Cruz knows less about climate sc. than a kid

[Partmanpartfish]

AP FACT CHECK: Most GOP candidates flunk climate science

WASHINGTON (AP) — When it comes to climate science, two of the three Democratic presidential candidates are A students, while most of the Republican contenders are flunking, according to a panel of scientists who reviewed candidates' comments.

At the request of The Associated Press, eight climate and biological scientists graded for scientific accuracy what a dozen top candidates said in debates, interviews and tweets, using a 0 to 100 scale.

To try to eliminate possible bias, the candidates' comments were stripped of names and given randomly generated numbers, so the professors would not know who made each statement they were grading. Also, the scientists who did the grading were chosen by professional scientific societies.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had the highest average score at 94. Three scientists did not assign former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley a score, saying his statements mostly were about policy, which they could not grade, instead of checkable science.

Two used similar reasoning to skip grading New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and one did the same for businesswoman Carly Fiorina. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas had the lowest score, an average of 6. All eight put Cruz at the bottom of the class.

"This individual understands less about science (and climate change) than the average kindergartner," Michael Mann, a Pennsylvania State University meteorology professor, wrote of Cruz's statements. "That sort of ignorance would be dangerous in a doorman, let alone a president."

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, with an 87, had the lowest score among the Democrats, dinged for an exaggeration when he said global warming could make Earth uninhabitable. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush scored the highest among Republicans, 64, but one grader gave him a perfect 100. Bush was the only Republican candidate who got a passing grade on climate in the exercise.

Below Clinton's 94 were O'Malley with 91; Sanders, 87; Bush, 64; Christie, 54; Ohio Gov. John Kasich, 47; Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, 38; Fiorina, 28; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, 21; businessman Donald Trump, 15; retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, 13; and Cruz with 6.

For the Republicans, climate change came up more in interviews than in their four debates. But Rubio did confront the issue in the Sept. 16 debate in a way that earned him bad grades from some scientists.

"We are not going to make America a harder place to create jobs in order to pursue policies that will do absolutely nothing, nothing, to change our climate, to change our weather, because America is a lot of things, the greatest country in the world, absolutely," Rubio said. "But America is not a planet. And we are not even the largest carbon producer anymore. China is. And they're drilling a hole and digging anywhere in the world that they can get ahold of."

Scientists dispute Rubio's argument that because China is now the top emitter, the U.S. can do little to change the future climate. The U.S. spews about 17 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, "so big cuts here would still make a big difference globally," said geochemist Louisa Bradtmiller at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Rubio's inference that China is not doing much about global warming "is out of date. The Chinese are implementing a cap-and-trade system in their country to reduce emissions," said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University.

At an August event In California's Orange County, Cruz told an interviewer, "If you look at satellite data for the last 18 years, there's been zero warming. ... The satellite says it ain't happening."

Florida State University's James Elsner said ground data show every decade has been warmer than the last since the middle of the 20th century and satellite data-based observations "show continued warming over the past several decades."

In fact, federal ground-based data, which scientists said is more reliable than satellites, show that 15 of the 17 years after 1997 have been warmer than 1997 and 2015 is on track to top 2014 as the warmest year on record.

Scientists singled out Sanders for overstatement in the first Democratic presidential debate.

"The scientific community is telling us that if we do not address the global crisis of climate change, transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy, the planet that we're going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be habitable," Sanders said.

Dessler said, "I would not say that the planet will become uninhabitable. Regardless of what we do, some humans will survive." Harvard's Jim McCarthy also called the comment an overstatement, as did other scientists when Sanders said it. Recent research on the worst heat projections in the hottest area, the Persian Gulf, finds that toward the end of the century there will be a few days each decade or so when humans cannot survive outside, but can live with air conditioning indoors.

Trump brought out some of the more colorful and terse critiques.

"It could be warming and it's going to start to cool at some point," Trump said in a September radio interview. "And you know in the 1920s people talked about global cooling. I don't know if you know that or not. They thought the Earth was cooling. Now it's global warming. Actually, we've had times where the weather wasn't working out so they changed it to extreme weather and they have all different names, you know, so that it fits the bill."

McCarthy, a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, called Trump's comments "nonsense," while Emmanuel Vincent, a climate scientist at the University of California, Merced, said, "the candidate does not appear to have any commitment to accuracy."

The eight scientists are Mann, Dessler, Elsner, McCarthy, Bradtmiller, Vincent, William Easterling at Pennsylvania State University and Matthew Huber at the University of New Hampshire.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/3e946f29 ... te-science

[Glacier]

The eight scientists are Mann

Okay, right there I know this whole article is politically motivated and has nothing to do with science. Mann, the disgraced lying climate climate scientist, is on the list?

[Partmanpartfish]

Mark Steyn? LOL! What, exactly are his educational achievements, in the sciences or otherwise?

[Glacier]

Mark Steyn? LOL! What, exactly are his educational achievements, in the sciences or otherwise?

If you're a lying scumbag, it doesn't matter how many degrees you have, you just can't be trusted at your word.

[highway001]

Solid deflection...what are his credentials? Why is his opinion worthy to discredit the OP?

[The Green Barbarian]

Solid deflection...what are his credentials? Why is his opinion worthy to discredit the OP?

LOL - I really hope that you aren't trying to defend Michael Mann. Like seriously. And this is just more Church of Global Warming garbage, but what else is new from the hoaxer warmists.

[Partmanpartfish]

Mark Steyn? LOL! What, exactly are his educational achievements, in the sciences or otherwise?

If you're a lying scumbag, it doesn't matter how many degrees you have, you just can't be trusted at your word.

So, Steyn has no post-secondary education at all? Perhaps you can bring Sarah Palin into the discussion as well. At least she eventually graduated from college with something-or-other after tryin' five of 'em.

[highway001]

LOL - I really hope that you aren't trying to defend Michael Mann. Like seriously. And this is just more Church of Global Warming garbage, but what else is new from the hoaxer warmists.

GB you're better than that...even the simplest search on Steyn (not written by Steyn) tells us everything we need to know.

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2015/ ... key-stick/

https://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2014/01 ... n-edition/

References and data in the articles. You guys need to do a little leg work. Read before responding please. Even 2/3 of Steyns lead book quotes are contacted and dismiss his work. As well here's another article highlighting the court case:

National Review which is being sued for letting contributor Mark Steyn defame climate scientist Michael Mann for comparing him to child molester Jerry Sandusky on the internet pages of NRO. Long story short: Competitive Enterprise Institute “scholar” Rand Simberg wrote an article attacking Mann’s research and, trying to be topical, referenced the fact that he teaches at Penn State as the basis for an oh-so-clever PSU Michael Mann = Penn State football coach/kid rapist Jerry Sandusky analogy. Writing at NRO, former drama critic Mark Steyn whose climate science knowledge is limited to knowing all the lyrics to They Call The Wind Maria, LOL’d and repeated what Simberg wrote. When Mann protested, CEI backed down and deleted the offending lines but not the rest of the post. On the other hand National Review Editor Rich Lowry seemed to be under the impression that he was William F. Badass Jr. and told Mann and his attorneys to pound sand.

If Mann sues us, the materials we will need to mount a full defense will be extremely wide-ranging. So if he files a complaint, we will be doing more than fighting a nuisance lawsuit; we will be embarking on a journalistic project of great interest to us and our readers.


[…]

My advice to poor Michael is to go away and bother someone else. If he doesn’t have the good sense to do that, we look forward to teaching him a thing or two about the law and about how free debate works in a free country.

“Poor” Michael Mann didn’t listen to Rich Lowry, and instead called his bluff and sued anyway forcing Lowry to beg for money from his readers because the treasure chest at National Review – which is a money losing wingnut welfare suckhole – couldn’t cover the check Lowry’s *bleep* wrote:

"As many of you know, National Review is not a non-profit — we are just not profitable. A lawsuit is not something we can fund with money we don’t have. Of course, we’ll do whatever we have to do to find ourselves victorious in court and Professor Mann thoroughly defeated, as he so richly deserves to be. Meanwhile, we have to hire attorneys, which ain’t cheap.

The bills are already mounting.

This is our fight, legally. But with the global-warming extremists going all-out to silence critics, it’s your fight too, morally. When we were sued, we heard from many of you who expressed a desire to help underwrite our legal defense. We deeply appreciated the outpouring of promised help.

Now we really need it."

Flush with reader cash the NRO team has so far gone 0 fer 2 with the judges and now their ship is beginning to sink and the crew is jumping overboard because Mark Steyn attacked Judge Natalia Combs Greene.


Earlier this month, Steptoe & Johnson, the law firm representing National Review and its writer, Mark Steyn, withdrew as Steyn’s counsel. According to two sources with inside knowledge, it also plans to drop National Review as a client.

The lawyers’ withdrawal came shortly after Steyn—a prominent conservative pundit who regularly fills in as host of Rush Limbaugh’s radio show—publicly attacked the former judge in the case, Natalia Combs Greene, accusing her of “stupidity” and “staggering” incompetence. Mann’s attorney, John B. Williams, suspects this is no coincidence. “Any lawyer would be taken aback if their client said such things about the judge,” he says. “That may well be why Steptoe withdrew.”

Steyn’s manager, Melissa Howes, acknowledged that his commentary “did not go over well.”* But Steyn maintains it was his decision to part ways with his attorneys.

Yeah. the old “you can’t break up with me, I already broke up with you, so there!” line.

So, how now, Mark Steyn?

“I spent the first months attempting to conceal my contempt for Judge Combs Greene’s court,” he [Steyn] said in an email to Mother Jones. “But really, it’s not worth the effort.” Wednesday’s ruling affirms the thrust of Combs Greene’s order, however. It also concludes that “a reasonable jury is likely to find the statement that Dr. Mann ‘molested and tortured data’ was false, and published with knowledge of its falsity or reckless disregard for whether it was false or not.”

Steyn, meanwhile, appears to be paying a price for his brazenness. He still has no legal representation. (“My check from the Koch brothers seems to have been lost in the mail or intercepted by the NSA,” he wrote. “So for the moment I am representing myself.”) And since his Christmas Eve diatribe, the conservative pundit—who had been writing near-daily posts for National Review Online—hasn’t written a single item. Neither he nor the magazine’s publisher, Jack Fowler, would say why. But Steyn hinted at the reasons in a post on his website: “As readers may have deduced from my absence at National Review Online and my termination of our joint representation, there have been a few differences between me and the rest of the team.”

In summary, and to use a topical reference: the NRO ship has run aground, the attorneys have bailed, and the cannibal rats of the Good Ship National Review have turned on each other.

As the kids like to say: pass the popcorn.

[highway001]

To recap...

2 judges disagree
His lawyers leave him
2 of 3 of his lead quotes are out of context and the authors of them disagree with him
The National Review refuses to further publish him
Climategate is fully debunked

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3j9j6WNpRM

Oh no...you and Glacier didn't chip in on his publicly funded defense did you!

[Glacier]

The fact is that you are defending a liar. Anyone who defends liars has no interest in looking for truth in my opinion.

[maryjane48]

you defend liars like sam smith

[The Green Barbarian]

you defend liars like sam smith

The singer? What did he lie about?

[The Green Barbarian]

The fact is that you are defending a liar. Anyone who defends liars has no interest in looking for truth in my opinion.

Yup - this is it in a nutshell.

[Partmanpartfish]

I'm sorry, friends, but judging someone a 'liar' based on crap they read on crazy, wingnut, denier websites, written by woefully unqualified, uneducated cranks, is something of which only you guys are capable.

[The Green Barbarian]

I'm sorry, friends, but judging someone a 'liar' .

instead of writing this foolish nonsense, why don't you actually do some reading outside of that tiny box you've put yourself in?