BRATTLEBORO — I am a little confused by Ned Pokras' purported “rebuttal” (Viewpoint: “Hot Enough for You?,” The Commons, Sept. 15) to my op-ed, which cited the many ways in which Warmists' inherently racist and herd mentality serves neither science nor the best interests of the human population.
The cause of my confusion is that, despite claiming to rebut my claims, Mr. Pokras unambiguously affirms every one of them, albeit using that affirmation as a springboard from which to arbitrarily decontextualize the facts he stipulates to, so that they serve a pro-anthroprogenic global warming (AGW), Warmist agenda, rather than the objective science that generated them.
The only discernible points of contention I am able to note - and I remain open to correction - in Mr. Pokras' “rebuttal” are:
1. Mr. Pokras's condescending and implicit ad hominem claim that I am somehow anti-intellectual, and
2. That I am basing my revulsion at the global-warming agenda on information disseminated by (presumably) right-wing talk show hosts and similar media outlets.
For the record:
1. I am not anti-intellectual. I am anti-junk science, anti-herd-mentality, and anti pro-Warmist faux science. I have a master's degree in cultural studies from Dartmouth College, with a concentration in media studies, including aspects of propaganda, media manipulation, and how media affects culture.
I currently teach those subjects, along with media law and writing for the media, at Franklin Pierce University.
2. I believe that Limbaugh, Beck, Coulter, Malkin, and the rest are morons whose main value is showing us that, even in this day and age of ready information, you really can fool some of the people all of the time.
The fact that Mr. Pokras's two foundational claims in his “rebuttal” are wild assumptions, which he runs with as though they were fact, is entirely in line with what passes for scientific process within the pro-Warmist community.
I would also note that Mr. Pokras's implication that the IPCC is merely an impartial “clearinghouse” of sound scientific climate research is as reliable as his bald claims regarding my alleged anti-intellectualism.
Specifically, the IPCC, which has never questioned the existence of AGW, but whose mission statement, rather tellingly, declares that its sole purpose is, nevertheless, to mitigate it, has a long and documented history of concocting shrill apocalyptic AGW scenarios, based on lies regarding melting glaciers, dying forests, and severe weather patterns.
The IPCC also has a documented history of doctoring scientific data, rewording scientists' research reports, omitting research and data that is adverse to its pro-Warmist, pro-carbon credit exchange agenda, as well as including on its list of consensus of scientists any scientist who has ever worked with the IPCC, irrespective of whether those scientists agreed with the pro-AGW agenda.
Indeed, the IPCC adds to its list of scientists supporting the reality of AGW those scientists who have demanded to be removed from that list because the IPCC had mangled, manipulated, and misrepresented their research.
Mr. Pokras also cites Dr. Phil Jones of East Anglia University, even though Dr. Jones is most famous for releasing a slew of pro-AGW data that has been adopted and unquestioned as gospel by the Warmist herd even though Dr. Jones admitted that he had “mislaid” and, therefore is unable to produce, the original data sets on which his alleged “research” is based, and which represents the keystone of the AGW lie.
A recent and oft-cited investigation of Dr. Jones's claims and behavior concludes that Dr. Jones was not guilty of scientific fraud, but merely of sloppy scientific process.
Despite the fact that sloppy scientific process is more than enough reason to discount a scientist's alleged findings, it is notable that this “investigation” was an internal one carried out by – you guessed it – the University of East Anglia, which employed Jones at the time he allegedly conducted his research, and which suffered the same black eye because of it.
It is hard to imagine that any credible scientist would consider Jones and his alleged research a reliable source on which to base any argument, the implications of which include massive geopolitical re-engineering from a nation-based to a regional-trading-and-banking-based global “civic” configuration.
My final confusion is regarding Mr. Pokras's representation of NASA satellite data, which, when read in a mundane and non-exotic manner, actually shows a very minor global warming - a little in the Southern hemisphere and almost none in the Northern hemisphere - over the period that he cites.
Of course, other, more novel, interpretations can produce other claims, particularly when they walk backward from the assumption that significant warming must have occurred.
I thank Mr. Pokras for his response.
It is surely pleasing to have someone qualified in Earth sciences confirm the major claims in my op-ed.
But it is disappointing to see what, for Warmists, apparently passes for dispositive scientific evidence of the presence and dangers of alleged AGW, particularly when none of that alleged evidence actually and affirmatively supports any part of Warmists' absurd and cynical pro-AGW claim.
By the way, Warmists take note: Matthew Penn and William Livingston of the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, Ariz., who have been studying sunspots for the past two decades, recently presented a paper to the International Astronomical Union Symposium that suggests that the magnetic field strength of sunspots appears to be waning.
This ongoing waning, the researchers say, could well result in ... global cooling by 2016.