Monday, September 30, 2013

Harvard v. MIT


Top MIT scientist: Newest UN climate report is ‘hilariously’ flawed


MIT has long been at odds with Harvard while the latter still furiously sounds alarms, as exemplified here.

I wonder if the faithful are waiting to proclaim "It Is Risen!"
_____________________
Added: Coming soon, roving bands of envirothugs.

31 comments:

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

If you've got the right personality for it, being Secretary of State must be the best fucking job on Earth.

Me? I'd end up shooting myself in the head.

bagoh20 said...

Regardless of the evidence or the truth, it seems pretty obvious that certain people jockeying for power and wealth would say the same things if the climate was warming, cooling, or staying the same.

Many skeptics at least at one point were willing to concede that the climate was warming when the data showed that. the AGW proponents want to hide the very data, even as they push forward explanations for data that they claim isn't valid. Cover all the bases in your hedging, but don't admit having an open mind. Don't you dare blink.

Synova said...

"He called his friend’s honey operation a sign of the “beautiful, evolving local economies” that are rebounding in an age marked by the resurgence of small farms and the popularity of farmers markets, the food sector’s fasting-growing segment."

"Beautiful, evolving local economies" is another way of saying "picturesque poverty".

What a disgusting fellow.

It's one thing to "simplify" your life and enjoy managing a pretty boutique farmette when you've got the societal support provided by Monsanto and Mobil Oil.

If you break your leg a modern hospital will fix you right up. If a bull gores you they'll send a helicopter to scrape you out of your barn yard and haul the pieces to the premier emergency hospital in your state. If you come down with an exotic flesh eating disease you can fly to Johns Hopkins or Mayo.

If your crop fails you can go to Albertson's and buy something grown in Chile.

It's something else altogether to believe that you've got the right to make the decisions to bind the third world poor into your "beautiful evolving" economic model.

Because I totally missed where the blow-hard, from his life of extreme privilege, was advocating an alternative to "oil based" that was able to usher us into and support a Space Aged economy.

I grew up on a farm and it's every bit as "beautiful" a life style as he thinks it is. I also have a good idea about just how much work it is to reach a point of agricultural surplus. What this means is that I could grow enough food for me and mine, but without the nasty oil based economy, that *sshole is starving to death.

But whatev'

I think that would be a feature rather than a bug to the essentially anti-human gaia worshipers.

Synova said...

LOL! Just noticed the lovely typo...

"...the food sector's *fasting*-growing segment."

Birches said...

"It is risen" lol

Methadras said...

Climate Change, AGW, Global Warming, Global Cooling is all an irrelevant footnote in the annals of science. Why? Because no one talks about the utter depravity of the politics behind the science. How there are people like Al Gore who have capitalized and profited from the fear mongering of a phenomenon that no human being or any other organism can do anything about, but it's proponents have zero shame in wanting to shackle people via massive wealth redistribution schemes, excess regulatory practices, and ever increasing taxation in wanting to fight it and are willing to hijack entire economies to do it without a single meaningful metric of it's/their effectivity on it. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar.

AllenS said...

I think that a AReasonableMan's arm is getting colder.

ricpic said...

The UN? Where are The Three Stooges when we need 'em?

ndspinelli said...

It's settled, move on, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Revenant said...

Personally, I think the planet is probably warming due to human activity. It would be kind of surprising if it didn't, given what we know about CO2 and methane.

What irritates me is the immediate leap to "... and that is VERY VERY BAD".

Here's a question nobody seems to be able to answer for me: what's the ideal temperature for Earth? Is it warmer than the present temperature? Cooler than the present temperature? By how much? Most importantly, how do we know that and how have we confirmed it empirically?

Synova said...

I don't know what the ideal temperature is, but I do know that the earth is currently in an interglacial period of an Ice House phase.

I believe that the big Dinosaur ages were during Greenhouse stages.

In any case, the earth rather regularly has no polar ice caps whatsoever and those times are very much life-filled times.

Being warm might be a problem, but the only real disaster is if the whole world freezes over, which they figure the earth may have also done a couple of times.

bagoh20 said...

Let's just assume that all the alarmism is correct.

Are we really the best people to be dealing with it? We don't have the ability technologically or politically to affect the climate. We can however screw up a lot of lives and cause a lot of bad economic effects trying. Trying now is kind of like expecting medical science in the days of bloodletting to cure cancer. They could try, but it may not be prudent.

I think even if it's true, we should wait for people with better technology, and at least wait for Al Gore to pass on, so we can have an intelligent discussion about it. Besides until he's gone, his contribution alone will keep the planet overheated. Maybe the UN should have another global warming conference and then blow the place up. That might actually make a dent in greenhouse gasses.

bagoh20 said...

I know what the ideal temperature is. It's exactly what it was in L.A. this weekend, and today. It never gets much hotter than this here, so no problem with heat, but now winter is coming and it's gonna be dipping into the 50's and that's not as good, so I think warmer will be better, and a higher sea level just brings the beach closer. If we can get it within bikini binocular range, that will be appreciated.

ricpic said...

The '50's is perfect light jacket weather and that's what they call winter in L.A?

test said...

“They are proclaiming increased confidence in their models as the discrepancies between their models and observations increase.”

Of course they are. What does reality have to do with politics?

KCFleming said...

Ten thousand men of Harvard
want victory today,
For they know that over Obama
Fair Harvard holds sway.

So then we'll conquer old MIT,
And when winter ends, we'll sing again:
Ten thousand men of Harvard
gained victory today!

KCFleming said...

Fight, fight, fight!

deborah said...

September 2013 National Geographic cover

chickelit said...

@deborah: No alarm bells there.

Methadras said...

Revenant said...

Personally, I think the planet is probably warming due to human activity. It would be kind of surprising if it didn't, given what we know about CO2 and methane.

What irritates me is the immediate leap to "... and that is VERY VERY BAD".

Here's a question nobody seems to be able to answer for me: what's the ideal temperature for Earth? Is it warmer than the present temperature? Cooler than the present temperature? By how much? Most importantly, how do we know that and how have we confirmed it empirically?


I ask this question all the time of my global warming/climate change buddies and every time I ask it they still give me that blank stare of "How the fuck should I know". They don't know, just like the 'climate science/scientists' don't know.

bagoh20 said...

It's about time Lady Liberty washed that thing, especially with her being French and all.

Titus said...

This is a local situation. If you flyovers could not worry your pretty little minds that would be helpful.

thanks dolls!

chickelit said...

@Titus: Harvard is definitely the side of the Sullivanists, so I side with MIT. I find the frisson excruciating.

Synova said...

Warming the earth now may well stave off the next ice age giving humanity a much longer interglacial to develop fully.

That said, I would never trust us to prevent an ice age *on purpose*, so I'm not suggesting we should try to warm the earth by spreading soot on glaciers like some dumb nut suggested back when the worry was the earth freezing over.

The primary thing that changes the earth's climate, the true driver of it? Well, that's the expansion of mid ocean ridges. That controls the depth of oceans, the CO2 content of the atmosphere, deep ocean temps and... stuff. Including if we have ice caps or don't have any ice caps at all.

The continents move around, run into each other, stop momentarily, and then pull apart and reverse direction leaving behind things like the Himalayas and new oceans such as the Atlantic.

What is really and truly going to screw us over is if Antarctica and South America pinch off the sea passage between them. That happens and Antarctica melts-off... boom... deep ocean currents are forced upward and warm... boom... plankton dies... boom... there will be mass destruction... dogs and cats living together...

bagoh20 said...

That would be cool if I could walk from the North pole to the South pole.

William said...

An argument by analogy: I think it's possible, maybe even probable, that the abundance and ready availability of porn is changing our psyches, and possibly in a damaging way. That said, the last people on earth whom I would wish to regulate the flow and content of porn are militant feminists. Ditto with carbon emissions. I'm sure the emissions are having some effect on the planet, but I don't trust the environmental activists for a fair reading of the data. There's a difference between having a dog in the fight and being the dog in the fight.

Revenant said...

That's a better analogy than you intended, William. There is reason to believe that the ready availability of porn and violent games has contributed to the decline in sexual assault and violent crime in the western world.

To extend the metaphor back the other way, there is reason to believe a warmer earth might be friendlier to humanity in general.

Titus said...

I am afraid they are both pretty sullivanist chick. One is a tad more asian though.

Titus said...

And the other one is a lot more black. Today, I went to Panera in Harvard Square and unfortunately sat by two black Harvard Law chicks.

They were so horrible. One got her undergrad at Yale and the other at Brown.

They were talking about all the black groups to join at Harvard and about "giving back" to the community and upcoming social events. All of these events would be with fellow blacks at Harvard. Could you imagine the conversations at those things?

I wanted to puke.

Affirmative Action bitches.

Titus said...

The worst I saw today with these chicks is they both had the same Prada Handbag. I literally gasped, opened mouth, and put hand over mouth when I saw the bags.

Titus said...

Can I bitch about something else? There is an political ad running constantly here. It is my fag representative at the local level who is running for the U.S. congress.

In the ad he, at his home with fab drapes, argues with his teabagger father, with wood paneling in his home.

They argue back and forth about gun control and all kinds of other shit....in the end they admit to loving each other. I am like enough! We have seen so many of these ads I can't stand it.

Carl Sciortino is the fag and his father is of course fat, in a lazy boy with a deer head above him.

It's gross.

And I am like queen shut up and quit smiling. You can tell he is a major bottom too.

tits.