with Peter Sinclair
Former Secretary of State John Kerry got into a contentious exchange with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) over Kerry’s college degree and the evidence of climate change during a House Oversight hearing.
UPDATE:
Rep. Massie’s clueless follow-up tweet, complete with smirking emoji.
Have you noticed that the scientists who feel most qualified to weigh in on climate science are political scientists? 😉#sassywithmassie
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) April 10, 2019
"The sharpest climate denier debunker on YouTube."
- TreeHugger
"@PeterWSinclair is a national treasure." - Brad Johnson, Publisher Hill Heat
Climate Denial Crock of the Week
April 10, 2019 at 9:34 am
Can I propose a new unit, a measure of human stupidity: the nano-Massie.
April 10, 2019 at 10:03 am
LOL Why stop there? How about Mega- and Giga-Massies. I made a comment about Massie on another thread and gave the Wiki link about him. He has been named “Mr. NO” by Politico for the unfailing “no” votes he gives on ANY legislation that makes the smallest bit of sense. They cited several votes that went 410 to 1—-guess who the ONE is?
And thank you, Peter, for getting my blood pressure up before I’ve even taken my heart medication—please save these posts about absolutely sickening Repugnants until later in the day. In order to get my BP down, I may have to call Massie’s office and ask a staffer to pass on my “thoughts” to Massie.
(PS Just made the call before I posted this and “since I’m not a constituent” his staff was not interested. Told them I’d be sending $$$ to his opponent in the next election)
April 10, 2019 at 12:55 pm
I was finding the concept of anyone (Massie aside) displaying even a nano-Massie of dimwittedness mouthparchingly depressing, let alone the full Massie. But Mega? Giga? Where oh where did I put my comfort blanket?
April 10, 2019 at 1:17 pm
Trump came to mind with the Giga- and many of his appointees with the Mega-, but maybe I’m being unkind and we should assign only Kilo-Massies.
April 10, 2019 at 3:42 pm
April 10, 2019 at 4:18 pm
He is merely endorsing the view, from the party for individual responsibilities obligation to keep janitors in work and before that, their mothers.
April 10, 2019 at 5:43 pm
I’d let him do an apprenticeship at the garbage collection including licking out the bins.
April 10, 2019 at 4:30 pm
That’s a great find, and it proves what a sicko Miller was and is.
Back in the day, when I caught morons like him littering I used to assign them to help the custodians clean up the cafeteria, hallways, or grounds, depending on where the offense occurred.
Told their parents that they were expected to do it well and treat the custodians with respect or be suspended, and that any repeat offenses would result in charges under Virginia Code §33.1-346, the anti-littering law.
The custodians were told to not be especially tough but to treat the kids as if they were co-workers and not take any crap. Worked pretty well, but then few of those kids were a “MIller”. I would have loved to have had Miller in my school—I would have worked hard to make him a better human being.
April 10, 2019 at 11:15 am
The limits of reasonable claim re matters of science are defined by the set of published papers which have not yet been refuted. That’s it.
We have to keep hammering this point home to stop people like Massie peddling cheap lies. If he tries to make a “scientific” argument about CO2 levels then insist that he shows us where in the literature the same point has been successfully argued.
When they are then forced into attacking science as a closed-shop conspiracy, point out the impossibility of managing a global conspiracy involving dozens of different countries, hundreds of different scientific disciplines, thousands of different organisations and hundreds of thousands of different individual researchers. Do they all meet up on a secret island once a year to plan their agenda?
April 10, 2019 at 11:39 am
Well said.
“Do they all meet up on a secret island once a year to plan their agenda?”
Not the scientists for sure, but the Republicans often do. About a year ago, a chartered Amtrak train carrying a load of Republicans from DC off into the mountains of WV for a “retreat” collided with a garbage truck at a road crossing in VA. Garbage was strewn all over the place, and there was a short debate among local Democrats as to whether there was more garbage on the train than on the ground outside. They cleaned up the ground quickly—the train was another story.
April 10, 2019 at 11:34 am
And I thought William L. Wehrum was dangerously disingenuous.
There is something about people who try to argue using that pointy-finger emphasis. Senator Merkley nailed that Wehrum, see embedded video at above link.
April 10, 2019 at 1:02 pm
I’m glad Kerry didn’t take the Massie bait, but stayed on message, and even put Massie on the defensive there at the end. We have a starkly unequal society that can easily tax the wealthy to pay for this transition off of fossil fuels.
When someone points out that CO2 was 2000ppm in the distant past, its appropriate to ask them if they would want to live in such a world. Point out how different the climate would be, how different the sea level. Put them on the defensive: if CO2 were 2000ppm, what do you think the climate would be like?
April 10, 2019 at 2:08 pm
Problem is that for many people the ramifications of climate change creates massive cognitive dissonance. It isn’t so much the climate science and facts as the other rooms in their ideological houses that are at risk. The typical response is to fight the incongruent information with everything they have — all out no rules nothing barred war.
The more these folks are confronted by contrary information, the more likely they are to double down or skip to new topics. They typically cling to any piece of flotsam around at their present juncture, even if that single thing — even if true — is still no refutation of the amassed evidence. It is wearisome, but they keep clamping on to the same tedious “gotcha’s” sourced from tabloid quality reports with all the ferocity of a crazed pit bull that has its jaws clamped onto something.
It is important that there are readily available resources to rebut their talking points. More important is not to engage them in open discussions which pretend to be held in good faith — they are not. Take a step back, and look at the situation like a parent would, don’t go tit for tat, but consider the quandary they have put themselves in.
Rather than dismissing them entirely, it is important to challenge them to join the scientific effort and work out their alternative data sets and explanations for the common scientific body of discussion, or encourage them to fund alternative efforts, like the Koch brothers did with Richard Muller.
April 10, 2019 at 4:34 pm
The deniers bleat that for millions of years there was more CO2 in the atmosphere.
How do we know that?
Scientists who study such things tell us.
So they believe scientists when their studies tell us about the paleoclimate and paleo atmosphere, but they don’t believe when the same scientists tell us to be worried about the modern climate and atmosphere.
Mind boggling.
April 10, 2019 at 5:11 pm
The last time CO2 levels were as high as today, sea levels were about 200 metres higher (and BTW the continents looked quite different).