Climategate Coverage

This morning I woke up and was surprised to find CNN asking Al Gore questions about Climategate. Granted they were high hanging softballs but still. The Al Gore segment immediately followed a segment about the winter storm that just hit the mid-west and is pounding the east coast. The amount of cognitive dissonance is astounding. Tonight Campbell Brown's show will be on "Global Warming: Trick or Truth". I have no doubt it will mostly be running interference for the climate change believers but at least they are having to discuss Climategate.

Big Foot

Round trip on Air Force 1 from Washington to Copenhagen and back - 57,000 gallons of jet fuel.

Backup 747 in case you need it - 57,000 gallons of jet fuel

C17 to transport limousines and other vehicles - 40,000 gallons of jet fuel.

Total fuel consumed for trip to global warming summit 157,000 gallons.

Telling the rest of the world they need to reduce their carbon footprint? Priceless

(I based my calculations on a HowStuffWorks.com article guessing that it would be an 8 hour flight from the US to Copenhagen. I also made an educated guess on how much fuel a C17 would use but I think it is in the ballpark. I did not count additional support planes but my guess is there are several.)

Random thoughts

Lately I have been thinking about my life in terms of an analogy, that of a human cannon ball. I just turned 40 a few months back. When I was 20, things were just getting started, I was setting the trajectory I wanted my life to take. In my case I went to college, got a bachelors degree, found a decent paying career and boom I was off. Not that it was that quick. I was not one of those people who knows what they want to do right away. In my case after 7 years of college I finally figured out what I wanted. So the last 14 years while not completely smooth have been at least a steady rise along my intended trajectory path. Now I'm 40 and looking at the landing net off in the distance as I near the apex of my trajectory. I find myself wondering if I set the cannon trajectory right all those years ago. I set my cannon for modest goals that I thought I could achieve. Should I have set it higher? I find myself wishing that in the early years of my career I had played it less safe, taken more chances, changed jobs when I felt comfortable and did not want to sacrifice that comfort. People a lot older than me would probably laugh and say you are no where near the end and I certainly hope not but I keep looking at the landing net wondering if I will come up short.

Afghanistan cnt'd

Climategate conversions

Millions of people have just have their climate belief called into question. If all is true about the cover ups and the fraud and CNN, ABC, and CBS were to start going wall to wall with coverage, would people in mass start to question their beliefs on climate change? How do you do that if you are Ed Begley Jr. and have staked your very existence on climate change for the last couple of decades? Can you really face yourself and say everything you did, all the composting, all the spartan sacrifices, windmills and solar cells you installed on your house count for absolutely nothing. Well in his case it was not nothing, he got a TV show for his efforts. At least I think Ed is a true believer unlike Al Gore who I think is just an opportunist. But if you are not Ed or Al and have spent years putting around in a golf cart size car, buying carbon credits, reusable grocery bags, and experiencing untold other little inconveniences telling yourself and anyone who will listen how you are saving the environment, how do you suddenly tell yourself it doesn't matter. Most people won't be able to do this. It will be easier to say it is a conspiracy of some mysterious "them".

I'm not saying global warming does not exist. Frankly I don't know. Its just a thought experiment. For the last 20 years there has been a steady drumbeat on the environment from teachers, movies, television and pretty much everywhere. Its pervasive. If we were to suddenly find out that global warming was absolutely false how would people react? Whether global warming is real or not I am more concerned with how the issue has been used and abused by politicians. I like John Derbyshire's take on the whole thing actually.

Afghanistan

The new policy is send 30k troops for 18 months. Tribal leaders, Taliban leaders you only need to keep your head down for 18 months.

Actually I don't fault Obama for this. Our whole society both left and right are wrong headed about this. The right version of victory is send as many troops as needed, pacify the country like we did Japan and Germany in WWII. The left version is... actually I don't really know what the left wants other than to withdraw alltogether. Probably the main difference between my view and the view of the left is I don't profess to care much about Afghanistan. I am for getting out and I don't particularly care what happens to Afghanistan after that.

What I don't understand is why we are staking our success, our reputation and our ability to inspire fear in those who might want to attack us on whether or not Afghanistan becomes something better than what it is. It is sort of like the top down approach of the central planners in the current government who want to make us all better people with government policy. This is ridiculous. I can improve myself, I can have some effect on my family but making believe we can improve people through government policy is silly. Our Afghan policy is a bit like you or I staking our reputation on whether we can make the methamphetamine dealing family down the street better by sending your son and daughter to go break up their fights. When they get shot are we going to say they died for a cause? Their death was not for nothing?

18 months from now, 18 years from now Afghanistan is still going to be a mess. There is one way Afghanistan will not be a mess 18 years from now, maybe two. They could spontaneously change their ways and become a modern enlightened people. Quantum physicist will tell you virtually nothing has a 0 probability. The second and more likely (but still next to 0% chance) way for this to happen would be to send half a million to a million troops and garrison the country for 20 years or more until people begin to forget their current ways of living. Tens of thousands of american soldiers will die but in the end something will have been accomplished. Whether it will have been worth the cost is another matter. The current policy will mean probably hundreds will die until the insurgent forces make occupying Afghanistan unpopular enough for american poiticians to withdraw. At that point will we say they died for a worthy cause and that because of their sacrifice the world is a better place?

Climategate continued

Here is a good editorial from the Wall Street Journal on this. It kind of says what I said earlier, if the science was so good why was any of this necessary. When Eddington tested Einstein's theory of simple relativity the results were what they were. Once it was proven, there was nothing to hide from and no fear of other scientists verifying the results. One difference here is we are dealing with probabilities and not solid facts, but something strong enough to act on and to take drastic measures based on, should be strong enough to survive a certain level scrutiny, don't you think?

I have just been wondering as this starts to unravel if more people may come out of the woodwork. For years AGW proponents have been intimidating people who might otherwise speak up questioning AGW. Skeptics risked being labeled as "deniers". As these cracks have been forming it may encourage others to reveal what they know. I don't have a lot of faith that this will turn the tide of the AGW debate. People who control government funding are still going to fund studies favorable to AGW. There is so much momentum behind AGW belief in popular culture that I don't think it can stop on a dime. To tell you the truth I don't know for certain what is real with regard to AGW and from what I have seen in the last week and a half neither does anyone else. What I do know is many people have jumped on the AGW train in the last decade without much concern for examining if it is real or not. There has been almost a religious fervour that has shouted down any real debate. Absent also has been any cost benefit analysis as to what level of global warming could be acceptable. No level of global warming is tolerable and all steps need to be taken regardless of the outcome or cost. If this means spending trillions of dollars with negligible affect, slowing our technological development, lowering our standard of living then so be it. If it means developing nations be prevented from reaching the standard of living of the US and people die due to lack of electricity and all that it brings then so be it. This is not acceptable. Millions may die as a result of AGW policies, that have not been been debated, and are based on questionable scientific evidence.

Maybe India, China, Russia and some other contries who have basically said up yours when it has been suggested they jump on the AGW train as will take an interest in disproving AGW. My personal opinion is AGW actually worked in their favor. If your competitors (us) want to run a race with weights tied around their ankles, why stop them. The populations of these countries were either more concerned with economic development or the leaders were in a position not to care what their citizens wanted.

Anyhow, I don't think this is going to be over just yet.