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And Ben proves yet again that after his show ended he became unimportant and the only time he gets any face time with the media is when he's saying something controversial instead of people listening to him for inspiration on a daily basis.
Welcome to Fox news Ben! Enjoy your irrelevance!
While I think Ben Stein is funny in a dry economist sort of way. I find it really sad that he's decided that global warming or climate change is not proven. When there is a clear consensus among scientists that there are significant changes taking place.
Remember kids Ben Stein is old, selfish and shortsighted — and not worried about what our planet will be like when he is gone from this planet.
Hmmm...I don't know. Every time i've seen the full clip or video of Ben Stein he has made good logical points.
I know i'm going to catch some flack for this but I think he may be somewhat right in saying that global warming isn't "proven." But I would say this meaning that the cause of global warming isn't 100% proven. There are good arguments on both sides, and contradictory arguments on both sides.
I have more to say but i have to go to class.....bummer.
Please don't hate. I'm not omniscient.
It is counterproductive for those who believe that man caused global warming or other climate change to call skeptics "deniers". That kind of word abuse puts articles like this in a bad light. Stein is a skeptic, as are others. A skeptic is far different from a denier.
Stein has zero credibility on science issues considering how he rejects evolution science and has produced vile anti-science propaganda.
I'll agree with John on this. By using the term "denier" you discredit yourself.
I've previously thought Ben was a pretty reasonable guy. Never heard him say anything about evolution, that's disturbing. It's also disturbing to read that he made a blanket statement like that. I hope media matters and daniel kessler are taking the comment out of context or otherwise distorting it.
Then again, Ben's comments about converting coal into oil and drilling off the coast of malibu make him sound like a guy who hasn't thought very deeply about this issue. Not like I was going to go to him for advice on climate change anyway.
p.s. to be fair, the IPCC won the Nobel Peace Prize, not any of the prizes for sciences. One might think the fact it is a scientific organization organized by every nation in the world and comprising thousands of leading scientists would be credentials enough...
Stein is right, just not perhaps the way he means to be. Science is an ongoing process. There have been plenty of scientific truths that have since been overturned. In science, it's OK to find out that the collective-we were wrong about something. People get endowed chairs for that kind of thing.
That said, as Kessler points out in this post, the best science available to us is currently telling us that climate change is our reality. Moreover, this isn't a conclusion that scientists have recently arrived upon, nor is it a conclusion peculiar to a single discipline. This is a strong case.
From an economic standpoint, I'm concerned that anyone interested in the economic wellbeing of the US would adopt a stance that rejects the carbon issue. It's an enormous business opportunity.
For many businesses, it doesn't really matter for the moment whether or not scientists are right. Markets are formed by behavior, by perception. Whether the market is full of visionaries and altruists rightly trying to avert serious climate consequences for people, or herds of misguided sheep willing to perpetrate ivory-tower science on the real world, a market for carbon-reducing technologies and businesses is emerging; firms and governments are buying. In the last 2 months alone, contracts for new wind farms around the world have totalled in the billions. A billion dollars is a billion dollars, even if most scientists are wrong. Why not exploit this opportunity?
So if Ben Stein is agnostic as some of you claim, why the heck is he preaching and why is he doing so on Fox? In my opinion it's clear he is a run of the mill exhaust piper with a scatologic agenda. A do nothing.
I agree that climate change is not proved. The scientific process rarely proves anything and it generally takes decades before enough evidence is gathered to support a theory to the point of considering that theory proved. But by the time it's proved, we could be in the middle of a global crisis that could have been averted or at least minimized through action.
What Mr. Stein and many of "the old guard" fail to recognize is that the action we would take to mitigate the risks of climate change is good on many levels — including economically. Unless, of course, you think our economy depends on fossil fuel staying in business. That's why "the old guard" gets so upset. I think they actually believe that we'll collapse without people buying fossil fuels.
I also agree that cap and trade is a bad plan. I much prefer a carbon tax. Money from a carbon tax could be used on clean energy. Money from cap and trade will only benefit the greedy.
America became an economic superpower by embracing new technology while the old powers clung to old technology. Are we going to be passed by because we're fighting to cling to old technology? I think we've already been passed.
After evolution and the impact of human activity on climate I bet next week on World According to Stein the Earth is flat and Unicorns live in caves in Antarctica.
Ben Stein is the same putz who thinks there is a grand scheme to keep intelligent design out of schools and infamously linked evolution to the Nazis. He's not a rational person and has no grasp of scientific concepts.
That's an argument from authority -- a fallacy if there ever was one. The IPCC is branch of the UN, a political organization, with a political agenda. The same goes for the EPA, which is now more heavily politicized than at any time before. In either case, they haven't "proven" Global Warming.
@ OrganicCat:
Ad hominem.
@ Jonathan Good
Argumentnum ad populum. Firstly, your "consensus" is a delusion. Secondly, "consensus" is not proof. Science is not a democracy, even if such a "consensus" existed.
Another ad hominem, just for good measure.
So many fallacies, and, interestingly, nobody addresses Mr. Stein's point, that "cap and trade" is a disaster which will only benefit speculators (like Al Gore). But then, what would Ben Stein know? He's only an economist.
As far as I know, Ben Stein (BS for short) is a comic character created by an actor. He's playing the same game as Steven Colbert -- except that when Colbert does it, it's actually funny.
And, yes, I've watched the BS show and read the occasional BS column!
After the farce that was Expelled, there's no way I can take this guy seriously, ever. He leans so far to the right, he's off in the fourth dimension. He believes science leads you to kill people and that the theory of evolution is a necessary component to genocide.
Duh, Ben, global warming hasn't been proven. And neither has atomic theory or the theory of gravity. But I don't see you complaining about those...
And most "evidence" I've seen skeptics putting forth has been cherry picked or quote mined. Stein's definitely right in his element with CC skepticism.
In science you can only disprove a hypothesis, never prove it. Stein is using semantics to reassure fox news viewers that they are correct. These are the same people who believe the bible is a historically accurate, the earth is only 6000 years old, and dinosaur bones were put in the ground by satan to lead people away from God - all things that can easily be disproved.
Leaving aside the question of whether man is the cause of global warming or not, the left's blind acceptance of a cap and trade system being low cost and the right's blind acceptance of a high cost cap and trade system that will devastate our economy is extremely frustrating.
I understand why the right (I'm personally fiscally conservative and hence right leaning) want to scare us into inaction but why does the left seemingly believe their own rhetoric when it comes to having a low cost? In order for us to move toward sustainability we need to properly account for and pay for all the externalities of our wasteful usage of our resources. To do that we need to pay a premium on fossil fuels which will in turn cause us to change our consumption. A low cost system will not cause us to change our behaviour. It's really that simple.
I understand that it is politically unpopular and so the left wants to downplay the costs but lying about the costs is a recipe for getting kicked out of power when the true bill comes due.
I suggest truth. Accept that it will cost a lot (not as much as some Republicans say but a lot nonetheless) and think about how to make it politically palatable. Cap and dividend makes a lot of sense when viewed in this light.
Bueller?............Bueller?.............. Bueller?
I don't think the left blindly accepts that a cap-and-trade will be low cost. Instead, we accept the data, which indicates that it will cost 1-2% of world GDP, depending on how tight the cap is. That's surely a large amount, but it is nothing extraordinary either.
The right, however, is just spewing hyberbole. A cap-and-trade policy will be far cheaper than the Iraq war, for example....yet did that wreck the economy? No...but if some Republican wants to admit it did, I quadruple dog dare them.
This man has no credibilty when it comes to matters of science after he said "science leads you to killing people"
@ Jeno:
Okay, so for a scientific theory to be valid, a means of disproving it must exist.
How do you disprove the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming?
Hello? Anybody?
@ Chad:
Except there is one important difference, which you don't take into account. The Iraq war yielded tangible positive results. If the intent of a cap and trade system is to ultimately control the Earth's temperature, how many degrees will it lower it?
You might as well say a $2 lottery ticket is cheaper than heart surgery.
Stein is the same guy who supported Bush's economic policy, spread lies about the Holocaust and denies the fact of evolution. Why stop with being wrong?
If you watched 'Win Ben Stein's Money' they never asked him many science questions, for obvious reasons.
"This must be done, on an emergency basis. If we keep acting as if the landscape were more important than human life..."
Offshore wind farms it is, Ben, I couldn't agree more.
"If we keep acting as if the landscape were more important than human life, we will make ourselves the serfs of the oil producers and eventually reduce our country to poverty and anarchy."
1) Human life depends on habitat and landscape.
2)We will make ourselves the serfs of oil producers if we don't go into alternative energies.
Ben is not a logical being, he wants to reduce dependence on oil producers by drilling more.
@DB
"How do you disprove the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming?" - DB
The general consensus understands the world is warming up. You guys need to offer alternative reasoning to this.
The Solar Cycle (every 11 years) as proven by NASA is at it's weaker portion of the cycle. In Australia during Jan. 2009 had record breaking temps even during the weak end of solar cycle in their summer (our winter) time. I'm sure your first thought will be it was them wildfire's that was set off by some crazy aussie's. LOL! That was a month later in Feb. of 2009.
"The Iraq war yielded tangible positive results. If the intent of a cap and trade system is to ultimately control the Earth's temperature, how many degrees will it lower it?"
What in the world? I can't believe you just said Iraq War yielded something beneficial to America. Name one thing besides paving the road for communist china to purchase $3 billion dollar oil field. Did we forget no wmd's and never capturing Osama Bin Laden? Osama even had beef with Saddam willing to fight with the Saudi's while they (Saudi's) were being attacked. Also, Al Qaeda formed due soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Cap and Trade is a means to make it more beneficial to sway to sustainable technologies such as Wind or Solar. Wind is only feasible offshore or 20+30 mph windy areas up in the mountains. Solar power concentrating trough's are available to sell electricity at half the cost of coal. Also, without the risk of massive coal pond leakage.
One big thing you conservative's don't realize doubling of fuel costs doubled our electricity costs. Mining operation costs are 50% fuel alone to extract various materials. Which also increased costs in many other field such as agriculture. Also, according to CIA PROVEN reserves.. being moderate and saying we cut fuel consumption by 1/3 we will run out of those reserves in 100 years. Which would cause complete economic collapse in developing nations leading to riots worldwide.
Some will say (such as DB).. but the average for the middle class increased value by $2,000 and you got a tax break. I'll say.. you barely kept up with normal inflation of 4% for every 10 years and also hidden inflation due to fuel costs causing trickle down pain.
@db
That's not argumentum ad populum. Scientific consensus is definitively an excellent way to measure current scientific theory. And it is definitively the way the scientific community functions.
Science is all about empirical evidence retested by multiple independent people. They all publish and a consensus is formed or a theory is thrown out. To say consensus matters not is to discredit peer review and seems entirely contrary to the function of the modern scientific community. Science isn't a logical argument that one man can absolutely set in stone: It's far too dependent on measurement for anything like that to work.
You're thinking of mathematics.
I've yet to hear any sensible proof that the consensus isn't there. I've heard about a dozen scientists who disagree. They should probably try get published: http://norvig.com/oreskes.html
Ben Stein's source, proof of his theory and intelligence has yet to be proven.
For those who want to see some background reality, I've posted a graph of our energy use from various sources over the last two centuries (from the US DOE's 2006 Annual Energy Review) online at:
http://www.sciencetime.org/blog/?p=116
I've also posted information showing the reality of global warming, and some consequences measured in other organisms:
http://www.sciencetime.org/blog/?p=95
Plots showing increasing sea levels, too:
http://www.sciencetime.org/blog/?p=125
If you simply want to deny reality, well, certainly it makes getting things done just that much harder for the rest of us, but it's a right that represents one of the great things about our country!
Will Wilson
It's still unproved that Ben Stein actually has a brain.
@ db:
Okay, so for a scientific theory to be valid, a means of disproving it must exist.
How do you disprove the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming?
Hello? Anybody?
How about we reduce human CO2 production to pre-industrial levels for 100 years and see what happens?
"Okay, so for a scientific theory to be valid, a means of disproving it must exist.
How do you disprove the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming?
Hello? Anybody?"
Good question, if somewhat disingenuous.
First, there are numerous small-scale predictions you can make, based on observations and models. For instance, if the climate is warming, one would expect to see migration of temperature-sensitive species towards the poles, or towards upper elevations in alpine areas. This is happening. It has been observed and documented hundreds of times over. From mosquitoes to polar bears to lilacs, species all over the world are showing that they are changing their life patterns in accordance with altered weather patterns. If none of these things were happening, you could say that the theory of Anthropogenic Climate Change was on the verge of being disproved. But they are happening.
Second, how to disprove the whole shebang?
The theory of Anthropogenic Climate Change has two major assumptions: 1. That CO2, CH4, and other volatile organic compounds really do warm the atmosphere, and 2. Humans, by increasing the concentrations of these gases, can permanently alter the climate patterns of this planet.
The counter to that would be 1. CO2, CH4, etc., are not greenhouse gases and do not cause warming, or 2. They are greenhouse gases, but by some unprecedented fluke of physics, it would be physically impossible for humans to add enough of these to the atmosphere to change the global climate.
If the theory is correct, and we do nothing, the price is very high: mass extinctions, loss of land to rising ocean levels, millions of people displaced, millions more starving, wars, etc.
That is not a science experiment I personally would like to take part in. And that is, essentially, what skeptics are asking us to do when they assert that the lack of definitive proof means we should continue with business as usual.
@db
I'm happy to address Stein's point about a cap and trade scenario. I think he's right that C&T is not a great solution to the carbon problem. I think a much more appropriate solution is to revisit the tax structure and the system of subsidies and publicly-funded risk mitigation that drives much of oil and gas finance and accounting, and which is central to the artificially cheap price of coal. Segments of government that deal with cleaning up after extraction firms; those that deal exclusively with the health and safety of mine workers; those that deal with permits and leasing for fossil fuel extraction; and much of DOJ's Office of Environmental Crimes should be substantially financed out of fees on the fuel, rather than from income taxes on everyone. In fact, I think we should do this irrespective of the carbon issue.
If we reduce the degree to which tax-payers subsidize fossil fuels, we'll see a natural, market-driven shift toward renewables.
"Argumentnum ad populum. Firstly, your "consensus" is a delusion. Secondly, "consensus" is not proof. Science is not a democracy, even if such a "consensus" existed."
So impressed by your Latin. Unfortunately it doesn't fully mask your ignorance. Science does not involve proof. You're thinking of geometry, perhaps. Science endeavors to gather evidence with which to back up hypotheses and ultimately theories. A theory with a tremendous amount of evidence backing it does not become proven or a law, it remains a theory, and theories are the pinnacle of scientific explanation.
Ben - as much as I hate to say it - is not incorrect in saying that global warming is not proven, but only because no scientific theory is ever proven. There is a tremendous amount of evidence backing the theory that the high rate of warming is due in part to human influence, and that is where we cease making knowledge claims as a scientific community.
Stein does like refuting well founded theories without evidence to back himself up. Let us not forget that he recently came out with a joke of a documentary called "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" in which he put forth anti-evolutionist and anti-science views. Evolutionary theory has a preponderance of evidence backing it up, and it is the cornerstone of modern biological thought. Any "alternative" proposed has been completely non-scientific, in that any alternative proposed has referenced supernatural causes, which lie outside the domain of science. Ben clearly shows his ignorance of the nature of science in this documentary, as he did when he made the quote referenced in the article above.
"But I would say this meaning that the cause of global warming isn't 100% proven."
Whenever anyone starts talking about "100% proven" you know they're jerking you around. Empirical science always contains uncertainty. But the overwhelming evidence of AGW reaches at least the 95% mark.
"There are good arguments on both sides, and contradictory arguments on both sides."
There are no good arguments against AGW -- none that have not been debunked. That is why there is NO credible scientific organization that denies it. Even the American Geological Institute, a body of the petroleum industry, takes a neutral, not negative, stand on the issue.
"That's an argument from authority -- a fallacy if there ever was one."
So many errors and misstatements about fallacies from db. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority
"Since we cannot have expert knowledge of many subjects, we often rely on the judgments of those who do. There is no fallacy involved in simply arguing that the assertion made by an authority is true, the fallacy only arises when it is claimed or implied that the authority is infallible in principle and can hence be exempted from criticism"
No one is saying that the IPCC can't *possibly* be wrong, but the burden is on those who claim it is to show that it is, since the *rational presumption* is that the IPCC knows what it's talking about in re climate change -- especially when it is based on *overwhelming scientific evidence* -- while there is no such presumption for Ben Stein or db.
As for the nonsense about science not being a democracy: climate scientists *agree* about AGW based on their *knowledge and expertise*. No one is saying that AGW is true *merely* because a majority of people voted on it -- *that* would be a fallacy.
@db
"Firstly, your "consensus" is a delusion."
Is your statement 100% proven? Is there a consensus that it is true? What possible reason would anyone have for believing it ... especially given that the EVIDENCE completely goes against it? In fact there is no basis for believing a single one of your statements, but plenty of basis for disbelieving them.
"It is counterproductive for those who believe that man caused global warming or other climate change to call skeptics "deniers". That kind of word abuse puts articles like this in a bad light. Stein is a skeptic, as are others. A skeptic is far different from a denier."
Nonsense. Skepticism about something for which the evidence is overwhelming is denial. To be precise, these deniers deny that the evidence is overwhelming, they deny that there is a scientific consensus, they deny that scientific consensus is relevant, they deny that Al Gore's view is representative of the current scientific view, etc. etc. They lie, they prevaricate, they dissemble, they lack intellectual honesty. The mild term "denier" is quite generous.
"So if Ben Stein is agnostic as some of you claim, why the heck is he preaching and why is he doing so on Fox?"
Indeed, this "skeptic" nonsense is just a cover for complete and utter denial. Stein isn't convinced of AGW the way that Richard Dawkins isn't convinced there's a god.
Marcel said,
these deniers deny that the evidence is overwhelming, they deny that there is a scientific consensus, they deny that scientific consensus is relevant, they deny that Al Gore's view is representative of the current scientific view, etc. etc....
Evidence is overwhelming? For years they have been searching for the 'hot spot' in the tropics that ALL the models predict will be there. They can't find it...the best they've done is to do a study that says it 'might' be there. Far from overwhelming. What else? Sea Ice, it's on the rebound in the Arctic. far from overwhelming. I've read several accounts of scientists that worked on the IPCC report, who disagree with it and tell how the reports are politically doctored. that's problematic. All there is is an observation of CO2 going up, and and observation of temperature rise, and an assumed relationship.
To say that we think we are causing warming, Dex, and them observing events that suggest warming means only that it is warming, there is no causal relationship there.