A Tsunami of Spin and Hype

This one pretty much completes my year:

In the wake of the tragic tsunami in Asia and Africa, a neocon climatologist -- one of that small bunch of climate change naysayers who seem to know more than the 3,000 or so Nobel laureates and other scientists who suggest that human activity just might, in fact, be altering the climate -- has condemned "environmental experts busily creating links between the recent tsunami and global warming."

Dr. Pat Michaels, a research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia (and a scholar at the right-wing Cato Institute), issued a press release screed today saying, in part:

"Anyone who has the moral audacity to blame thousands of deaths caused by the Indian Ocean tsunamis on global warming is in grave contravention of well-known facts about changes in sea level in that region."

Problem is, I couldn't find a single claim -- by an "environmental expert" or anyone else -- made in the past week that connects the Indian Ocean tragedy with global warming. (Go ahead Google it for yourself)

Wait, it gets worse. Now comes "Henry Thornton," the nom de plume of a self-proclaimed "prominent economist," who blames the lack of an early-warning system in the Indian Ocean on "a lack of funding to earthquake science etc, since most science funds are being directed to "Global Warming." He adds . . .

. . . "the Greens and their fellow travellers must accept responsibility for the loss of life on December 27, 2004 from the tsunamis of that day."

A brilliant ploy: Condemn a ridiculous and outrageous claim by your opponents, or associate them with something for which they had no possible responsibility, thereby branding them as silly at best, dangerous at worse, despite the fact that you pretty much made the whole thing up.

Reminds me of a presidential election we had back in 2004 . . .

Comments

[Gil Friend]

I was thinking the same thing. Closest thing I could find was these two paragraphs, at http://www.financegates.com/news/world_news/2004-12-29/tsunami_29122004.html

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The company called for measures to be taken to counter the climate change that in Munich Re’s opinion was responsible for the disaster.

"The terrible effects spreading all around the Indian Ocean and reaching as far as the Horn of Africa are a further reminder of the global threat from natural catastrophes," executive board member Stefan Heyd said in the reinsurer’s annual disaster report.

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Note that the assertion in the first paragraph is not what the Munich Re executive said, in the quote in the second paragraph.

[Christina Holland]

Wow. I'm a physical oceanographer. NO ONE with actual knowledge is saying that global warming had anything to do with this event. It was an undersea earthquake. And if the repubs really want to fund us to put seismometers along the mid-oceans ridges and such, I say great, but given their preoccupation with missile defense systems that have never worked, I don't really see that as likely.

[Leje]

WOW you could drive a fuel guzzling truck through the holes in the 'story' by Louis Hissink on the Henry Thornton site. Illogical and unsubstantiated claims.

Although, in his own words, Louis says that it would be perverse (or "peverse") to "blame the death toll on the Global Warming lobby and the IPCC". A Freudian admission that he himself deliberately departs from what is normal, good or proper?

[Leje]

I'm dumbstruck that any scientist who wants to discredit climate change claims would quote from a work of fiction, let alone claim that a work of fiction "demonstrates" anything!

Dr. Michaels suggestion that "Michael Crichton should sue environmentalists ... for plagiarism" is just silly. Sci-fi writers often keep abreast of scientific developments. Science and technology has followed in the footsteps of science fiction before. Should sci-fi authors take out patents and sue scientists and companies, even if real science spurred their imagination?

[Gray Russell]

The only comments I have read connecting the tsunami disaster to "environmental" issues (more societal, really) are that: 1) until 50 years ago, many of the affected areas were unpopulated because longtime populations were concentrated more inland until the growing tourist industry brought coastal communities; and, 2) in some areas, massive fish farms raising cheap shrimp for affluent consumers have decimated the mangroves which served as buffers protecting huge swaths of the coastline.

[Justin Lehrer]

Unbelievable stuff. Naomi Oserkes issued a statement clarifying her point (that Dr. Michaels completely mutilated.)
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/000310naomi_oreskes_misquo.html