So many people should get punched in the nuts for making this happen.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Please be more specific, Booman.
AG
He’s talking about the NYTimes hiring a wingnut climate change denialist to lie to its readers I assume.
Parable of the scorpion and the frog seems relevant. The Times has shown it’s nature over and over again.
Anyone who has to ask, needs a cruel ball tap, too.
Well it wasn’t clear if you meant publishing the article itself, the climate change political situation, or the Clinton campaign’s approach. It still isn’t.
I agree with Voice. It was unclear.
“making this happen” seems pretty clear to me, what else could it mean other than putting an intellectually dishonest wingnut on the “paper of record” opinion page?
I think it’s very clear, once you read the linked piece. The denialism is just transparently presented in bad faith, the shot at Clinton’s campaign is completely gratuitous to the rest of the piece, and the fact that it appears under the NYT banner is an affront.
Added bonus, check out the Public Editor’s response to complaints about the hire. (who is, herself, an embarrassment to the Times) She straight-up equates complaints about hiring a columnist who lies with hiring columnists who are conservative, as if it’s a crazy idea to expect a conservative columnist to be truthful. Or editor James Bennet’s quote:
Boo’s right. The Times desperately needs to clean house and has for quite some time, and instead they’re getting worse.
It’s actually pretty slick. Start off with a discussion that a certain percentage of all political persuasions will agree with…Clinton SMASH!….then lead the suckers to the promise land, where they will be fleeced.
It’s an age old con mans trick. Works every time. It’s Trumpism writ small.
.
It is quite common among smart, respected, successful people like Nassim Taleb, John Michael Greer to (basically) chastise liberals for failing to stop avaricious exploitation of poor people or the planet, while saying nothing against those who actually do the exploitation. It is asif only the liberals (and exclusively only we liberals) are expected to do the superman work of saving the planet – and we are damn failing to do the job. Interesting social dynamics!
Ugh, Greer the Archdruid. I’ve been commenting on his blog for years, but it’s under the guise of “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” He does say a few things against conservatives, such as the material I summarized in The Archdruid on Objectivism as civil antireligion and A conversation with The Archdruid about Objectivism, Satanism, and the GOP on my blog, but he’s far more interested in pointing out what he sees as the failures and hypocrisies of modern American liberalism than he is in the complicity of the people he rightly calls pseudo-conservatives in the destruction of the planet and the downfall of Modern Industrial Civilization.
Greer is surely enjoying his bias. Thanks to him, I got interested in the history of progress reversals.
The Renewal of Religion — The Archdruid Report
As I have mentioned recently, I am reading about the “Arab/Muslim” intellectual golden age and the early Islam. Apart from one early episode of zealous reason defense, the rationalists were not particularly good in bullying at all. In contrary, they generally tended to be apologetic and self-immersed – like now. The “rule of Islam” was slow to succeed. Eventually, an epic bully in service to pre-Machiavellian paranoid power brought a triumph. That’s the way it goes.
straightforwardly stating the truth:
I.e., acknowledging just how low (i.e., lying on the ground) the NYT editorial page’s “bar for intellectual honesty and fairness” is set.
George Will’s longstanding climate denialism suggests it had already been there for quite some time. (Numerous other examples could be cited in evidence, too, I’m sure.)
Perhaps Bennet deserves credit for finally stating that openly!
click the link and read the article either (like, evidently, voice)?
Not even the note right up there at the very top explaining it was the new-hire rightwing hack’s first column?
No, I read it and understood it. Just found more than one thing that deserved nut punches.
The answer here is ‘all of them.’
Greenhouses have been around for hundreds of years. The planet Venus is a good example of the Greenhouse Effect.
Nothing on the above list is controversial in the slightest. Now, without something controversial on the above list, the Grenhouse Effect contribution to AGW is simply a fact.
Providing a platform on the NYT opinion page to an AGW denialist is an outrage and a disgrace.
I didn’t see denial. I did see a statement that models may not be accurate. I’ve built many computer models in grad school and in industry. I agree, models can be inaccurate. In fact, models are always inaccurate to some degree, just because they are models, not observations (which have their own inaccuracy).
Certainty is only for religion or politics (another religion for some).
Now, inaccuracy doesn’t mean total inaccuracy. Do you care if you are going to be flooded under 60 feet of water or 100 feet?
It is hard for the public to believe that a two degree change in average temperature can cause a catastrophe. it is outside their realm of experience. And, if A piece of ice is at -40F, going to -38F doesn’t make much of a difference. But if the ice is at 31F, going to 33F makes one Hell of a difference.
Climate Science isn’t obvious or easy. Screaming, “It’s SCIENCE ASSHOLE!” at the public is really just another way of screaming, “It’s THE WORD OF GOD, SINNER!” Unquestioning marching in step, fudging data to make the experiment come out right, and hiding negative evidence isn’t Science. It’s Religion.
Oh FFS.
A fine religious response. Did you actually read my post? Were the words too big for you?
Well, Voice, let me directly ask you a question I pose rhetorically to the person you attempt to defend here:
What are the physical, moral, societal and political hazards you wish us to risk if climate change ends up being even worse than the scientific consensus? After all, the consensus could be wrong in either direction, correct?
I am not attempting to “defend” anyone.
I was trying to explain why non scientist voters are skeptical and and the same time point out that scientific theories are not Holy Writ. What I got was a religious response to burn the heathen.
I am greatly disappointed in the current denizens of the Pond. Mindless shouting of slogans. Sticking your fingers in your ears crying,”La! La! La! I can’t hear you!”
No longer do you consider viewpoints and make logical counterarguments. Instead you (plural) engage in ad hominem attacks and follow a script out of the DNC.
Last year an experiment at CERN seemed to detect particles faster than light. They weren’t burned at the stake, although they were meant with skepticism. A few months later, the original authors of the paper announced they had found the error in their experiment and documented it. That’s Science. What I read here is Religion.
Quoting Barbie “Math is hard” is not making an argument. Reguritating Stephen’s facile “probabilities therefore ¯\(ツ)/¯” is defending him.
Stephens is presumably smart enough that he’s not making this argument in good faith. How about you?
I never heard of this guy before I clicked booman’s link.
If you choose to think that I’m his disciple, shame on you!
Apparently you are incapable of reasoned discourse, only slogan shouting. Time for your two minute Hate.
“I am not attempting to “defend” anyone.” – You
“I didn’t see denial.” – Also you.
“Climate Science isn’t obvious or easy. Screaming, “It’s SCIENCE ASSHOLE!” at the public is really just another way of screaming, “It’s THE WORD OF GOD, SINNER!” Unquestioning marching in step, fudging data to make the experiment come out right, and hiding negative evidence isn’t Science. It’s Religion.” – You
“Now, [we have] faith in the environment… In short, a religion without God.” – Bret Stephens
Funny that.
“I never heard of this guy before I clicked booman’s link.”
Well, since you apparently didn’t get his measure from reading Boo’s link, here you go. Can’t claim to be uninformed now.
were actual things that were, ya know, actually happening in climate science.
But, “sadly, no”, they aren’t.
So it isn’t.
They happen all the time in Climate Science.
On the side of the deniers.
Think Progress
.
denialists aren’t “in climate science” . . . not in my taxonomy, anyway.
Pointing out that a model contains a lot of uncertainty should make one embrace solutions to the danger of climate change, not make them shrug their shoulders and say “let’s wait and see”. That Bret suggests we do the latter under the auspices of “uncertainty” is the tell that Bret, in the end, is no different than a denier because their suggestions amount to the same thing.
Principle.
RE:
(Un)naturally, The PP is anathema to greedy, selfish, exploitive profiteers.
So they’re anathema to other living things, including decent humans.
One of the very worst ways to defend scientific conclusions/theories is to say “all the very best scientists agree,” or “there is near unanimous agreement in the scientific community.”
Human history is littered with scientific theories that were, in their time, considered established fact, only to be debunked by later generations of scientists. (Anyone who thinks the last sentence is incorrect should read Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything”.)
I am not arguing that the current state of climate science is wrong. But I would ask those who believe that we are facing an existential crisis (brought about largely by our love of burning fossil fuels) to work harder on finding ways to actually talk constructively with people who do not view the issue with the same zeal/concern.
One of the realities we face is that climate science is a predictive science: we are taking mountains of data, and through rigorous interpretation of that data (primarily using very sophisticated computer models) we are predicting what the future will be (Earth will be x degrees warmer in 100 years, etc., and then extrapolating out what that increase warmth will cause (sea rise, drastic changes in weather patterns, and so on.) All predictive sciences must deal with the question of credibility. Unfortunately, there are many who distort the credibility question wrt climate science (which at its core seems to be what Stephens is doing).
Which brings me back to your point Voice – shouting at people who do not believe that anthropogenic climate change is a really bad thing does not win hearts and minds.
Good news, models predictions with reality:
No, Booman. It was a valid question
Here are the subjects that the article covers:
#1-100% rightness is not to be trusted.
I like that one.
Don’t you?
You should.
Nothing except the infinite “Everything” is even possibly infallible…and that, only if you believe in the unending wisdom of the evolving Universe.
I do, myself.
So it goes…
#2-It uses the HRC campaign as an example.
I agree.
Pride Cometh before a fall.
Always and everywhere.
(Also known as “hubris.” The Greeks knew.)
#3-The author quotes Andrew Rivkin:
I repeat:
“The science was generally scrupulous.”
My son is in the very midst of that science as an PhD-level environmental biologist in a very high level, Ivy League system. He and his colleagues are “scrupulous” to a fault.
The hustlers…on either side, “anti-” or “pro-” global warming…not so much..
Just like the rest of the political gaming going on.
Trust no liars.
Ever.
Further:
For those of us with a healthy skepticism regarding the so-called “healthcare” system of the United States…and I do mean “healthy” because not letting Big Med, Big Pharma, Big Fod and Big Insurance run roughshod over you can add years to your healthy life…the same skepticism ought to be placed on the PermaGov/Academic/Media insistence that it knows fuck-all about everything.
It does not.
The same systems that told us for 40+ years ago that animal fats were the cause of heart disease are now telling us that:
Same (probably) same here.
#4-He also writes:
Got to agree with that, too.
So…where is the ball-tapping?
The NY TImes has already thoroughly proven that it has no balls whatsoever to tap. First of all, the whole Yellowcake/Judith Miller/fake WMDs/runup to the Bush II Blood-For Oil invasion of Iraq disqualifies it from much in the way of serious consideration as anything other than a spokescreen for the CIA/PermaGov line.
Secondly, its equally supine efforts to make HRC seem to be a valid candidate for the so-calledd liberal/progressive left despite the Clinton’s ongoing monetary romance with the military/industrial/globalist complex should put it somewhere on the comparison line with the Daily Beast, HuffPost, WAPO, CNN, Fox and Breitbart.
Bullshit artists all!!!
Why pay undue attention to anything it says!!!
Is this article in question a defense of Exxon/Mobile’s attempts at gaming the system?
Could be…
Is it essentially a smokescreen for more gaming?
Again…could be?
Who gives a fuck?
Not me, and not anybody with even an ounce of brains left after the massive media offensive of the past 50+ years..
Just more lying bullshit…even if it was not meant as such.
Make your own decisions.
Is your own carbon footprint too great?
Compared to what?
Compared to the military might of the U.S.?
Please!!!
Mine isn’t.
Bet on it.
Resist them all!!!
It’s all a con game.
WTFU!!!
AG
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s the Bret Stephens fan club.
It’s a miracle you haven’t been fleeced of every dime you’ve ever earned.
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s the centrist Democratic Party fan club!!!
And simultaneously the anti-NY Times fan club.
You know…the NYT Times that consistently supports the Democratic Party? The party that is also consistently supported by your major employer, the Washington Monthly?
Uh oh!!!
Such positions can lead to schizophrenia, Booman.
If the NY Times positions this guy in an important spot, then he is signaling the desired position of the controlling powers of the same Democratic Party that you consistently support.
An untenable position, seems to me.
But what do I know? The guy who consistently advocates kicking the Democrats in the nuts.
Oh well…
I don’t know Bret Stephens from a hole in the wall. I don’t even know if he wrote the piece. For all I know it was assembled by a supercomputer AI somewhere and sent to him by private messenger or cosmic rays…at least the main talking points…in time to meet his deadline.
Whatever/whoever/however…it’s well assembled.
So I looked him up.
He was the editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post before he was 30 (!!!) and he later worked in important positions in the Wall Street Journal. He married two high-level employees of the New York Times.
A talented journalistic hustler at the very least.
From Wikipedia:
In short?
He sounds like just another in a long line of spook-planted journalists…spooks who among other things want the U.S. to continue to support Israel in the Middle East, for whatever reasons. (Blood for oil being primary among them, I believe.)
A talented one.
So it goes.
tThey don’t deal is lame journalists; they only buy the best.
Your Democratic Party is moving ever further right, Booman. It is adapting to the times as signaled by Trump’s win.
You want to oppose this guy’s positions?
The positions of the NY TImes?
Then step away from the party.
But don’t just say “So many people should get punched in the nuts for making this happen.”
Take his arguments apart.
If you can.
Like I said, he…or whoever/whatever really wrote (or at least talking-pointed) that article…is talented. He/It makes good arguments.
Good arguments in a bad cause?
Duh.
It’s The New York Times, Booman!!!
What did you expect?
Leftiness peace and love?
Please.
The Times logo ought to be a feral hawk all dressed up in a $1000 suit.
Later…
AG
My God. What a big load of evasive horse hockey here.
Perhaps Arthur would like to read his Rule #1…
100% rightness is not to be trusted.
…and consider how he himself might fall under this rule.
#1-I do no not consider myself “100%” right, centristfield. I am continually trying to learn learning from my mistakes, and thankfully I have many mistakes from which to learn. My initially hopeful response to Obama’s election was one of the big ones, as far as this site is concerned. I do not say anything here about which i am not pretty well convinced, and I am not afraid to change my mind.
Publicly.
You?
#2-Horse hockey?
Take the time to refute what i am saying instead of simply pissing on it..if you have the capability of doing so, of course.
I breathlessly await your effort.
AG
We’re not at a Ron Paul rally, you silly person. Not are we on the RedState website. Go to those places to find community members willing to play your game here.
There are several “we” contingents here, centerfielddj.
And…I am playing no “games.”
The brand of stubborn, unthinking partisanship that you represent is what sank HRC’s candidacy and elected Donald Trump. Your contingent of the Democratic Party is almost sclerotic…confused, cranky and defensive.
The defensive characteristic is the only weapon that you have left.
You have a great deal to be defensive about.
Enjoy.
AG
https:/mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-american-mirror
“The American Mirror is an online news and opinion website with an overt right wing bias. Not all stories are sourced to credible information.”
http://www.fakenewscodex.com/fake-site/the-american-mirror/
“The American Mirror
Summary:
Publishes blatantly false stories and pairs extremely misleading headlines with relatively truthful articles.”
In other words, his kind of people!
It’s kind of good that you have no idea what the Wall Street Journal editorial page is all about.
But it also means that you are just sharting all over us with your clueless bloviating.
At least he’s consistent.
Well, if this is even a little bit true…
Or this !
Thus, the Russian hacker arrested in Spain is very important to find out who paid who and for what. I will always wonder how much of Putin’s money actually made it to the hackers.
Using his logic, you could also say that the NYT has been wrong in the past, so they are full of shit. Actually, let’s go with that.
this. the NYT has been a source of so much fake news that I don’t know why anyone believes them ever.
Well, hell, more to the point, Bret Stephens has been wrong in the past, so he is full of shit.
Or maybe Bret Stephens has never been wrong before, in general or in specifics. Let’s ask the asshole. The asshole who uses the obscure word “scientism” in an intentionally offensive way in this piece.
Among the treats here is that Stephens asks “…anyone who wants to advance the cause of good climate policy” to abandon the scientific consensus on global warming. This, from an asshole who hates those in the movement which is attempting to advance the cause of good climate policy. This, from an asshole who consistently tries to advance the cause of bad climate policy. This, from an asshole who advocates the use/misuse of government power to avoid moral hazard.
A worthwhile question to ask the Times’ newest asshole, or their newest asshole’s editors, is “what are the physical, moral, societal and political hazards you wish us to risk if climate change ends up being even worse than the scientific consensus?”. After all, the consensus could be wrong in either direction, correct?
Fuck, why did I waste a free article on that? Fuck me.
Apples, meet oranges. The minute I started reading that “article”, I knew it was a climate change denialist. Of course he had to start with voting data vs scientific climate data, unrelated and just another way to forge a deeper bond with the other denialists. jeezus.
They are obviously desperate to destroy our planet so they can make a few extra bucks.
Pass me the brass knuckles, plz!
Isn’t sugarcoated wingnuttery David Brooks’s beat?
And George Will, who provides the climate denialism as well.
Guess you can never have too many wingnut whisperers in prominent positions in the media.
NYT
Appears you have some friends.
. . . wrong.”
There it is right there, folks: the crux of the dishonesty of this hack’s shit.
The pretense that “climate claim[s]” being “prove[d]” “wrong” is not only something that even happens, but the routine occurrence that that blasé pronouncement implies.
Meanwhile, here in Reality, the only way climate claims have “prove[d]” “wrong” — going back decades — is that the models have consistently under-predicted the scope, rate and severity of warming and its impacts. (I believe observed outcomes have generally fallen within models’ prediction intervals, but in the upper end of the interval, i.e., above the mid-point of the interval, which is what media always latch onto in reporting.) The steady drumbeat from comparing actual observations with model predictions has been “oy, again, it’s worse than we predicted” (i.e., worse than the middle of the range we predicted, sometimes near the upper end of the range we predicted).
And this hackery is, of course, a seamless continuation of the core tactic of the longstanding Republican War on Science front in the overall strategy of Reality Denial: rather than trying to mold counter-evidence into a persuasive case (because of course that’s impossible with the facts that comprise Reality), simply sow doubt/uncertainty/confusion with scientifically ignorant/illiterate and dishonest diversion about <100% “certainty”, no “proof”, etc.
You don’t need to “win” any debate, just maintain enough doubt in enough people’s minds to preclude a critical mass of political will for meaningful action addressing the crisis.
I first became aware of this in the context of criminal tobacco-industry “science” employing exactly these tactics (in continuous rightwing operation ever since) to successfully delay for decades any meaningful action against smoking risks. (I suppose, though, that this same basic dishonest propaganda approach has been around and in operation for much longer than that.)
That success “merely” killed millions (or might it be up to a billion+ by now?). Current success with the same tactics against meaningful climate action has a realistic likelihood of being the ultimate end of us (culture/civilization if not indeed species).
“Punch” is way too kind. “Kick” (I nominate Lionel Messi to administer) gets closer, but still insufficient to the infraction. Eternity in Hell if it exists . . . now you’re talking.
How about being fed to starving rabid hyenas?
Though it seems a bit unfair to the hyenas.
The parallel between the smoking/cancer denialists and the climate change denialists is an obvious one, but it’s so incredibly apt. They’re just rehashing every one of their shitty arguments and every technique they used to spread FUD.
Also, It’s amazing to me that Stephens tries to shift right from noting modeling uncertainty to belittling climate activists without bothering to make the argument that models are more likely to be uncertain on the lower side. A position he couldn’t possibly defend and, as you point out, has historically been the opposite of what we’re observed.
His “dumbsplaining” about probabilities it simply appalling.
Let’s all just hope he starts “analyzing” the probabilities he will be run over by a bus on his way to work, and decide it’s not worth stepping out of his house. Because even though the odds are pretty high he won’t be run over by a bus, you never know!
a completely adequate way to get this shit in front of NYT’s editor, who then waves it onto the op-ed page in very clear and direct violation of the promises he made in his defense of hiring the hack (see somebody’s link this thread).
The NYT has exactly 1 columnist that I will spend my time with. In a month I get 8 columns and therefore can spend my money on the Washington Monthly.
What did reality-based people most object to with this guy? His climate denialism? What did he lead off with? Climate denialism! Why couldn’t he have posted some “Never Trump” editorials first to ingratiate himself with his readers? GRRR It’s like he wanted to piss off his readers!
My friend Nonnie9999 at Hysterical Raisins called it ten days ago when she posted “All The Views Are Fit to Print”.
Has Trump Stolen Philosophy’s Critical Tools?
That reminded me this:
How French “Intellectuals” Ruined the West: Postmodernism and Its Impact, Explained