Mint Spectacles on: Yet More Misinformation by a popular blogger- this time about Penguins and Global Warming

I wasn’t going to write another post because I decided to re organize this blog and set up another one.  But when I logged onto wordpress a few minutes ago I saw this “hawt post” about “Nutty Story of the Day: “Global Warming” is Killing the Penguins in Antarctica.” “

I clicked on the story, mainly because I found it incredible that someone could doubt that.

What did I find?

I found that a poorly written newsreport had been very carefully cherry picked all the way from the United Kingdom. To make it seem as though it was misguided, links were placed to Audubon society and the like but of science, nary a view. Unless one counts another cherry picked chart of temperatures.

And what is the science? There are several studies that indeed confirm that penguins are at risk. However in the interest of my time and yours, I picked these 5 links for 3 different types of media:

1) An old national geographic news story here

2) A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. You can read the extract here. To read the entire study requires access to a library or subscription to the proceedings.

3) Some bloggers’ take on the matter:

here -this describes the full PNA study.

here - this gives a very even handed view of gloal warming in general and on the issue of ice.                                  Recommended reading in general.

4) An editorial in the Journal Science here which puts that cherry picked temperature chart in perspective. Science is the most prestigious journal on the planet- for those who may not be aware of the prestige associated with different journals.

You know the really sad part – disinformation is always read more! More on that tomorrow.  And if you liked this post then you might want to read this one too about global warming deniers here

Mint Spectacles on: Making Money Off Conservativism or Why It Sells Part 1

Sometime ago I read about a guy who said he had a six figure income from selling tee shirts with conservative slogans on cafepress (you can read the article here) .  Which got me to thinking about why is it that conservatives spend so much on stuff that basically keeps repeating what they believe.

When I say spend, I don’t mean just money, but also time. Conservative blogs whether on wordpress or elsewhere have dedicated readers.  One of the few liberal blogs which has a huge readership is the Huffington Post.  If there are other such blogs with a million plus readers, please do let me know.

Now why is that?

One reason could be:

All the conservatives have more money and therefore do not have to work so much and therefore have all the time in the world to congregate on the Internet, whether to promote creationism, now called intelligent design, or to tell each other global warming doesn’t exist or that science and scientists know squat.

But although this may seem to explain why conservative stuff sells, it is not supported by data. Conservatives that spend their time and money are not likely to be richer than progressives, scientists and liberals. At least I can’t find any data that says one is richer than another. I have seen comparisons between red and blue states but every state has both conservatives and liberals so to say blue states are richer and therefore liberals are richer is simply not good logic.

So if that is probably not the answer, then what other reasons could there be?

More tomorrow.

An aside: for all those who think that the globe is cooling (a.k.a. global cooling), Northern Californians now feel the need for fans and air conditioners – ask anyone who can remember 20 years ago or earlier about how cool Northern California has always been. Remember Mark Twain’s famous San Francisco quote?

“the coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco”

I should mention that all Twain scholars are not convinced that he actually said this.

Mint Spectacles on: Global Warming and its Deniers Part 2

After my last global warming post, I discovered the deniers in the blogosphere and it got me thinking. About those who write that:

global warming is a left wing conspiracy or

that global warming does not exist or

the one that makes me laugh the hardest is the globe is cooling and their tag words will list global cooling. Hmm I should add that as a tag word.

All this got me to thinking why that is so. Usually I just wonder what the grandkids of global warming deniers are going to say to them. But this time I asked something more fundamental – why do they think the way they do?

Here are my top 6 reasons.

Reason No. 6
Global Warming Deniers don’t like to think. They may not know who George Bernard Shaw was (a great playwright and a Nobel Laureate) but they agree with what he said “Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think.”

Reason No. 5
Global Warming Deniers hate to recycle. What, separate the paper from the food? What a funny notion.

Reason No. 4
Global Warming Deniers like to believe the advertisers. After all McDonalds does give you a 99cent burger when they advertise that special so when a coalition of big business says hey if business were to worry about global warming, your taxes will go up….they believe them.

Reason No. 3
Global Warming Deniers think to be right they have to be the opposite of left.
So they must believe the opposite of any thinking that is labeled left.

Reason No. 2
Global Warming Deniers are oil company investors. They love their dividends.

And The Top Reason
Global Warming Deniers saw lots of war movies when they were kids and they always wanted to be the guy who gets trapped and valiantly stands on his toes as water gushes into the room. The water rises, to his chin but he did not give up raising his gun above his hands.
So now they get to be the guys who will valiantly defend their right to consume without looking at or considering anything or anyone else. They know that climate scientists agree that rich countries will be hurt a lot less than the developing world as the oceans keep rising.
But if there is water in the streets and you own a large vehicle? Which brings us to the Real Reason No. 1
Global Warming Deniers want to feel good about owning their Hummers and hope one day, to look good in them

Anyone else has other reasons to add to this list?