Error bands and known unknowns

Mostly just rehashing something I've mentioned in the past, but this time in response to Mark Kleiman's point regarding climate change that "uncertainty actually argues for more precaution, not less. Current estimates could be wrong in either direction; that's what 'error band' means."

Yes he's right, but there's more. The error bands involve uncertainty about currently-quantifiable factors, but there are a number of as-yet unquantifiable factors that with best-case scenarios have no effect but under any other outcome will make things worse. I'm not aware of unquantified factors that work in the reverse direction. In other words, the "true" error bars should be skewed to show a greater chance that things will be worse rather than better than the predicted outcome. All the more reason to start reducing emissions, quickly.

This point doesn't get enough attention, IMHO.

The Rove/McCain Campaign understands about keeping surrogates on message

They might not be able to control McCain and his occasional verbal wanderings, but the graduates of the Bush/Cheney campaigns know that surrogates can only say what they're allowed to say.

So when "senior McCain surrogate" Steve Forbes says on CNN that "cap and trade is going to go the way of some other things....I don’t think those things are going to get very far," that's because Forbes is being allowed to say it. Bush made similar promises and reversed them after getting elected. Now we're getting a warning.

(And I don't actually question that McCain vaguely wants some kind of greenhouse gas regulations, but I expect Bush actually believed what he was saying in 2000 too. The issue is what McCain would actually do, and it doesn't look good.)

UPDATE: Turns out that McCain policy adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer is from a dirty energy, privately held company (Koch Industries) and ran a climate denialist, astroturf group called Americans for Prosperity. Policy advisers are likely to transition from the campaign to the administration if McCain's elected, so people like her would be in charge of McCain's climate policy. Wonderful.

Recommending Papa John's whole wheat pizza crust with light cheese

I love pizza, and it's terrible for you. Apparently Papa John's is the only major pizza chain that offers a whole wheat crust, which they only started two months ago. I ordered one with light cheese and a few other toppings (IMPORTANT UPDATE: by "light cheese" I meant "not much cheese", not the dreaded low-fat stuff), and it was really good. Baby steps in the right direction.

Unfortunately they don't give nutritional info for whole wheat or light cheese. I know the light cheese helps alot, and whole wheat has got to be at least a little better that white flour.

Denialists excited by Albertan engineers' disagreements over climate change

This showed up in Wikipedia and may be used elsewhere by denialists: a survey of members of the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists, and Geophysicists of Alberta found a majority of respondents felt the debate over scientific causes of climate change isn't settled. Alberta is an oil-producing province so it's a skewed sample to start with, but the main response is these people aren't scientific experts on climate change. Only 3% of the respondents were geophysicists, most were engineers, and only 23.5% had dealt with climate change as part of their professional duties (which still doesn't qualify them as experts on the science - I've dealt with the issue professionally and that doesn't make me a scientific expert).

All that should be enough to dismiss it, but I might as well go on:

• This wasn't a random survey - all the members were asked to respond and so the ones who did were self-selected.
• The survey report doesn't say what response rate it had in percentage terms.
• The survey could be completed online or faxed in, and the report doesn't describe any security methods (a past online survey of "climatologists" by Dennis Bray had been crashed by denialists who gained password access). Providing identifying information is listed as "optional."
• The question on the cause of climate change is inadequate: it asks to choose between primarily natural factors, primarily human factors, or both factors together. The third option is a different question. They should've asked if it was primarily natural, primarily human, or if the science wasn't clear enough to judge which cause is primary.
• Amusingly, only 20% trust the climate models, but a solid majority think climate change is a significant risk to public safety. How do they know that if the models stink? I guess they trust the theory, or just take a ruler to the instrumental record and extend the upward-sloping line out a few decades. Whatever. (Might be evidence against the idea that the poll was crashed, though.)

Bottom line: somewhat useful for Albertan engineers to know what Albertan engineers think, maybe, but not relevant to the existence of a consensus.

UPDATE: 52,000 members, 1,000 self-selected to respond back.

Support for Kosovo independence comes home to roost

I was right on this one (unfortunately). From Crooked Timber:

...this is part of the long pay-back for Kosovo. When Russia was strong-armed on the UN Security Council into accepting Kosovan independence, they made it clear that the precedent would ring out in the Caucasus and indeed any where else the Russians want to destabilize. Again, the rights and wrongs of springing Kosovo free of the Serbs can be argued, and so can the means of doing it. But the outcome is that Russia believes it has a free hand to prop up Russian or other minority nationalities anywhere geopolitically convenient within its Near Abroad.

It's sad that the same sovereignty fetish that made the West want to recognize Kosovo is also what motivated Georgia to try and retake the areas of Georgia that had been semi independent:

Georgians are intensely nationalistic, and viewed these de facto states on their border as an intolerable violation of sovereignty. Mr. Saakashvili cashed in on this deep sense of grievance, vowing to restore Georgia’s “territorial integrity.”

For those thinking that Georgia is 100% in the right (from the same link above):

The Abkhaz talk about the Georgians pretty much the same way that the Georgians talk about the Russians. On that point, the Abkhaz share much with the South Ossetians. For them, as for the Ossetians, Georgia is the neighborhood bully.

Not that I have much any idea what to do about it all. I don't think having a lobbyist for Georgia's government on McCain's payroll is a great idea though.

UPDATE: I'm reading that Georgians took encouragement from Bush too seriously as one reason for their quick strike into Ossetia. Shades of Bush 41. (And in this case, the Russians might have taken Putin's mastery of Bush as a reason not to hesitate on their side).

UPDATE 2: For what it's worth, I'd support a quick membership for Georgia in NATO, but only with mutual self defense obligations starting outside of the two disputed provinces and south of wherever Russian forces are when the treaty's signed. Russia can (unofficially) keep what it's taken; they just can't take any more. Given that their presence is likely popular in South Ossetia and Abkhazia but would be an occupier in Georgia proper, it's not the worst of outcomes.

So much for my candidate John Edwards

Good thing the voters didn't follow the lead of us Edwards supporters.

Among the other things I'm mad about is that my policy of paying attention to people when they turn out to be right meant I had to read an entire Mickey Kaus blog post. Disgusting.

So Edward's toast now for any high level elected position, which I think is about right. Forget the morality issue, he's shown himself not to have the good judgment those positions require. Maybe an appointed position would be alright, sometime in the future.

Somewhat controversially, I don't think Elizabeth Edwards comes out all that great either with this - not because of the adultery, which is 100% his fault, but because she pushed his candidacy while knowing he had this secret that could kill his campaign and the Democratic party's chances if it came out after Edwards secured the nomination. If John Edwards deserves blame for running with this secret in his background - and he does - she doesn't escape the blame entirely either.

And while I'm mad at Edwards, I might as well also mention I'm annoyed they took down all the blog posts at the Edwards website, including quite a few I posted. I can understand freezing the posts when they no longer have staff to monitor them, but taking them offline was unnecessary.

UPDATE: Eli correctly notes in the comments that McCain is getting a free pass for similar behavior. That's true, but it was also a long time ago (assuming the Vicki Iseman affair isn't true) and not when he was running for president, and not a secret either. Edwards knew the political rules and the risks.

Mucking my way through Pielke Jr. (and the Volokhs)

I haven't paid too much attention to Roger Pielke Jr. lately, as it's just too much work to sort through his stuff. I don't even know how to categorize him - not a denialist, exactly. Maybe just contrarian for the sake of it, a climate change nihilist.

But let's go through the exercise. Jonathan Adler at the Volokhs does his usual uncritical citing of RP Jr. to take potshots at Joe Romm who pushes for rapid action. This is how it works, by the way. Even if RP Jr. doesn't directly oppose attempts to mitigate climate change, he's used extensively by people like Adler who does.

RP says a new climate study doesn't support the idea of emphasizing how climate change makes weather more extreme. A casual reader might think RP is saying that weather won't get more extreme, so RP gets to send that message without actually saying it. To support his argument, he says the study finds in the US that

3. Despite increases in some measures of precipitation , there have not been corresponding increases in peak streamflows (high flows above 90th percentile).

Again a casual reader might think this means that things aren't getting worse. What RP leaves out is this compares high flows within a single period, not against the past. If total precipitation increases, the 90th percentile can also increase compared to what would have been a 90th percentile flood, fifty years ago. In other words, things are getting worse and it supports the opposite of what RP implies (this could be wrong, see updates below).

Another example - RP says the study (available here) emphasizes flooding when in fact "there has been no increase in streamflow" and is therefore ignorant or misleading (RP also says damage has decreased as a percentage of GDP, but he's ignoring the effect of flood control measures). TokyoTom valiantly tries to figure out in the comments what he's talking about regarding "no increase" in streamflow. RP says, "The report is not discussing flooding when it says it is discussing flooding. It is discussing precipitation. They are not at all the same thing, and implying that precip = floods is in error, and misleading." RP is accusing the study of doing what he just did - implying (not saying directly though) that streamflow is a proxy for extreme weather and it's not getting worse. Eventually RP cites to yet something else he wrote, but I'd had enough by this point.

UPDATE: Good grief, that was quick - Roger has a response in the comments. I'm not satisfied. And in somewhat related news, "Scientists studying variations in tropical heat and rainfall since the mid-1980s have found a strong link between warm periods and a rise in the frequency of the most extreme downpours."

UPDATE 2: Thinking some more about the comments, I did the same wrong leap from more extreme precip = more extreme flooding. It does ceteris parabis, but not over time with heavily managed and altered watersheds. Going back to the study itself, it's pretty measured on streamflow issues (p. 53), so I don't see the problem. More broadly, extreme events and their possibilities do motivate people, and is an important part of the economic analysis. They shouldn't be overplayed or downplayed.

Guest post: The Dumbing Down of America

(This is a guest post from Dad. I don't have too much to add, except that while playing Dungeons and Dragons as a kid might not have helped my tan, it did help me with numbers. Maybe that's what kids today need. -Brian)

The first major sign this author encountered was the switch years ago by merchandisers to the use of electronic calculators that figured out what change is owed the customer. When I was a cashier for the A&P in 1958, we did not have those and each of us had to be able to make change in our head. I can still do that now, and do that to check the machine. But forget having the clerk do it. As a result our clerks are dumber than those in developing countries that LACK those crutches, er I mean, machines.

Recently, one more example: Turns out that Office Max no longer gives you an instant rebate on used ink jet cartridges turned in at the store. Instead you have to join their "club" and they will SEND you a coupon for you to use, if and when you remember to bring it in again. When I complained Office Max was counting on some of us never turning in the coupons, I was told no, that is not the reason. Turns out the only cartridges ever available for the refund were HP cartridges (which is what I use), and some clerks were unable to make the distinction when they were turned in, and instead paid out willy-nilly. So instead of teaching their clerks how to be smarter, we have this new system.

The dumber we get, the worse is the service we get.

Two recent Obama policy mistakes

1. Obama caved in on his previous proposal to delay the "Constellation" successor program for the space shuttle in order to pay his early education program. He also didn't specify where he now plans to get the money for his education program, and he wants an extra flight of the dangerous space shuttle in 2010, after it's supposed to be decertified (IIRC), and I presume without the expensive program of recertification.

2. Obama now proposes letting the Michigan and Florida delegations get seated at full strength, with no penalty for violating the primary calendar rules. If Obama with all his advantages can't stand up to swing vote states, then we can hardly expect future candidates to do anything. The next election will have primaries in November.

Obama is getting hit for the wrong things, and not for the right ones.

Clearing up some confusion over Hansen 1988

A while back, commenter "Nick" made some assertions in the comments to this post about James Hansen's famous 1988 paper that I didn't have specific responses too. Some good recaps elsewhere make that possible. Nick says:

"We take the Scenario A prediction that is in line with what has happened with non human causes for climate change and CO2 output."

This is a little confused, but Scenario A was meant to show exponential growth in emissions, as opposed to Scenario B's more accurate linear growth. "Scenario A, since it is exponential, must eventually be on the high side of reality."

"Well, there are reasons for not using scenario B. Hansen put in a volcanic erruption to show its effects. Over the post Pinatobu period there has not been a major erruption. Scenario B therefore has a downward bias that makes the prediction look better than it should. (The erruption that didn't happen would have depressed temperatures.)"

Hansen in 1988 assumed a major volcanic eruption in 1995, and one actually happened in 1991. In other words, his assumption doesn't bias the outcome (it would have if he assumed two major eruptions when only one occurred).

"The claims are still being made that we have an escalating CO2 problem. That's scenario A."

No. Scenario B also had escalating CO2. Only Scenario C didn't.

More info at RealClimate.

Gore's carbon-free challenge includes carbon sequestration

The We Can Solve It campaign has a video remix of Gore's challenge to have 100% carbon-free electricity sources in the US in 10 years.

One question I had of his idea was whether he rules out carbon sequestration - he doesn't:

The electricity system can be a mix of carbon-free baseload and distpatchable sources like solar thermal with storage, geothermal, wind, solar photovoltaics, biomass, existing nuclear and hydropower, and coal and natural gas power if they are able to capture the carbon.

I have mixed feelings about carbon sequestration. On the one hand, it might occupy the political sweet spot of requiring the least amount of change in power sources in order to eliminate carbon. Instead of needing sufficient political power to completely eliminate the entire coal industry, we just need the power to force them to pay extra to sequester carbon. On the other hand, the technology and most importantly the costs are undetermined. While many environmentalists noted the collapse of the FutureGen project as just one more failure of the Bush Administration, it's also a big setback for carbon sequestration.

So it's an open question in my mind whether carbon sequestration as an unproven technology with unknown costs, but great potential, can play a significant role within ten years. I think Gore's challenge is a reasonable one and that he is completely serious about it, but some results might not be reached by the deadline.

O.J. Simpson cleared along with Alberto Gonzalez in DOJ probe

Alberto Gonzalez' lawyer says of the Inspector General's report finding legal violations and misconduct by Gonzo's chief of staff and others, that "the investigation found that former Attorney General Gonzales was not involved in or aware of the politicized hiring practices of staffers."

I've leafed through the report, and darned if I can find the statement exonerating Gonzo. Instead I find this on page 135:

This investigation examined allegations that Monica Goodling, who
worked in the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) as the Department’s
White House Liaison, inappropriately considered political and ideological
affiliations in the selection and hiring of certain Assistant United States
Attorneys (AUSA) and career attorneys in the Department, and in
approving details of career attorneys to Department offices. We also
investigated allegations that former Chief of Staff to the Attorney General
Kyle Sampson, Goodling, and Goodling’s predecessor as the
Department’s White House Liaison, Jan Williams, inappropriately
considered political and ideological affiliations in selecting immigration
judges (IJs) and members of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), all
of which are career positions.

Someone might read that to say the IG wasn't investigating Gonzo. Clearly though, from Gonzo's lawyer, a failure to reach out to investigate someone means exoneration. I've seen this statement repeated in the media without challenge, so it must be right. Thus, the stunning news that O.J. actually didn't kill his wife. Case closed.

Meanwhile, I expect the lawyers that the IG report did reach will be facing ethics complaint in whatever bar they're admitted to practice (as these two did). Should be interesting to see if there's any accountability.

UPDATE: A little more info comes out from the IG's testimony to Congress. Gonzo disclaimed all knowledge of any political bias in hiring. Sounds like no forensics was done on his computers, but it's just a short clip of the testimony.

My "Dark Knight" review: go see WALL-E

The only semi-compelling reason to see the new Batman movie is to participate in the undergrad-level, shoot-the-breeze political analysis going around the blogs. Not reason enough, though.

Yes, the Joker is interesting, but hardly mind-blowing, and the movie couldn't decide if it was about Batman, Joker, or the Harvey Dent character. To the extent this movie deals with deeper themes of free will and chance, "No Country for Old Men" is leagues better.

WALL-E, by contrast, is just a very fun movie. I think it's proof of the corrupt state of modern conservatism that they're offended by the "political" message that littering, waste, and indolence are bad. See this movie instead, or go see Hellboy 2 and tell me whether I should see it.

I've created a monster (but he's a nice monster)

David Evans didn't have much of a public profile until he and I arranged a bet over future warming.

What I didn't anticipate is the denialist response to the bet, which I'd summarize as "OMG OMG OMG! A vanishingly small BUT NON-ZERO percentage of skeptics are actually willing to put their money where their mouths are, therefore the skeptic position is right!" This ignores the issue that it's the result of the bet that will provide the most evidence as to who's right, not to mention the extremely large number of denialists who wouldn't and still won't bet.

Still, the denialist fan reaction has given David some prominence, most recently in The Australian, which is some ridiculous Australian paper that's been on a denialist tear. I don't know what to do about it, frankly. I guess there isn't much I can do about it now- the bet's been made. The one thing I can do is link to Tim Lambert's definitive rebuttal to David's piece. And to James Annan's rebuttal of David's original argument.

I latched on the betting idea as a good way to communicate how wrong and often insincere the denialists are. I still think it is, but the occasional sincere skeptic is seized on by the denialists to set back the cause of reason.

And none of this is to deny the fact that David Evans is a nice guy. I can attest from numerous emails and one phone conversation that he's polite and reasonable in all respects other than his analysis of climate science. David's reference to himself as a "rocket scientist" is tongue-in-cheek although that might be missed by the denialist field. I just hope he doesn't go too far down this path.

The one good thing is that while it take many years to settle our bet, it won't take long to see who's on the path to winning, and that's likely to be helpful. Also: David said in his own post about this issue that "Given that betting is thus possible on this issue, it seems strange that some people who take strong positions and profit by those positions are not prepared to bet even a small amount of their own money. Betting something of one's own money adds, shall we say, credibility." People who support David's position should contact me about getting into the game.

UPDATE: David responds in the comments.

Just a few alterations to Krauthammer's piece on Obama being pretentious

I think Krauthammer really intended an autobiographical piece, so I think the minor alterations below are a slight improvement on the master's work (original here if you want it):

Charles Krauthammer wants to speak about the Brandenburg Gate. He figures it would be a nice backdrop. The supporting cast – he imagines a cheering audience and a few fainting frauleins -- would be a picturesque way to bolster his foreign policy credentials.

What Krauthammer does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is something you learn. President Ronald Reagan learned to speak there because his relentless pressure happened when the Soviet empire fell to its knees and he was demanding its final "tear down this wall" liquidation. When President John F. Kennedy spoke in the same city as the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, he was representing a country that was prepared to go to the brink of nuclear war to defend West Berlin.

Who is Krauthammer representing? And what exactly has he done in his lifetime to merit appropriating the Brandenburg Gate as a column prop? What was his role in the fight against communism, the liberation of Eastern Europe, the creation of what George Bush the elder -- who just became president when the fall of the Berlin Wall came but modestly declined to go there to steal a victory lap from Germans -- called "a Europe whole and free"?

Does Krauthammer not see the incongruity? It's as if a German propagandist took a corporate-sponsored trip to America and demanded the Statue of Liberty as a venue for a policy speech. (The Germans have now gently nudged Krauthammer into looking at other venues.)

Americans are beginning to notice Krauthammer's elevated opinion of himself. There's nothing new about narcissism in Krauthammer. Every columnist looks in the mirror and sees a genius, not a smarmy monstrosity. Nonetheless, has there ever been a columnist with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?

Krauthammer is a former psychiatrist constantly diagnosing neuroses of politicians he dislikes. He consistently uses meaningless and disingenuous claims to disparage people such as the anecdote that Obama as a former Illinois state senator voted "present" nearly 130 times. As a presiding Washington Post columnist, has he ever produced a single notable piece of criticism of the Bush Administration? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is his favorite subject: himself.

It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In turning a description of a broader movement into a description of himself upon winning the eve of the Iraq invasion, Krauthammer declared it a great turning point in history -- " reformation and reconstruction of an alien culture are a daunting task. Risky and, yes, arrogant." Among other wondrous predictions of his, Charles said Iraq could acquire nuclear weapons " in addition to the weapons of mass destruction he already has, [and] he is likely to use them or share them with terrorists. The threat of mass death on a scale never before seen residing in the hands of an unstable madman is intolerable -- and must be preempted." As other right-wing hacks noted, "Moses made the waters recede, but he had help." Krauthammer apparently works alone.

Krauthammer may think he's King Canute, but the good king ordered the tides to halt precisely to refute sycophantic aides who suggested that he had such power. Krauthammer has no such modesty.

After all, in the words of his February 2004 claim that we have achieved “virtually unqualified success” to the Iraq war, which, translating the royal "we," means: " I am the one we've been waiting for." Amazingly, he kept claiming victory in Iraq until general ridicule induced him to occasionally change the subject.

He lectures us on how "embarrassing" it is that Europeans are multilingual but "we go over to Europe, and all we can say is 'merci beaucoup.' "

His somewhat fluent English does, however, feature many admonitions, instructions and improvements. His wife assures us that Krauthammer will be a stern taskmaster: "Charles Krauthammer will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism . . . that you come out of your isolation. . . . Charles will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."

For the first few months of the campaign, the question about Krauthammer was: Who is he? The question now is: Who does he think he is?

We are getting to know. Redeemer of our uninvolved, uninformed lives. Lord of the seas. And more. As he said on victory night, his rise marks the moment when "our planet began to heal." As I recall -- I'm no expert on this -- Jesus practiced his healing just on the sick. Krauthammer operates on a larger canvas – the smarminess of evil.

Gristmill, Same Facts, and Volokhs are wrong

Gristmill's Gar Lipow is wrong to blame carbon trading for the recent defeat of an almost-okay clean air law in court. Lipow, who hates carbon trading, wrongly says the court used a "takings" argument to strike the law because it eliminates certain other kinds of pollution trading. The opinion that he never provides is here, and it doesn't making a takings argument. On page 43 the court rejects the idea that existing pollution permits in circulation are a currency (property right). On page 44 the court says the problem is not that EPA is prohibited from modifying permits, but that EPA hasn't cited a grant of permission to modify them. Nowhere does the court make or even accept "fairness" as a legal justification.

Whether the court's analysis is any good is another question. Two of the three judges (at least) are extremely conservative (we Californians remember Janice Rogers Brown), and even the plaintiffs didn't expect this outcome, so I'm doubtful. Might get overturned, but not before the end of the Bush Administration.

---------
Same Facts is wrong for saying of Sudan's tyrant that "Immunity and a comfy exile in a non-ICC state can be offered as part of a deal that ends the killing and lets the refugees return. The deal would have to be made by the UN Security Council under Article 16 of the Rome Statute, which allows it to suspend prosecutions, with such eventualities in mind." Article 16 suspensions are only for one year. While suspensions can be renewed, no self-respecting tyrant will count on that after he's gone from power, or repeat the exact same scenario offered to Liberian murderer Charles Taylor (now on trial after being given exile). I could've sworn I've written something about this but can't find it - the problem with the International Criminal Court is that no one can issue pardons that would help ease out the dictators.

------------
Volokh's Jonathan Adler is wrong for calling liberal lawprof Chemerinsky's federalism inverted. Adler ingenuously quotes another critic as saying "Mr. Chemerinsky sketches a vision of federalism that would empower government at all levels and delight civil plaintiffs and criminal defense lawyers of every description." They fail to realize the contradiction in claiming that delighting civil plaintiffs (against government) and defense lawyers (also against the government) is "empowering goverrnment." This freedom-is-slavery argument has got to go.

More deep thoughts about Kung Fu Panda

I'd been wondering what people in China thought about a movie set in China, about Chinese themes, and performed in a foreign language aimed at a foreign market. Turns out they like it and even thought it an interesting if cartoonish mirror of their society.

It would be interesting to see the same thing for America. I suppose there's the Lars von Trier trilogy that I haven't seen, but it's in English and I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of his stuff.

EPA v. the Forest Service, and the Ninth Circuit killing legal realism

The always-interesting-and-on-the-wrong-side Jonathan Adler has several posts about the recent Ninth Circuit Lands Council v. McNair case, where courts have pulled in somewhat the extent they will scrutinize Forest Service logging decisions, and the broader implications are unclear.

In Lands Council, an environmental group sued over a logging project in Idaho, lost at the district court level, but appealed and won at the appellate court in a 2-1 vote. The Forest Service was granted an en banc rehearing by 11 judges and won by an embarrassing 11-0 vote. The case is here. My knowledge of judges is getting rusty, but looking at the panel I seem some bad names but at least one good one. So what happened?

The case theoretically revolves around how much work the Forest Service has to do to prove it's not harming the environment (or maybe even help the environment, but that issue doesn't have broader implications). This new decision now says the Forest Service is the expert on this matter, not the judges, and therefore overrules prior court precedent on studies that would be needed. Enviros now need to do more work to prove the government is doing something wrong, rather than simply show the government didn't do its homework.

The key quote is this: "we hold that the Forest Service must support its conclusions that a project meets the requirements of the NFMA and relevant Forest Plan with studies that the agency, in its expertise, deems reliable." Of course, the government will now dismiss all evidence presented by project opponents by trotting out the project manager to say his expert opinion is that the contrary evidence is unreliable. How easily the courts will accept cursory rebuttals is the real open question of this case.

But here's the thing: I've dealt with logging proposals off and on during my legal career, virtually all of them claiming to be net beneficiaries to the environment, yet we environmentalists continue to oppose these claims. Where is the outrage at the hypocrisy of environmentalists stopping all the environmental benefits proposed by government? Maybe the court opinions would hide the outrage, but somebody should express that outrage and I don't see it.

This is a binary situation where either the government is trying to help the environment but is being stopped by alleged environmentalists, or the government is full of it. I think the lack of outrage indicates the latter. The Lands Council case involved a project where 95% of the treated land had logging, and only 5% skipped "harvesting."

What the Ninth Circuit had done in previous cases was push the Forest Service to justify its decisions, which I think is an expression of legal realism about the Forest Service and its failure to do its job. The contrast I'd make is with the EPA, which despite tremendous pressure from the White House actually made some legitimate findings about climate change.

Too bad the Ninth Circuit is moving in the wrong direction - hopefully it won't keep going that way.

"On The Media" takes down NY Times' fluff piece on Limbaugh

I read less than half of the NY Times Magazine piece about Rush Limbaugh before giving up. It was about Rush as a person, and I really don't care about Rush the person.

Today I heard NPR's On The Media segment questioning how the "liberal" media's journalist, Zev Chafets, actually got to interview Rush. The takedown of Chafets was beautiful. Chafets said he was simply friendly and persistent. But when Bob Garfield asked why the piece failed to cover any of Limbaugh's lies, Chafets asked for an example and claimed Limbaugh was no worse than people on NPR. Fortunately, and unlike Chafets, Garfield was prepared and gave example after example, leaving Chafets speechless.

We actually learned two things from the segment - first, that Chafets doesn't know much about the person who he profiled extensively in the Times. Second, we found out that Chafets got in the door with Rush because Chafets is in the tank with Rush.

And one more thing, I guess - the Times isn't doing a good job of spotting the biases of its journalists, or maybe it doesn't care as long as there's a story.

Anyway, the OTM piece is worth a listen.

Heartland Institute flaunts its tobacco denialism

It's well documented that tobacco companies are promoting climate change denialism and then latching on to the distrust of science they've created to assist their own denial of the link between second-hand smoke and cancer (shown here and here).

So the Heartland Institute's "Environment & Climate News" publication somehow ended up in the building full of environmentalists where I work. It's a 20-page tabloid-sized publication that resembles a news-packed summary of everything climate-related. Someone's paying them good money to write and produce it.

And of course, pages 8 and 9 are about why second-hand smoke isn't dangerous (available here). The author appears to be a pulmonologist. I have trouble seeing how he could tell his patients that second-hand smoke isn't dangerous (especially children) and not be committing malpractice. On the other hand, he appears to spend so much time writing articles that maybe he avoids that problem by not having actual patients.

Anyway, I didn't expect to see the tobacco-climate connection be so blatant. In effect the newsletter is saying to smokers, "all this science stuff they throw at you is garbage - go ahead and light up, it's not really hurting your spouse or your kids."