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A Call for Healing

A Call for Healing
Democrats Call for Healing the Country

Jan 24, 2015

The Not So Hottest 2014 Climate Scam

This week the Pravda Press had screaming headlines that 2014 was the “hottest year on record.”  However, if you dig into the numbers, the records referred to only go back to 1880.  They are the records of land based mercury thermometers.  Digging further, you find that the difference between 2014 and the next hottest year was under .04 degrees.  So I made this comment:

All years are above average here in Lake Wobegon. If the best liberals can do is measured in hundredths of a degree, we're dealing with statistical noise. The difference is well within the margin of error. No thermometer available in 1880 was accurate to .05 degrees. Even ignorant rednecks like me know this ain't a big enough difference to talk about. In making a big deal out of this, liberals sound like Pinky and the Brain have decided to use the threat of global warming to do what liberals try to do every night, try to take over the world.

In defending the “hottest on record” screaming headlines, some commenters tried to argue that statistically the error of observation is reduced by the large number of observations.  One commenter told me I needed to take a remedial course in statistics.  I had this response:

Me: MS Statistics 1972 University of Illinois. You: MSNBC. Your comment makes no statistical sense and ignores history. If individual readings are only accurate to .1 degree, no amount of multiple observations are going to improve the accuracy of your instruments. The observations come mainly from urban areas which have gotten hotter over time due to increases in paved area. The time span from 1880 to now is an eye blink in geologic time. Even if the readings are as incredibly accurate as you say, they prove no connection between industrial activity and temperature fluctuation. The models used to establish a connection have no statistical significance. The logical conclusion is that you are a disciple of Jonathan Gruber using complication to obscure a power grab (pun intended) of unprecedented proportions. I don't want to live under a dictatorship of East and West Coast Liberal idiots controlling all energy use and forcing rednecks back to horse and buggy technology. You guys are rich enough to pay for dikes to protect your property in the event that the oceans actually do rise. I see no reason I should have to subsidize the foolish superstitions of the 1% by paying exorbitant prices for alternative energy or doing without energy altogether.

At ths point, the liberal commenter complained that the above was a personal attack.  He also said he never watched MSNBC and didn’t know who Jonathan Gruber was.  As always in these arguments, liberal commenters refer to the sanctity of science and proclaim debate as unscientific.  So I hit back with this:

It would seem that you can dish it out but you can't take it. If you tell someone they are so ignorant they need to take a course to remediate their knowledge, that's a personal insult. If you get a response in kind, you should not be surprised. Jonathan Gruber designed Obamacare to be so complex nobody would figure out that it was really a tax increase. The "science" you are pushing is really a political program of increased centralized government control. If government controls all energy use, they control the entire economy with no checks or balances possible to keep them from becoming abusive. If your education was so narrowly focused on gender studies that you can't see that, then I feel sorry for you. Renewable energy is 11.2% of the total energy generated in the United States. There is no way we can depend on renewable energy for all of our energy needs in the near future. Forcing a rapid conversion to all renewable energy would be prohibitively expensive. The only way we might get to much lower emissions in the intermediate term is with nuclear power. However, tree huggers like you don't want that either. We're left with horses, which I can tell you from personal experience are not all that much fun to clean up after. You are a victim of group think. Whether you watch MSNBC or not, you really are spouting the party line on global warming. The models that predict increasing temperatures due to CO2 emissions are not statistically significant. Temperatures in the last 15-20 years have not moved in a statistically significant way. Math is hard for Liberals, but it still is there even if you ignore it. Just to be crystal clear, the burden of proof is that you have to show 1) a significant increase in temperature and 2) a direct provable link to burning fossil fuel. Since you haven't shown either one, you've got no case that would warrant scrapping the Constitution to save the planet. In order to remediate your total ignorance of economics, please consider watching some video here:
(This is a link to Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose PBS TV Series.  It is a great introduction to Supply Side Economics.)

This is the article I was reacting to: