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Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)
Ed Brayton also blogs at Positive Liberty and The Panda's Thumb
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Posted on: December 4, 2009 9:16 AM, by Ed Brayton
Just when you thought the right wing loonisphere couldn't get any more ridiculous on this Climategate thing, Andrew Breitbart tweets this:
Capital punishment for Dr James Hansen. Climategate is high treason.
I think he has pretty much ended any need to take him seriously as anything other than a complete lunatic. But he wasn't done yet. When Brad Friedman of BradBlog took him to task for this, Breitbart wants him killed too.
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Comments
I know its a mistake to engage these people on their own terms but even if Dr Hansen was found guilty of High Treason (what are the odds?) he still could not be subject to captial punishment.
Posted by: Matty | December 4, 2009 9:31 AM
Demonstrated, verified and confermed lie about WMD: no treason.
A lie that exists only in a kook's mind: high treason.
Oooookkkeyy... no sudden movement... we're all friends, right? Just let me put away all knives and scissors and we'll talk, ok?
Posted by: diegopig | December 4, 2009 9:34 AM
Warning long post
Also High Treason has been defined since 1351
The language is a little hard to follow being a translation of Norman French legalese into archaic English but from what I can make out High Treason involves at least one of the following.
-Plotting the death of the monarch, royal consort or heir apparent.
- Raping the monarchs companion, unmarried daughter or wife.
- Making war against the crown or joining a group that does while within the kingdom.
- Offering aid and comfort to enemies of the crown whether in the country or abroad.
- Killing certain high officials (Chancelor and Treasurer) or any Justice appointed under English law.
I can see nothing in there about questionable computer programming, destruction of emails or any of the other things that are alleged from the climategate emails. Of course you could try and cobble something together from the "aid and comfort to enemies" part but that would at least require you to identify an enemy, show that they are recognized as an enemy by the British government and explain how the alleged actions offer them aid and comfort.
Posted by: Matty | December 4, 2009 10:05 AM
I've occasionally thought it might be a good idea to get a gun. I don't trust the far right to not go totally batshit.
Posted by: Katharine | December 4, 2009 10:06 AM
The US economy continues to stagger along, and these mopes (e.g. Limbaugh, Malkin, the rest of Fox News, et al.) are still obsessed with debunking global warming?
I genuinely don't get these people. Their behavior truly borders on the pathological; a couple of hacked, casual emails sent in passing drives them into a frenzy.
Posted by: CHV | December 4, 2009 10:15 AM
I haven't followed the email hacking story very carefully; is Dr. Hansen even involved or is Breitbart extending what happened there to nearly all climate scientists being in on some sort of fraud?
I read the tweats on the link Ed provided. This Breitbart fellow is nuts, has an incredible amount of hatred for others, and incredibly juvenile in its worst form.
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 4, 2009 10:20 AM
Apparently, specific scientists have elevated themselves to the position of Gods. Having used an influence granted through more than $40-million from the tax payers, they have abused the trust afforded to them placing a dark cloud over the scientific community. Surely, science will recover from this event as time heals all wounds.
‘Truth is the daughter of time’ was forgotten by this Scientific Fiefdom, but acknowledgment of other traditional philosophies which built science to the current respect also have been ignored, such as “Politics, religion, entertainment, fame and wealth have no place in Science”. Often, however, such important socially advancing fields as science need set backs thus forcing current and potential abusers to fall back to traditional thinking. This is the nature in the evolution of human thought and growth.
The hubris of denial by these abusers of public trust, along with their followers, of the devastating magnitude of their deceptive and deviant activity, while trying to maintain their stature in society, is incomprehensible. Nevertheless, denial will continue dragging the entire scientific community into the pit. Unfortunately, a self awakened reality of their misdeeds likely will not appear until admission followed by humility becomes outwardly obvious to society. Forgiveness is the divinity of our civilization but forgetting never can be allowed.
Posted by: ehmoran | December 4, 2009 10:25 AM
D'oh, I go to all the trouble of looking up a definition of High Treason and didn't think to check if Dr Hansen was actually involved with the CRU.
Posted by: Matty | December 4, 2009 10:26 AM
My first thought when I read the headline is that you meant James Phillip Hansen, the convicted spy. Not the scientist.
Posted by: Adrienne | December 4, 2009 10:31 AM
Michael, no Dr. Hansen was not involved with those emails. Though he has been rather vocal about them. Regardless, I've no doubt that Breitbart considers the hacked file to be proof of fraud on the part of all climatologist who support anthropogenic climate change, something the emails don't even show the folks at CRU were guilty of, much less climatologists as a whole.
Posted by: Abby Normal | December 4, 2009 10:36 AM
Matty: The Norman-French is perfectly transparent when compared to whatever "ehmoran" was trying to say. Moran indeed.
Posted by: kehrsam | December 4, 2009 10:39 AM
The Wall Street Journal editorial pages are ablaze with stories on this issue; its own editorials, that of its employee columnists, and guest columnists.
This is really the first comprehensive piece of evidence I've encountered that suggests Murdoch could be involved with the paper's editorial slant and is willing to see the WSJ devolve from an already distrusted source of opinion and analysis into Faux News absurdity.
Here's merely today's online opinion page*, where I count four articles on climate change - none pro-science. There's a link embedded on that page to a summary list of recent climate articles. I counted forty articles since late-Nov. '08 where the titles appear to reveal that none of them report what science describes or advocate for policy if science was correct.
Here's an article published on today's online opinion home page that was published in yesterday's newspaper, titled, Climategate: Science Is Dying. [emphasis mine]
In my 24 years of being a daily subscriber, I've never seen the WSJ get so strident about any one issue nor be so blatantly dishonest about how it frames and reports the facts.
*Not a permalink, reflects today's opinions whatever day that might be, not a static report 12/4/09's opinion page.
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 4, 2009 11:08 AM
This is eliminationism at its most bare, and it's very frightening to behold.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | December 4, 2009 11:12 AM
Even if it were High Treason (which it clearly is not, even if he did lie, which I don't think he did), we made all forms of capital punishment illegal in the UK, in line with European law and human rights, many years ago.
Therefore, no state-sponsored murder.
Posted by: DavidW | December 4, 2009 11:28 AM
This doesn't surprise me in the least. A cursory glance at any of the right-wing forums these days will tell you that anything that doesn't pass ideological muster is considered to be treason these days. They have lost their collective minds.
Posted by: tacitus | December 4, 2009 11:29 AM
While Breitbart is pretty unhinged, I have to figure this is a (poor) references to Hansen's comments that:
“CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term
consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for
high crimes against humanity and nature.”
Posted by: nicole | December 4, 2009 11:47 AM
nicole @16:
That's still not equivalent. Being tried for a crime, even "high crimes against humanity and nature", does not necessarily entail execution. Brietbart brought that up first.
Posted by: Kyorosuke | December 4, 2009 12:09 PM
Re Michael Heath
1. It should be noted that the Wall Street Journal opinion page was infested with whackjobs long before Murdock bought the paper. That page has always been a source of amusement to the regular reporters of the paper who used to be among the best in the business. Has the nuttiness now invaded the news pages as was feared when Murdock purchased the paper?
2. Astonishingly enough, I read a couple of years ago that Murdock is not himself a climate change denier. Sounds like Ann Coulter redoux.
Posted by: SLC | December 4, 2009 12:10 PM
SLC @ 18 states:
I've pointed that out myself many times before. My point in this thread is that the WSJ is going well beyond what I've ever experienced in my 24 years of reading it in terms of stridency and dishonesty. They are actually distinguishing themselves from an already tawdry past.
No, I have not yet noticed the news pages becoming less reliable since Murdoch's purchase. I watch for that closely given that's the reason I subscribe.
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 4, 2009 1:31 PM
"I think he has pretty much ended any need to take him seriously as anything other than a complete lunatic."
That was pretty much my opinion of Breitbart when I saw him on Real Time with Bill Maher - the first time I'd ever even heard of him - and witnessed him stating that Bush 43's Bioethics Council was full of secular humanists.
Posted by: Hume's Ghost | December 4, 2009 2:03 PM
While we're all accusing people of crimes against humanity, how about the CO2 scare being responsible for diverting food crops into biofuels? Think a few people might have starved because of the increased scarcity of some foods?
Posted by: Juice | December 4, 2009 2:16 PM
Potato Day Breitbart, what a muppet!
Posted by: Naughtius Maximus | December 4, 2009 2:17 PM
No. There is more than enough food to go around. It's more a case of getting it to the right place at the right time.
And is it just me, or is there a sudden spate of deniers airing their frustration about not being taken seriously enough in just about every comment thread of science-related blogs?
Posted by: tacitus | December 4, 2009 3:06 PM
As far as I know, there is no direct involvement of Dr. Hansen. Another scientist, who works at GISS with Dr. Hansen, Gavin Schmidt, did correspond with one of the researchers at CRU, and some of his emails to people at CRU are in the stolen emails. In one of those emails, Gavin talked about the moderation process at RealClimate, and the denialists have gone to some effort to misconstrue it. See here. Hansen is cc'd on a few of the emails, e.g. www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/comment-page-7/#comment-142495 . Hansen has co-authored a number of papers with some of the other people featured in the emails as well.
I encourage everyone to read what RealClimate has written about this issue:
www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/
www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/
Posted by: llewelly | December 4, 2009 3:27 PM
Posted by: llewelly | December 4, 2009 3:37 PM
Phil Plait has just posted an excellent follow-up to the whole "Climategate" brouhaha on his Bad Astronomy blog:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/12/04/global-warming-emails-followup/
Posted by: tacitus | December 4, 2009 5:31 PM
How do expect anyone to believe what's said on Discovery Magazine, those guys can't even agree on what Reproducibility means....
Well, guess I can't blame 'em, they'll just change the definition so it fits there theory.
What a darn Joke Science has become
Posted by: ehmoran | December 4, 2009 7:52 PM
I still want to see the laboratory experiment publication showing CO2 levels influence ambient temperatures. This question has always been avoided.
Also, scientists measured CO2 levels from Mt. Redoudt at 10,000 tons/day during the last eruption. How in the heck are you going to stop that?
When the relation between CO2 and temperatures were recently restudied, the data came from Hawaii about 2 miles from the active flowing volcano. Hmmm, Volcanoes produce large quantities of CO2. Hmmmm, lava is extremely hot. No bias there……..
Specific heat capacity water – 4.187 kJ/kgK
Specific heat capacity water vapor – 1.996 kJ/kgK
Specific heat capacity carbon dioxide at 300 (80 degrees F) kelvin – 0.846 kJ/kgK
Atmospheric concentration
Water vapor – 4% in upper atmosphere to 40% near the surface
CO2 – 0.036%
CO2 has been shown NOT to redirect energy back to the Earth’s Surface.
So, what’s up with these numbers?
Posted by: ehmoran | December 4, 2009 11:42 PM
I wonder if whoever conceived of Twitter realized how easy it would enable so many people to publicly make asses of themselves?
Posted by: Uncle Glenny | December 4, 2009 11:55 PM
ehmoran | December 4, 2009 11:42 PM:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-do-we-know-CO2-is-causing-warming.html
(First link from googling "laboratory experiment showing CO2 re-radiates infrared" .)
Human CO2 emissions are about 29.3 gigatons of CO2. This is several thousand times(0) the annual CO2 emissions from all volcanoes.
CO2 levels are sampled from 165 different sites.(1)
(0) www.springerlink.com/content/631t022372116213/ Annual volcanic carbon dioxide emission: An estimate from eruption chronologies Environmental Geology 1982 . www.grist.org/article/volcanoes-emit-more-co2-than-humans
(1) www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/dv/site/site_table.html#ccg_surface www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/index.html#global
Posted by: llewelly | December 5, 2009 12:47 AM
Posted by: llewelly | December 5, 2009 12:50 AM
Let me guess; you're one of these idiots who thinks replication means doing exactly the same thing in exactly the same way.
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 2:49 PM
In the late 1800’s, Arrhenius built upon Fourier’s assessment of atmospheric properties by plotting CO2 and temperature data collected in industrialized England. Arrhenius’ plots and calculations showed a relation between CO2 and ambient temperatures. In 1930’s, Callendar extended the analysis using long term observations from 200 stations arguing that there was a link between CO2 and climate warming. Keeling began collecting atmospheric CO2 samples from the Mauna Loa Observatory Hawaii in the late 1950’s and is the most complete record.
The USGS reports that all volcanic activity produces nearly 200-million tons CO2 annually; much less than that produced by human activity. Mauna Loa, near the Observatory and the world’s most active volcano erupting 39 times since 1832, had major eruptions in 1950, 1975, and 1984. Atmospheric CO2 levels measured at volcanoes indicate the degree of activity and estimates of heat flow from one volcano have been reported at140-mW/m2. Correlating CO2 and temperatures from data collected near an active volcano should be significant but not show a cause and effect relation; however, correlating world-wide data significantly shows CO2 lagging temperature by approximately two years. The data analyzed by Arrhenius and Callendar similarly could be significantly biased owing to the urban heat-island effect and extensive coal burning at the time, as CO2 is an abundant byproduct of burning.
Apparently, no laboratory control experiment to date, such as in a biodome, has shown CO2 levels influencing ambient temperatures. Tyndall (1861) measured the absorptive characteristics of CO2 followed by more precise measurements by Burch (1970). Absorbance is a measure of the quantity of light (energy) absorbed by a sample (CO2 molecule) and the amount of absorbed energy can be represented as specific heat of a substance. Specific heat of CO2 ranges from 0.791-kJ/kgK at 0-degrees F to 0.871-kJ/kgK at 125-degrees F and average atmospheric concentrations are 0.0306-percent. As revealed, the specific heat of CO2 increases as ambient temperatures increase showing CO2 likely is an ambient temperature buffer.
The atmosphere generally contains 4-percent water vapor in the troposphere to 40-percent near the surface. The specific heat of water vapor is relatively constant at 1.996-kJ/kgK. Water absorbs energy (heat) and evaporates to water vapor. During condensation (precipitation), latent heat is released to the atmosphere thus increasing ambient temperatures. Water vapor holds the majority of atmospheric heat and regulates climate and temperature more than any compound. Historically, however, the characteristics of water vapor related to climate were much less appreciated but investigations into the significance that water vapor plays in global climate-dynamics are just beginning.
The amount of energy not stored in the atmosphere is released into space through radiation. Re-radiation is the emission of previously absorbed radiation by molecules. The specific heat of water vapor and CO2 molecules shows that water vapor reradiates significantly more energy back to the surface and the atmospheric quantities for each compound further justify this case. Thus, this and other publications suggest that the minute variability in atmospheric CO2 concentrations likely results in an insignificant affect on climate change; whereas water vapor is the significant factor.
Posted by: ehmoran | December 5, 2009 9:20 PM
Until it explains the weird capitalization issues that cranks have, I'll have to agree with you.
If Science can't tackle this Mystery, I don't Know what it can possibly Hope to Achieve.
Posted by: Leni | December 6, 2009 12:06 AM
ehmoran: Eh, yes and no. While water vapour has a much greater absorbance of IR radiation and thus "effectiveness" as a greenhouse gas, atmospheric water vapour levels haven't changed significantly in the last sixty years, certainly not enough to correspond to the increased temperature trend.
Atmospheric CO2 levels, on the other hand...
Posted by: Snoof | December 7, 2009 12:45 AM
ehmoran wrote (in part): "The hubris of denial by these abusers of public trust, along with their followers, of the devastating magnitude of their deceptive and deviant activity..."
You forgot to throw "dastardly" in there...
Posted by: Chris Winter | December 7, 2009 3:03 PM
Hume's Ghost wrote: "That was pretty much my opinion of Breitbart when I saw him on Real Time with Bill Maher - the first time I'd ever even heard of him - and witnessed him stating that Bush 43's Bioethics Council was full of secular humanists."
Except, of course, for Dr. Kass...
Posted by: Chris Winter | December 7, 2009 3:07 PM