Dennis Prager

December 7, 2011

Climate change: A reasoned skeptic’s response

By Dennis Prager

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Read Joey Green’s article: Is Dennis the Menace?

In my two columns (part 1 / part 2) on why thoughtful people might be skeptical about the apocalyptic global warming/climate change scenario, I addressed the issue with a seriousness and respect that Joey Green does not exhibit in his response. He apparently felt that sarcasm and put-downs comprise an adequate response. They don’t.

Nevertheless, the issue is too important not to respond. So here are responses to selected statements by Green:

1. “Dennis explained the main reason why he and ‘many thoughtful people’ remain skeptical that human activity produced global warming.  . . .”

Green puts “thoughtful people” in quotation marks, as if it is impossible for thoughtful people to be skeptical of the four claims made by global warming advocates:

a) The Earth’s temperature is rising rapidly and dangerously.

b) It is doing so because of man-made emissions of carbon dioxide.

c) The result will be a worldwide catastrophe — including unprecedented rising of the sea level leading to inundated coastal countries and cities; similarly unprecedented droughts leading to wars for water; and extraordinarily severe and numerous hurricanes making landfall.

d) Therefore industrialized nations must immediately and drastically curtail use of fossil fuels by imposing high taxes on their use and vast government spending on “green” technology.  In that way, fossil fuels, the engine of mankind’s unprecedented economic prosperity and technological progress, will be abandoned. Industrialized nations must also transfer hundreds of billions, ultimately trillions, of dollars to poor nations to compensate for the alleged destruction those nations will experience due to our failure to halt warming in time.

Remember, one must fully agree with each of the first three propositions. Skepticism regarding any one of the three means that man-made global warming is not the crisis it is purported to be. And then there would be no need for the fourth proposition.

Green, like most people on the left, doesn’t believe that thoughtful people can be skeptical about any of the propositions. So, allow me to restate:

Aside from dissent by many very distinguished scientists within the small community of climate scientists and elsewhere, common sense dictates skepticism.

For one thing, how do those who are so certain about global warming and about what will occur a half century from now explain the fact that long before there were any human beings, let alone man-made carbon emissions, the Earth experienced periods of far greater warming and intense freezing? Isn’t it obvious that there have been myriad reasons for far more dramatic climate change — none of which have anything to do with humans or carbon dioxide?

Second, are we really going to transform Western economies — nearly all of which are already burdened by unsustainable debt (caused overwhelmingly by entitlements owed by the welfare state) — based almost entirely on computer models?

Third, how do we know that warming is necessarily bad? When the world or portions of it have warmed in human history, it has usually been far more a blessing than a problem.

Fourth, very few of the global warming alarmists’ immediate predictions, or even descriptions of current developments, have been true. For example, one of the most frequent warnings by Al Gore and others has been that “climate change” — what happened to “global warming,” by the way? — will result in unprecedentedly severe and devastating hurricanes. Yet, this very week, on Dec. 4, the United States passed 2,232 days without being hit by a major (Category 3) hurricane — the longest period since 1906. Have you read that in your mainstream paper? Does it mean anything that yet another alarmist prediction has proved false? According to Roger Pielke Jr., professor of environmental studies at University of Colorado, the previous record of consecutive days without a major hurricane in the United States, 1900-1906, “will be shattered, with the days between intense hurricane landfalls likely to exceed 2,500 days.”

But to Green, professor Pielke cannot be among the “thoughtful people.” For Green, no skeptic, no matter how distinguished a scientist he may be, can be thoughtful.

Green is not alone, unfortunately. This is typical of how most on the left think. They are certain that people with whom they differ — on virtually any subject — cannot be thoughtful, or intelligent, or compassionate; only those on the left possess these traits.

For the record, as I note in almost all my columns, unlike Green, I believe that there are thoughtful people on both sides of this issue.

2. “He [Dennis] wisely neglected to mention that a paper Lindzen delivered in 1992, titled ‘Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus,’ was underwritten by OPEC, and that Dyson proposed that soaring carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere could be offset by his cockamamie scheme to mass cultivate specially bred ‘carbon-eating trees.’ ”

Here is another example of how people on the left like Joey Green deal with those with whom they differ. Since he could not deny that professor Richard Lindzen of MIT is widely respected as the dean of American climatologists, he attributes corrupt motives to Lindzen’s global-warming skepticism. Again, in Green’s mind, it is impossible that a thoughtful and decent person, let alone a preeminent climate scientist, differs with the left. Therefore, Lindzen must be portrayed as a form of prostitute. Nineteen years ago, Lindzen was paid by OPEC to deliver a lecture on scientific consensus. And for Green that proves that Lindzen sold his lifelong reputation as a scholar for a lecture fee.

Likewise, Joey Green depicts Freeman Dyson, one of the most highly regarded physicists in the world, as a fool. One thing Green doesn’t lack is self-esteem. How else to explain that the author of “Joey Green’s Cleaning Magic,” “Joey Green’s Amazing Kitchen Cures” and “Joey Green’s Supermarket Spa: Hundreds of Easy Ways to Pamper Yourself With Brand-Name Products You’ve Already Got Around the House” feels capable of dismissing two of the world’s most highly regarded scientists — one as corrupt and the other as a buffoon?

3. “I’m not quite sure why Dennis is unwilling to wreck the economy to save humanity from the threat posed by global warming. A few years back, he was completely willing to wreck the economy by going to war in Iraq to combat the threat posed by nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.”

As it happens, I only supported the war in Iraq once it was under way. To Chris Matthews’ surprise, I told him on “Hardball” before the invasion of Iraq that an invasion of Iraq would be a major gamble. I was always ambivalent about invading Iraq because I knew how inhospitable Iraqi culture was to democracy and liberty. But once we invaded, it was, to me, unconscionable not to support America and Britain and other free societies against al-Qaeda, the Ba’ath Party and other quintessentially evil forces we were fighting. If Green thinks that America, decent Iraqis and the civilized world would have been better off by leaving the Iraqi people to the Islamists and Ba’athists, we have a different moral code. And whatever huge sums we spent on the war in Iraq pale in comparison to the economic price we and Europe would pay if we taxed energy and transferred money to the Third World in the amounts demanded by global warming alarmists.

4. “Dennis also claims that the left wing has exaggerated the dangers of nuclear power because the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl resulted in only 56 direct deaths.”

That is not an honest summary of my argument. Chernobyl was one of my examples. I argued that the left wing exaggerated the dangers of nuclear power when it used the film “The China Syndrome” and its star, Jane Fonda, and organized huge rallies against nuclear power across America, after the accident at Three Mile Island — where not one person died. As for Chernobyl, my two points were that the disaster there was caused by incompetent design and a lack of safety measures due to Soviet disinterest in the lives and health of its citizens, not because nuclear power is so inherently dangerous that the danger can’t be mitigated when built and run responsibly; and that even Chernobyl, which, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, released 400 times more radioactive material than the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, killed only 56 people.

So, yes, the left has wildly exaggerated the dangers of nuclear power — as it did every one of the other examples I gave.

5. “I can’t really understand how anyone could seriously equate the threat posed by global warming with the dangers of silicone implants, secondhand smoke, baby formula and peanut allergies.”

This, too, was intellectually dishonest. I did not equate the threats. Of course the alleged threat of worldwide inundation of coastal cities is incomparably more serious than the alleged dangers of peanut allergies. What I wrote was: “We see this doomsday scenario as only the latest in a long line of left-wing hysterias — every one of which turned out to be either fraudulent or wildly exaggerated, and propagated for reasons having little to do with science, but labeled as ‘science.’ ”

6. “Even if every example Dennis gave of the left wing’s attempts to incite hysteria had not contained misleading half-truths ...”

This is a falsehood. Not once did Green show that any example, let alone “every example,” on my list of left-wing hysterias “contained misleading half-truths.” Each example was documented and remains the whole truth. In 29 years of broadcasting, I have earned a reputation as scrupulous with regard to truth — I even wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal defending Hillary Clinton against charges of anti-Semitism, because I was certain the charges were false. It was, therefore, more important to me to defend Hillary Clinton, with whom I differ on just about every major issue, than to allow a falsehood to go unrefuted. Had Joey Green been more interested in intellectual debate than in mockery, sarcasm and writing non-sequiturs about Herbert Hoover, horse manure in early 20th century New York, the economics of slavery and Gerald Ford’s silly comment about Eastern Europe (which no conservative in America believed), he would have made the effort to prove why my examples were indeed “misleading half-truths” instead of simply declaring them so.

7. “Why discuss a scientific issue scientifically when you can turn it into an illogical and irrational partisan argument for your own self-aggrandizement?”

Green asserts that I turned a scientific issue into “an illogical and irrational” argument. I suppose that when one is used to writing or speaking only to those who agree with him, an assertion is sufficient to convince. But nowhere does he demonstrate my illogic or irrationality. My argument about all the previous hysterias believed in and advanced by lay people and scientists that turned out to be fraudulent was made because, like just about every reader of this journal — and, I presume, Joey Green — I knew nothing about climate science. But I also knew very little about heterosexual AIDS when I read the decidedly minority view of Michael Fumento in Commentary Magazine that heterosexual AIDS in America was a myth. His compelling arguments, grounded in scientific evidence and logic, convinced me, and he turned out to be entirely right. For the sake of more AIDS funding, and in order to de-stigmatize AIDS as primarily a gay men’s (and intravenous drug user) disease, people lied about a looming epidemic of heterosexual AIDS in America. I also knew nothing about the science of silicone breast implants. But I read both sides and concluded that the alleged terrible dangers of the implants constituted junk science. In other words, my point was that on all these left-wing scares, my batting average on ferreting out truth from hysteria was very high, and the left’s has been zero.

The more I have read on global warming over the last five years, the more I have become convinced that what we have here are agendas — most especially the abandonment of fossil-based fuels for green technology and the transfer of wealth to the Third Word — in the guise of science. We also have sincere scientists on both sides. I ask all those reading this debate to please acquaint themselves with all the scientists who write against the global warming scenario. These scientists are overwhelmingly ignored by the mainstream American media. (They are not ignored in the UK, among other countries.)

Just last week, perhaps the leading authority on long-term (2 million to 3 million years) environmental changes, professor Nils-Axel Mörner, former head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics department at Stockholm University, wrote a scathing article about the alleged rising sea levels. This man, who headed the Maldives Sea Level Project, called the United Nations IPCC report on rising sea levels “a scandal that should be called Sealevelgate.”

But why be serious when you can more easily label all those with whom you differ as unthoughtful people, characterize your opponent’s arguments as “shoveling plenty [of ...]”; assert that I engaged in “illogical and irrational partisan argument for [my] own self-aggrandizement”; claim that people like me are not “using their brains”; and that I used “twisted logic”?

Green should understand that while insults and sarcasm may elicit cheers from some fellow leftists, such writing doesn’t further honest debate. In fact, it may even convince some people who even Joey Green considers thoughtful that global warming alarmism is the latest hysteria.

A version of this article appeared in print.

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Sorry Dennis, your views are hardly relevant - the experts have concluded differently from your layman’s opinions, and you should not think you know better.

Comment by Robert Davidson on 12/07/11 at 8:46 pm

Of course there have been warming and cooling periods in the history of the earth. Which of those reasons are you suggesting is the reason for the rapid temperature rise for the past 4 decades? The Sun? Nope, in fact the sun has been in a prolonged solar minimum. Particulates in the air? Nope, they are actually keeping the earth cooler. A change in the earth’s tilt or orbit? Not that either.

Those reasons explained previous changes in climate, but they don’t apply now. So Mr Prager, I am intrigued to know what “thoughtful” reason you have for the recent temperature rise, sea level rise, retreating Arctic ice of 90% of the world’s glaciers.

Comment by Drewski on 12/08/11 at 4:56 am

We’re gambling with the planetary life support system.Denial is just a form of avoiding the mental difficulty in coming to terms with climate change.

Comment by Victor on 12/08/11 at 10:44 am

Sorry Robert Davidson, but Dennis gave examples of eminent climate science experts who disagree with your point entirely. Yes, he was also arguing for common sense, but not only. Did you even read his thoughts?

Comment by JapesMacfarland on 12/08/11 at 1:57 pm

Listening to Joey Green argue his points is like listening to a child. Dennis puts forth the acurate notion that the entire anthroprogenic global warming issue is nothing more than an agenda driven hysteria consistant with all the other left-wing hysterias that never actually materialised.  Dennis,as usual, puts forth his arguments with powerfull clarity. Joey Green is obviously no intellectual match for Dennis and therefore resorts to insults, mockery and the usual straw-man arguments of the left. The edifice of man-made global warming is crumbling by the day .  This does not stop the leftists since all their ideas, as Dennis points out, are based on emotion, not thought.

Comment by Rob Kohan, Toronto Canada on 12/08/11 at 3:48 pm

Debates of truths often force liberals to resort to mockery, sarcasm, and petty put-downs because their arguments are based on emotional statements to move their audience to action rather than the principles of truth.

Comment by Kade on 12/08/11 at 5:13 pm

Right on Dennis. Again you so eloquently and intellectually put the left-wing wackos in their place.  I have never, ever, seen anyone successfully challange or debate you.  Keep it up.

Comment by David on 12/08/11 at 6:38 pm

Hello drewski, no global warming over the past 10 years inspite of rising CO2 levels. Uhmm?  How could that be? Is it possible that the models are wrong?  Here is a link that I’m sure you will read if you have an open mind.  http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/30/surprise-no-warming-in-last-11-years/

Comment by eric giddings on 12/08/11 at 8:52 pm

Robert, ask yourself this question.

If global warming was such a threat, why is the most obvious counter measure to this threat, which would be the detonation of nuclear weapons above ground, causing the dust in the cap of the mushroom cloud to rise to the upper atmosphere and reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the surface, being ignored by those who are making these dire predictions and who claim we are gambling with the planetary life support system? Carl Sagan proved it would work back in 1983.

Comment by Michael Ejercito on 12/09/11 at 10:00 am

I find it interesting that some people apparently believe that because there are experts who agree with them, that therefore they don’t have to justify their arguments or consider counterarguments, even really thoughtfully think about the subject at all, because the experts have done it for them.

All the Skeptics I respect call this sort of attitude ‘woowoo’.

Comment by Christopher Walker on 12/09/11 at 10:44 am

Hello Eric,“no global warming over the past 10 years inspite of rising CO2 levels”.

1) There have been many periods of “flattening” over the past 150 years, but to say the trend is against warming is like saying that because the top step is level that the staircase doesn’t go up.
2) Ten years is far to short a time to measure a climatic trend—experts say 17 years is the minimum, but 30 years the standard.
3) You begin the 10 year period with the biggest El Nino in recorded history (1998)—talk about cherry picking, you have have gone for the whole orchard.

I have more, but I may have already exceeded my word allowance.

Comment by Drewski on 12/09/11 at 5:12 pm

Continued to Eric. . .
4) You have used a graph of land-based measurements, if you care to look at ocean-based satellite records, you will see an upward trend. In fact, 2005 and 2010 tied for the hottest recorded land AND sea temperature record.
5) The trend in overnight minimum high temperatures is rising even more dramatically and is a better indicator of retained heat through greenhouse gasses.
6) The ratio of hot record days for localities compared to cold record days has been trending upwards from a 1:1 ratio in the 1070’s to 2.8:1 this past decade.

Comment by Drewski on 12/09/11 at 5:22 pm

CO2 has risen essentially at a constant rate over the entire 20th century and for the first 12 years of the 21st. Yet over past 70 years the climate has either cooled or remained essentially constant for 50 of those years including the last 15. Between 1940 and 1976, it cooled to the point that climate scientists were warning the public to be prepared for another little ice age.

Comment by Leonard Tachner on 12/09/11 at 5:59 pm

Well Dennis and the other skeptics, consider the fact of the Japanese disaster at Fukushima.  If nuclear power is safe and is only due to someones negligence, how will you prevent these disasters from occurring again?  Can you crete a perfect World without negligence?

Comment by Dani El on 12/09/11 at 6:07 pm

And Dennis, if you are wrong about climate change, how will we be able to prevent the “so-called left wing disaster predictions” that is well thought out by most climate scientist?  It will be too late when New York, San Pedro and Long Beach harbors are under water with no commerce moving.  You “would rather be right than President.”
We are able to change our present production of carbon dioxide without harming the economy.  The changes may even enhance our economy with the new technologies that can be created. 
Why is that auto industry putting out hybrid and electric cars if climate change is a fiction created by the left?  Are they the left?

Comment by Dani El on 12/09/11 at 6:11 pm

Continued response to Eric. . .
4) You have referred to a graph of only land-based measurements with the past 16 months of the graph using less than 1% of the standard data points (because of availability). Ocean-based satellite records for the same period shows a clear upward trend. In fact, 2005 and 2010 tied for the hottest land AND sea years.
5) The trend in overnight minimum high temperatures is rising even more dramatically and is a better indicator of retained heat through greenhouse gasses.
6) The ratio of hot record days for localities compared to cold record days has been trending upwards from a 1:1 ratio in the 1070’s to 2.8:1 this past decade.

Comment by Drewski on 12/09/11 at 6:33 pm

Robert Kohan must be drinking that conservative kool-aid that makes conservatives who eschew science, embrace creationism and blame the economic debacle on the destitute believe that they are the party of thought( when in reality, their ad hominem attacks mask their absence of fact).

The old adage of “follow-the- money” applies to all of Dennis’ climate “experts,” as they are all tied to right-wing industries and corporations that as always, place their personal profits over our communal health and welfare.

Comment by Stan Micowski on 12/09/11 at 11:11 pm

David: if you have never seen or heard anyone win a debate or challenge with Dennis, then the crowd that you hang around in must be part of the Flat Earth Society.

Eric: the Global Carbon Project stated that carbon emissions took their largest one-year jump since the advent of the Industrial Revolution started some 3 centuries ago, causing record-setting climate extremes of heat and cold that are almost entirely based on anthropogenic activities.

I guess you both believe in Reagan’s dictum that “facts are stupid things.”

Comment by Michael Stewart on 12/10/11 at 1:02 am

Methane and CO2 are currently mainly bovine and human created heat retaining and climate changing gases. Huge quantities of methane may be released by the oceans if they become unstable. The ocean currents are being threatened by the derivatives of air-warming and polar ice melting. It is NOT true that heating is likely to improve our lot: deserts expand and the cloud cover reduces plant growth. In the past climate change was natural. This time it’s our fault. Meeting the challenge merely redirects civilization’s efforts, resources, and money. High time we squander less.

Comment by Samir on 12/10/11 at 8:51 am

Dennis’whole purpose in life( and that of his followers) is to take no responsibility for all the damage, destruction and death caused by conservative doctrines across the realms of finance, politics and morality and instead, transfer the blame to the “dreaded leftists.”

The arguments made by eric, david, kade and rob are prime illustrations of this antedeluvian switch and the proof of this statement will be the “attack-dog” rebuttals that I am sure will ensue in the wake of my assertions.

Comment by Stuart Jamerson on 12/10/11 at 10:48 am

The latest “global warming” research attributes global warming to other causes that need further study. I suggest the critics of Dennis Prager pay more attention to the forefront of what is happening that cast doubt on earlier “global warming” theories. I suggest they review the Wall Street Journal for articles detailing near-term, inexpensive, low risk activities that would markedly reduce any negative impacts of global warming, if in fact global warming is largely caused by the consumption of hydrocarbons. What is irrefutable is that Al Gore was alarmingly irresponsible with his claims and that many responsible claims are being made. The definition is “hysteria”.

Comment by HOWARD LAITIN on 12/10/11 at 1:30 pm

Anyone who ever debates or writes about Prager’s columns and views never comes up with the correct facts and logic.  Like Joey Green, just slander, mockery, foolishness, personal attacks, lies, half-truths,sarcasm, and twistewd logic.  The proof liberal Joey Green vs. conservative Dennis Prager.  Read it yourself.

Comment by Evin on 12/10/11 at 5:25 pm

Dear Mr. Prager,

Thirty-two National Academies of Science from around the globe officially and unequivocally affirm the existence and dangers of anthropogenic climate change.

Yet, you are not convinced.

Did you even explore WHY we had past warmings,and why CO2 is considered today’s cause by scientists?  This is thoughtful?

I believe you exhibit a willful, and almost criminal, ignorance. 

  The World Health Organization estimated (in 2000) that climate change claimed 166,000 lives, due to such effects as malaria, malnutrition, diarrhea, and drowning.

By delaying action, should accept a major responsibility for the cruel consequences of your ignorance.

Comment by jan on 12/10/11 at 8:32 pm

I will admit that my knowledge of global warmimg and climate change is one part science and two parts an opinion- in- the making.

What I have observed, however, as a long-term reader of the Journal is that no writer, and I mean no writer in 20 years of perusing the Journal from “stem-to-stern,” generates as much polarization and vicious and venomous diatribes as Dennis Prager.

And that type of alienating prose is the antithesis of an open and constructive dialogue.

Comment by Steven Roach on 12/10/11 at 11:18 pm

More than 95% of the world’s climate scientists say anthropognic warming is here and getting worse? And Dennis has a few eminent scientists? And one is on OPEC’s payroll?

Yes, you are indeed rolling the dice, just in case these thousands of scientists are wrong.  If 4/5 of engineers said a child restraint seat was dangerous, would you buy it,hoping 1/5 were correct?

Comment by Jan Freed on 12/11/11 at 6:34 am

@jan

13,500 reputable scientists have signed on as global warming skeptics.  I believe that the earth is warming but recognize the impossibility of getting one measure of global temperature that is meaningful
.
I urge don’t take drastic actions when non-drastic actions can be productive.  See low-cost low risk-solutions as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

When I served as adviser at the federal level and at the county level and authored a report in conjunction with Caltech environmental laboratory, I discovered how complex this area is. Thus, the exchange with nonscientists using talking points and bumper stickers on with politicians is counterproductive.

Comment by HOWARD LAITIN on 12/12/11 at 4:12 pm

Oh come on Steven Roach, do you really believe what you’re saying re Dennis? i.e. ” that type of alienating prose is the antithesis of an open and constructive dialogue.”

The fact is, most of the readers are leftists, and Dennis is not. It is a clash of differing value systems, not ‘alienating prose’! lol. He’s very respectful, in spite of leftists being horribly unfair to him on a regular basis. (Such as can be seen by what you tried to get away with. Blaming him indeed! Yea, right. Shame on you.)

Comment by Japes MacFarland on 12/12/11 at 4:52 pm

Stuart Jamerson writes: “..death is caused by conservative doctrines”

200 million dead in 100 years by leftism. Also Left was warned if they succeeded banning DDT people would die. Didn’t care! Approx 40 million people dead. You “gave peace a chance” after Vietnam w/ a Left congress & lame duck Pres Ford abandoning the S Vietnamese & F Peace Accords. In the next year Communists murdered more people than in all the many years of the war. Or, National Socialist Party murdered Jews via growing the centralized State. Death & cruelty on earth in the last 100 years is primarily from leftists. The Left is swimming in oceans of blood.

“The bigger the government the smaller the citizen” DP

Comment by JapesMacFarland on 12/12/11 at 5:08 pm

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