Sparkling and debonair, James Taranto – the Wall Street Journal’s self described “Tarantosaurus Sex” holds forth above – ladies, – he’s single! Don’t rush – line forms to the left…..
His take on the battle of the sexes is as refreshingly insightful as his climate science below:
“The contentious ‘pause’ in global warming over the past decade is largely due to unusually strong trade winds in the Pacific ocean that have buried surface heat deep underwater,” London’s Guardian reports. This is supposed to explain away the absence of warming:
The findings should provide fresh certainty about the reasons behind the warming hiatus, which has been claimed by critics of mainstream climate science as evidence that the models are flawed and predictions of rising temperatures have been exaggerated.
But wait. Why are the Pacific trade winds so strong? An Australian climate scientist “said it was unclear what has caused the increase in Pacific trade winds, although warming in the Indian Ocean has been cited as a potential trigger.”
Another way of formulating that hypothesis is that global warming causes global cooling, which has canceled out global warming. In other words, maybe the world’s climate regulates itself in ways the climate scientists have yet to figure out.
I suppose it was inevitable that some anti-science extremist would compare the doomsday claims of evangelical broadcaster Harold Camping with the overwhelming body of scientific evidence that says unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions risks multiple simultaneous catastrophes for human civilization.
It’s just sad that this extremist was the editor of The Wall Street Journal‘s online editorial page, James Taranto. His inane, defamatory piece, “The Christian Al Gore: The eternal appeal of doomsday cults,” makes one question the factual basis of every thing that appears in the WSJ. After all, if an astrologer and Flat-Earther can rise to such prominence at the leading financial newspaper in the country, and publish pure anti-science nonsense, then on what basis is there to believe that the rest of the staff is any more rational?
Oh yes, I forgot. There’s an impenetrable firewall between editorial and news at the WSJ. No doubt it’s as impenetrable as the firewall in Wall Street investment banks between the corporate-advisory group and the brokerage department.
Taranto’s money graf is:
To reject traditional religion is not, as the American Atheists might have it, to transform oneself into a perfectly rational being. Nonbelievers are no less susceptible to doomsday cults than believers are; Harold Camping is merely the Christian Al Gore. But because secular doomsday cultism has a scientific gloss, journalists like our friends at Reuters treat it as if it were real science. So, too, do some scientists. It may be that the decline of religion made this corruption of science inevitable.
Yes, because science has a scientific gloss, real journalists treat it as if it were real science. So, too, do some scientists.
Tarantosaurus Sex is beyond belief! Where does the line form to slap the s**t out of him? (I’m surprised the interviewer didn’t lean over the table and do just that). And Romm got it right—-how can anything the WSJ prints be believed if they actually think “TS” is worth a paycheck?
She was working too hard to keep a straight face to slap him.
Line forms to the left
Tarantosaurus Sex? Hardly, his sensitivity is more like an amoeba. But at least the amoeba has a valid excuse.
Interesting how the denialists have taken their cue here from the Creationists, who sometimes accuse their opponents of being members of a religious cult called “Darwinism. ” If you believe that the earth is more than six thousand years old and that Adam and Eve probably didn’t frolic with the dinosaurs, you are a blind fanatic engaged in “Darwinology.” And so on.
Many if not most AGW denialists are true believers in the god of the Free Market. For them, the greatest and most unspeakable of evils is when government (read “Anti-Christ”) intervenes in and regulates the private sector. So when some climate scientists suggest that governments must intervene and regulate the fossil fuel industry in order to curb GG emissions, well, that’s perfect blasphemy –unthinkable and unspeakable. These fanatics would see the world burn to a cinder before they would allow that sometimes governments must intervene for the larger public good.
If accepting that anthropogenic global warming is a reality and a very threatening reality makes me a “Warmist,” well then, so be it, I am a Warmist. For the record I’m also a “Sunist” (think that the sun, not the earth, is the center of the solar system) and a “Roundist” (reject the proposition that the earth is flat). I know, I know. I believe BECAUSE it is absurd . . .
“You said ‘Al Gore!’ Drink!” is the appropriate response to the tiresome Denier proclivity to mention Gore’s name whenever they can’t think of anything else to say. So, despite the cleverness with which Mr. Taranto organizes his words, his article has almost nothing to say, other than to trot out the Denier’s favorite target clothed, admittedly, in fancier language. Is there a fancy put-down to be constructed here? Sure, but, whatever, in the end it’ll be some version of
“You said ‘Al Gore!’ Drink!”
Ha… ha.
It also used to be legal for a man to beat his wife and children, as long as it didn’t ‘go too far’. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Honestly? I think he should KEEP talking, and talking and talking. He’s doing us a world of favors.
The Wall Street Journal is writing itself out of relevance, as far as I can tell…
That’s an actor, right?
no. that is a leading intellectual in the climate denial movement. GED and all.
LOL—-what’s the date on that GED?
I’d bet he didn’t get it until at least his mid to late 30’s. When you fail (as he surely did many times), there’s a waiting period before you can take it again.
I guess the remark about Taranto being admired by women was toung in cheek.
Apparently, he believes that intoxicated sexual assault victims are responsible for the attack.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/11/1276733/-Now-Defending-the-Rape-Culture-James-Taranto-Wall-Street-Journal
From the ridiculous to the slime, er, I mean sublime.
James Taranto has quite simply mastered the Orwellian trick of melding mindless mimicry with a vaunted credential. He’s the epitome of the logic flaw of “appeal to authority”. You’ll hear: “Why, of course the editor of the WS Journal knows what he’s talking about. How else could he be editor?” Then two winks and a nod and Taranto & Co. are off promoting the next pump-and-dump stock swindle.
Contrast that with real, honest-to-God-(or-Pete-depending-on-your-religious-pecadillo) journalism being practiced across town at the New Yorker and that upstart firehouse little shop-of-horrors called Democracy NOW (and then)!
The DN crew interview the New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert about her hot-off-the-presses book, “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History”.
For the thinking New Yorker, from the New Yorker….
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/11/the_sixth_extinction_elizabeth_kolbert_on
http://www.amazon.com/The-Sixth-Extinction-Unnatural-History/dp/0805092994/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392161008&sr=8-1&keywords=the+sixth+extinction+elizabeth+kolbert
[Alas, the actual New Yorker article on this topic is behind a pay wall. So, we’ll have to wait on that part of the story.]
From the ridiculous to the slime, er, I mean sublime.
James Taranto has quite simply mastered the Orwellian trick of melding mindless mimicry with a vaunted credential. He’s the epitome of the logic flaw of “appeal to authority”. You’ll hear: “Why, of course the editor of the WS Journal knows what he’s talking about. How else could he be editor?” Then two winks and a nod and Taranto & Co. are off promoting the next pump-and-dump stock swindle.
Contrast that with real, honest-to-God-(or-Pete-depending-on-your-religious-pecadillo) journalism being practiced across town at the New Yorker and that upstart firehouse little shop-of-horrors called Democracy NOW (and then)!
The DN crew interview the New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert about her hot-off-the-presses book, “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History”.
For the thinking New Yorker, from the New Yorker….
The interview: http://tinyurl.com/m6v9j3z
The book: http://tinyurl.com/l7gwd7c
[Alas, the actual New Yorker article on this topic is behind a pay wall. So, we’ll have to wait on that part of the story.]
Peter,
If you could remove my duplicate comment I’d be much obliged. 🙂
Once was enough!
NPR’s All Things Considered interviews Elizabeth Kolbert about her new book on how man is altering the climate and eliminating biological diversity:
http://www.npr.org/2014/02/11/275404707/the-earths-sixth-extinction-may-be-one-of-our-own-making