Czech president: Gore is insane.

[Ned]

Diety Dude, it is amazing how the public GW activists simply refuse to discuss the issue. We, however, have had many good discussions here on Poly about the topic. The problem I see is that many here simply do not see that a lot of GW activists are simply lying about the issue in one way or another.

[DinoDoc]

I thought he was just boring and robotic. However, he was the inventor of the internet so it might not be wise to write him completely off.

[Barnabas]

We shouldnt pay attention to small former soviet block countries, after the years of commie soviet opression, they are currently in a very right wing frenzy, really right wingish...
something similar but opposite happened for example in Spain, when Franco died, it was all leftyness and sexual decadence during the 80´s.

A decade may pass before they reach an equilibrium.

[Arrian]

He may be insane if he thinks he's got a shot at the Presidency. Otherwise, he may simply be boring or irritating.

...

Diety Dude - it's one thing to question global warming, especially some of the fringier claims. It's entirely another to say:

"Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so."

That's pretty funny. Those who question GW and are interested in serious discussion tend to stick to asserting there are areas of debate about GW, not that GW is a "myth" that nobody "serious" believes.

My mind is not made up. I find neither "side" convincing at this point, though I am concerned about environmental damage (whether or not it results in climate change - in fact, clean drinking water and air are more important to me on a short-term basis). I find both sides disingenuous at times. The funding the skeptics receive from big polluters raises a red flag, for instance.

Prediction: you will waive that concern (and any others) away as just silly "leftist" thinking.

I wonder, which will be more accurate: your prediction or mine?

-Arrian

[MRT144]

when the czechs somehow stop letting porn stars be their #1 export to the world I will listen to what they have to say.

[Arrian]

One would think that would actually increase the Czech Republic's credibility here at 'poly...

-Arrian

[MRT144]

it does, but there different types of credibility in this world.

[Arrian]

Ball seems to think the Sun is behind the recent temperature changes (as well as the Ozone problem... maybe more, for all I know).

I'm not qualified to say for sure whether or not he's right, but three things jump out at me:

1) the ozone thing is a bit odd, no?
2) he's got an awful big chip on his shoulder - it sounds like he's hurt because he was snubbed or something.
3) he's part of "Friends of Science" which is... you guessed it, funded at least in part by oil companies.

-Arrian

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Arrian
3) he's part of "Friends of Science" which is... you guessed it, funded at least in part by oil companies.

I don't get this part. Is someone who gets a paycheck from an enviromental organization held in the same suspicion as you hold other?

[Arrian]

I did a search on Mr. Ball, and found this dissenting piece:

Dr. Tim Ball: The Lie that Just Won't Die
5 Feb 07
The deathless and - in many specific respects - completely fictional meanderings of Dr. Tim Ball have begun appearing again on right-wing blogs all over the net. At City Troll, at Convenient Untruth and at New Orleans Lady, the same tired and retreaded old climate rant paints Dr. Ball as the courageous victim of a plot to silence a well-meaning skeptic.

But Ball can't even tell the truth about his own resume. His claim to be the first Climatology Ph.D. in Canada is a total falsehood; his degree was in historical geography - not climatology - and it was nowhere near the first ever granted to someone writing vaguely in the field. It also was granted by the university as a doctor of philosophy, not the more prestigious "doctor of science" that Ball claims in these articles.

He claims as well to have been a professor (again of climatology) at the University of Winnipeg for 32 years, while he confirmed in his own Statement of Claim in a pending lawsuit (look here ) that he was a professor (of geography, never climatology) for just eight years.

Dr. Ball claims never to have been paid by oil and gas interests, but if you look here , you'll find a Globe and Mail story in which Dr. Barry Cooper, the man behind Ball's former industry front group, the Friends of Science , offers this clumsy admission: "[The money's] not exclusively from the oil and gas industry," says Prof. Cooper. "It's also from foundations and individuals. I can't tell you the names of those companies, or the foundations for that matter, or the individuals."

Here you'll find a podcast of Dr. Ball talking to the Ottawa Citizen , saying that he goes out of his way to ignore who might be paying his bills, but crediting the energy industry lobby firm, the High Park Group . And here, you'll find High Park Group veteran Tom Harris, telling the Toronto Star that his new industry front group, the Natural Resources Stewardship Project , was created at the suggestion of High Park Group president Timothy Egan.

Tom Harris, executive director of the NRSP, is credited by New Orleans Lady for passing along this version of the Ball tirade, also printed Monday on the right-wingy website, Canada Free Press. Yet all of these factual inconsistencies have been brought to Harris's attention on previous occasions.

It is inevitable that this post will be criticized as an ad hominem attack on dear Dr. Ball (and perhaps on Harris, as well). But how can you argue science with someone who doesn't feel bound by the limits of truth?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just endured an unprecedented process of vetting and peer-review to produce a document, the veracity of which has been double-checked and endorsed by thousands of the best scientists in the world. It must be soul-destroying to see a long-retired geographer who rarely published during his colourless academic career and who never conducted any research in atmospheric science dismiss that effort without a shred of evidence or a hint of good conscience.

Now either he's right or they're right. It cannot be both. That's a simple fact-checking thing.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I don't get this part. Is someone who gets a paycheck from an enviromental organization held in the same suspicion as you hold other?

I would be skeptical about someone making claims about, say, nuclear power that were contrary to the general concensus if the scientist in question was funded by Greenpeace, yeah.

Always question the source.

-Arrian

[pchang]

Always follow the money

source is not quite as important

[Arrian]

The money is part of the source (sometimes all of it, if the money really "owns" someone completely).

Anyway, *if* the bolded section I quoted above is true and Mr. Ball made up bits of his resume to sound qualified, I call bull**** on his claims. If, on the other hand, he really is a qualified climateologist, his views are worth considering, even if they are oil-industry funded.

-Arrian

[BlackCat]

This discussion about results that per definition is false because the financer has an interest is quite boring.

It would be fine if research financed by Gore and his accomplices too was considered tainted, but that isn't the case.

About the topic, well, I think that the Czech president should keep to politics.

I don't see any ruining of the planet, I have never seen it, and I don't think that a reasonable and serious person could say such a thing.

This is quite an idiotic statement made by a president in a country that has had severe floodings due to human impact. In this case, not CO2 but by messing with a river and it's surroundings.

[Monk]

It's a relief to see Ned pointing out that at least some Europeans have maintained backbones. This dude is not the first, he's 'another'.