The American Spectator : The Doomsday Bias

The Doomsday Bias

By William Yeatman & Jeremy Lott on 2.25.09 @ 6:07AM

In his inaugural address, President Barack Obama took a dig at his backward predecessor by promising to "restore science to its rightful place" in America. So why, days before he was sworn in, did Obama choose a failed prophet of the apocalypse to become his most influential scientist?

Obama nominated Dr. John P. Holdren, the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, for chief White House Science Advisor. The Science Advisor's job is to give impartial scientific analysis to the President on major federal policies.

Holdren's particular brand of science is infected by what we can only call a doomsday bias. Over the past 40 years, he has warned of population-growth induced "ecocide," "global cooling," global warming due to heat dissipation from power plants, nuclear Armageddon, and -- this week -- "climate disruption" caused by increased concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases.

Since most of Holdren's really outlandish predictions were made during the 1970s and '80s, we thought we'd hear the man out. Unfortunately, at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Holdren only reinforced our worst fears.

He started out great. Early on in his testimony, Holdren said that science policy-makers should consider the continuum of scientific opinion, and then seek the "center of gravity." Unfortunately, that good sense didn't last long. He went on to advocate for positions on the outermost fringe of scientific opinion.

Holdren warned that climate change is "accelerating." This is an unfortunate untruth that is often repeated by those folks convinced that the world needs to halt economic growth to save the planet. (Come to think of it, Holdren did once claim that the "only one rational path" would be the "simultaneous de-development of the overdeveloped countries and semi-development of the underdeveloped countries." Try saying that ten times fast.)

That's certainly not what the preeminent body of climate scientists is saying. According to the 21 models used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) mid-range greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, a constant rate of global warming is projected through the 21st century. So Holdren's statement on accelerating climate change hardly represents the “center of gravity” of scientific opinion.

Holdren was asked whether he still believed his 2006 assertion that climate disruption could cause sea levels to rise 13 feet by the end of the century, given that the IPCC, in its latest Assessment Report, suggests that the number is more like 13 inches.

Our Dr. of Doom would not back down. Instead of admitting that 13 feet of surging sea levels was way outside of reasonable scientific opinion, Holdren insisted that his dire warnings were based on peer reviewed science. He then went on to suggest a revised worst-case scenario of only 6 feet.

Finally, Holdren was pressed by Louisiana Senator David Vitter about his 1986 claim that global warming could cause 1 billion deaths by 2020. Holdren at first dissembled, suggesting that his earlier comment was a “description of possibilities," rather than a "prediction." The senator wouldn't let it slide, so Holdren dug in. He said "it is still a possibility" that climate change would kill 1 billion people by 2020.

Of all Holdren's stupid misstatements -- and there are quite a few -- this is his stupidest. To take 1 billion human lives by 2020, climate disruption would have to take twice as many lives as were lost during World War II, each year, for the next 10 years.

Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) declared, "We are very lucky," because Holdren "is what you hope for in government." Apparently Holdren's 40-year record of outlandish scientific assertions and consistently wrong predictions is just what the U.S. government has been looking for.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Global Warming, Environmentalism

Lawler Nicoteri| 2.25.09 @ 6:51AM

It's wonderful that this country offers work to the mentally challenged but do they all have to work in the Obama administration?

G.R.L. Cowan| 2.25.09 @ 7:52AM

That a prediction involves many human lives' being cut short does not intrinsically make it absurd. Compared to the 1940s, there are now-a-days a lot more people around; thinning them out by ten or 20 percent amounts to much bigger numbers now. And for times ~50 years hence, larger still.

Similarly, projecting significant global warming from nuclear power plants is as reasonable as projecting that a colony of algae that is no bigger than the eraser on the end of a pencil, but is doubling every day, will cover a large pond within weeks. There was a time when government was not the principal profit-taker in the oil and gas industries, and at that time, nuclear energy was doubling every ten years or so; there was no prospect, just as there is no prospect now, of a uranium shortage, so noticeable warming by 2100 was obviously in the cards.

If Lott is saying Holdren ever projected such by, say, 2000, well, someone certainly is wrong.

stu.b.con| 2.25.09 @ 7:55AM

My teenage son and I were talking the other day about the faux crisis created by these chicken littles. My son, in his youthful naivete, posited that he couldn't wait for the day when all of these dopes had to eat their words.
Right...whatever transpires in the environment they will never, never admit they were wrong or for that matter that what they really are is a bunch fascists concerned only about imposing contol and power over the rest of us due to their superior intellect. No, it will either be ignored like all of the other doomsday predictions that proved to be fantasy, or they will have the temerity to suggest they somehow managed to stem the tide, lower the seas, and save the polar bears despite us neanderthals.
But the larger issue of course is the obama. One of the drumbeats pounded out by the left wing noise machine has been his so called superior judgment.
HA...appointing an eco-fascist pseudo scientist to advise on science matters paired with that buffon at energy is a recipe for, at best, mediocrity at worst disaster.
p.s. spare me interloper

frost| 2.25.09 @ 8:07AM

Surprised Obama didn't further enhance his greenie (oops, "science advisory" staff) zealots with Paul Erlich, Rachel Carlson, Al Gore, James Hansen and Stephen Schneider to complete the fiasco...

Vaemar| 2.25.09 @ 10:25AM

The guy looks like a werewolf.

Michael Tomlinson| 2.25.09 @ 10:53AM

Touche Lawler Nicoteri . . . well said!

For Obama a return to science appears to mean a return to a 1930's ideology of certain people being "unworthy of life." So with Obama in charge maybe a billion deaths by 2020 is not only a credible prediction, but a goal.

PABill| 2.25.09 @ 11:13AM

Obama and his "experts" are trying to invalidate the imutable laws of economics and therodynamics at the same time. Unfortunately, our education sysstem has dumbed down the masses to the point where they don't understand this.

Gill O'Teen| 2.25.09 @ 11:35AM

In their very first paragraph, the authors of this important column ask, “So why, days before he was sworn in, did (Obumah) choose a failed prophet of the apocalypse to become his most influential scientist?” The answer appears in their very next sentence where they revealed that Holdren is “the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government” Even the Kool-aid Lemmings surely know that Teresa Heinz is presently the African-American spouse of 2004 presidential candidate, U.S. senator and war hero John Kerry (D-massachusetts).

frost| 2.25.09 @ 11:55AM

A few hours later, after a jaunt to the beach and walking the dog again, seems that last night's gloriously eloquent pontifications rang another negative note, right? The DowJones is certainly unenthusiastic, to say the least...

Astro| 2.25.09 @ 12:51PM

G.R.L.Cowan commented: "That a prediction involves many human lives' being cut short does not intrinsically make it absurd."
In general, no, but in this case, yes. It would require, on average, the death of 100 million people over the next ten years just due to climate change. That's simply absurd.
That number implies an even larger number of people who would be injured or incapacitated in some way due to climate change, and still others who would be otherwise unhurt but whose lives would be disrupted. The total number affected could thus approach at least half the population of the Earth -- over the next 10 years.
Saying it's absurd is really an understatement.

Marc Jeric| 2.25.09 @ 1:46PM

Holdren just like Hansen are government-paid "scientists" - i.e., rejects of private enterprise. When their globaloney cooling scam of the 1970's failed to bring them to power, they came up with the globaloney warming hoax of the 1990's. So now they came up with the "climate change" flimflam" what with 11 years of considerable cooling. Whatever works as long as they can take perpetual power in the communization of this country.

Crusader| 2.25.09 @ 3:25PM

I dunno, maybe global warming IS accelerating? I mean, every day it seems like its getting warmer. Then after like 6 months it will get cooler every day. Weird.

Joe D| 2.25.09 @ 3:29PM

Its NOT global warming any more people - its CLIMATE CHANGE. If we can't keep up with the ignorant speak then whats the point. Yes - climate change IS accelerating- the wrong way. The Earth has been cooling for decade. Arctic ice is back to where it was in 1979. There is now more ice in the Southern Hemisphere than there was in 1979. Here is the proof that global warming is a hoax - use this as the example since it is true:

Assume the Earth is a pot of water. Global warming is the burner on the stove. Put the pot of water on the stove. Turn on the burden - ergo - Global warming. Now, as we see in our weather and climate - the water gets colder and freezes. That is liberal global warming - all common sense must be suspended in order to believe it.

bobmontgomery| 2.25.09 @ 4:05PM

...saying that ten times fast : communism, communism, communism, communism, communism, from each acording to his abilities to each according to his needs, communism, communism, communism, communism.

mrgoodbar| 2.25.09 @ 5:14PM

This guy reaches women, they all do. It is so easy to brainwash and scare the crap out of females, especially when you control tv, movies, etc. The China Syndrome was rerun on AMC recently. I know a woman who watched and believes it could happen. When I told her they are building nuke plants all around the world, France etc, and if this worried her, she just offered a blank stare. She is 40 something, and kinda cute with good legs. So I don't mind her company if she wears a skirt. Don't call me a male chauvinist. I mean she is the boss now. Her leaders and her ideas rule. By the way her name is not Nancy.

frost| 2.25.09 @ 5:38PM

Seems kinda appropriate to mention it here too -- the fact that last night, before the further indoctanation of his subjects by the most recent inept inhabitant of the White House, I chose, instead, to re-read "Atlas Shrugged" -- it's been a while, and sure is timely. The completion of that classic will be followed by "1984" - again...
Trust me, that was time better spent than being subjected to the propaganda that appeals most to the Class-Warfare crowd, academia (for reasons I still can't quite fathom) and the media minions and/or cheerleaders.
Seems I didn't miss much -- and, unlike most presidential State-of-the-Union messages, nope - the stock market didn't sky-rocket either.

Steve| 2.25.09 @ 5:52PM

It's called summer.

Atlas Hugged| 2.25.09 @ 6:47PM

Instead of watching his lame " to Sir with love " routine, I begged my wife to join me under the sheets. She said ok.

Pingback| 2.25.09 @ 6:54PM

» Holdren Apocalypse At Bay links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…due to heat dissipation from power plants, nuclear Armageddon, and — this week — “climate disruption” caused by increased concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Read the rest here in The American Spectator. Reason’s Ron Bailey took a look at Holdren to and you can read his tjhoughts here. Over at the DC Examiner they follow-up describing how a little-noticed change in federal…

Earl Anderson| 2.25.09 @ 7:26PM

Frost: Besides 1984 you also might want to add Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World to the list.
Atlas Hugged: Much better use of your time.
I liken this group to the magicians of Alchemy fame in the middle ages. They think if the keep trying they can turn the laws of physics and chemistry on their head. If this is the elevation of "science" to a more lofty position we are in for a long 4 years. Maybe if we are lucky the sea level rise predicted will wipe out D.C. and its minions before they can cause too much damage. Alas, a dream only.

frost| 2.25.09 @ 7:38PM

Thanks Earl, but I've already read them too, along with several thousand others, I'd guess... "Animal Farm" and virtually everything Arthur C. Clarke, the Johns (Steinbeck, Updike, Irving, O'Hara), McCollough, Wouk, Uris, Trevanian, Moorcock, Hamill, Jorge Amado, Lawrence Sanders, Block, Richard Price, and even a few from Bernie Goldberg and AnnCoulter, among many others....
There's hardly sufficient time for those awaiting my attention, but thanks for the thought...

newwavereader| 2.25.09 @ 9:42PM

Hope you have read Philip Roth.

Skep41| 2.25.09 @ 11:53PM

"simultaneous de-development of the overdeveloped countries and semi-development of the underdeveloped countries."

The Ludwig Von Drake of climate science has reared his ugly head. People that can come up with sentences like the one above shouldnt be allowed to drive a car, let alone decide whether the rest of us can. I think of Obama's adoring crowd in Elkhorn, Indiana a place where the main industry is building motor homes. Maybe BHO should have dragged Holden along to enlighten these about-to-be-de-developed Neanderthals as to the heinous nature of their climate crimes. The government doing something about Climate Change will definitely kill a lot of people; it already has. When the ethanol boondoggle combined with high oil prices people all over the world went hungry, some starved. These Marxist morons are proven to be lethal on a mass scale through a heady mixture of malice and incompetence and now there's no sane US to stop the worst excesses.

Pingback| 2.26.09 @ 10:11AM

Steynian 328 « Free Canuckistan! links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…change and the return of original sin! Officials want us to observe a ‘carbon fast’. It’s further evidence that environmentalism is about managing human behaviour rather than nature.” You can even have doomsday & prophets! the state of impending eco-apocalypse is permanent! Then there’s all that ‘ holier than thou ‘ to enjoy! …. (Various) FreeSpeechers ~ DEBORAH GYAPONG – Want to…

james| 3.1.09 @ 6:15PM

I think we all need to come to the terrifying realization that this horror suffocating the nation is not a freak aberration but the logical outcome of fifty years of vile, and violent, stupidity, rage and hatred.
It isn't going away. It is going to have to be killed, like any other plague. And Romney is not the guy, I'm sorry to say.

Pingback| 3.2.09 @ 7:03AM

Articles of Interest links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…$55, plunged 96 cents to a mere $1.50.” What Are You Doing? Media Twitterers Can’t Stop Typing (New York Times) A look at the popular service Twitter and how some news media personalities use it. The Doomsday Bias. American Spectator article describing testimony of Dr. John P. Holdren, nominated for chief White House Science Advisor. “Holdren’s particular brand of science is infected by what we can…

Carbonicus| 3.2.09 @ 10:09AM

It is well past time that thinking people stood up to the watermelons in the U.S.; i.e. those that are green on the outside and red on the inside. Stand up and call a spade a spade. "Global warming" is politics, not science, and observed data all over the world - as opposed to computer model junk science - prove it. If we let these people determine our economic, energy, and environmental policy, the U.S. will slide backwards, billions will never rise from poverty, and the very environment that the watermelons purport to represent will suffer. No way around it. Call these people out whenever and wherever you encounter them. The future of America, and our environment, depends on it.

Pingback| 3.9.09 @ 5:25PM

The Doomsday Bias | Illuminati Conspiracy Archive Blog links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…warming due to heat dissipation from power plants, nuclear Armageddon, and — this week — “climate disruption” caused by increased concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Full story Tags: Holdren This entry was posted on Monday, March 9th, 2009 at 6:25 pm and is filed under Global Warming Hoax. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a…

Pingback| 4.25.09 @ 6:15PM

Obama’s new science advisor links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

0 Comments | Post RSS « U.S. Lagging Behind OECD Corporate Tax Trends X-Force: Who is the Leper Queen? » internet marketing Obama’s new science advisor Commenta 26th February , 2009 The Doomsday Bias By William Yeatman & Jeremy Lott on 2.25.09 @ 6:07AM In his inaugural address, President Barack Obama took a dig at his backward predecessor by promising to "restore science to its rightful…

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The American Spectator

Comments

Lawler Nicoteri| 2.25.09 @ 6:51AM

G.R.L. Cowan| 2.25.09 @ 7:52AM

stu.b.con| 2.25.09 @ 7:55AM

frost| 2.25.09 @ 8:07AM

Vaemar| 2.25.09 @ 10:25AM

Michael Tomlinson| 2.25.09 @ 10:53AM

PABill| 2.25.09 @ 11:13AM

Gill O'Teen| 2.25.09 @ 11:35AM

frost| 2.25.09 @ 11:55AM

Astro| 2.25.09 @ 12:51PM

Marc Jeric| 2.25.09 @ 1:46PM

Crusader| 2.25.09 @ 3:25PM

Joe D| 2.25.09 @ 3:29PM

bobmontgomery| 2.25.09 @ 4:05PM

mrgoodbar| 2.25.09 @ 5:14PM

frost| 2.25.09 @ 5:38PM

Steve| 2.25.09 @ 5:52PM

Atlas Hugged| 2.25.09 @ 6:47PM

Pingback| 2.25.09 @ 6:54PM

Earl Anderson| 2.25.09 @ 7:26PM

frost| 2.25.09 @ 7:38PM

newwavereader| 2.25.09 @ 9:42PM

Skep41| 2.25.09 @ 11:53PM

Pingback| 2.26.09 @ 10:11AM

james| 3.1.09 @ 6:15PM

Pingback| 3.2.09 @ 7:03AM

Carbonicus| 3.2.09 @ 10:09AM

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