He had Christoper Horner, author of The Politcally Incorrect Guide To Global Warming on last night, 13 Feb. Stewart said he had read both the book and the IPCC report on global warming. He found the book much more interesting. It had cartoons instead of a bunch of graphs and data like the IPCC report.
I wasn’t impressed with Stewart’s handling of the interview. I thought that the author got away with alot. Stewart usually chews these guys up and spits them out. I think Stewart had an off night. He didn’t come prepared with enough knowledge. And I don’t think that he read the book.
I agree that it was not one of his better efforts. I think he read the book, but was too insecure about the science to press the guy. Books on politics he seems to understand much better.
My impression is that there never was a consensus on cooling - certainly I don’t remember any sort of major press coverage on it. I doubt Stewart read the science section back then.
But this Horner guy was simply incoherent. Stewart’s reply of “What?” to his first jumbled rant was right on target. He gave the guy the credence he deserved, and let him dig his own hole.
I agree, at least mostly. Horner started off talking about ideas from 95 years ago (the Titanic and icebergs), 70 years ago (the Dust Bowl) and on and on. I think Stewart could have been a little more aggressive in places such as those. He could have pointed out that those things were a long time ago and climate science has advanced considerably since then. But he led Horner into a rant about “the socialists and the greens” and some kind of babble about a meeting of “the greens” in South Africa. Sometimes the best thing to do is just keep feeding out rope.
Is anyone else bothered by the complete misuse of “politically incorrect” in the title? As far as I know political correctness was about the movement about calling Indians Native Americans, and not calling the wheel chair bound Crippled and so forth. As Far as I can tell, politically incorrect in this title just means right wing.
The term “politically correct” ceased to have any interesting use a long time ago. Now it means just “the sort of things that a lot of people I always disagree with anyway like to believe.” It’s a way to pat yourself on the back for being a rebel, even if the views you’re advocating make no particular sense. Indeed, it’s a way to pretend you’re a rebel when the fact is that your views are practically gospel in one social group, but because they are unpopular in another (perhaps smaller) social group, you can claim that you’re defying convention.