About this blog

My name is Bill Hirt and I'm a candidate to be a Representative from the 48th district in the Washington State legislature. My candidacy stems from concern the legislature is not properly overseeing the WSDOT and Sound Transit East Link light rail program. I believe East Link will be a disaster for the entire eastside. ST will spend 5-6 billion on a transportation project that will increase, not decrease cross-lake congestion, violates federal environmental laws, devastates a beautiful part of residential Bellevue, creates havoc in Bellevue's central business district, and does absolutely nothing to alleviate congestion on 1-90 and 405. The only winners with East Link are the Associated Builders and Contractors of Western Washington and their labor unions.

This blog is an attempt to get more public awareness of these concerns. Many of the articles are from 3 years of failed efforts to persuade the Bellevue City Council, King County Council, east side legislators, media, and other organizations to stop this debacle. I have no illusions about being elected. My hope is voters from throughout the east side will read of my candidacy and visit this Web site. If they don't find them persuasive I know at least I tried.

Friday, October 9, 2020

Rebutting 60 Minute California Burning Segment

 (The following is from the "Waat's Up With That" website)

By James Taylor from Climaterealism.com

Prominent scientist and climate activist Michael Mann appealed to an asserted scientific consensus to chastise President Donald Trump on CBS's 60 Minutes program last night.  Ironically Mann himself ignored clear scientific consensus in order to promote his own out-of-the mainstream climate change theories.

While interviewing Mann, CBS"s Scott Pelley said, "There have always been fires in the West.  There have always been hurricanes in the East.  How do we know that climate change is involved in this?' Pelley followed up with, "The president says about climate change, 'Science doesn't know'".

Replied Mann,  "The president doesn't know, and he should know better.  He should know that the world's leading scientific organizations, our own U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and national academies of every major industrial nation, every scientific society in the United States that's weighed in on the matter.  This is a scientific consensus.  There's about as much scientific consensus about human-caused climate change as there is about gravity"

Mann's description of the conclusions of the "scientific consensus " however, is exactly the opposite of what scientific bodies report.

As documented in "Climate at a Glance: Hurricanes", the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climage Change (IPCC) expresses "low confidence" in any connection between climate change and changes in hurricane activity.

Similarly, as documented in "Climate at a Glance: U.S. Wildfires," U.S. wildfires are much less frequent and severe  than they were in the first half of the 20th century -- 100 years of global warming ago.  Moreover the IPCC reports a decrease in drought conditions- which is primary climate factor regarding wildfires- in the global region including the U.S. West.  Moreover, the IPCC finds no evidence of an increase in drought globally, either.

Ultimately, data, evidence, and scientific facts are far more indicative of scientific truth that a real or imagined consensus of scientist. Yet, to the extent Michael Mann wishes to invoke consensus as a scientific argument, the clear consensus of scientists is that Mann is promoting extreme climate theories that have no basis in reality


No comments:

Post a Comment