Monday
Mar282011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Quote of the day
Mar 28, 2011 Climate: CRU Quotes Paul Krugman, stand-up comedian:
Back in 2009 climate skeptics got hold of more than a thousand e-mails between researchers at the Climate Research Unit at Britain’s University of East Anglia. Nothing in the correspondence suggested any kind of scientific impropriety...
Reader Comments (55)
Mr Steiner,
'We' are the same of the 'most commenters' whom you warned about being swallowed by 'Islamists' from the sheer naievete etc.
You know what is funny. Most of my leftist buddies used to start arguments in a similar vein as yours: 'You ignorant twerps, we have it all figured out in our econo-scientific theoretic superstructures'.
The problem in the climate debate, Mr Steiner, is that our climatic frenemies detest vehemently being assigned any political labels, however accurate they may be, like 'socialist', Communist, Marxist (yet retain their right to call names like 'Holocaust denier' ). At some point, you have to stop fighting with them on this, if all they going to do, is act like children.
In other words, the sheer weight of being on the losers' side of history weighs more heavily on their shoulders, than you or I can pile up and gently impress upon them. The poor buggers want to say socialist things but don't want to be called so. What then, of accurate political diagnosis and classification?
jorgekafkazar "You may be right. It's interesting to see that the Vatican signed on to pimp global warming, however."
They just want a piece of the action: they'll leap on the bandwagon, then claim they were driving it all along. I've seen Christians interpreting the Genesis story, where Man is given dominion over the plants and animals, as an environmentalist doctrine.
Since the Vatican invented the sale of indulgences, and Italy is the home of the Mafia (who are part of the CAGW consensus), I'd have thought they would have a large practical contribution to offer to the emissions abatement industry.
After all, they've been legislating and consulting in exactly this space for pretty much two thousand years.
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate, with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
Re geoffchambers, Mar 28 2011 1.36pmThe last probably rhetorical question in the post.
IMHO, probably the latter. As others have pointed out, these are intelligent chaps. They are so prominent in a particular narrow speciality that politicians, bureaucrats, and the public think it appropriate to demand opinions from them about other matters. So they oblige.
It’s our fault if we take what they say seriously. More serious is the fact that politicians, bureaucrats and the public often seem to believe them.
So what to do? Again, IMHO, I think I would be inclined to try and make these luminaries see the error of their ways. Being intelligent chaps, it may not be impossible to demonstrate to them that they have taken bum advice. But it will only be possible if a high level of social skills are deployed. Make friends and influence people!
Doesn't this, at the very least, tell us a lot about Krugman and the man's own standards of impropriety.