Or rather, stupid writes. Teh Stupid in the equation is Sarah Palin. The writing in the equation is an "editorial" in today's Washington Post. The subject? Climate change. And Sarah Palin weighs in with her opinion on the need to be science-based. I'm not making this up.
More over the fold.
The first three paragraphs of the "editorial" re-chew the days old meat of so-called ClimateGate. On the face of it, that alone is hilarious. She has written in her "book" about the devastating effect she felt when hackers gained access to and published emails from her personal Yahoo! account. To wit (via an 11/20/09 Daily Finance article):
I was horrified to realize that millions of people could read my personal messages, including the thoughts of a friend who had written of her heartbreak over her pending divorce," Palin writes, adding: "What kind of responsible press outfit would broadcast stolen private correspondence?"
My emphasis added. Funny - she doesn't seem to be the least bit concerned about the "millions of people" who could read the messages between scientists that were intended only for the designated recipients, nor does she show even a scintilla of outrage over the "[irresponsible] press outfit [that] broadcast stolen private correspondence."
And here's a gem:
"The incident put tremendous stress on the campaign," she writes. "Schmidt and others acted as though they believed scattered reports that my hacked e-mail contained incriminating messages that would 'destroy the McCain campaign.'"
Palin writes that "there were no messages, of course, but the episode ratcheted up paranoia and distrust inside the campaign."
GASP! You mean - let me get this straight - the hacked and leaked emails from your personal account were possibly blown WAY out of proportion when published without context AND some unfair consequences to you personally were realized as a result of said hacking and out-of-context publishing? This, in turn, snowballed out of control and "ratcheted up paranoia"??? Heaven forfend.
So many things bother me about Sarah Palin specifically and many of her ilk generally - but one of the big issues I always have is with the hypocrisy. Sarah Palin is certainly displaying that by omission in her "editorial", and looking like a fool to boot. It's flatly amazing to me as well that The Washington Post didn't catch the irony of her failure to highlight the illegal nature of the leaked emails in the first place, even if mentioned only as an aside.
But I digress.
The fourth paragraph goes on about how wonderful it was when Palin attempted to smack back those nasty, politicized environmentalists in the Bush Administration by trying to keep) the polar bear off of the endangered species list. She says:
governor of Alaska, I took a stand against politicized science when I sued the federal government over its decision to list the polar bear as an endangered species despite the fact that the polar bear population had more than doubled.
Except - and here's a shocker - she isn't telling the whole truth. Via The AP:
Polar bears are regulated by the federal government like whales and seals. They spend most of their lives on frozen ocean water, where their main prey, ringed seals, give birth to pups in lairs. Warming of Arctic waters has significantly diminished the sea ice.
George W. Bush's Interior secretary, Dirk Kempthorne, listed polar bears as threatened in May 2008, eight months after summer sea ice levels melted to their lowest recorded level ever: 1.65 million square miles, or nearly 40 percent below average since satellite monitoring began in 1979.
Most climate modelers predict a continued downward spiral, possibly with an Arctic Ocean that is ice free during summer months by 2030 or sooner.
The federal agency over two years however compiled an administrative record consisting of more than 175,000 pages including nine peer-reviewed scientific U.S. Geological Survey reports.
The most sobering conclusion: Projected changes in future sea ice will result in the loss of two-thirds of the world's current polar bear population by 2050, including all of America's. Researchers included the caveat that their assessment may have been conservative because Arctic sea ice decline likely was underestimated by the models used.
After the listing, Palin sued, saying the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's decision was not based on the best scientific and commercial data available as the law requires.
Please bear in mind that the original judgment with respect to an endangered species listing came from those radical envirommentalists of the Bush Administration. And as for Palin, that last paragraph is hilarious. And just FYI - her successor, Parnell, is trying the same thing. Of course, it's pretty clear, by her own admission in the WaPo "editorial", what her motives are:
This would have irreversibly hurt both Alaska's economy and the nation's, while also reducing opportunities for responsible development.
Fuck the polar bear! We have oil to drill and resources to extract! There's money to be made, damnit! But I digress. I'm digressing a lot.
So we're four paragraphs into a nine paragraph "editorial" and we've learned that:
- ClimateGate proves that scientists lie; and
- Polar bears aren't dying.
Now we turn to the specific subject of Copenhagen:
Our representatives in Copenhagen should remember that good environmental policymaking is about weighing real-world costs and benefits...
Well, not really Sarah. Not all policymaking activities are created equal. Tax policy, for example, doesn't have - as a consequence of inaction - death and devastation. Lack of an appropriate environmental policy, holever, can have death and devastation as a consequence. In that context, there's no consideration of costs and benefits, no analysis of tradeoffs, because the ONLY tradeoff is death. I realize that's an extreme example - but sadly, I don't think it's a far-fetched example.
She continues in the next paragraph:
But while we recognize the occurrence of these natural, cyclical environmental trends, we can't say with assurance that man's activities cause weather changes.
So here's where I'm going to go all rational-rogue-y on Sarah. I have a dear friend who is pretty politically neutral who asked me once if I believed climate change was being affected by man and human activities. I told him that I absolutely did believe that. He indicated that he was unsure. He had seen some indication that it may just be cyclical and that we are getting all worked up about nothing. He has two children he loved unconditionally. And so I asked him the following:
ME: Let's say that there's a disease running around killing people. If you get the disease, you die. There's no cure. Now - the disease is relatively rare - only about 5% of people are likely to contract it. And the good news is, there's a vaccination available against the disease. So - do you take your sons to be vaccinated even though there's only a 5% chance they will contract this disease?
HIM: Of course!
ME: So why is addressing climate change any different? Even if all the scientists who have all the knowledge and research indicating that man is affecting global climate change only have a 5% chance of being right, shouldn't we attend to it as you would attend to vaccinations for your sons?
HIM: Good point.
So back to Science Sarah. I believe we absolutely CAN say with assurance that man is dramatically affecting climate change (and just for the record - it's not the weather that's changing, Sarah - it's the climate that is changing, and that is causing the weather to change). But if I allow for some measure of skepticism, it's still safer to address man's impact on the global climate than bank on the idea that man is 100% NOT responsible.
This paragraph - the climax of her "editorial" - is chock full of nutty goodness:
In his inaugural address, President Obama declared his intention to "restore science to its rightful place." But instead of staying home from Copenhagen and sending a message that the United States will not be a party to fraudulent scientific practices, the president has upped the ante. He plans to fly in at the climax of the conference in hopes of sealing a "deal." Whatever deal he gets, it will be no deal for the American people. What Obama really hopes to bring home from Copenhagen is more pressure to pass the Democrats' cap-and-tax proposal. This is a political move. The last thing America needs is misguided legislation that will raise taxes and cost jobs -- particularly when the push for such legislation rests on agenda-driven science. We can say, however, that any potential benefits of proposed emissions reduction policies are far outweighed by their economic costs.
Wow. Where does one start with all of that??
First - it's pretty hilarious that hacked emails from one climate research institute has somehow devolved into a a fraud - a sham - conceived on a worldwide level and perpetrated at Copenhagen. Thank God Ms. Palin is an avid exerciser, because she needs strength to make that large a leap.
Second - it's pretty amazing how prescient Ms. Palin is in knowing that President Obama will come home with a deal - "Whatever deal he gets" - that will be bad for the American people. Is it possible to declare a deal "bad" before anyone has even conceived it, discussed it, or struck it? I guess it is in a world where Palin can see Russia from her house.
Third - it should go without saying that it's not "cap and tax", it's "cap and trade". You betcha. Drill, baby, drill! Trying to change the name of the phrase to something scarier isn't going to change the fact that we have proven circumstances in the US where cap-and-trade systems work. Maybe Ms. Palin was too busy reading Newsmax back in the late 80's and early 90's and missed the whole cap-and-trade effort to reduce SO-2, a key component of acid rain (remember acid rain?). Via Wikpedia (with source material verified to the US EPA):
The Acid Rain Program is a market-based initiative taken by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in an effort to reduce overall atmospheric levels of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which cause acid rain.[1] The program is an implementation of emissions trading that primarily targets coal-burning power plants, allowing them to buy and sell emission permits (called "allowances") according to individual needs and costs.
::snip::
Overall, the Program's cap and trade program has been immensely successful in achieving its goals. Since the 1990s, SO2 emissions have dropped 40%, and according to the Pacific Research Institute, acid rain levels have dropped 65% since 1976.
In 2007, total SO2 emissions were 8.9 million tons, achieving the program's long term goal ahead of the 2010 statutory deadline. In 2008, SO2 emissions dropped even lower--to 7.6 million tons.
The EPA estimates that by 2010, the overall costs of complying with the program for businesses and consumers will be $1 billion to $2 billion a year, only one fourth of what was originally predicted.
So yeah. By all means - let's demonize cap-and-trade as a jobs killer DESPITE recent, US-based evidence to the contraray. And for the record, that evidence did not come out of East Anglia nor does it appear that its messages were ever hacked.
I chuckle at Sarah Palin's "editorial". Like its author, the content is vapid, whispy, lightweight and embarrassing. Her closing line as a real LOLer:
The president should boycott Copenhagen.
Yeah ok. I'm sure he'll get right on that. Thanks for playing, Sarah.