Thursday, October 22, 2009

Wellesley Walkout   [Chris Horner]

There was a good turnout at Wellesley College last night for my talk “A Quick Tour of the Ultimate in Political Correctness: The ‘Global Warming’ Issue, Agenda and Industry,” hosted by the College Republican Club . . . once presided over here by Hillary Rodham on her way to a thesis about Saul Alinksy, whose ghost (as we see) still lingers.

 

The students were gracious — particularly given the trying circumstances in recent days, including a faculty member (department-head level) expressing in a fairly open forum, with occasional lapses of civility, her sentiments about the club members and their decision to premiere Not Evil Just Wrong on Sunday, followed by hosting me on Wednesday. Oddly, her peculiar take on tolerance and campus diversity included an often salty angst over the students' supposedly showing no interest in having debate or discussion.

 

Odd, because she had been originally approached to speak last night as part of a panel. She said, in short, no professor would want to participate with someone “like that” (er, me). School administrators have now agreed to address the issue of this kind of treatment of a political minority (of which, as you can guess, last night was only the most recent instance). But, having failed to interest any faculty in joining me on a panel — let alone debating the merits — the students finally asked a different faculty member to speak after the film on Sunday. He declined and offered instead an informative lunch with his faculty colleagues — the kind who don't want open discussion or debate, at least not with anyone but their students.

 

So with all of that as prologue it was with curiosity that, during the Q&A last night, this second faculty member was in attendance with a (non-faculty) friend — the latter typing and receiving busily on a PDA, passing it on occasion to the former, who feverishly took notes. With said notes transcribed, he raised his hand with a slightly inane inquiry about whether, if we seek to heat the planet, is CO2 a cost-effective approach? On one level, I was pleased he apparently had no problem with anything I presented, though I did have to correct him for placing numerous words in my mouth in order to frame his query.

 

Moments later, after another passing of the phone, he wanted to know if I knew what the greenhouse effect was. I began to describe it, though not without interjections demanding that I direct my answer more to his liking (by chance, the repetitive and interrupting “you’re not answering my question” was the one typical campus Alinsky-like tactic I had mentioned to the students over dinner before the event began). In that context, I did get out that greenhouse gases in our atmosphere either (take your pick, there's a debate) absorb or trap radiation — “From?” Well, radiation comes “From the sun.”

 

“Incorrect! It’s a basic principle of how the earth’s climate system works. If you don’t know that you should not standing there representing yourself as someone who can speak to that point” (then somewhat muffled comments as he gathers his things to run out, ironically showing no interest in discussion or debate).

 

Well he makes a very good point, in that I walked into the trap with lazy shorthand — about which I know better, regardless of the circumstances, and which made what I said incorrect. As he collected his notes and stood to leave I inquired, “Which slides of mine are you disagreeing with?” This was followed by some undecipherable comment at which point he began his exit. I asked him to stay: “Don’t storm out. We’re having a nice discussion.” [Audience member: “Don’t. That’s the coward’s way out.” That only made him hurry faster, at least on the videotape I turned on when I sensed some good theatrics being staged.] My hat is off to him: at least up to the storm-out, he was textbook and followed it fairly well — though to no substantive point.

 

I do feel compelled to note, somewhat in my defense, that the radiation, as asked and answered, comes courtesy of the sun; and somewhat in a mea culpa, that technically — as I have described in numerous uninterrupted talks, pieces, books, and radio shows — the radiation thus trapped/absorbed is trapped/absorbed on the way out, at which point it is infra-red and no longer “solar” radiation. So, yes, of course it comes from the sun, but to not specify that this absorption/trapping occurs when it is re-radiated from the earth was without question my bad.

President Obama will doubtless be more articulate on this point when it is raised today across town at MIT, as he keens about the climate crisis.

While my misstatement does not exactly rise to the level of Gore reversing cause-and-effect of CO2 and temperatures, or Gore’s producer’s swapping the axis labels to falsely present findings (two things identified in my talk, but which apparently did not interest my emotional interlocutor), it was sloppy and therefore literally inaccurate. Of course, I don’t know if he really assumed that I was asserting a belief that GHGs absorb or trap radiation before it gets to the earth, but I suggest his histrionics thereafter affirm that it doesn’t matter. By text message or otherwise, it was decided that storming out in the face of ignorance too insufferable to countenance was the way to best attain involvement without the dreaded discussion or debate.

 

Whether that supports a tantrum by a fully grown man — if an environmental-studies teacher — is in the eye of the beholder.* His hasty retreat surely had more to do with a bristling Richard Lindzen sitting just over his shoulder than a fear that I would elaborate in response. In no indirect terms, Dr. Lindzen strode to the mike to express his impression of such behavior, likely not commonly experienced by a chaired Ivy League professor renowned in his field. But on the other hand, maybe such acting out is why he dropped out of the IPCC.

 

Regardless, it did this department little more honor than the behavior of the previously mentioned faculty colleague — and, I'll speculate, text-buddy — leading up to the event. The Environmental Studies faculty had already made a meeting necessary to address its behavior. Given that, as I understand it, the administration appears sincere in its concern for outbursts like the ones Wellesley has witnessed over the past few days, there should now be more to talk about. In any event, we got some funny video.

 

* In fact, after more than two dozen campuses, this is only the second time a faculty member has attended and spoken, though both stormed out (the former was at UNC-Charlotte; related, the ES department chair and actual Ph.D. climatologist at Knox College also stormed out, but only saying to a student "I'll get him in class, tomorrow!")

10/22 12:00 PMShare