Wednesday, January 28, 2009

John S. Theon: New Elderly Denier On The Block

The lead:


Read on, however, and you can quickly see which way this one is going to break:


Read the last bit closely. Being "in effect" Hansen's supervisor is here contrasted with being "in reality" Hansen's supervisor--being the guy who gives Hansen his annual performance appraisal, in other words--which, frankly, does linguistic violence to the term.
So, in short, Theon was never Hansen's "supervisor" in any accepted sense of the word.


The "muzzling" of James Hansen occurred during the (2nd) Bush Administration, not during the 1980s. Having retired from NASA in 1994, Theon has no personal knowledge of the time period in question. Furthermore...


3) He's a geezer, and therefore fits the standard profile of a climate change denier.


...and he's a geezer that seems to have had some kind of conversion to AGW skepticism well after his retirement. In 1991 he seemed to be entirely comfortable with the line of Hansen's thinking as well as the use of climate models in general:

Undoubtedly, humankind is affecting the environment. Inadvertent climate system changes
brought about by mass loadings of carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), methane, etc., have thrust global change into the limelight. Radiative budget effects (i.e., greenhouse gases and global warming) and ozone depletion in the stratosphere certainly have heightened public awareness; however, climate change goes far beyond these fashionable concerns. The scientific community has to confront the myriad pieces that make up the climate puzzle. Scientists must discern the difference between natural and human-induced change, and decision makers must place the pieces in a manner that balances scientific recommendation against the demands of a higher population and an improved standard of living, which are heavily taxing the Earth's resources. be quantified and incorporated into climate models.

4) He's being working the climate skeptic "rubber chicken" circuit for about a year now, performing before such audiences as the Republican Women’s Club and the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance.
h/t to Steve from Brisbane, who did much of the legwork in the comments here.
And an update here!

16 comments:

Ti-Guy said...

He's [been] working the climate skeptic "rubber chicken" circuit for about a year now, performing before such audiences as the Republican Women’s Club and the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance.

Ayup. I could see myself doing the same thing as him, if I could believe I'll like the idea of being around cranky old ruins when I myself am one (and had seen a noticeable decline in my retirement savings in the last while). Chances are slim to none. By that age, I'm hoping to be hopped up on painkillers and watching Judge Joe Brown all day.

Scruffy Dan said...

Good work. Another fine rebuttal of the crap spewing from Inhofe/Morano.

You might also be interested in the funny contradictions that Morano has been spewing in order to 'discredit' a new study that shows that Antarctica has indeed been warming over the past 50 years.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/warm-reception-to-antarctic-warming-story/

Dr.Dawg said...

Hey! Some of us geezers do support climate science!

Ageist pig. :)

Unknown said...

I see the "muzzling" of James Hansen is dredged up again. The real issue is Hansen took issue with not being treated like the 'rock star' he believes he is.

Oh well. The whole AGW thingy is in Democrat's hands now. Good luck with it and get ready for some of the most wonderfully staged climate photo-ops you've ever seen.

Jamawani said...

But cootish, geezery dotage most assuredly does affect one's perspective on things.

Your statement above suggests that you conform well to the stereotypes of old that claimed that all Hegros were lazy, all Jews were cheats, and all women were mindless.

Unless you have evidence that a person has impaired mental capacity, even if you happen to disagree with his/her views, it simply is raw bigotry to spout what you do.

Perhaps if you worked with marginalized old people for a while you might have a better understanding. Of course, that would require an ability to empathize.

Ti-Guy said...

What are Hegros?

Unknown said...

"What are Hegros?" -ti-guy

One of these:

www.chiaobama.com/

Steve said...

Thanks for the hat tip: I'm the steve from brisbane that did the post at Marohasy's. (Oddly, it did not get any comment within that thread.)

Just so you know, I actually count myself as a social and political conservative. I seem to fall into the very small category of such bloggers who think greenhouse gas must be addressed as matter of urgency, although I think the potential for damage from ocean acidification is actually just as much a reason (if not a bigger reason) as AGW to take action.

I just thought it worth pointing this out, so that you know that not all conservatives bloggers are AGW/ocean acidification deniers. (Given the subtitle of your blog, I wanted to defend my reputation!)

Dadx6 said...

One thing I'd like to point out: Your comment in point 1) isn't necessarily true. Being in charge of Hansen's allocation of resources and other stuff, but not responsible to write his annual evaluations, makes it sound like this guy was a "dotted line boss" to Hansen.

I don't know, obviously, but I am saying that, based on what the guy says, it sounds like he WAS Hansen's boss in the "dotted line" sense. You've read the Dilbert strip, right?

Just food for thought, is all.

bigcitylib said...

Dadx

Actually, if you follow the update link you'll see the NASA Org chart and where Theon would have been on it. He is in another department and lower down the food chain.

KEvron said...

"Your statement above suggests that you conform well to the stereotypes of old that claimed that all Hegros were lazy, all Jews were cheats, and all women were mindless."

whaddaya mean "were"?!

KEvron

Unknown said...

Any time a scientist comes along and speaks ill of the religion of man made global warming, people come out of the woodwork to attack him/her on a personal level. That shows a tremendous lack of maturity and intelligence. Keep up the good work, green weenies!!!!

ghorner said...

Interesting that the only criticism of Dr John Theon relates to his age and a bit of semantics. Age has obviously made him more learned and difficult to fool with false temperature readings.... Hansen changed all temperature readings dating back to 1908.... they didn't show what he wanted, his computer models were wrong!

Keep your blinders on! The Antarctic is cooling, oceans aren't warming, and those poor polar bears are reproducing at an alarming rate... over two times as many as you "Greens" thought you'd find.

DataFace said...

The link to Theon's comment from 1991 goes to a dead page. I'd like to be able to link directly to the quote if possible. Also, if you have a link to the org chart somewhere from NASA, that'd be great.

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