Finally, the major media pick up the story I've been flogging all week. The Times piece is relatively bare-bones, but it does contain something revealing. You see, the paper asked the White House to comment on the Bush-meets-Crichton story. And not only was the Crichton meeting confirmed; Bush was dug into a deeper hole by one of his spokespeople:
Not so, according to the White House, which said Mr. Barnes's book left a false impression of Mr. Bush's views on global warming.Michele St. Martin, a spokeswoman for the Council on Environmental Quality, a White House advisory agency, pointed to several speeches in which Mr. Bush had acknowledged the impact of global warming and the need to confront it, even if he questioned the degree to which humans contribute to it.
How does the Barnes book give a "false impression"? Barnes called Bush a "dissenter" on global warming, and here we find the White House confirming precisely that. If Bush questions "the degree to which humans contribute" to global warming, he is definitely a dissenter/contrarian. And not just that: If he questions the degree to which GW is human caused, that almost certainly means he thinks what we're seeing is natural variability--which, in turn, means that he thinks what we're seeing is no big deal.
Most importantly: In the past, including surrounding the G8, Bush sang a very different tune on this topic. Now it would appear that in pretending to take global warming seriously, he was just putting on an act. That's the biggest outrage.
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Sniglet is a word that isn't in the dictionary but should be.
Truthiness is defined as truthy not facty.
How about factlet. A factlet is something that's not a fact but should be.
Hmmmm. I wonder if George has some ruby slippers. That way he could click them together and make something that wasn't true, true.
Good work on chasing this story, Chris. I've been linking your posts as they've come along, for what it's worth with my paltry reader-base! I'm almost as keen to see Crichton get a public shaming as Bush; as a science fiction geek, I hate seeing people who claim to be SF writers push technophobic anti-science into the entertainment arena, let alone into the spheres of government.
Let's hope this one gets a bit more momentum in the MSM.
Carry on the good work! The Intersection is a source of great stuff; proud to have it in the aggregator. High time I gave you a permanent link in the blogroll, methinks.
VelcroCityTouristBoard
"If Bush questions "the degree to which humans contribute" to global warming, he is definitely a dissenter/contrarian."
I am certainly glad that there are some journalists left who are not afraid to call it as they see it.
This whole "Dr. Chrichton goes to Washington" story is almost too pathetic for words.
A comedy?
Some of us are not laughing.
Just loved Jim Ramsey's post. Maybe I'm jaded beyond remediation, but it appears that the adage "the truth will out" no longer applies. The Republicans/Right-wingnuts, with their remarkable adeptness at spin, framing, fabrications, lying, deceptions, denying, backfilling... have done a remarkable job of sabotaging the language and public discourse so that they can get away with anything. If Scott McClellan gets a good night's sleep each night and has normal blood pressure given his daily performances, need any more be said?
Bush says whatever he thinks will get more campaign contributions/votes. Note that the meeting was suggested and arranged by Karl Rove. Thinking about anything that might happen later than the next election isn't on their agenda. But it's good to see the folks at the AAAS meting are riled up.
How do we know that Bush really read Crichton's book and met him? Who/what is/are Barnes' source(s) for this claim? I say this in part because I thought Bush doesn't like to read newspapers, much less books...
Anyway, it all sounds a little like too much like this...
You might want to be careful with your words. Even climate scientists and those of us connvinced that humans are having a significant influence on global warming can still legitimately question "the degree to which humans contribute to it." Still, Bush's scriptwriters must have chosen those words very carefully to avoid being pinned down to a position one way or the other, or to taking any action. This is why it is critical for the public to understand uncertainty - if we pretend it doesn't exist or that science can provide certainty, these kinds of arguments will backfire.
It is true that "questioning the degree to which humans contribute to global warming" IS a legitimate scientific endeavor -- when a climate scientist does it.
When members of the Bush administration do it, it takes on quite a different meaning: essentially, denial that humans are having ANY SIGNIFICANT effect on the climate.
The public does not understand all this talk of "scientific uncertainty" and "scenario modeling" and all the rest.
All they want to know is if there IS a problem.
When members of the public hear the word "uncertain", they immediately think "These scientists are not even sure if there IS a problem".
To say that "scientific uncertainty" exists (which it ALWAYS does) means nothing of the sort, of course, but most members of the public do not understand this.
When the public hears "There is uncertainty", the suggestion by the Bush administration to "Do more research and come back in a few years with your report", sounds perfectly reasonable.
One certainly has to be careful with the words one uses, but there is a point beyond which one "hoists oneself on one's own petard". The scientists' precision and care are basically being used AGAINST them in this case.
It is REALLY high time that someone called these people on their "word games" -- and I applaud Chris Mooney for doing so.
Sylvia is of course right about educating the public about the nature of scientific uncertainty, but from what I understand Crichtons' novel involves a plot by the vast majority of climate scientists to raise false alarms about a climate crisis using doctored data in order to foment a "liberal" takeover of the U S government. Is there anything in this idea that we should be cautious about disagreeing with?
In view of previous posts on this blog, ...
In severe weather outlooks, issued for the next couple days, the National Weather Service (NWS) uses low, moderate and high "risk". Then local NWS offices and local TV-radio meteorologists explain what risk means in their day to day weather updates to the public. These concepts could work for global warming enhanced threats.
For example, there is a high risk for catastrophic damage in Alaska this year due to global warming (already a catastrophe for many native communities in Alaska).
Or, there is a moderate risk of a heat wave catastrophe in the Upper Midwest/Northeast in Jul-Aug 2006, enhanced by global warming and significant regional factors.
It would not be difficult to come up with guidelines for catastrophic levels, and the level of risk to use. It's been done for severe weather outlooks, right?
Leadership is needed to make a decision that something like this be done in order to alert the public of the immense safety and damage risks enhanced by global warming factors ... rapid thawing, stronger hurricanes, more intense heat waves, increased flooding, droughts, sea level rise, air pollution, high humidity contributing and spreading diseases, etc. ...