Putting The Blame Everywhere, Except Where It Belongs
From Tom Friedman's column in Sunday's New York Times assigning blame for the Democrats pulling the "climate" bill.
I could blame Republicans for the fact that not one G.O.P. senator indicated a willingness to vote for a bill that would put the slightest price on carbon. I could blame the Democratic senators who were also waffling. I could blame President Obama for his disappearing act on energy and spending more time reading the polls than changing the polls. I could blame the Chamber of Commerce and the fossil-fuel lobby for spending bags of money to subvert this bill. But the truth is, the public, confused and stressed by the last two years, never got mobilized to press for this legislation. We will regret it.
How about putting some blame on Tom Friedman, one of the numerous 'global warming' alarmists (Al Gore at the top of the list) who have carbon footprints that dwarf those of 99% of the world's population?!
This is a photo of Mr. Friedman's home. Need I say more?
Glenn Reynolds says, I'll believe global warming is a crisis when the people telling me it is a crisis start acting like its a crisis.
UPDATE: Monday Evening. Pat Sajak has a sensible proposal for Tom, Al, Laurie, and the rest of the jet-set global warming alarmists.
UPDATE 2, 8/4/10: I am not the only one to link behavior of global warming activists to the defeat of cap and trade. From Clive Crook who believes we need to tax carbon:
Second, the evident fondness of climate-change activists for delegitimizing dissent and spinning the facts to make them more "understandable" is simply not working. Cap and trade just died for lack of public support. I think climate-change activists are partly to blame, as I argue in this recent FT column. They are harming their own cause.
I could blame Republicans for the fact that not one G.O.P. senator indicated a willingness to vote for a bill that would put the slightest price on carbon. I could blame the Democratic senators who were also waffling. I could blame President Obama for his disappearing act on energy and spending more time reading the polls than changing the polls. I could blame the Chamber of Commerce and the fossil-fuel lobby for spending bags of money to subvert this bill. But the truth is, the public, confused and stressed by the last two years, never got mobilized to press for this legislation. We will regret it.
How about putting some blame on Tom Friedman, one of the numerous 'global warming' alarmists (Al Gore at the top of the list) who have carbon footprints that dwarf those of 99% of the world's population?!
Glenn Reynolds says, I'll believe global warming is a crisis when the people telling me it is a crisis start acting like its a crisis.
UPDATE: Monday Evening. Pat Sajak has a sensible proposal for Tom, Al, Laurie, and the rest of the jet-set global warming alarmists.
UPDATE 2, 8/4/10: I am not the only one to link behavior of global warming activists to the defeat of cap and trade. From Clive Crook who believes we need to tax carbon:
Second, the evident fondness of climate-change activists for delegitimizing dissent and spinning the facts to make them more "understandable" is simply not working. Cap and trade just died for lack of public support. I think climate-change activists are partly to blame, as I argue in this recent FT column. They are harming their own cause.
I just unsubscribed to your RSS feed. Not because of what you are saying, but because you are posting a picture of Mr. Friedman's alleged house without any sourcing.
ReplyDeleteCare to give us more information so we can verify this information for ourselves? If not, you are acting like a preacher, asking for dogmatic faith in your divine word. I grant that faith to no one.
Sure, John. Here is the primary source, http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/1673.html . This is confirmed by reporting in the "Huffington Post" ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/billionaire-scion-tom-fri_b_26164.html ) and in numerous conservative publications. I have looked for a denial from Friedman and have never found one.
ReplyDeleteMike
Thanks. Personally, I enjoy your weather-related posts, and have learned from them. But I could do without the politics.
ReplyDeleteI'm politically independent and am confused about climate change issues, but I believe that ad hominem attacks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem) do nothing to advance the debate--they simply foster division. If you want to attack someone's ideas (including mine), that's great. But I don't like it when anyone (of any political persuasion) tries to attribute motives to someone else without serious documentation. I try never to do that, because I can't ever get into someone's brain, and truly know why they are doing something, regardless of their political orientation. I don't know how Friedman feels about his house or why he does things; nor do I know why Breitbart edits videos the way he does. So I generally try not to guess why someone is doing something, but instead would document my disagreement with what they actually said or did.
BTW, I'm clearing out my todo list today and linked to your post from my blog today:
http://www.controlgeek.net/blog/2010/7/29/outdoor-shows-and-severe-weather.html
John,
ReplyDeleteThank you, but I'm confused. I don't believe I have ever mentioned Breitbart in this blog. Can you clarify to what you are referring?
I do believe there is a risk (as I said in another post just today) of pumping large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Back in December, I did a seven-part series of what I believe is fact and fiction regarding global warming. Part I is here: http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2009/12/climategate-update-i.html .
That said, I strongly object to people telling us how to live our lives when they are not willing to live with the same prescriptions they demand of us. I was not attacking Mr. Friedman but his actions. To me, that is not an ad hominem attack. As the reference you cited says, "The argumentum ad hominem is not always fallacious, for in some instances questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue.[3]"
I do thank you for your comments. I hope we can agree to disagree on this.
Sorry for the poor or confusing analogy--since I was citing Freidman as a liberal pundit, I wanted a conservative in the public eye, and Breitbart was the first to come to mind, due to his recent actions and attending controversy.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I stand by my characterization of your post as an ad hominem attack, since you said, "This is a photo of Mr. Friedman's home. Need I say more?". Why not attack the substance of Mr. Freidman's article? That would be productive. Instead, you simply say he's wrong, and that he lives in a big house. The only association that I can come up with from that is that you think he's a hypocrite. And that would mean that he's just doing all this for the money or, uh, something (BTW I learned in the Washington Times article that he married a very wealthy woman). And this all sounds to me that something my father used to say to avowed liberals, "if you like paying taxes so much, why don't you just donate more". An issue this big will only get solved with systemic, large scale action. Freidman may be totally sincere (and he could be totally wrong), but living in a shack would do nothing to address the problem as he sees it. And maybe he has geothermal heat, and buys only wind power? The impact of his lifestyle would then have little no impact on CO2 output.
And with your recent posts today, I have permanently un-subcsribed from your RSS feed. These posts do not (to me anyway) contribute to productive discourse, they simply come off as divisive preaching to a right-wing choir. There's already a whole cable network devoted to that kind of stuff, I don't need more of it mixed in with my interests in weather.
And it's a pity, because I did enjoy your posts which actually addressed meteorology.
John,
ReplyDeleteSorry you feel that way.
Keep in mind that Mr. Friedman's article (the subject of my posting) was to assign blame to Republicans, to Democrats, to President Obama, etc. He did not assign any blame to himself or Mr. Gore or any of the persons who preach cutting greenhouse gasses while they have giant carbon foot prints. I felt that was hypocritical on his part.
You say, "An issue this big [I presume you mean global warming] will only get solved with systemic, large scale action." It appears you accept the IPCC's hypothesis and prescriptions for action. That is fine. I do not. I believe that there are other, likely more important, drivers of climate than CO2 and that we could spend tens of trillions with little positive benefit.
The good news is that we will likely know the scientific answers (as I have posted twice this week) in 3-5 years. I stand ready to lead the way to drastic cuts in greenhouse gasses if that is where the science dictates. But, the science is simply not there yet.
Thank you again for your comments.
Mike