Mark Hertsgaard, author of one of the books we’ll soon be giving away, Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth, talks about climate change, climate cranks, the threats facing “generation hot,” and what we need to do today in the video above. Worth the quick watch.
I also got word recently that Hertsgaard and a number of other climate activists are going to interrogate the climate cranks on Capitol Hill, at FOX News, at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other places this week. Looks like a fun and useful idea.
Other than watching and sharing the video above, the crew working on this is encouraging people to:
1) Visit the Facebook page for Generation Hot, post suggestions for which cranks to target, questions to ask, and ways to transform the climate conversation in this country.
2) Post questions and crank suggestions via Twitter, using the hashtag #climatecranks.
Additionally, you can join in if you wish.
The Nation, which will be joining the crew as well, has more:
For years, climate “skeptics” have denied the near-unanimous scientific consensus around global warming in an effort to delay action.
But, they’re not really “skeptics”—they’re cranks and hacks, and it’s time to unmask those who are holding our nation’s climate policy hostage.
The Nation is partnering in a new initiative, galvanized by the magazine’s environmental correspondent and my friend Mark Hertsgaard, to name and shame the climate cranks sabotaging our nation’s response to climate change. The coalition includes theSierra Club, 350.org, Kids vs. Global Warming, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and Grist.
On Tuesday, February 15, Mark (author of the new book HOT: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth) and supporters will head to Capitol Hill, the Fox TV bureau, the Chamber of Commerce and other hotbeds of climate denial. The goal? Put the climate cranks on the spot and make them explain—on camera and in front of kids—why they have condemned the young people of “Generation Hot” (as Mark calls them), to spending the rest of their lives coping with the hottest climate in human history.
As Mark explained in a recent Nation excerpt of his book:
On the ground in Washington I will be joined by local young people—activist members of Generation Hot. Our plan is to confront the climate cranks face to face, on camera, and call them to account for the dangers they have set in motion. We will highlight the ludicrousness of their antiscientific views, which alone should discredit them from further influence over US climate policies. And we will show how our nation could still change course—for example, if the federal government were to use its vast purchasing power to kick-start a green energy revolution that would create jobs and prosperity across the land. We welcome your help and constructive suggestions for how to achieve these goals and invite you to join us.
Note that, yes, this article has been featured on a leading global warming denier website and so we’ve got all manner of ridiculous comments and claims below as a result. Our apologies. There’s a price to pay for getting the word out.
You will only ever be taken seriously when you start behaving like an adult. This involves not simply name-calling and abusing people who don’t share you’re opinions. Until you do that you are not worth wasting time on. And believe me using your daughter to propagate a pseudo-science is truly disturbing and makes many millions of sane people very angry
You will only ever be taken seriously when you start behaving like an adult. This involves not simply name-calling and abusing people who don’t share you’re opinions. Until you do that you are not worth wasting time on. And believe me using your daughter to propagate a pseudo-science is truly disturbing and makes many millions of sane people very angry
I read Mark’s first book “On Bended Knee” 20+ years ago, and I’ve personally discussed that topic with him and have a lot of admiration for his reporting (or I did back in 1991). From that limited interaction, I also concluded that he’s a very nice guy.
But on this topic I must disagree. I haven’t read Mark’s recent books or reportorial articles, but I have read his very recent global warming commentary. But I’ve also read a great deal of the in-depth global warming literature for the last year and confess that I must side with “the cranks.”
From Al Gore’s “the science is settled” to the Climategate emails (which I’ve partially read) to “the Himalaya is melting,” it is demonstrably true that “The Science” has been grossly and unashamedly corrupted by at least a core influential group of the climate science community.
In fact the very cornerstones of climate science – the temperature records from both NASA/NOAA and The Univ. of East Anglia – have both been so massaged and so heavily “adjusted” that it it literally impossible to determine what is the factual raw data versus the massaged data, or is that data any different from background noise. In the case of the UEA, the original, raw data actually does not even exist, according to its head Dr. Phil Jones. It has been lost forever (and this statement is on the public record from Phil Jones’ mouth).
So in essence the current foundations of climate science are actually rotten to the core, yet they are every bit and particle also the foundation for Mark Hertsgaard’s concern.
Like many Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) believers, it will be almost impossible for Mark to back out of his position now. He’s invested too much energy, time, and writing for the CAGW team. But I would hope that as the good reporter that I know he is, that he would at least spend some time looking honestly at the scientific views of critics and skeptics.
I read Mark’s first book “On Bended Knee” 20+ years ago, and I’ve personally discussed that topic with him and have a lot of admiration for his reporting (or I did back in 1991). From that limited interaction, I also concluded that he’s a very nice guy.
But on this topic I must disagree. I haven’t read Mark’s recent books or reportorial articles, but I have read his very recent global warming commentary. But I’ve also read a great deal of the in-depth global warming literature for the last year and confess that I must side with “the cranks.”
From Al Gore’s “the science is settled” to the Climategate emails (which I’ve partially read) to “the Himalaya is melting,” it is demonstrably true that “The Science” has been grossly and unashamedly corrupted by at least a core influential group of the climate science community.
In fact the very cornerstones of climate science – the temperature records from both NASA/NOAA and The Univ. of East Anglia – have both been so massaged and so heavily “adjusted” that it it literally impossible to determine what is the factual raw data versus the massaged data, or is that data any different from background noise. In the case of the UEA, the original, raw data actually does not even exist, according to its head Dr. Phil Jones. It has been lost forever (and this statement is on the public record from Phil Jones’ mouth).
So in essence the current foundations of climate science are actually rotten to the core, yet they are every bit and particle also the foundation for Mark Hertsgaard’s concern.
Like many Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) believers, it will be almost impossible for Mark to back out of his position now. He’s invested too much energy, time, and writing for the CAGW team. But I would hope that as the good reporter that I know he is, that he would at least spend some time looking honestly at the scientific views of critics and skeptics.
Umm, to be sceptical presupposes a plausible hypothesis. I think the ‘sceptics’ would love the opportunity to share their views. I dunno, maybe the same way Galileo was finally given the same. The ‘consenus’ looked and behaved back then as it is now. Shameful, really.
Fear, noise, faith – this is the ‘social’ science behind the green agenda. Have fun exposing the truth.
Umm, to be sceptical presupposes a plausible hypothesis. I think the ‘sceptics’ would love the opportunity to share their views. I dunno, maybe the same way Galileo was finally given the same. The ‘consenus’ looked and behaved back then as it is now. Shameful, really.
Fear, noise, faith – this is the ‘social’ science behind the green agenda. Have fun exposing the truth.
I think he needs to start looking at the raw data. The seas are not going to cover the beaches, the snow in the mountains are going away, storms have not been stronger, and the temp of the world is not going to fry us. In short the sky is not falling and the predictions so far have all been wrong.
I think he needs to start looking at the raw data. The seas are not going to cover the beaches, the snow in the mountains are going away, storms have not been stronger, and the temp of the world is not going to fry us. In short the sky is not falling and the predictions so far have all been wrong.