Part IV of this six part series, is below. For the full series, click:
- Part I – Palin’s Assertions
Part II – The Basic Science, in Stark Contrast
Part III – Climate Variability, Threshold Effects, and How to Subvert Informed Discussion
Part V - Real Editorial Debate, and the Costs/Benefits Myth
Part VI - The Hacked E-Mail “Scandal” Scandal, and the Real Issues: Palin’s assertions, the Post’s Misleading Promotion of her as an Expert and Leader in our Discussions, and the Ensuing Misinformation Driving Our National Debate
Part IV — “Political” is Whatever I Don’t Like, and Science is Whatever I Assert
Palin bases her piece on the notion that Copenhagen was “political” and (presumably, non climate change addressing) “agenda driven,” with not one sentence in support of these claims. And upon the notion that it was based upon “fraudulent science,” with nothing other than scant reference to an otherwise wholly irrelevant and overblown email scandal (see Part VI).
Essentially, Palin suggested that the Copenhagen effort to address climate change was “political” by an implicit definition that cannot exclude anything tied to public policy. And did so pejoratively – and as her piece’s main argument against Copenhagen — because it had the “agenda” of trying to address climate change. As opposed, to, say, “an agenda of trying to address poverty in third world countries,” which would clearly be a much better “agenda” for a conference to address climate change, than the actual agenda of addressing climate change.
Moreover, if she believed Copenhagen had little to do with at least an attempt to address climate change, we wouldn’t know this; because she does not say it, and offers zero evidence or even argument in support of such an assertion. All we get from Palin is nice sounding, but completely meaningless, and ultimately highly misleading, spin.
But then again, as Kathleen Parker pointed out, if BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street by herself (see part III).
Yet the Post, in addition to publishing this on its editorial pages, gives Palin a further promotional assist on this, and on some pretty basic, yet flat out erroneous, science representations, as well.
First, it does so by naming the piece (or keeping as the name) “Copenhagen’s Political Science.” (Ombudsman Andrew Alexander suggested the Post named the piece, but would not confirm this).[See update below]. Second, it was the Post who additionally chose to use Palin’s assertion that “the agenda-driven policies being pushed won’t change the weather,” for its opinion home page feature story lead caption.
And it is quite an assertion: The “agenda-driven policies being pushed” in Copenhagen, however lacking one may otherwise believe them to be, were based upon the goal of lessening emissions of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Given what is indisputably known about climate, atmospheric chemistry and carbon cycles, policies that do lower net emissions, would lessen those atmospheric levels. (There is no debate about this). And thus, invariably, even if it would not lessen those levels as much as we would like, this would ultimately and invariably change the weather, by having an effect on longer term climate; which, of course, drives weather.
The only way that the statement would not also be flagrantly false — once again, not just misleading, but flagrantly false — is if Palin made an argument that the policies “being pushed” in Copenhagen wouldn’t affect atmospheric greenhouse gas levels one iota. While one could suggest that Copenhagen did fall asunder of what is needed for the least onerous, most practical, most reasonable, and most efficient remediation of the problem, making this contention (before most of the Copenhagen meetings no less) would be a pretty ridiculous stretch, since the entire idea was to reduce net emissions. But Palin doesn’t even make the argument. And, more importantly, the argument that would need to be made here in order to do – namely, “Copenhagen is not going to do enough, we need to do more” — would also largely contradict her entire piece.
Instead, she just throws out an absolute inanity – “the policies… pushed in Copenhagen [to reduce greenhouse gas emissions] won’t change the weather” – and the Post publishes it. And puts it on its opinion home page; when essentially it is an outright scientific lie. Not a “lie” based upon “consensus;” but a lie based upon the raw fact that atmospheric greenhouse gas levels invariably and ultimately are tied to weather, whether we like it or not; and until and unless we completely recreate the globe, always will be.
Palin also spent almost a quarter of the piece on polar bears, and the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”). While doing so, she tells us how polar bear populations have doubled, once again misleading readers, and also leaving out that the reason for this listing – forced by a conservative Supreme Court decision – is about the encroaching destruction of their habitat as a result of increasingly rapid sea ice loss.
But, further misrepresentations aside, why the seemingly wasted space, in an otherwise already short, and extraordinarily uninformative op-ed, on a polar bear ESA digression?
For one, it helped Palin get in the phrase “radical environmentalists” again (see part I), and tie that to the non political, non radical, very much science based, and very much sound risk management idea of addressing climate change.
And two, she used it to once again show how what she and her political allies do is not political, and what everybody else does, is:
That is, the former half term Alaskan Gov., who pushed strongly for a program to shoot wolves from helicopters, even offering a bounty for those shot dead, notes with apparent pride how she sued the government ”over its decision to list the polar bear as an endangered species.” She shows that she is not political, because she did it to “protect the oil industry;” while polar bear lovers, who did it to protect polar bears and/or to get greenhouse gas emissions checked to help stave off some ecological and biological havoc, of course, are political.
In other words, what Palin does, by definition, is not political. What everyone else does that she disagrees with, is.
More sound logic brought to you courtesy of the Washington Post editorial pages: The same pages that, on climate change earlier this year, as its featured op ed, also ran a piece arguing that the reason to ignore a major global challenge was because, in essence, it was a challenge. And that ran a piece by Palin, again as its feature op-ed, that argues that the way to get off of fossil fuels that are finite, dirty, environmentally destructive, national security compromising, and greenhouse gas producing, was to attack almost every other idea with random, unsupported and misleading assertions, and work and spend money to produce more fossil fuels.
Update: The Piece, online anyway, is no longer entitled “Copenhagen’s Political Science.” It is now entitled “Sarah Palin on the politicization of the Copenhagen climate conference.” Well, that certainly explains it.