Hot air: Sarah Palin slams climate change summit

“The agenda-driven policies being pushed in Copenhagen won’t change the weather, but they would change our economy for the worse,” reads an op-ed by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin in today’s Washington Post. Highlighting the “Climategate” scandal, she argues that science is being politicized at the expense of average Americans, and that president Barack Obama should boycott the summit altogether.
Palin’s own limited grasp of the science behind global warming notwithstanding, there are a lot of ridiculous golden nuggets in the article. Chief among them, she says she “took a stand against politicized science” by suing the federal government for adding polar bears to the endangered species list. Not exactly the best example to give the Post’s readership the warm fuzzies.
Her comments are almost exclusively based on the emails that were leaked last weak revealing that some climate data had been manipulated to trump up global warming claims. “This scandal obviously calls into question the proposals being pushed in Copenhagen,” she writes. “We can’t say with assurance that man’s activities cause weather changes.” She has also been posting similar comments on Facebook.
Not surprisingly, the internet has flooded with responses to her comments from liberals and conservatives alike. Former vice president Al Gore, who has been pounding the pavement to downplay “Climategate” — urging that the emails were taken out of context, and their implications grossly inflated — responded to Palin’s rant, telling MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that Palin might as well deny the existence of gravity. Here’s a clip from the interview:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
The Atlantic came out with an annotated version of the op-ed, addressing each of Palin’s points in turn. For example, following her reference to changing the weather, reporter Marc Ambinder writes, “A classic conflation here of ‘weather’ and climate; it’s ridiculous to try and change the weather, of course… What the Copenhagen negotiators want to change is humanity’s contribution to global climate change. Two different things.”
The Wall Street Journal’s Environmental Capital blog also tackled the piece, particularly its central argument that taking action on climate change will hurt the fragile U.S. economy. Clearly, Palin emphasized the money piece because it’s what most reliably riles up the masses. But when you really pencil it out, not taking action could be even costlier. The WSJ cites one study showing that curtailing global warming will save $2 for every $1 spent on the effort.
The Washington Post has also drawn fire for giving Palin a platform. With no status in national or even statewide politics anymore, it is unclear why her voice should be represented, particularly on this issue where she has no demonstrable expertise. The Los Angeles Times published a roundup of pooh-poohs for the Post, including comments from ScienceBlogs writer Tim Lambert, who observed, “The Washington Post can’t go out of business fast enough.”
Not to say that Palin and the Post were spurned by everyone — several conservative commentators have praised the article’s logic and the paper’s guts. “Extremely well-written, factual, Sarah’s article goes straight to the heart of the matter and shows she’s totally up on the real science, not the bullshit being spewed by the high priest Al Gore of the church of global warming alarmists,” reads a post on Red-Hot Right, accompanied by the charming image below: