Once, the iconic figures on the political right were urbane visionaries and builders of institutions — like William F. Buckley Jr., Irving Kristol and Father Richard John Neuhaus, all dead now. Today, far more representative is potty-mouthed Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart, whose news and opinion website, Breitbart.com, is read by millions. In his most recent triumph, Breitbart got a U.S. Department of Agriculture official pushed out of her job after he released a deceptively edited video clip of her supposedly endorsing racism against white people. What has become of conservatism? We have reached a point at which nothing could be more important than to stop and recall what brought us here, to the right, in the first place.Buckley's National Review, where I was the literary editor through the 1990s, remains as vital and interesting as ever. But more characteristic of conservative leadership are figures on TV, radio and the Internet who make their money by stirring fears and resentments. With its descent to baiting blacks, Mexicans and Muslims, its accommodation of conspiracy theories and an increasing nastiness and vulgarity, the conservative movement has undergone a shift toward demagoguery and hucksterism. Once the talk was of "neocons" versus "paleocons." Now we observe the rule of the crazy-cons.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
From neocons to crazy-cons - latimes.com
Saturday, July 31, 2010
FT.com / Global Economy - Research says climate change undeniable
International scientists have injected fresh evidence into the debate over global warming, saying that climate change is “undeniable” and shows clear signs of “human fingerprints” in the first major piece of research since the “Climategate” controversy.
The research, headed by the US National Oceans and Atmospheric Administration, is based on new data not available for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report of 2007, the target of attacks by sceptics in recent years.
The NOAA study drew on up to 11 different indicators of climate, and found that each one pointed to a world that was warming owing to the influence of greenhouse gases, said Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring at the UK’s Met Office, one of the agencies participating.
Seven indicators were rising, he said. These were: air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, marine air temperature, sea level, ocean heat, humidity, and tropospheric temperature in the “active-weather” layer of the atmosphere closest to the earth’s surface. Four indicators were declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers, spring snow cover in the northern hemisphere, and stratospheric temperatures.
Mr Stott said: “The whole of the climate system is acting in a way consistent with the effects of greenhouse gases.” “The fingerprints are clear,” he said. “The glaringly obvious explanation for this is warming from greenhouse gases.”
Some scientists hailed the study as a refutation of the claims made by climate sceptics during the “Climategate” saga. Those scandals involved accusations – some since proven correct – of flaws in the IPCC’s landmark 2007 report, and the release of hundreds of emails from climate scientists that appeared to show them distorting certain data.
“This confirms that while all of this [Climategate] was going on, the earth was continuing to warm. It shows that Climategate was a distraction, because it took the focus off what the science actually says,” said Bob Ward, policy director of the Grantham Institute at the London School of Economics.
Interview I did at Netroots Nation 2010
For my State Senate race here in GA.
Contribute $10 right now. I brought in $270 today---errr at this point yesterday. We are almost to $10,000 Help push us over the top by sending in a few bucks and telling others about our online campaign.
Also here is a wish list of things we need donated to keep the lights on so to speak...
Help us get new energy, new ideas, and a new generation of leadership to the Gold Dome this November!
Friday, July 30, 2010
Pardue out of State Senate 23 Race
After collecting some 6,752 signatures to run as an independent candidate for Georgia senate District 23, Chuck Pardue announced today he was withdrawing from the race.Independent Candidate Chuck Pardue said he won't seek a state Senate seat
Pardue cited family reasons for his need to leave the race, which leaves Republican qualifier Jesse Stone with no opposition on the Nov. 2 ballot.Pardue spokesman Gunner Hall said the condition of Pardue’s son John, who was recently injured in Afghanistan, had worsened Monday and required the support of his entire family. Working as a combat medic in Afghanistan, John Pardue aggravated a leg injury he’d suffered during air assault school and was forced to return to the United States for surgery earlier this month.After treating his mortally wounded former roommate and others near Kandahar, Afghanistan, the younger Pardue also was diagnosed with moderately severe to severe post-traumatic stress disorder, according to previous reports. Raised in Martinez, John Pardue married his girlfriend in March but said the couple intended to have a church wedding next year in Nashville.A Vietnam veteran, Chuck Pardue worked as a judge advocate general before retiring into the private practice of law. I'll keep the Pardue family in my prayers & I ask for you to do the same. Family comes first in this regard.
U.S. Economy Grew 2.4% in Second Quarter, Below Forecast
Growth in the U.S. slowed to a 2.4 percent annual rate in the second quarter, less than forecast, reflecting a larger trade deficit and an easing in consumer spending.
The increase in gross domestic product compared with a median forecast of 2.6 percent of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and follows an upwardly revised 3.7 percent pace in the first quarter that showed a jump in inventories, according to figures from the Commerce Department today in Washington. Business investment climbed at the fastest rate since 1997.
“The economy is muddling through,” Ethan Harris, head of North America economics at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch Global Research in New York, said in an interview after the report. “We’re probably not going to see a really strong number for a while. We need to see some pickup in job growth.”
A slower pace of growth means employers may be reluctant to hire workers and more likely to keep a lid on prices in order to boost sales. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke last week said the central bank is prepared to take further policy actions if the world’s largest economy “doesn’t continue to improve.”
Georgia Republican nonsense and leftwing[sic] Obama
So having taken of the summer and fall semesters for my state senate race; I don't get to spend a lot of time with some where my real passion for politics is--political theory. Philosophy, when you do it right is a topic of interest that takes more concentration and time with a book (and your mind) open. Away from twitter, facebook, and your rss feed 24 hour news cycle of modern politics.
I usually post my political theory, philosophy, and economic theory--not to mention my homework and classwork i'm working on an undergraduate degree; i'm double major in economics and political theory-- at my theory blog.
But this local absurdity from the Republican rightwing--who based there politics on nonsense and revisionist history is too good to pass up. [And please pardon the typos and lack of editing as this is a classic Jim's had 3 hours of sleep and has to get out the door to head to work--on the fly--blog posts.]
Okay, so why don't we now jump over to the AJC's Political Insider who updates us on Jody Hice's absurd Billboard calling Barrack Obama a communist--or at least implying it.
The “Had enough of Obama’s change?” billboards placed by Hice in the district, prominently spelling the word “change” with a hammer-and-sickle, were a natural topic.
Bryant asked each candidate if he thought the communist symbolism was over the top. Said Hice on Wednesday:
“I make no bones about it. I respect the office of the president, but I make no bones about it – I do not respect the policies of this president, which are socialistic.
“We are watching this administration take over the health care industry, the banking industry, the student loan industry, the insurance industry, automobile — one part of the private sector after another.”
I'm sure Mr. Hice is a nice guy--but he's been watching entertainers like Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz, and the other talking heads that spin intellectual nonsense to sell books to angry voters.
This is a favorite topic of mine; having grown up in the south and watched many, if not most, of the adults around me holding pretty indefensible "political theories" about the world, Democrats, and the "left" when I was a kid.
If you don't follow political theory and the actual intellectual background of most of our political debates [sic] here is an old blog post of mine to catch you up to speed:Political Theory vs. Reality.... Obama is a socialist...
Also to expand on the most recent example of Republican nonsense lets jump into the comment thread--which can be useful sometimes, funny often, pathetic "tears to your eyes" examples of open debate and discourse. Doug Henwood of the Left Business Observer--whose economic newsletter is a must read threw out one insight:
Hmm, how about that military? Total welfare state for members, generous child care, education allowances – and affirmative action. If that sort of thing is good enough for the folks in uniform, why not the rest of us?
But I'm sure you wouldn't hear a peek from Hice on that front.
I mean why not privitize all government programs? The public sector can't get anything right---(aside from you know basically creating a massive industrialized powerhouse of historical proportions called America. We've gone from a tiny backwoods hole in the wall to highly devleoped economic power house and we didn't use our comparative advantage in the fur trade and free markets to get there.
Anyone who has worked at a major corporation knows that bureaucratic headaches, and waste, aren't just found in the public sector. It can actually be worse in the private sector. Starting at 14 working at McDonlads, working at Waffle House, Target, 3rd shift conveince store, and now loading trucks at UPS I have tons of great real world examples if you don't believe me and think talking heads on Fox News have any clue what they are talking about when they compate the public sector to the private sector.
Outside of right-libertarian apologists for corporations who claim to support individual freedom, liberty, and small government and at the same time push destructive Ayn Rand la la land political theory which empowers adbstract nonhuman entities called corporations. Corporations whose rent seeking behaviors have created a Nanny State for the Rich and powerful at the expense of working and middle class families. But lets not just jump on Ayn Rand libertarians, as they are mostly harmless, lets not forget the modern incarnation of many Republicans in congress who support politically unpopular views that are far outside of the mainstream when you scratch the surface and move past the platitudes and well scripted talking points.
I mean nobody is arguing to privatize the military, or public safety, or roads; although these are all "socialist" [sic] endeavors that prioritize the social welfare of all--"spreading the wealth around" and all.
I mean why don't we sell off the Gold Dome up in Atlanta and rent it back from private hands?
Or do we think there are social goods that we all deserve to protect and cherish?
By the by you don't know the difference between a left and right libertarian check it out over at the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
Libertarianism is often thought of as “right-wing” doctrine. This, however, is mistaken for at least two reasons. First, on social—rather than economic—issues, libertarianism tends to be “left-wing”. It opposes laws that restrict consensual and private sexual relationships between adults (e.g., gay sex, extra-marital sex, and deviant sex), laws that restrict drug use, laws that impose religious views or practices on individuals, and compulsory military service. Second, in addition to the better-known version of libertarianism—right-libertarianism—there is also a version known as “left-libertarianism”. Both endorse full self-ownership, but they differ with respect to the powers agents have to appropriate unowned natural resources (land, air, water, minerals, etc.). Right-libertarianism holds that typically such resources may be appropriated by the first person who discovers them, mixes her labor with them, or merely claims them—without the consent of others, and with little or no payment to them. Left-libertarianism, by contrast, holds that unappropriated natural resources belong to everyone in some egalitarian manner. It can, for example, require those who claim rights over natural resources to make a payment to others for the value of those rights. This can provide the basis for a kind of egalitarian redistribution.
These commentators and politicians on the right are taken seriously--see my congressman Lynn Westmoreland, or my state Rep Steve Davis, for a great examples of nice guys who are over their heads when it comes to being a legislator. We have watched Americas decline over the past 30 years because of these kinds of Republicans--it always hasn't been true of Republicans back during the New Deal era.
People aren't happy with the decline of prosperity. Go to a Tea Party event and actually talk to people--gasp--rather than read polls and listen to spin on tv. I've done so over the past 500 days of campaigning to get a new generation of leadership to Gold Dome this November.
Alsmost to a person these angry voters who are fed up with Big Government and Obama Socialism and aren't going to take it anymore are talking about wanting to get back to the way things "used to be." They ask "what has happened to this nation?" They have legitimate complaints, frustrations, and have been let down by their political leaders.
They want the good old days back--you know back when taxes on the rich were a lot high (you aren't rich by the way). Back when unions were stronger. Back when government proactively intervened to protect citizens from corporate greed and human exploitation--rather than leave things to the free market.
Just bring up the BP oil spill or talk about how corporations! Or ask them about special interest who lobby--" buy off" politicians and you'll realize the spin about the Tea Party movement is bogus.
Scratch the surface of a Tea Party activist and you'll often find an angry voter who has suffered, and lost quality of life over the past 30 years of Republican dominance.
Now for a few more asides...
Henwood's book Wall Street is a book I've had on my book shelf for years and is well worth your time---especially now after a major financial crisis--to learn more about the financial industry and capitalism. You can download the entire book for free, as it is creative commons licencing--you know actual free trade unlike "Free Trade" agreements like NAFTA that both Democrats and Republicans push.. [His radio show is also quite enjoyable.]
Also if you want to know more about the Free Market[sic] success story that is the United States who successfully used its comparative advantage in the fur trade to set up one of the most powerful nations in the history of the world go read Ha-joon Chang's excellent book Bad Samaritans. Which i've posted on Chang's book as well-- as the topic more broadly-- before. Here is a good catch you up to speed post: also see here, here, here, here, here, here, here
By the by help a blogger get elected to the Georgia State Senate by contributing a few bucks to my campaign (or $100, or $1000, or $2400) online right now. Every $5 is $5 I didn't have yesterday and 9 out of 10 campaigns are won by the candidate with the most money.
Okay 95 days 3 hrs 7 min.s till the polls open--i'm head to work. The trucks won't load themselves you know....
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Political Legitimacy
Political legitimacy is a virtue of political institutions and of the decisions—about laws, policies, and candidates for political office—made within them. This entry will survey the main answers that have been given to the following questions. First, how should legitimacy be defined? Is it primarily a descriptive or a normative concept? If legitimacy is understood normatively, what does it entail? Some associate legitimacy with the justification of coercive power and with the creation of political authority. Others associate it with the justification, or at least the sanctioning, of existing political authority. Authority stands for a right to rule—a right to issue commands and, possibly, to enforce these commands using coercive power. An additional question is whether legitimate political authority is understood to entail political obligations or not. Most people probably think it does. But some think that the moral obligation to obey political authority can be separated from an account of legitimate authority, or at least that such obligations arise only if further conditions hold.Next there are questions about the requirements of legitimacy. When are political institutions and the decisions made within them appropriately called legitimate? Some have argued that this question has to be answered primarily on the basis of procedural features that shape these institutions and underlie the decisions made. Others argue that legitimacy depends—exclusively or at least in part—on the substantive values that are realized. A related question is: does political legitimacy demand democracy or not? This question is intensely debated both in the national and the global context. Insofar as democracy is seen as necessary for political legitimacy, when are democratic decisions legitimate? Can that question be answered with reference to procedural features only, or does democratic legitimacy depend both on procedural values and on the quality of the decisions made? Finally, there is the question which political institutions are subject to the legitimacy requirement. Historically, legitimacy was associated with the state and institutions and decisions within the state. The contemporary literature tends to judge this as too narrow, however. This raises the question how the concept of legitimacy may apply—beyond the nation state and decisions made within it—to the international and global context.
Abuse of Presidential Power? The Becker-Posner Blog
If you want to read conservatives who actually think rather than wingnuts like Glen Beck and Fox news crew you should be reading the Becker-Posner blog. All the cool kids are doing it...
Here is a recent topic I enjoyed reading...
The Bush Administration, especially in the person of Vice President Cheney, had an expansive view of presidential authority. It was articulated as an interpretation of the Constitution, in particular Article II, which is about the presidency. Truman similarly took an expansive view of presidential authority when he seized the steel industry during the Korean War, but the seizure was overturned by the Supreme Court. (The Bush Administration had a mixed record in the Supreme Court in defending its expansive view of presidential authority, which centered on antiterrorist policy.) Clinton used administrative regulation to try to get around the Republican Congress with which he had to deal after the 1994 election. Other Presidents, notably Lincoln, were prepared in emergency circumstances to violate the Constitution, as when Lincoln suspended habeas corpus at the outset of the Civil War; it is reasonably clear that the Constitution authorizes only Congress to suspend habeas corpus.
There is a third type of questionable exercise of presidential power, which consists of publicly demanding that a private firm or industry or other entity conform to the President’s desire, without pretending that the President has the legal authority to require such conformity. (This overlaps with but is distinct from the concept of the presidential “bully pulpit”—the President’s power to appeal directly to the people for support of his policies.) In April 1962, for example, President Kennedy publicly denounced U.S. Steel and the other major steel companies for announcing a stiff price increase to offset the cost of a collective bargaining agreement that it had signed with the United Steelworkers union. He backed up his denunciation by threatening an antitrust investigation and made the threat credible, or at least frightening, by having his brother (the Attorney General) dispatch FBI agents to “interview” the top steel executives. The Administration had encouraged the collective bargaining agreement and was incensed at U.S. Steel’s attempt to offload the cost of it on consumers. A price increase is a normal response to higher labor costs, but the President considered it a slap in the face—his face. His public denunciation of the steel industry worked; the industry backed down and the antitrust investigation was called off.
President Obama has used this device of extra-legal presidential intimidation more frequently, probably, than any President. In the spring of last year he told General Motors to fire its chief executive officer, Rick Waggoner. He had no authority to do that, and didn’t pretend that he did. Waggoner went. Last month the President ordered British Petroleum to put billions of dollars into an escrow account for payment of claims for losses caused by the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. He did not pretend to have any legal authority to order this, but BP quickly complied—as it did with the President’s insistence that it cut its dividend in order to be sure of having enough money to pay all the claims that might be made against it and the fines that might be imposed on it. And the President’s criticisms of Wall Street bonuses may have been decisive in the decision of Goldman Sachs to scale down the bonuses it was intending to award for the firm’s highly profitable 2009.
Should a President use the prestige (one might even call it the “moral authority”) of the office, and his ability to command public attention, to obtain compliance with demands made by him on the business community that are not backed by law? I think not, apart from any distaste one may have for bullying. It makes business subject to two regulatory regimes. One is a legal regime, created by Congress and by the regulatory agencies to which Congress delegates a portion of its own constitutional regulatory power. The other is a kind of “people’s democracy” regime, in which government stirs up public anger to force businesses to comply with extra-legal government demands. This second regulatory regime operates without rules, and so subjects business to potentially debilitating uncertainty in the sense of a risk that cannot be quantified. We know from Keynes and other students of uncertainty that a common and often the sensible response to uncertainty is to freeze, in the hope that the uncertainty will dissipate over time, or to take active steps to reduce the uncertainty. Both are options for business faced with the threat of presidential wrath. A business can hire less, invest less, and build up its cash balances as a hedge against adversity. It can also redouble its lobbying and other influence activities in an effort to neutralize or deflect threats of extra-legal regulation. Neither is a healthy response; the first is downright pernicious, especially in a depression or recession, or the early stages of economic recovery. Both are responses that the threat of presidential bullying encourages.
Many of the President’s legislative initiatives, in particular the health reform law, the just-enacted financial regulatory reform law, and the credit card law of last year, have increased the uncertainty of the economic environment for business. These laws really haven’t settled anything; it will take years of regulatory implementation before their full impact can be determined. But in addition business has to deal with the unpredictable exercise by the President of an uncanalized extra-legal authority to bend business to his wishes.
It is no wonder that the economic recovery appears to be progressing so slowly.
Whatever the degree of carelessness by BP, they will be fined billions of dollars as various cases brought by injured parties make their way through the courts. Such tort-based liability is justified, but there was no good economic reason for President Obama to interfere by requiring BP to create a $20 billion escrow account, and to defer its dividend payments. These were simply politically motivated acts to offset the public impression (not obviously correct) that he was too slow to act once the spill was discovered. The British have been claiming that his acts reflect a protectionist attitude of the US that is anti-foreign business. In any case BP is strong enough to repay sizable damages without any presidential interference since its shares still have a market value of over $100 billion, even after a large decline in their value following the spill and the president’s threats."Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. This famous dictum of Lord Acton is as relevant today as it was when stated in 1887. It applies to the private sector, such as private monopolies, as well as the public sector, but this insight has become much more important in the public sector since he wrote because of the large expansion of governmental powers during the past 70 years.
I would only add to Acton’s dictum that discretionary power is even more corrupting than the power embodied in regulations. The most dangerous trend in presidential power has been the growth in presidential willingness to take many discretionary actions that not only have little basis in law, but also frequently cause great harm to the economy and the society at large. The harm consists of both the direct damages from the actions, and the often large but indirect cost from the increased uncertainty and fear about the political environment faced by business, unions, and other groups.
Consider two examples mentioned by Posner. In 1962 President Kennedy used various threats to pressure steel companies to rescind a price increase in response to a very generous wage settlement that the industry made with the United Steelworkers union. Even many economists then believed that steel prices and steel output had a huge effect on the economy because it was claimed that steel was an important raw material in automobile production and many other goods. Yet the value added by the steel industry-the most important measure of its importance-was less than a few percent of US GDP.
Moreover, forcing the steel industry to suppress the price increase slowed down the substitution of aluminum and plastics for steel in the production of cars and other products. Prices provide important signals to an economy of the relative costs of producing different goods, which lead businesses and consumers to respond by substituting away from inputs and goods rising in price relative to other inputs and goods. The replacement of steel by other materials would have been faster if President Kennedy had stayed out of the negotiations, so that the disciplining of the United Steelworkers union and the companies could have occurred earlier.
As it was, it took only another decade for the steel industry to be turning to Washington for help through higher tariffs on steel imports, and direct subsidies. If the steel workers union and steel companies had been allowed to bargain without government interference and help, the adjustment by the industry to growing competition from other materials and steel from other countries would have been faster and more efficient. Probably too, the survival of the industry without a government lifeline would have become easier.
A more recent example is the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that is still not fully contained.
It is still too early to evaluate the long-term harm from the president’s use of excessive authority against BP. However, the general anti-business tone of the current Congress and presidency that is reflected not only in various discretionary acts by the president, but also in proposed and actual legislation, such as the health care law, controls over executive pay, and the Dodd-Frank bill, are already slowing down the recovery from the financial crisis and recession. I have argued elsewhere (see, for example, the article by Steven Davis, Kevin Murphy, and myself in the January 4th issue of the Wall Street Journal) that the anti-business legislation, and the uncertainty about subsequent legislation, has contributed to the slowness of this recovery compared to recoveries from prior severe recessions. Unemployment has remained sluggishly high in part because both small and large companies have been reluctant to take on additional employees in an uncertain and threatening environment. Perhaps that is good politics, but the use of presidential and congressional powers against business is surely not good economics.
Leaked US files burnish bin Laden mystique
US intelligence files published by WikiLeaks feature a series linking Osama bin Laden to suicide bombings in Afghanistan, a plot to assassinate President Hamid Karzai and financial dealings with North Korea.
Sensational as the claims may be, a lack of corroboration and opaque sourcing suggest the raw reports will do more to burnish the al-Qaeda leader’s mystique than help reveal his whereabouts.
If true, the insights would challenge a widely held view that the Saudi dissident has been forced to relinquish operational command and serve more as an icon for aspiring jihadis since masterminding 9/11.
What can be said with more certainty is that Mr bin Laden’s flight from a hailstorm of US bombs in Afghanistan in 2001 was among the catalysts that turned Pakistan’s tribal areas into one of the deadliest cauldrons of Islamist violence.
While the US grapples with the war in Afghanistan, the emergence of an al-Qaeda-inspired militant federation spanning from Pakistan’s borderlands to its cities may pose a greater threat to the west.
“The new situation transcends Osama bin Laden,” said Imtiaz Gul, a Pakistani journalist and author of The Most Dangerous Place, a new book on the tribal agencies. “We don’t know whether Osama is still alive, but his legacy is very much there and it’s multiplying, and so are the militant leaders.”
Documents from among the cache of 75,000 Afghan war files posted earlier this week by WikiLeaks, a website that publishes classified information, detail operations involving Mr bin Laden since 2004, although the accounts cannot be verified.
Mr bin Laden is linked to a purported plot to use suicide bombers to kill Mr Karzai and is placed at meetings in 2006 with Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of Afghanistan’s Taliban. Another report alleges that Amin al-Haq, Mr bin Laden’s money man, travelled to North Korea via Iran in 2005 to buy anti-aircraft rockets.
Western officials say a campaign of drone strikes by the US Central Intelligence Agency has curtailed the ability of al-Qaeda leaders to mount attacks.
However, containing Mr bin Laden may be easier than purging his ideas. Mr Gul argues that the US-led invasion of Afghanistan triggered an influx of al-Qaeda fighters who taught techniques including suicide bombing and internet propaganda to Pakistani militants.
Mr bin Laden’s global ideology provided the glue facilitating closer co-operation between Pakistani Tehrik-e-Taliban guerrillas and Sunni extremists cells from the populous Punjab province. The result is an increasingly fluid network united by a common hatred of US foreign policy whose members can pool resources to conduct more sophisticated attacks.
“The reality is this is a confederation of groups,” said a US military official. “The distinctions are never as clear as we tend to make them on our briefing slides.” Some analysts saw evidence of such collusion in twin assaults on mosques in Lahore in May that killed more than 90 people.
Research says climate change undeniable and climategate controversy...
International scientists have injected fresh evidence into the debate over global warming, saying that climate change is “undeniable” and shows clear signs of “human fingerprints” in the first major piece of research since the “Climategate” controversy.
The research, headed by the US National Oceans and Atmospheric Administration, is based on new data not available for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report of 2007, the target of attacks by sceptics in recent years.
The NOAA study drew on up to 11 different indicators of climate, and found that each one pointed to a world that was warming owing to the influence of greenhouse gases, said Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring at the UK’s Met Office, one of the agencies participating.
Seven indicators were rising, he said. These were: air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, marine air temperature, sea level, ocean heat, humidity, and tropospheric temperature in the “active-weather” layer of the atmosphere closest to the earth’s surface. Four indicators were declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers, spring snow cover in the northern hemisphere, and stratospheric temperatures.
Mr Stott said: “The whole of the climate system is acting in a way consistent with the effects of greenhouse gases.” “The fingerprints are clear,” he said. “The glaringly obvious explanation for this is warming from greenhouse gases.”
Some scientists hailed the study as a refutation of the claims made by climate sceptics during the “Climategate” saga. Those scandals involved accusations – some since proven correct – of flaws in the IPCC’s landmark 2007 report, and the release of hundreds of emails from climate scientists that appeared to show them distorting certain data.
“This confirms that while all of this [Climategate] was going on, the earth was continuing to warm. It shows that Climategate was a distraction, because it took the focus off what the science actually says,” said Bob Ward, policy director of the Grantham Institute at the London School of Economics.
But the report nonetheless remained the target of scorn for sceptics.
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