fuel companies?  Who's supporting the Heartland Institute?

Watts says Richard Muller's papers have not passed peer review. Duh?  He never wrote any peer reviewed papers on the subject.  Muller was a climate denier who finally actually studied the peer reviewed science and realized he had been wrong to be a denier (shouldn't one study the science before reaching an opinion? )
He didn't write any scientific papers on his remedial education, he did write some op-eds.

(Of course nothing Mr. Watts is saying is peer reviewed either.)

He blabbers on about temperature readings before the 1890's.  We typically use a graph from 1880 to today when we look at temperature changes over time.  Watt (sic) difference does anything before 1890 make?

Who cares what polls say about what people believe?  The facts show that global warming is caused by CO2 introduced by man.  Watts offers no evidence to contradict that conclusion.

He says it's a slow problem that requires a slow solution...yup, anything to delay regulation of greenhouse gases.  That's the modus operandi of groups like the Heartland Institute or the George C. Marshall Institute.    First deny the science.  When that fails, question it, raise doubts, complain of victimization.  When that fails, acknowledge the science is more or less correct, but let the market take care of the problem, why rush to regulate, etc.

Today we're dealing with the burden of the product  of the slow buildup of CO2.  The problem we're facing is big today because no one devised any slow solutions 50 or 75 years ago.  If they had, our problem today wouldn't be so urgent.

PBS you've got some making up to do...oh wait, I see this isn't the first time you've featured Mr. Watts:


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