Hotcoldwetdry

If I'm reading this New Yorker article correctly, the same shadowy forces that once undermined a scientific consensus for nuclear winter then turned their attention to undermining a scientific consensus for global warming.  They were equally nefarious both times, either because they're very bad people or because their money comes from very bad people, or both.  The conclusion seems to acknowledge grudgingly that science is corrupted when it's in service of the nation-state's political objectives, but the lesson we're to draw is that we're not entitled to be skeptical of global warming unless we're also skeptical of claims that nuclear war would be just peachy keen for the  environment.  Well, okay then.

Honestly, I remember when The New Yorker had smarter authors and lots better editors.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

More. Fake. News.

The rag is not even fit to line the bottom of my bird cage.

One of the reason always provide the actual link when I post, plain as day,
is so folks can self censor where they click to go. Haven't you clicked on a link and went where you did not want to go?

Personally, I would never click on on a link if I knew it would take me to the New Yorker
I will do my part to make SJW infected institutions irrelevant.
After all, those clicks can be used for advertising dollars

-Mississippi

J Melcher said...

It seems to me that if the science behind nuclear winter is valid, then the problem of global warming is moot. Simply determine, via computer models, how many nuclear weapons to detonate -- preferably but not necessarily over unpopulated areas -- to kick up sufficient dust, ash, and smoke to increase atmospheric albedo JUST BARELY ENOUGH to offset the greenhouse effect of CO2.

If you don't have confidence enough in the computer models to set off the bombs, then don't use them to destroy my economic future.

Gringo said...

Honestly, I remember when The New Yorker had smarter authors and lots better editors.

I have read two books that Lepore wrote. One was on King Phillip's War. As a NE native with a friend who had worked on Indian affairs for the CT DEP, this topic was of interest. In addition, my 8th grade teacher read to us a book about a Deerfield MA boy who was kidnapped by the Indians. Lepore's book on the King Phillip's War had its good points, though I tired of its literary criticism part. Joe Gould's Teeth was a total waste of time.

One could write an article on how current skepticism on AGW had its roots in environmental issues of previous decades- not just nuclear winter. The Club of Rome warned of resource depletion, which four decades later appears to have been solved by market forces. Global cooling, of which nuclear winter was but a subset, was big enough in the 1980s to make Newsweek.

Consider Paul Erlich, whose prophecies of environmental doom began nearly 50 years ago with publication of The Population Bomb in 1968. He also predicted resource depletion, and famously lost a bet with Julian Simon on the future price of various minerals. As an eco-activist in Berserkeley back in the day, I worked with one of Erlich's students.

Current skepticism on AGW is in part founded on the poor record of previous environmental prophecies of doom- not just nuclear winter.

Ymar Sakar said...

They didn't call it fake news back when they wanted to believe Bush lied and people died, however.