Oregon doesn’t have a state climatologist

February 9, 2007

It’s amazing to me just how rough conservative blogs have had it lately. Every time the right’s blogs think they’re on to something big, they end up getting the story backwards and looking rather foolish. I’m starting to feel kind of bad for them.

First there was Cliff May’s email from a Marine about Iraq and the media, which conservatives jumped all over, which turned out to be wrong. Then there was a picture of John Kerry in Iraq that was “proof” that the troops resented him, which also turned out to be wrong. Then there was Capt. Jamil Hussein, which has turned out to be a humiliating story for the right. Conservative blogs said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was dead when he wasn’t; they said Barack Obama was educated in a madrassa; and they said Nancy Pelosi demanded a luxurious military jet. It’s early yet, but one wonders if 2007 will be the year in which conservative blogs get everything wrong.

This week, much of the right end of the blogosphere believed it had finally found a good one — George Taylor, billed as the official state climatologist for Oregon, has been arguing against global warming, a position which will reportedly cost him his job. Conservative blogs pounced. One said, “When a scientist DARES to question the holy seat of Global Warming then you better get ready for the unemployment line.” Another added, “Can your job really be at risk if you don’t buy into the junk science of anthropogenic global warming? Well, that certainly seems to be the case in Oregon…. Isn’t the Party on the left marketed as the big tent of tolerance?” Similar posts appeared all over the far-right blogs. One even compared George Taylor to Galileo.

Unfortunately for our friends on the other side of the political spectrum, they’ve flubbed another one.

At first blush, the conservative complaints appear misguided on their face. Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D) doesn’t want a “state climatologist” that rejects the overwhelming evidence embraced by the scientific community on climate change. This hardly seems outrageous — if a Surgeon General went around saying that incredible healing magnets can cure cancer, I’d expect most chief executives to say, “Thanks for your service. You’re fired.” Similarly, if Taylor is going around contradicting state policy and scientific consensus on global warming, it’s hardly surprising that Kulongoski would want a better spokesperson on the issue.

But as it turns out, there’s more to this story, including key details the right seems to have overlooked entirely.

1) Taylor is not the “state climatologist.” Oregon abolished the position in 1989. He was bestowed the title by Oregon State University, not by Gov. Kulongoski or the state of Oregon.

2) Taylor is not a “climatologist.” Taylor is a meteorologist. He does not possess a PhD or have a background in climatology.

3) He will not be fired. Taylor will not lose his job or income, which comes from Oregon State University. He will merely be stripped of his title, which he never earned but claims to retain. Gov. Kulongoski has the right to appoint a climatologist who is an expert in the field and adheres to the state’s climate policies.

In other words, the three key parts of conservative complaints — State Climatologist Taylor is going to be fired — are all entirely wrong.

I’m sure conservative blogs will get a story right one of these days, right?

Well, we all know which end the right wingnut blogs use for vocalizing their complaints. More proof.

  • One is surprised by the fact that a group of people who as a class fully demonstrate the colossal failure of home schooling, a gaggle of dweebs with fifth-rate “educations,” still living in mom’s basement in their 30s, always fail at getting anything right?

    C’mon! the “smart ones” over there are a failed Hollywood screenwriter who never wrote anything good (Roger L. Simon), a failed Stalinist con-artist (David Horror-wits), and Michelle Malkin – proof that there is a life after “working years” for an aging Olongapo “boom-boom” girl – she was fired at all the “real media” companies she worked for, for incompetence.

    And these are the “smart ones” who figured out that failing in real life was a good background for conning all the quarter-wits in RightieWorld. Remember, these are people who think Ted Nugent has talent.

  • In other words, the three key parts of conservative complaints — State Climatologist Taylor is going to be fired — are all entirely wrong.

    Four elements, actually. And they did get his name right, didn’t they?

  • Climatologist, meteorologist, astrologist, proctologist — I can never remember which is which.

  • The trouble is that so many people hear the original charge and often don’t hear about the follow-up correction. The right wing voting public, especially those with only marginal attention to the news, seem to keep believing these stories long after they are debunked. Before the ’08 election, I bet I’m still hearing people talking about Pelosi’s bigger plane so she can have family gatherings. These people are pitiful, but dangerously pitiful. Dangerous to the republic.

  • It’s not lying.

    It’s ‘serving a higher Truth’.

    The truth-content of an utterance is a function of the extent to which that utterance supports the role of the Party as the vanguard of the Revolution.

    The Warsaw Pact is history, the Soviet Union has gone the way of the Hittites, state socialism is going the way of phrenology and Ptolemaic astronomy, but the Bolsheviks have won.

    Somewhere Lenin is laughing his spectral ass off.

  • They just blindly throw it at the walls and hope something sticks. Everyone is a victim in the right wing monkey house. And just as soon as they can figure out what they’re victims of, there will be hell to pay for all the crap dripping from their walls!

  • it’s faith-based blogging – just becausse one of their own publishes it, they all repreat it as fact – accompanied by a lot of invective and spittle – but absolutely no independent research or verification. They aren’t really being paid to do that kind of *work* (would probably put a scare into their payroll masters if one or some of them actually started doing independent research – wouldn’t it?)

  • Back in my college days (late ’50s into mid-’60s) I used to make a habit of reading conservative rags such as National Review and Human Events because I wanted a check on my tendency for unbridled liberal politics, whether Democratic or Republican (there really were liberal Republicans, especially in San Francisco).

    I noticed that the conservatives did a much better job of describing their losing battle against ongoing social change. Unlike the liberals of those days, they empirically documented what they didn’t care for in the actual changes taking place back then. They were almost as good at documentation as the far left Socialist and Communist newspapers of that time.

    Today’s right wing hack-pundits don’t give a damn about facts. It’s like they’ve got a delusional religion to promote, and facts be damned. And, like the other scam religionists, these guys don’t care much about the validity of the credentials either. I’m sure Taylor will go ahead calling himself some kind of “official state climatologist” without impunity.

  • Not only we not have a state “climatologist”, but the meteorologist claiming the title knowledge of Oregon is limited to a hundred mile strip alon the coast – specifically west ofThe Cascades. There’s quite a bit more to Oregon than the Willamette Valley (think Montana without all the romanticism).

  • Taylor is trained as a meteorologist and was permitted the title of “state climatologist” by a department head at a university, due to his job duties being similar to what was the official state climatologist’s before the position was eliminated due to funding cuts.

    There is a difference between climate science and meteorology (Taylor’s area of expertise.) The difference is in the periodicity of natural events and conditions they study. A meteorologist, given the limited time frame they look at, will claim that variability in current weather from other reported historic weather patterns can be explained by the many ocean-dependent weather cycles such as El Nino/ La Nina (ENSO), Madden-Julien Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and other recently discovered cycles.

    A climatologist will look at a far longer time scale and will observe other variables such as composition of the atmoshere, variability in earth tilt, changes in earth’s orbit around the sun, eccentricity of the earth’s diurnal rotation, historic events that changed atmospheric conditions such as volcanic erruptions and other large-scale events and examine long range markers of climate such as tree-ring studies.

    You look at the world through the glasses your training gave you. That Taylor’s training literally provides him with a short-sighted perspective makes his professional opinions less worthy than his more qualified peers that would disagree with him. I know plenty of folks involved in looking at climate and hydrology from a long-term perspective. All of them are scared sh*tless about our climactic future.

  • These guys do nothing for the good of anything. They are like a gang of rock-throwers, heaving rocks at anything that walks by, only excited when they hit something. Then they gloat. Doesn’t even matter what it was about. They only stand down and hide when there are more rocks being thrown at them. Fortunately, everyone else has better things to do than standing around throwing rocks. They are like disgusting, vomit covered drunks who think the look like Don Juan, they truly can never see themselves as they are…but we can…yuk.

  • In other words, the three key parts of conservative complaints — State Climatologist Taylor is going to be fired — are all entirely wrong.

    At least his name actually is Taylor, as far as we know.

  • It’s early yet, but one wonders if 2007 will be the year in which conservative blogs get everything wrong.

    Great, so now we’re going to see right wing blogs on the cover of Time again. bleh.

  • It’s early yet, but one wonders if 2007 will be the year in which conservative blogs get everything wrong.

    And how would this be different from any other year?

  • “One is surprised by the fact that a group of people who as a class fully demonstrate the colossal failure of home schooling, a gaggle of dweebs with fifth-rate “educations…”

    Hey Tommy, ease up on the homeschoolers. I homeschooled both my kids and they’ve grown up just fine, thank you. My daughter’s a physicist, my son’s a world traveler at a great college, both committed liberal atheists/agnostics who are as rabid as you are in most of the same ways.

    I’ll admit, though, that when discussing home schooling, my daughter has told me that, “Most homeschooled kids are pretty screwed up.” FWIW

  • I’m the head of the NIH, but I think evolution is just a theory.

    None of which prevented this nonsense from a writeup in the Arizona Republic’s all-spin editorial page:

    “George Taylor is a climate scientist at Oregon State who is skeptical about the extent of mankind’s contribution to global warming. By itself, that’s enough to bring the wrath of Al Gore upon him. But Taylor also is Oregon’s state climatologist. Oregon officially believes in mankind- spawned global warming. So, the guv wants him fired: “I just think there has to be somebody that says, ‘This is the state position on this,’ ” Gov. Ted Kulongoski said. Oregon doesn’t need a climatologist. It needs a puppet.”

    Not holding my breath for a correction.

  • But WTF; here’s my letter to the Repub, which they won’t print. Thanks to Sarabeth for the borrowed wisecrack:

    You can set your compass by Doug MacEachern. “George Taylor is a climate scientist.” He’s a meteorologist, and has no PhD and no background in climatology. “Taylor also is Oregon’s state climatologist.” Oregon abolished the office in 1989. “The guv wants him fired.” So? Taylor is keeping his job at Oregon State U. That’s three for three. Doug probably got Taylor’s name right. This was supposed to be an example of political correctness run amok. But if we had surgeon general who denied the germ theory of disease, we’d rightly demand that he be replaced by somebody who knows what he’s talking about.

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