Teaching Science 2.0

So, Chris Matthews wanted to know if the Republicans are anti-science.  He invited a Republican and a Democat on his show to discuss.  The Republican did a fantastic job of sowing doubt…by rehashing all of the old, tired and debunked anti-anthropomorphic climate change arguments.  The Democrat and Matthews didn’t have the science background to discuss any of these.  So, why not have a real scientist join in the debate?  A scientist would have cleaned the Republican’s clock.

Watch the full video here.

Dana Rohrabacher’s (R-California) big “science” points and rebuttals.

1. Change in temperature on Mars and Jupiter.

Mars has a very thin atmosphere and has frequent dust storms.  Large dust storms change the albedo of the planet and reduce the reliability of telescope-based temperature measurements.  The empirical data is not conclusive for climate change on Mars.

Heat transfer within Jupiter’s atmosphere is very complicated.  Temperatures are increasing in equitorial regions, but cooling in polar regions.

2. Historical fluctuations in Earth’s temperatue.

No one denies that Earth’s climate fluctuates.  However, the natural causes for climate change have remained relatively stable since the 1970’s.  The change in global temperature that we are seeing is due to human impact on the atmosphere.

3. Temperature has not increased since 1998.

1998 was abnormally warm because of a very strong “El Nino” effect.  Long-term global mean temperatures show a statistically significant increase in temperature over the past decade.

4. It is the Sun.

The correlation between increased sunspots and increasing temperature ended in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s.  Sunspot activity is decreasing, yet temperature continues to increase.

4. Greenland used to be green.

Dana claims that 1000 years ago, Greenland used to be green.  The current ice sheet on Greenland is at least 110,000 years old and Greenland has been ice covered for hundreds of thousands of years.

Why do Republican elected officials hate science? This is absolutely disgusting.

A few weeks ago, I posted about the Republicans old new attack against climate change.  Instead of providing solutions, they just keep denying that there is a problem.  Heck, it would even be more tolerable if they admitted there was a problem, but fought any action on the basis of the current state of our economy.  But, that is not what they are doing.

Republicans are continuing their attack on the science of climate change by saying that carbon dioxide can’t be a pollutant because it is created naturally (reminder to GOP: so is arsenic).  It can’t be bad for us because we need it to live.

This time, they added a new twist.  Since carbon dioxide is “natural,” it must be created by God.  We can’t regulate God.  Seriously, Rep Barton (R-TX) said this. The Ranking member on the House Energy & Commerce Committee said this.

During Barton’s time on C-Span he also said that no one has gone to the hospital due to carbon dioxide poisoning.  I guess we can forgive his ignorance, because carbon dioxide poisoning is usually called hypercapnia. He also said:

we are not a European country, so we can’t drive smaller, more fuel efficient cars because our “culture” is based on the need to drive really big vehicles long distances.

AND-

So, there is a, there is a climate theory and it’s a theory, it’s not a fact, it’s never been proven- that increasing concentrations of CO2 in the upper atmosphere somehow interact to trap more heat than the atmosphere would otherwise.

Rep Barton thinks he is smarter than the US Secretary of Energy, but somehow is so ill informed about the nature of science that he doesn’t even know what a theory is.  A theory is a robust scientific explanation for a natural phenomena. It is based on evidence.  The larger the body of supporting evidence, the stronger the theory.  Here is a good primer on how science works.

Rep Barton also state that it has “never been proven that increasing concentrations of CO2 in the upper atmosphere somehow interact to trap more heat…”  Here is a kid friendly primer on the greenhouse effect. Perhaps it is in simple enough language that Rep Barton can understand it (Note: This is an EPA website that was created in 2006 - when the EPA was under Republican control).  Although Rep Barton says that this greenhouse “theory” has never been proven, he also says that it is necessary.  As the kid friendly primer says, the Earth would be 60oF cooler if it wasn’t for the greenhouse effect.  I know this is hard to grasp, sometimes things are good for us in moderation.  A “moderate” greenhouse effect is necessary for life on Earth.  Too little, we freeze.  Too much, we boil.  Too little, we get Mars.  Too much, we get Venus.

CO2 is ubiquitous so regulating it is like shuffling the chairs on the deck of the titanic.

I find this last comment rather interesting. The titanic sunk.  If Barton thinks that climate change is a bunch of BS, what is with the Titanic reference?  If he thinks that climate change is an environmental issue worthy of a “Titanic” reference, is he saying that we might as well not try to do anything because it is too big of a problem?

Watch it here: