The politics of ‘trust us’ is wearing thin
We’ve reached a moment of truth for the climate-change debate, which is a good thing since “the truth” is what everyone has been screaming about all along.
Last week, someone released thousands of emails and other documents from the highly influential Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England. I say “someone released” because it’s unclear whether the deed was done by an outside hacker, an inside whistleblower or someone else.
In any case, the contents are staggering.
Now on display are the scientists’ apparent attempts to manipulate climate data to fit their narrative of an ever warming planet. So, too, are their schemes to withhold and even delete documents sought under Freedom of Information laws, as well as to prevent contrarian researchers from publishing work in scientific journals and United Nations climate-change reports.
Then there’s the plainly incoherent climate data at the heart of their work, as described by the poor computer programmer tasked with compiling it in a database upon which governments around the world depend.
So far there have been no protests from the scientists or the university that any of the information was falsified, only laughably weak attempts to act as if none of it is terribly important.
Yet this episode obliterates the public credibility once enjoyed by these scientists. And these are not just any scientists: Their work has been integral to the reports of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the related push for legal restrictions on carbon emissions. It is hard to imagine what they could do to re-earn such prominence and trust.
This new information is extremely timely, because next month the U.N. will meet in Copenhagen with hopes of drafting a climate-change treaty that would regulate trillions of dollars worth of global commerce.
Any new treaty would be based in no small way on the work of the scientists involved in the present scandal. The only responsible option is to postpone the Copenhagen agenda while this new information is digested.
Yet as critical as the climate-change debate’s outcome is to our future, this story has even broader significance than that. For it fits the running theme of 2009’s big news stories: truth versus “trust us.”
In the past year-plus, the politics of “trust us” has brought Americans bailouts for Wall Street and Detroit, a $787 billion stimulus bill, and health “reform” bills with cost estimates about which the estimators themselves are skeptical.
This is a partial list. The politics of “trust us” is wearing thin.
The trust deficit, if not the budget deficit, was supposed to be made whole once George Bush left office. Yet the Obama administration, rather than operating with the promised transparency, has been burning through public trust as fast as it’s been spending real currency.
The administration’s attempts to restore this trust keep falling flat. Look no further than the job-creation statistics the White House rolled out to show the stimulus was working. Journalists and bloggers doing basic fact-checking uncovered wild inflation in these figures, including hundreds of phony jobs in non-existent congressional districts.
The politics of “trust us” points to one of the most fundamental arguments for limited government. When government is involved in activities it can’t account for, it is too big.
Like the East Anglia crew, it doesn’t matter whether big government is intentionally deceptive or just incompetent. The result is the same: We just can’t trust it.
***
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256 comments Add your comment
NeverTrustARepublican
November 30th, 2009
2:53 pm
Linda,
You are proof that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Armed with a high school understanding of the earth sciences and a Palinesque common sense (crimeny, what a thing to wish for) you put forth the most absurd defense for ignoring climate change and our part in it I believe I;ve ever heard. The basics: yes, carbon dioxide is a natural gas and when in balance is not a threat. When it is released in amounts greater than can be handled through sinks (as opposed to sources, not the lovely designer one in your upstairs bathroom)it acts, as do others both natural and synthetic, in a greenhouse effect, trapping heat that would normally escape the atmosphere (word to look up: albedo). Hence, a warming trend. The problem becomes critical when we reach an atmospheric carbon concentration of over 350 ppm (that’s parts per million); right now we’re somewhere around 380 ppm. I don’t know if I can dumb that down any more. I’m sorry if that doesn’t fit with your politics or your religion or some sort of co-mingling of the two, but mostly I’m sorry that we have so many folks like you running their yap about things about which they know so little and even more that will listen to them and nod in agreement. We have a climate change problem but, more critically, we have a ’stupid yet loud’ problem.
Linda
November 30th, 2009
2:55 pm
Kyle, When I read the 1:33 post, I immediately hit the Report this Comment button for the first time. Thank you for your immediate response. I was not requesting the comment be removed. I agree with your decision to leave it up for public scrutiny.
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
3:14 pm
NeverTrustARepublican, I have an MBA from Duke University. My father is a chemical engineer for a very large company based out of Atlanta. My wife is a general surgeon at the University of Chicago.
Care to argue with someone like me?
Oh and by the way, Palin is fantastic.
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
3:19 pm
NeverTrustARepublican, if global warming is real, as you so modestly pronounced, then why “scientist” and politicians constantly change the name from global warming, to climate change to man-made global warming?
1: Scientists can’t decide what causes it and how to stop it.
2: Al Gore is a hypocritical moron who flunked out of divinity school at Vandy.
3: We have not had a major hurricane in 3 years.
4: The past two summers have been the coldest in over 30 years.
5: Climategate proves just how incredibly stupid and naive people like you really are.
NeverTrustARepublican
November 30th, 2009
3:22 pm
Wow, a business degree; how WILL I ever handle a science discussion with the likes of YOU! Maybe your dad or wife would be willing to help you out.
And, oh by the way, your last comment may be the dumbest one you’ve made yet, and that’s saying something. Your wife and my wife are both fantastic; Mrs. Palin is Anita Bryant, a bobblehead doll.
Pluto
November 30th, 2009
3:31 pm
Deutoronomy:”Go forth Christians and fill the World with hate and division”
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
3:33 pm
NeverTrustARepublican, which comment is dumb? I find it interesting that you didn’t answer one single question.
By the way, what scientific field do you work in? I would have gone into medicine but it didn’t pay well and doctors are spending more time in court than they are healing the sick.
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
3:34 pm
Pluto, are you Peter perhaps? Maybe Churchill’s mom.
NeverTrustARepublican
November 30th, 2009
3:42 pm
Fraud,
So its the name that buds you? How deep. Okay, let’s call it Bob. Global warming caused the thically and/or mentally challenged among us to question why that would be so bad (you see it here, better ag, beah front property inland, ad nauseum) and isn’t as despriptive of what’s going on as climate change (another mouth breather complaint is the old caution of another ice age-’coolin’, warmin’, them dern scientist can’y make up their minds’ (your #3) when in reality one (warming) can trigger the other (massive cooling). Look up North Atlantic current as a project.
Al Gore’s a moron….good argument. They teach that at Duke?
Climategate proves that its all politics to people ill-equipped to understand the science.
NeverTrustARepublican
November 30th, 2009
3:45 pm
I’m a Geologist, Fraud. More specifically a Hydrogeologist. More specifically, an Environmental Hydrogeologist.
I would’ve played centerfield for the Yankees ‘cept it pays poorly and I like my summers free.
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
3:46 pm
NeverTrustARepublican, buds me? Never heard that term before. Did they teach that at F U?
You wrote: Climategate proves that its all politics to people ill-equipped to understand the science.
No, that means that the global warming cult, which you obviously follow, has been uncovered as a fraud, like you.
Again, what is your scientific background?
Pluto
November 30th, 2009
3:54 pm
Corinthians:”He who dealt it smelt it, sayeth the Lord”
NeverTrustARepublican
November 30th, 2009
3:56 pm
Bugs, Fraud. My typing, like your grasp of this issue, is poor.
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
4:00 pm
NeverTrustARepublican, how could I have a poor understanding of this subject when I am the one pointing out facts etc…? All you are doing is throwing out insults.
Bottom line: You don’t work in the scientific community and you never went to college.
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
4:03 pm
NeverTrustARepublican, what is also funny is the fact that you are “acting” like an expert.
Christianity is the Devils Music
November 30th, 2009
4:06 pm
76% of violent criminals are Christian, they have been on the wrong side of history (slavery, women’s suffrage, science (World is flat, Sun revolves around Earth)) every time- they even dare call God’s children illegal, if it wasn’t so sad I’d laugh…..
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
4:07 pm
Christianity is the Devils Music, were you beaten as a kid?
JF McNamara
November 30th, 2009
4:10 pm
I’d trust a scientist over an opinion columnist or industry advocate with a vested interest anytime.
Who knows what the true impact of our carbon emmissions will be, but what we are doing to the environment is wrong. I don’t want to gamble the future of my kids because someone doubts a computer model they likely don’t understand.
O.J. got off because people didn’t understand/believe DNA. Cigarette companies gave people cancer because people were convinced didn’t believe they cause cancer by tobacco companies. Now were supposed to think global warning is just made up by evil scientist too. Give me a break.
NeverTrustARepublican
November 30th, 2009
4:12 pm
Fraud, what facts, that Al Gore is a moron? Who’s tossing insults? Wait, you mean fact about cold winters and hurricanes? I see, well who could argue with such a complete and overwheming data set as that?
I’m not an expert. What I am is a scientist in a related field with the background to read and understand journal articles written by those who are. Perhaps you should take the advice I gave to Kyle; write about something you know. Perhaps then you can be relevant to a discussion.
Chris Broe
November 30th, 2009
4:21 pm
Gentlemen. GENTLEMEN! We wont solve the question of man-made global warming today on this little blog. The idea is that Kyle set up this fertile topic so that we may all add our own personal greenhouse gas to it by blogging like the methane-puking termitic trolls we truly are.
I exclude myself, of course. I meant only to include repudlickan pudwits.
(I meant Republican Pundits)
.
.
.
not
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
4:21 pm
NeverTrustARepublican, again, avoid my questions and change the subject. Nice.
God's Pro-Choice
November 30th, 2009
4:25 pm
Moses 31:17:”Now, therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by ling with him:
Oops even Jesus make mistakes
November 30th, 2009
4:26 pm
“lying” as in sleeping or porking
NeverTrustARepublican
November 30th, 2009
4:30 pm
Fraud, what question have I avoided? My scientific background? Answered at 3:45.
dewstarpath
November 30th, 2009
4:44 pm
NTAR, Thanks for mentioning sinks (even though
based on the comments, it will fall on deaf ears).
The oceans are the largest sinks of CO2, which
pose a problem for metropolitan areas that are in
land-locked interiors. Without sufficient carbon
sequestration, either man-made (chemical scrubbing
or pumping it into the ground) or natural (trees and
ocean sinking), these areas will most likely continue
to have problems, because the sequestration
process will only affect future CO2 levels, and not
current levels.
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
4:44 pm
NeverTrustARepublican, whatever you say pal.
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
4:45 pm
dewstarpath and NeverTrustARepublican, I am guessing that you both believe in evolution. If so then why do either of you care? It’s not like anyone can fix what’s already set in motion.
Churchill's MOM
November 30th, 2009
4:52 pm
DUKEFRAUD.. have you forgot the fool you made of yourself on Wooten’s blog when a real Duke Graduate asked you hall & street names. Face it you are a loser not a DUKE grad.
NeverTrustARepublican
November 30th, 2009
4:55 pm
Fraud, what could evolution possibly have to do with this? Or, is this something else you ‘feel’ is fraudulent?
Churchill's MOM
November 30th, 2009
4:56 pm
DUKEFRAUD…didn’t you have a law degree from DUKE on the Wooten blog? Strange how your memory has slipped, of course you could post your transcript for all of us to see.
Fraud's Momma
November 30th, 2009
4:58 pm
David, suppers ready get off that computer gizmo and wash your face time to pray for the rapture
Linda
November 30th, 2009
4:59 pm
Never@2:53, I have a Bachelor of Science degree from one of the largest universities in the southeastern US. Being a scientist, let alone a climatologist, or having a science degree is unnecessary to form an opinion as to global warming. (It certainly did not hold Al Gore back.) We just need to use common sense & logic.
Too much oxygen will kill you.
With advancements in science, we’ve been drilling for decades into the ice cores for almost 4000 miles. We know that CO2, dust & temperatures have been rising & falling together for hundreds of thousands of years. CO2 levels are the same today as they have been many times in history.
Global warming might be occurring. So what? If it is, it’s probably because we’re still coming out of an interglacial period (ice age) & that CO2 levels will also rise regardless of human activity. If we try to reduce CO2, it’s likely to have little or no effect. Volcanoes erupt every day, year in & year out, & emit just as much CO2 in a day as all the cars in the US in a year. Unfortunately, we have no alternative source of fuel, no way to reduce our emissions. Until we do, trading around in cap & trade will accomplish nothing.
Obama stated that the passage of the Cap & Trade Tax bill will cause our energy bills to SKYROCKET, which includes our homes & cars as well as every building & vehicle in American. All the goods & services we buy will SKYROCKET. FOR WHAT?
I don’t know about you, but I’m not willing to watch our economy collapse on a pipe dream & a hoax.
Cap & trade will not lower our emissions. The alternate sources of energy the fed govt propose don’t work but they won’t allow the ones that do, for purely political & financial reasons. This is the greatest scam in the history of our country.
The only politicians I trust less than the ones in DC are the ones in the UN. The UN’s Environment Program & their Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) & these scientists (whose statistics you quoted) who have been cooking their books & reporting their “findings” to them for the last 13 years are the most corrupt politicians in the world. The Kyoto Protocol, if Obama signs it, will transfer our sovereignty over to them.
I could cite numerous examples of the inefficiencies & ineffectiveness of the fed govt. People who think that politicians can predict & control the weather are the ones who are stupid.
If you really want to know about the weather, ask a farmer or go directly to his source, the Farmers Almanac, which is reliable & nonpolitical.
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
5:12 pm
Churchill’s MOM wrote:DUKEFRAUD.. have you forgot the fool you made of yourself on Wooten’s blog when a real Duke Graduate asked you hall & street names. Face it you are a loser not a DUKE grad.
Oh you mean Jackie? Yeah Churchill’s MOM, if you had been paying attention, I answered all of Jackies asinine questions about what buildings classes were held in etc..
Bottom line: You are sad sack of horse crap who hasn’t the ability to carry on an adult conversation. It must truly suck to be you.
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
5:13 pm
Churchill’s MOM, law degree? No moron, I never said anything about a law degree.
Bottom line: I WROTE THAT I EARNED MY MBA FROM DUKE UNIVERSITY.
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
5:15 pm
NeverTrustARepublican, what does it have to do with global warming? Well science guy, if you believe in evolution then you would realize that nature wipes out what it wants. Nothing you can do about it.
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
5:18 pm
Churchill’s MOM, I always love how high school drop outs, such as yourself, like to try and make fun of people who don’t share your views.
Again, I am so sorry that you got rejected by every major university in America.
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
5:22 pm
Churchill’s MOM, I know that menopause has messed with your feeble mind but that person that you refer to on Wooten’s blog never claimed to have gone to Duke. Jackie, the person you are referring to, said that she went to a school in North Carolina. Also, why don’t you go back on Wooten’s blog and find just where I said that I had a law degree. You won’t find it because I never said it.
The only loser I see on this blog besides the idiots who make up retarded names like Fraud’s Momma, is you. Not only have you not contributed to any conversation, but you have stupidly accused me of lying about Duke. You are a disgustingly screwed up individual.
NeverTrustARepublican
November 30th, 2009
5:27 pm
Linda, I’ll try this point by point lest I be accused of ignoring questions:
-’I have a Bachelor of Science degree from one of the largest universities in the southeastern US. ‘ So you’ve said, repeatedly. And?
-’Too much oxygen will kill you’ Thanks. And?
-Yeah, I’m a bit familiar with ice cores, thanks. Perhaps reading this will help:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11659-climate-myths-ice-cores-show-co2-increases-lag-behind-temperature-rises-disproving-the-link-to-global-warming.html
-Ah, the Limbaugh Volcano Canard- we can’t do much to control how much volcanos release can we? The system tends to handle the natural emmissins, with excpetions, rather well. What it likely can’t handle is the anthroprogenic overloading. Rush and his sources are a poor way to get information.
-We don’t have alternatives because we haven’t felt the urgency to find them. Articles like Kyle’s and ostriches such as yourself are not helping.
-I don’t like cap and trade either; I think its a political band aid.
=Wow, UN distrust from a conservative. Shocking. No, you’re right, its all a Socialist plot to destroy America. Its in our handbook. Feel better?
-The Farmer’s Almanac. Really. I’ll just let that nugget stand on its own.
Churchill's MOM
November 30th, 2009
5:27 pm
Dukefraud.. truth hurts doesn’t it.. Go to bed little boy or girl, which ever you are.
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
5:31 pm
Churchill’s MOM, yes truth hurts. You’d know because I just debunked your lame attempt at smearing me. What a moron you are!
Speaking of bed, I bet it hurt you to the core to find your “partner” in bed with another bull dyke. Poor whittle MOM!
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
5:32 pm
NeverTrustARepublican, why do you care about global warming? It’s not like you can do anything about it.
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
5:33 pm
Churchill’s MOM, having a hard time finding evidence of your claims about me and a Duke law degree?
NeverTrustARepublican
November 30th, 2009
5:35 pm
‘Well science guy, if you believe in evolution then you would realize that nature wipes out what it wants. Nothing you can do about it.’
I’m almost struck speechless by the stupidity of that comment. So, if you mix arsenic instead of sugar in your coffee, is your death a matter of natural selection? Seriously, are you a grown man? How?
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
5:36 pm
This sums up crack heads like Churchill’s MOM and NeverTrust:
A friendly chat with the global warming evangelist who lives in my head
Hello, hyperventilating zealot.
Greetings, denialist scum.
Now that we’ve dispensed with the formalities, please allow me to point and laugh at you. Ahem. Ha ha ha! Point point point!
Shut up.
That’s what you’d like me to do. That’s what you’d like all of us to do. Shut our mouths and open our wallets. Did you really think it was going to be so easy?
This doesn’t prove anything.
What doesn’t?
You know.
We both do. I just want to hear you say it.
This Clim… This Climateguh. Guh.
That’s it, almost there.
This Climategate garbage doesn’t mean anything! You science-denying neocon fascist racist warmongering planet-raping… [Goes on like this for a bit]
My goodness. Feel better?
No.
Well, I do. OMG, can you believe Obama changed his mind about going to Copenhagen after all this stuff came out? It’s like sprinting to board your ship at the last minute, and it’s the Titanic.
You’re the Titanic. You are.
Should we do this some other time? You’re making even less sense than usual.
Do you really think you know more than scientists? They’re scientists.
Yes, and science is a wonderful thing. It’s improved our lives in countless ways. It also has nothing to do with what these frauds, and the useful idiots who believed them, have been pulling.
How would you know?
It goes on and on.
http://jimtreacher.com/archives/002138.html
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
5:37 pm
NeverTrustARepublican, it must really hurt you that people don’t believe in your global warming religion.
Invisible Man in Sky
November 30th, 2009
5:43 pm
He (fraudulent duke grad) whoeth crackith up on blog must livith in Momma’s basement playing on electronic mailer, come up stairs suppa’s ready son….
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
5:46 pm
Invisible Man in Sky, speaking of your mom, she owes Churchill’s MOM a lot of money. Just saying.
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
5:48 pm
Invisible Man in Sky aka ChurchhillsMOM aka NeverTrustARepublican is a sad sack of horse dung.
dewstarpath
November 30th, 2009
5:48 pm
- Axelfraud –
I was discussing whether or not CO2 was dangerous –
not if evolution is fact or fiction. I don’t argue with non –
scientists on that issue, and I refuse to do it on a “blog”.
David Axelfraud
November 30th, 2009
5:49 pm
dewstarpath, wasn’t arguing with you. Just wanted to know if you believed in evolution.