Yup, I pulled a complete dumbass move. I was doing laundry tonight and realized that I should probably through my Muay Thai gear into the mix - shorts, shirts and, of course, my bright red handwraps, which have not been washed before. I now own a couple of pink shirts, some pink socks, a pink-splotched towel, and a pink sports bra!! Oh well. Maybe pink will grow on me...
I signed up to do a 3 hour Filipino weaponry workshop on Saturday at my gym. I talked to Kruu Bob tonight and he said it's an excellent one-on-one streetfighting technique, and teaches alot of coordination and how to deal with an armed attacker. Not that I'm feeling like getting into a streetfight in the near future, but I think it's always good to learn a new technique and become well-rounded.
"The Denial Machine" on Fifth Estate (Wednesday, Nov. 15th, 9pm)
Note: I'm taking notes as I watch the show, for anyone who didn't catch it. These are my own brain farts and paraphrased quotes from the documentary. See www.cbc.ca/fifth for the transcript.
CC = climate change
From Frank Luntz's (communications strategist) 16 page guide for Bush on the use of certain words/tones to influence people:
"The science isn't conclusive"
"The costs of prevention are too high"
Rule # 1 - never use the term "Global warming" - implies cataclysmic destruction
Rule #2 - never call yourself an environmentalist
Bush proposes a 18% reduction in greenhouse gas intensity by 2012 - what the hell is that? = emissions/size of US economy = absolute % of CO2 in atmosphere could still rise as this only relies on economic growth.
Tobacco/cigarette history might repeat itself wrt to the oil and gas industry - ie. companies paying off scientists to insist that there really isn't a problem - the same guy who backed up the tobacco industry, Dr. Fred Singer, along with other tobacco lobbyists, are now backing up the oil/gas industry and trying to convince people that global warming is false.
(Tobacco + global warming debunkers, denialists in the same camp. Yeesh. How scary is that? Throw in ID and we're all fucked!)
Exxon: richest corporation in the world (this is not something I knew)
- right at the centre of the denial ring and CC debate
- bring on the same tobacco lobbyists scientists
- Exxon lists a $10,000 + $65,000 donation to Dr. Singer's research group and "foundation"
(Wow, this Singer guy is a creep!)
Exxon versus Canada
- David Anderson, former Minister of the Environment taking flack from the Whitehouse
- Dr. Tim Ball (University of Winnipeg) - mainstream science of Climate Change "theory" is a crock (Earth is actually cooling down? Bring on the penguins folks!)
- rejects idea that man-made emissions are at fault
(oh my god, this man has a PhD in climate change!! From where?! I think he bought one of those degrees that I get advertisements for in my hotmail inbox!! Hasn't published in a CC scientific journal in 15 years!)
- heads "Friends of Science" CC denial group - filtering money through foundations/organizations to avoid showing that their money is from oil/gas in Calgary - Imperial Oil (ie. Exxon) and Apco Worldwide (same company that headed the tobacco denial issue)
- recent research suggests that 50% of Canadians think there is a big scientific debate about climate change
- "Climate Catastrophy Cancelled" - video debunking CC produced by 'Friends of Science'
(oh no, I just saw a UofO isotope geology prof's name on the letter written to Harper headed by Fred Singer debunking CC - Oh that's not a good thing! What did you do man?!!)
Harpers "Clean Air" act - no mandatory emission cuts, Canada's emissions 50% higher than the USA's; participation in Kyoto DEAD (dead like a dodo - anyone else out there, other than Banffers, see "Flock of Dodos"?)
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7 comments:
Interesting. Thanks for the insight!
I notice that you have a Friends of Science video on your blog - do I take it that you fall into this group?
I'm continuously amazed at how much PR and the media play a role in making 'science' out to be good or evil. Does this mean that the lowly honest scientist will always get the short end of the stick?
Thanks for the notes. You would enjoy reading
http://desmogblog.com/nrsp-not-really-science-people
Does the above writer, Tom Harris, fall into the Friends of Science group. In fact, he wasn't mentioned in the 5th Estate episode, but he should have been. Remember the part in the show where they talk about the Exxon-sponsored press conference in Ottawa featuring junk scientists Tim Ball, Fred Singer and Pat Micheals? You know the one that was arranged by none other than the PR agency APCO Worldwide? Guess who was the APCO PR guy who arranged the press conference. None other than Tom Harris!
Here's the press release for the event with Harris on it.
http://www.climatesearch.com/newsDetail.cfm?nwsId=54
Ah ha!! Thanks for shedding some light on this one, anonymous! Are these denialists for real? Hey Mr. Harris - do you REALLY believe that climate change isn't real? As a professional scientist, and a geologist well aware of climate change over the Earth's history, I can't help but come to the conclusion that anyone who doesn't believe in climate change, who fails to realize how much an impact that humans are playing, is either (1) not paying attention to the science from decades of research, and/or (2) has their own agenda revolving around money.
just my humble opinion.
They naysayers claim that since it was warmer some time in the distant past, before the burning of fossil fuels, therefore we can't possibly affect the climate now. They are always going on about the vikings, etc., or times millions of years ago.
yes, it was warmer in the past, but the warming/cooling patterns from the past millions of years, although dramatic, happened on a much longer time scale than we are seeing today. And the increase is much, much more dramatic.
For those of you taken in by this episode, please note as follows (Some of this Tom already mentioned):
The episode does not deal with any arguments made by Fred Singer, Pat Michaels and Dr. Ball.
Fred Singer published some 200 papers in scientific journals. Yet, the CBC calls him a "so-called" expert.
As a skeptic that man-made global warming is an impending disaster, I can point to various vested concerns (Alternative energy, environmental groups) that have a stake in presenting oil and coal as being dnagerous due to global warming. Folks on the other side of the debate can point to the various financial interests of folks on my side of the argument.
However, at the end of the day, I cannot help but notice the following:
Skeptics of global warming as an environmental disaster tend to bring up arguments. Folks on the other side of the debate, especially the CBC, tend to dismiss the arguments and portray us either as beholden to oil and coal interests, or as being ignorant.
For example, most of the warming in the past 100 years occured until the mid-1940s when we had minimal emissions.
After WWII, the US, USSR, Europe, Japan, etc.. greatly increase CO2 emissions. The result? The earth cools and in the mid-1970s Newsweek starts screaming about the dangers of global cooling. (Check out Newsweek and Global Cooling on google).
The earth heats up a bit from the 1970s until 1998, and we are all supposed to worry about global warming.
There is interesting work published in peer-reviewed journals claiming that cosmic rays and sunlight activity causes global warming much more than humans do: "The Danish National Space Center in the British ‘Royal Society of London, Series A’ (Experimental Evidence for the role of Ions in Particle Nucleation under Atmospheric Conditions)".
The bottom line is this: You can either play the game of who is being funded by whom, or you can deal with the arguments.
The CBC and much of the mainstream media simply does not deal with the arguments (I am not even sure that they know them).
Thanks,
I. Friedman
Thornhill, Ontario
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