Friday, January 21, 2011

GOP War On Science Has Officially Been Declared

The Congressional Republicans move to defund the UN's Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC):
Full document here. Meanwhile, the House GOP seems unsure as to whether or not they'll launch a witch-hunt against CRU/Michael Mann. This report suggests they are backing off; this one suggests they're still polishing up the pitch-forks.
Who knows, maybe the GOP is directing all their efforts towards finding Obama's birth certificate?
PS. I know the image is a bit tiny. Can someone tell me how to set it up so you can click on it and get a larger version?

11 comments:

Dol said...

I see they've also (hopefully symbolically) repealed the healthcare law and stopped Guantanamo being closed. That last one: nice symbolic attack on Obama's first law signed in office. Christ, what next? "GOP bans Christmas?" "GOP declares war on peace and happiness?"

Anonymous said...

Oh boy, this should help Obama close his self inflicted $1.4Trillion budget deficit.

Obama . . . figures out his road to electoral redemption is channeling his inner George Bush and screwing his buddies in the progressive & greenie camps.

Go Barry go . . .

Tof KW said...

Fred, the GOP-controlled congress could solve the deficit over night. Just end both wars. Either that or create a war tax for those people who want to keep fighting.

buckets said...

For allowing for a click-thru to a bigger image; edit this post by going into the html side and the 'source' (src), which will be something like http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_j7nAU9sOTnM/TTjvm5HjVZI/AAAAAAAAEN4/LYeIhp9YqH0/s400/ipcc.png

If you change s400 to s1600, the link will go to a bigger version of the image. (I think.)

buckets said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jerome Bastien said...

So by not giving away money to a political organization, the GOP declares a war on science?

BCL, with this kind of heated rhetoric, you are going to cause some nut to go shoot some people. Have you no decency? Are you trying to out-Palin Palin?

I long for the days of respectful dialogue, like back when George Bush was in office and everybody expressed their objection so nicely.

Anonymous said...

"Fred, the GOP-controlled congress could solve the deficit over night. "

better not tell Dingy Harry he & the Dumocrats don't control the Senate . . might give him a heart attack.

To say nothing of the pain it would cause the DNC.

Mark Richard Francis said...

The GOP is a political org, not the IPCC.

The GOP were also behind the plagiarized, made-up Wegman report. No that's what we get when science is politicized.

Jerome Bastien said...

The GOP is a political org, not the IPCC.

The GOP is a political party.

The Inter-GOVERNMENTAL Panel on Climate Change is very much a political organization.

It is most certainly not a scientific organization. Unless you can show me actual science produced by the IPCC, I dont know how you can pretend its a scientific organization.

Unknown said...

The IPCC is a scientific body struck by a governmental body, which surveys the relevant science and produces a report.
The Republican Party is a political body - full stop.
It's really not hard to grasp.

John Mashey said...

Jerome:

Since this is about the IPCC and the GOP (i.e.,) USA:

1) Are you familiar with the way that the US National Research Council works? If not, here it is.


"The mission of the NRC is to improve government decision making and public policy..."

"The work is made possible by 6,000 of the world’s top scientists, engineers, and other professionals who volunteer their time without compensation to serve on committees and participate in activities. "

2) For example, if Congress needs to understand some science issue, it asks the National Academy of Sciences to put together an NRC panel, who does not generate new science, but often generates "Consensus Studies" on some topic.

3) 99% of the work of the IPCC is just like that, and the main reports and the Technical Summaries are consensus studies like NRC panels, but with more visibility to people beyond the usual referees. There is a tiny secretariat, most of the work is done by scientists who have to dig up funding or take time away from other things.

4) Only at the very end do they write the Summary For Policymakers, and that's where the politics comes in, and it almost always *weakens* the result, since anyone can veto any sentence. Basically, a few scientists wrestle with government representatives to condense a thousand pages of abut 20 pages.

5) Do you personally know any NAS, NRC, or IPCC members? Have you discussed how these things work, in person?*

6) I hope you can answer yes to 5) and back up your characterization, because otherwise you denigrate and insult hardworking scientists you do not know.