…and this is a 
That's an upside to global warming I hadn't considered before
Category: Environment • Politics • Stupidity
Posted on: September 14, 2006 10:05 PM, by PZ Myers
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Republicans are capable of thinking long term—really long term. After a recent hearing, Rep. Don Young (Reprehensible, Alaska) enlightened us with a Deep Thought:
Before he left the hearing, Young, noting the presence of network TV crews, took a moment to reflect on his thoughts regarding climate change, citing the benefit of global warming -- not caused by man -- in another eon to an area that today is frozen much of the year. "We're dealing with the most northern part of the United States of America, and a most hostile climate, and we're pumping oil, and I'd just like to remind them if they're asked where did the oil come from, and I would say this to Al Gore specifically: This was a jungle at one time, this was a forest at one time, this was a fern-laden area with mammoths at one time, and that's really why we're pumping oil," he said.
Oh, yeah! Global warming will foster the luxuriant bogs and swamps of a new, more tropical Alaska, laying down the deep beds of carbon that will fuel the SUVs of tomorrow's America! Carbon dioxide…it's for our future! ("Tomorrow" is defined as "100 million years from now", and "America" refers to the evolved, sentient descendants of whatever species makes it that long and is resident on the tectonic plate corresponding to the current state of Alaska. No promises to current voters are intended or implied.)
A Minnesotan mentioned another little problem with Young's peculiarly hopeful idea.
Next to speak was the committee's ranking Democrat, James Oberstar of Minnesota, who reminded Young that while global warming might have been good for fern jungles, human civilization is another story. "That happened years ago," Oberstar said. "The place was uninhabited by humans at that time."
Pssht. Nattering nabob of negativism.
I think it's very ambitious. I'd always thought the Republicans would love to roll back history to the Middle Ages, but who'd have thought they'd set their sights on returning to the Carboniferous?
Comments
Apparently Don Young hasn't heard of continental drift.
Posted by: kurage | September 14, 2006 10:11 PM
How many mass extinction events have there been since Alaska was a tropical forest?
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | September 14, 2006 10:23 PM
It's an actual IDC experiment - recreating Cambrian explosion so we can actually observe it with our own eyes!
Posted by: coturnix | September 14, 2006 10:31 PM
I would like to extend an invitation to you to join in on a collective blogging section of our upcoming winter issue of Reconstruction
Here is the original call:
Theories/Practices of Blogging
Our intent in this section of the issue will be to collect a wide range of bloggers and link up to their statements in regards to why they blog (something many of us are asked) and any statement they have on the theories/practices of blogging.
If you already have a post on this you can feel free to use it, or, if you are interested, you can submit a new one.
We will link to each statement from the issue at our site, with the intent of creating a hyperlinked list of statements on blogging that can serve as an introduction to blogging (or an expansion of knowledge for those already blogging).
If you are interested please contact me at mdbento @ gmail.com
Posted by: michael benton | September 14, 2006 11:29 PM
Don Young is apparently the sort of man who would pay his gambling debts on a high interest credit card while socking away 10 cents a month to his great-great-grandchildren's college fund.
Posted by: mss | September 14, 2006 11:46 PM
This was a jungle at one time, this was a forest at one time, this was a fern-laden area with mammoths at one time, and that's really why we're pumping oil,"
Wow! Who would've thought that technology that was utilized decades before climate science was even a serious discipline could have been so because prescient Alaskans somehow knew that they'd discover their history and have a rationalization for continues reliance of fossil fuels! OMG CLIMATE SCIENTISTS ARE SO STOOPYD LOLLERCANNON!!!11eleven
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | September 14, 2006 11:49 PM
Given our present net output - returning gigatons of carbon to the biosphere after its sequestration by fossilization and virtually doubling the level of atmospheric CO2 - perhaps our own era should be dubbed the Second Carboniferous Age...
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | September 14, 2006 11:58 PM
I have this theory that people can't possibly be that stupid. And so, accordingly, I would guess that the point he was trying to make was that there were warmer climates in the past that weren't caused by humans, and so a warmer climate in the present or future wouldn't necessarily be the the fault of humans.
Posted by: 386sx | September 15, 2006 12:00 AM
Actually, I thought his point was that it used to be warm enough for jungle at one point -- so why not again? Rather than PZ's interpretation that we needed jungle up there to make more oil. Although, I'm guessing that the jungle and mammoths were not there at the same time (it sounds like that's what Young is implying).
I also had to wonder if this quote: "That happened years ago," Oberstar said. "The place was uninhabited by humans at that time." was meant to avoid the whole "age of the earth" question. He was very vague about how long ago that was. An evolutionist would say, hundreds of millions of years ago, but a creationist would say a few thousand years ago. Interesting political dodge to simply say, "years ago" when it was "uninhabited by humans".
Posted by: BC | September 15, 2006 12:04 AM
Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem
Posted by: Digressive Steve | September 15, 2006 12:17 AM
An evolutionist would say, hundreds of millions of years ago, but a creationist would say a few thousand years ago.
I think a young earther would say that the mammoths were from a warm climate and they were buried along with the ferns and stuff during the Noah's flood. I don't know if Young is a young earther though.
Posted by: 386sx | September 15, 2006 12:19 AM
Al Gore is touring Australia at the moment. He compared Prime Minister John Howard to a flat-earther. Pretty amusing, it's a shame that Gore rolled over in 2000, imagine how different the world would be.
Posted by: Darren | September 15, 2006 12:31 AM
Darren,
He didn't roll over, he was bent over!
Posted by: Digressive Steve | September 15, 2006 12:36 AM
Hey PZ,
Are you sure your "random quote" generator is truly random, and not intelligently designed?! I ask because here's what I got next to this thread about how far back in time the Republicans might want to take us:
And yesterday, the post where you so egregiously misinterpreted Pope Rat (by looking no further than the literal sense of his statements) was accompanied by this:
So who is driving your quote machine?
:-)
Madhu
Posted by: Madhu | September 15, 2006 1:35 AM
I don't know...
Global warming would mean a rise in sea-level, which means goodbye to most of FLorida and Louisiana - who (I think) "voted" Rethuglican, didn't they?
Posted by: G. Tingey | September 15, 2006 4:33 AM
Her....ummmm..... "years ago"??? Doesn't that sound a little, I dunno, poli-suspicious to anyone? He makes it sound like it could have maybe benn, oh, I dunno, a couple thou years ago, give or take... It's certainly an interesting way to avoid going on record as saying anything that would outright contradict YEC views.
Posted by: plunge | September 15, 2006 5:12 AM
Back to the Carboniferous? I'm sure I'm not the first to think of them as dinosaurs.
Posted by: Alex | September 15, 2006 5:37 AM
Al Gore is touring Australia at the moment. He compared Prime Minister John Howard to a flat-earther. Pretty amusing, it's a shame that Gore rolled over in 2000, imagine how different the world would be.
Personally I'm amazed he hasn't been kidnapped by Labour and made leader of the opposition yet. He'd win the next election hands down. So can we keep him? Please?
Posted by: Erekose | September 15, 2006 5:54 AM
Okay, I never took Latin. "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem" means what?
The best I could make out: "Knowledge, not government, is the enemy of ignorance." Is that right? Is it a famous line from some famous text?
Posted by: Ed Darrell | September 15, 2006 6:04 AM
No doubt I'm also opening myself up to accusations of negative thinking by pointing out that Alaska was some distance from the Arctic circle when those jungles were growing there. The mammoths must just have got lost ;-)
Posted by: gengar | September 15, 2006 6:07 AM
That happened years ago...
Under the Clinton administration.
Posted by: archgoon | September 15, 2006 6:37 AM
You forgot, Republican are young earth creationist, so the oil was created only a few hundred years ago ;-)
Posted by: Branedy | September 15, 2006 7:01 AM
The best I could make out: "Knowledge, not government, is the enemy of ignorance." Is that right?
There's nothing about government in there.
"Knowledge (Science) has no enemies save the ignorant"
Posted by: Graculus | September 15, 2006 7:06 AM
This was a jungle at one time, this was a forest at one time, this was a fern-laden area
That might explain the coal deposits.
with mammoths at one time
From about 700,000 years ago; more recently, they got downright woolly, and fed on tundra grasses, not ferns. And aside from the short time span, there would have had to be a heck of a lot of mammoths to explain all that oil.
and that's really why we're pumping oil," he said.
Gee, and here I thought we were pumping it because we're dependent upon it. In any case, I'm at a loss as to how this helps one to finish the sentence "Al Gore is wrong because ...".
Senator Young is yet another indication that we now live in a kakistocracy.
Posted by: truth machine | September 15, 2006 7:09 AM
No doubt I'm also opening myself up to accusations of negative thinking by pointing out that Alaska was some distance from the Arctic circle when those jungles were growing there. The mammoths must just have got lost ;-)
Not negative thinking, merely error; the mammoths crossed the Bering Straits/Land Bridge.
Posted by: truth machine | September 15, 2006 7:12 AM
When Stephen Colbert made a sketch about the need to use up the oil as fast as possible, in order to bring way for the new forms of energy, it was obvious joke.
But when someone on a forum said that high comsumption causes high energy costs, that person wasn't.
What I cannot figure out is why they keep missing the point about energy conservation.
Posted by: Markus | September 15, 2006 8:23 AM
Are you going to let such tiny ideological quibbles keep you from being politically effective, or will you put aside your petty differences and join forces with the Republicans to achieve the greater goal of a Better American Tomorrow?
Posted by: Caledonian | September 15, 2006 8:32 AM
"This was a jungle at one time, this was a forest at one time, this was a fern-laden area with mammoths at one time, and that's really why we're pumping oil,"
I just think it would be a great cost-saving measure for Hollywood. When Alaska warms up, they can use extracted DNA to breed Mammoths through elephants and make some great movies without having to spend all that money on CGI.
We should have Jean Auel start working on the script treatments right now.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich | September 15, 2006 9:11 AM
As for returning to Carboniferous CO2 levels, wasn't the output of the sun a bit less back then? (10%? 20%?) (Yeah, wingers have been saying that the solar output has gone up a bit over the past century, but while *generally* true it's not enough to explain global warming. Over 0.5gyr, the effect should be much more significant)
Erekose:
Sure! We're always ready to help a friend. But you have to take back Rupert Murdoch too, fair's fair.
Posted by: Grumpy Physicist | September 15, 2006 12:28 PM
I propose we name the newly-discovered, jungle-dwelling mammoth Reprihensibilus donyoungus.
Posted by: TheBrummell | September 15, 2006 12:35 PM
I wouldn't be that mean to Australia. No one ought to be made to have custody of Rupert Murdoch.
Posted by: Stogoe | September 15, 2006 2:00 PM
Don Young was my representative for about fifteen years. I have even met Don Young. I can assure you that he is the stupidest person in congress. From a post I wrote about him last summer:
Even though he was born and raised in California and didn't move to Alaska until he was an adult, Young cultivates a rustic Alaskan outdoorsman image. This led to his most legendary moment. In 1975 he opposed a bill that would have outlawed the use of leg-hold traps (the toothed, clamp traps that are a staple of cartoons). After a string of celebrities and animal experts testified to the traps' cruelty, Young sought to counter their emotional testimony with a demonstration of his own. Announcing that he was "the only licensed trapper in this whole Congress," he offered his own expert opinion that the traps were not cruel. He demonstrated with his own trap.
Representative Don Young set off a leghold trap on his own hand and stated he would leave the trap on for the duration of his testimony. He proceeded to describe his own trapline of 500 leghold traps. He set out so many traps, it was days before he would return to kill any trapped animals who had somehow survived. To the horror of those present, he described seeing a lynx who survived 6 weeks in a leghold trap because other lynx came to feed him. In the midst of his testimony, the Subcommittee Chairman noted, "I am concerned about your fingers. They are blue now." To which Representative Young replied, "Yes, they are." Shortly thereafter he removed the trap from his hand.
http://johnmckay.blogspot.com/2006/07/stupider-than-ted-last-week-senator.html
Posted by: John McKay | September 15, 2006 2:27 PM
Every time I think some politician has come up with the stupidest explanation of what they believe, some moron comes along and says something like this quack.
wow
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | September 15, 2006 3:05 PM
Representative Don Young set off a leghold trap on his own hand...
I was willing to give Mr. Young the benefit of the doubt and then that story gets posted. Lol, that's what I get for pretending to be the "Mr. Objective Dude."
Posted by: 386sx | September 15, 2006 3:38 PM
Before he went into Congress over 33 years ago, Don Young was a teacher.
I kid you not.
John McKay: "I can assure you that he is the stupidest person in congress."
Is that just because Traficant is in the pokey? Don Young may be a jackass, it's true, but the sad fact is there are far dumber people in the Congress.
Posted by: Grumpy | September 15, 2006 5:10 PM
Arguably Republicans first emerged as a species during the Carboniferous - many of the fossils from that time period are cockroaches.
Posted by: Nymphalidae | September 15, 2006 5:29 PM
"I have this theory that people can't possibly be that stupid."
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
Posted by: Karl Rove II | September 15, 2006 5:41 PM
Actually, most of the Prudhoe Bay oil comes from Triassic deltas, and the source rock is organic-rich calcareous mudstone. No Carboniferous, no mammoths, no politicians.
see http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2004/1283/shortcourseb.pdf
For an overview of the resource.
Posted by: Lab Lemming | September 16, 2006 6:28 AM
Mammouths roaming fern forests? Mammals in the Carboniferous? I have to ask my congressman if little Cain and Abel used to play with baby dynosaurs.
Posted by: jaimito | September 16, 2006 4:25 PM
I think the political winds may shift in the fall, but I suspect the Dems will not 'tackle climate change', if such a thing is even possible. I am completely pessimistic that any political will exists on any side to do anything.
Doing anything about climate change will be hard in a democracy. Really hard. IPCC estimates of the rate and extent of AGW means that we have to do a lot, now, to stop something that may well only be subtle during our lifetime. Especially in the developed world where money and technology will insulate us (heh) from the effects.
Forgive me for noticing that there is a dislike for Repubs evident here, but Democrats also have to get power and stay in power, and so also are constrained in what they can reasonably do. Asking people to do painful things will make them unpopular. So I doubt they'll do it, because it will weaken them. People say that they are concerned about the environment, but their choices suggest otherwise. Politicians see enviros as one more special interest group to court, and generally a fickle and inconsistent group, I think.
People across the globe already die of starvation, disease, and genocidal violence right now, just as they did when Democrats last ruled the roost. I don't know why anyone thinks that rising sea levels or droughts will suddenly mobilize people to give a damn. We'll send a shitpot full of money when disasters strike, but we won't do anything to prevent them that isn't obviously connected to them.
I think things like The Day After Tomorrow actually are counterproductive, because the changes are far more likely to be subtle, and evolve over a long time. To hear science journalism tell it, we are always menaced by some hideous threat, like brain cancer from cell phones, and we are always on the verge of nanosubmarine cures for heart disease. People see it for the hyperbole it is, and go on.
What I am saying is that I am not sure that the means exist for communicating about a serious threat that will unfold over decades, that will produce both good and adverse effects at least at first, that will show up for a while in ways that are hard to separate from background noise, and that will require expensive changes up front to stave off catastrophe decades or a century hence. And because of this, there will not develop a clear public will to change things, and no politician will risk her or his neck for something, however good and proper, that will get them booted the hell out of office.
I predict the following- AGW will be ignored by anyone who is elected. If it gets worse more quickly than predicted, it will still be ignored because of the unpopularity of paying to stop or mitigate it, and because we will feel it less than poorer countries. Finally, I predict that it will be ignored except when one side can get leverage over the other by having a plan to fix it, which they will abandon once in power.
AGW is like social security, energy policy, fiscal policy, health care, etc. It would take too much coordination to fix properly, and so it won't be until it gets so ugly people can't ignore it. And that will be a while, yet.
Posted by: Dave Eaton | September 16, 2006 10:04 PM
By that time it won't really be fixable - the changes will be so damaging that they'll impair our ability to respond properly. Even if we could respond, the fix wouldn't really take affect for decades.
Posted by: Caledonian | September 16, 2006 11:17 PM
Exactly, Caledonian. How do you get people to think long-term about something as abstract as climate change, when most people won't think long-term about concrete stuff, like retirement?
That's why I think that the science, consensus or not, has to be debated. The public will not assume that the science is settled if we don't; they'll think that we are haughty and blinded by scientism, the way they think scientists are about evolution. The debate matters, even if the answers are already there. Even if to do so means stooping a bit.
But I'm pessimistic, because I think the idea that the public will follow the science wherever it leads is counter to the evidence. I think, further, that scientists are often irrational in expecting this. Finally, it worries me that scientists keep wading into extra-scientific areas without taking off the mantle of expertise.
Economics and policy are not my fields, but they will be focal here. Saying "we have to change" or "we have to act now" may express truths, but the detailed planning will have to be done with analysis from these disciplines. And someone is going to have to figure out how to sell it to people so they won't vote out the first set of leaders that take bold steps. I'm guessing scientists won't be the ones best suited to do this.
Posted by: Dave Eaton | September 17, 2006 12:26 AM