Michael Steele: Warming is Really Cooling
Conservatives are in a weird posture on climate change. Their financial backers are very much against taking action to avoid catastrophe. And they perceive, correctly, that the kind of steps that could avoid catastrophe are likely to offend a large swathe of powerful interests and be met with skepticism by the public at large. But they can’t really say “massive global catastrophe is a small price to pay for short-term political gain.” So you get weird flailing like this:
We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I use my fingers as quotation marks, is part of the cooling process. Greenland, which is covered in ice, it was once called Greenland for a reason, right? Iceland, which is now green. Oh I love this. Like we know what this planet is all about. How long have we been here? How long? Not very long.
Iceland is really not green right now; the bulk of the island’s surface is desolate wasteland thanks to massive deforestation and topsoil erosion. But it is true that it used to be a lot warmer in Greenland than it’s been recently. One should dwell on this a bit—Greenland was settled by Norse adventurers back during a warm period, and the subsequent climate shift was a sufficiently serious problem to wipe the colony out entirely. That climate shift was out of the hands of humanity, and since we didn’t just keep getting colder and colder and colder we eventually reached a new equilibrium. But the price paid during the transition was high. Just ask the Greenland settlers. And, unfortunately, the nature of the current warming trend is that the planet could just get hotter and hotter irreversibly. The good news is that it’s not out of the hands of humanity; our activity is the main source of warming and changing our activity can prevent the worst from happening.
67 Responses to “Michael Steele: Warming is Really Cooling”
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March 16th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Um, Erik and his buddies decided to name it Greenland for a reason.
Just ask a realtor trying to offload festering swampland in Florida. You don’t call it festering swampland, you call it paradise.
Greenland was a pretty shitty place to live for the Norse even during the early medieval warm period.
March 16th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Oh, and the climate hurt them, but it was the natives that killed them off.
First Nations: 2, Norse: 0
They would have loved some of those nasty pathogens that we used to wipe out New England and the rest of the Americas.
March 16th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Actually, Iceland and Greenland had their names switched by the Danes in order to encourage people to move to the latter instead of the former…so much for Steele’s little theory…
March 16th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
That was my understanding too, going back to the book report I wrote on Leif Erickson back in 4th grade. Leif’s father, Erik the Red, named the island “Greenland” even though it was a desolate shithhole, in an effort to get people to settle there.
March 16th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
And, unfortunately, the nature of the current warming trend is that the planet could just get hotter and hotter irreversibly. The good news is that it’s not out of the hands of humanity; our activity is the main source of warming and changing our activity can prevent the worst from happening.
You certainly don’t know that. The planet could just get hotter and hotter irreversibly regardless of what we do. We can’t eliminate that risk. At best, we can reduce it. But we don’t have a good idea of how much risk-reduction we’ll get for a given amount and type of action.
March 16th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
More importantly, there are real stories behind where “Greenland” and “Iceland” got there names and they have nothing do to with with how “green” or “icy” they are.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1965/shouldnt-greenland-be-known-as-iceland-and-vice-versa
March 16th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
This guy is straight up retarded. I didn’t learn about why Erik the Red named Greenland “Greenland” as early as Rich- I had to wait until the 5th grade.
MICHAEL STEELE! TRY HARDER!
March 16th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
threadjack: if you live in Los Angeles and want to attend the Obama townhall event: http://www.whitehouse.gov/latownhall/
March 16th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Michael Steele: Yes He Can (be that epically stupid).
March 16th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Hell of a small sample size there Al.
March 16th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
It will certainly not get hotter and hotter irreversibly. Eventually, it will get hot enough that we’ll all die, carbon dioxide levels will stabilize in the absence of human activity, and the temperature will then stabilize or begin cooling again. See? In the long run…
March 16th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
If compared only to years last century, 2008 was one of the warmest on record.
Real Al isn’t this stupid. Go away fake Al
March 16th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Al is the second dumbest troll ever.
March 16th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
You’re not fooling anyone, ‘dreww’.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
There you go again Matt!
You pull some story out of your ass about how climate change forced the Norse settlers to abandon Greenland when you have absolutely no evidence for that and so you sound as foolish as Steele. Worse actually because you are even more insufferable in your nanny state convictions.
Tell me, did mammoths driven south by this climate disaster destroy the first Jamestown settlers?
Do you get all your history from pulp comics and their movie adaptations? Do you think 10,000 BC proved the need for carbon taxes?
We can value the rest of your hyperbole as highly as your history.
You have no evidence for your claim that the planet will just get hotter and hotter (oh right you fall back on “could” and for that weasel word want to tax us back to Norse technology. See I can make stupid hyperbole too!) and you certainly have no proof that anything humans can do will reverse the warming.
The evidence is that there have been many eras of cooling and warming long before humans were around with technology sufficient to make the change.
So what turned your Norse killing little ice age around?
Mammoth farts?
And before I hear the Blah Blah Blah I am not arguing against human caused global warming. I think the hypothesis is the bit of science with a bit of hokum, modern life sort of bs we seem to drown in.
I just have trouble with arguments made from bad faith or stupidity or both.
But of course without the sky-is-falling propaganda Matt hasn’t a wing or a prayer in the public square.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
How long are we going to pretend that Steele’s race has nothing to do with his incompetence?
March 16th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
that’s weird– i knew that there were several racist trolls who posted on matt’s blog– steve sailer possibly the most reliably repellent– but i didn’t know that julian elson was another racist troll.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
2008 has been the coolest year this century.
I’m in awe. This is the perfect quote to go after the definition of “ignoramus”, of course after ‘my ancestors were not monkeys’.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
I don’t know if it’s just this picture, or what, but Michael Steele looks just like Mr. Potato Head.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
2008 has been the coolest year this century.
Oh, suck on this.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
I think Josh Marshall said it best: M. Steele is a welcome comic relief in those difficult times. He’s the best thing the GOP has ever produced since Lincoln.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
And the Detroit Pistons are having their worst season of this century. So clearly they are worse than me, you, and any 10 friends we could assemble.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Al’s quote shows why he’s such a douche.
8 of the warmest years on record have been in the last 10 years. The running 10 average is up.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
I have a post on my blog discussing Michael Steele’s GOP hip hop makeover. Check it out at the link below:
http://www.ricoexplainsitall.com/politcs-economy/2009/3/16/michael-steeles-hip-hop-makeover.html
March 16th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
You are so right. The Republican party is so very full of smart, competent people that the fact that one of their few black members is a boob must be meaningful!
March 16th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Here is Michael Steele’s first job:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj9_yW8tZxs
March 16th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
It appears that, in addition to hiding behind a phalanx of pseudonyms, Mixner has also taken to posting racist comments under the names of established commenters (DTM, Julian Olson). I have to say, this is some pretty groundbreaking shit. Any Al or Fred can robotically spout right-wing talking points. It takes a special dedication to one’s craft to take trolling to this level. It’s like watching Jordan in his prime.
March 16th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
If you haven’t read Jared Diamond’s “Collapse,” you don’t know jack about Greenland. (Unless you’re a Greenlandologist or something)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_(book)
It wasn’t JUST climate change that killed the Norse colonies in Greenland, and the Inuits probably didn’t kill most of them either (although perhaps they finished them off). But climate change was important.
March 16th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
OK, here’s what I’m thinking: our right-wing, denialist trolls are all going to write comments to the effect of, “Michael Steele is such a moron. What he said doesn’t make any sense at all. He’s completely misstating the scientific argument against global warming hysteria. His babbling only serves to discredit an important, legitimate idea. I wish he would shut up, and I’m certainly not going to defend such idiocy.”
Now, let’s see how I did.
March 16th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
It appears that DMonteith, in addition to hiding behind a phalanx of pseudonyms such as ‘Chris D’, is writing racists posts under stolen names, and then attributing them to Mixner and Al.
March 16th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
denialist
Interesting term. As far as I can tell ‘progressive’ science means believing evolution, unless it is applied to human population groups and accepting weak evidence of anthropogenic global warming, we denying strong average differences in cognitive ability between races and the genetic roots of such differences.
March 16th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Evidence so weak, it’s convinced every major scientific organization on the planet.
I love seeing global warming denialism praised by “scientific” racists, though. If I wanted to be a dick, and screw with denialist web sites, I’d post comments like #38 in their comment sections under assumed names.
March 16th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Next up: have you ever really studied the bumps on the skulls of IPCC scientists?
You have the brain pain of a mule driver!
March 16th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
I don’t get Steele’s attempt at a parallel.
Since Greenland was supposedly once warmer, and is now colder, but the Earth seems to be getting warmer overall, is proof that the Earth is cooling?
Really? That’s the argument?
March 16th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Al, what the fuck is your problem? You knew you were being disingenuous, so did you just post that shitty little comment of your for fun?
March 16th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Sockpuppetting Al and Fred (37), Mixner? Now that’s a new twist.
Still, since this is probably Matt’s last post for the night, and you have nothing better to do, let’s see how quickly you can bump this thread to 100 with your usual tedious shit.
March 16th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
You’re not fooling anyone, ‘Mixnerspotter’.
March 16th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
In our analysis, 2008 is the ninth warmest year in the period of instrumental measurements,
March 16th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Al, what the fuck is your problem? You knew you were being disingenuous, so did you just post that shitty little comment of your for fun?
Yeah, really odd guy. He’ll run with arguments he doesn’t believe in to crank you off. I’m not sure he really believes in anything. He’ll admit it at times. He’s supposed to have a JD and do some sort of legal work, and I believe that for the most part.
The odder part is that once upon a time, Matt used to run posts that alluded to the fact that American conservativism is an empty ideology built around a skeleton of opposition to liberalism and THEN he’d get pissy and make arguments that I got the feeling he really believed in. When it got to probably what the heart of the matter was, that’s when you see Al try and really argue.
March 16th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Gee, why do replubicants push and push? Possibly because they cannot prevail in a fair fight?
March 16th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
We need to keep this guy in our lives, he’s funny…
Jared Diamond covered in detail in “Collapse” how the Norse settlers actually changed the climate in Greenland by cutting down the trees and trying to sustain their normal way of living by grazing livestock which denuded the landscape. Fair play to them, they lasted for a long time there.
March 16th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Jared Diamond’s book Collapse speculated that all of the Greenlanders starved to death, and I believe most scholars believe they simply slowly started leaving for Iceland until the settlement was abandoned. I think that Diamond didn’t give enough attention to this and instead insisted on focusing on his starvation apocalypse scenario.
He also does point out, in fairness to the Norse, that two waves of Inuit settlers before the Norse also failed to maintain a foothold in Greenland until the most recent Inuit attempt.
March 16th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Huh. I don’t remember ever having been impersonated before on this blog. I’m moving up in the world! Although probably #17 would have been more convincing by doing a caricature of my views than just saying something completely random and out-of-character. (I’m not quite sure what a caricature of my views would be, but anyway…)
Anyway, according to what I’ve read, life will be wiped off of Earth in about a billion years, when the sun gets hot enough that water will only exist as vapor. (You might think that the sun would be gradually cooling off as its fuel supply runs down, but it’ll get hotter for quite a while until it becomes a red giant; it’ll cool down after that.)
Anyway, I don’t deny the salience of vested interests, but to some extent I think there’s something cultural about opposition to greenhouse gas controls. Maybe something involving that particular Republican view of masculinity too. I think that this is clearest when you talk about things like improving vehicle emissions — the “don’t humiliate Americans by making us drive Smartcars!” sentiments — or reducing the use of animal products in diet — “don’t try to take away our beef.” I don’t think it’s as obvious when talking about things like changing power plants from coal to wind, but somehow I think some of the “don’t take away my Suburban and give me a Smartcar!” sentiment somehow slips into even discussions of electricity generation. I could be wrong, but that’s the sense I get when reading a lot of discussions on this matter.
Then there’s the issue of fundamentalist religion. Many evangelicals are coming to view “stewardship” as a religious obligation and are taking things like climte change seriously, but another faction basically views all such science-based policy as some form of paganism or something; saying that humans can change the climate is a denial of God’s plenary power over all things, or something like that.
March 16th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
I think the bigger problem is that Steele uses his ass as a brain. But I’m enjoying the show.
March 16th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
It appears that DMonteith, in addition to hiding behind a phalanx of pseudonyms such as ‘Chris D’, is writing racists posts under stolen names, and then attributing them to Mixner and Al.
I don’t use sock puppets. Good rhetoric is so much less satisfying when your opponent is unaware of who they’re talking to. The fact that some of our favorite trolls are seeing me under every bush is, however, flattering. It’s also interesting to note that this accusation falls nicely under the Rovian “accuse them of doing what you are actually doing” strategery.
March 16th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
I don’t use sock puppets.
Riiiiight.
You’re the queen of sockpuppetry, D.
March 16th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Wind Mixner up, and your toy self-loathing master of projection can keep going all night!
March 17th, 2009 at 12:18 am
You’re the queen of sockpuppetry, D.
Yawn.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:56 am
If you all weren’t so elitist you would see that Michael Steele is taking his climate science cues from this classic film which actually had a lot to do with ice:
March 17th, 2009 at 6:12 am
what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Well, it will eventually get hot enough to not be able to live on earth, but that doesn’t mean we(descendants) all have to die. If governments in the very distant future decide to research and explore living on another habitable planet, then we all won’t die, but the earth will. Or perhaps astronomers will figure out ways to change earth’s orbit.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
But yea, in 5 billion years we are gonna be pretty effed.
March 17th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
duBois at #45 (quoting the article Al gave in #31) basically destroys Al. Note that the “period of instrumental measurements” goes back to 1880!
March 18th, 2009 at 3:27 am
While the sun won’t turn into a red giant for another 5 billion years, I think it will become hot enough to destroy life within 1 billion years or earlier.
As for the whole colonizing-other-planets idea — I don’t think it’s a worthwhile idea, at least given current or anticipated technology. In terms of helping actually existing people, the resources would always be better used on Earth. Living in space or an extraterrestial planetary colony would probably involve people living with a quality of life that Malawians would find pitiable, while using economic resources on Earth that could provide each one with a millionaire’s lifestyle during life for each colonist.
There is, of course, the idea of “seeding” other planets, so that the human species per se will survive even if the 99.99999% remaining on Earth are wiped out, but I don’t find the survival of the human species per se to be very valuable. Well, maybe a little bit valuable, in the same sense that I find the survival of all information (as embodied in life forms) valuable, but I don’t think that the existence of h. sapiens has much more value than the sum of the values of the lives of its individual members — our happiness, fulfillment, and flourishing as individual people.
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