The Environmental Community is apoplectic over Scott Pruitt becoming the head of the EPA and the proposed Trump budget cuts. They tell us 97 percent of all scientists believe that climate change is real. And the point is? A few years back I read a rather long list of these scientists and most of them had no tie to climate science. This was one of the major issues of the Women’s March the day after President Trump’s Inauguration.
Let’s look at some of the facts and ask some questions:
1. Climate Change Deniers – That is one of the statements I love to hear from supporters. It is itself an ad hominem attack since there really are not any of consequence. As previously discussed, the climate is always changing so the name in itself is quite silly. When discussing this with supporters I always ask why they keep using that term. The Climatologists that I have read or interviewed have been consistent. They state the climate is changing and add that man has some portion of that effect, but we just cannot prove the models that are used by climate change supporters to back up their claims of projecting out decades from now and man’s effect on the climate.
One would think if legitimate climate scientists come forth and state they cannot verify the models then others would question the models. But that is a no.
2. Global Warming vs. Climate Change – When all this attention started to happen, it was referred to as “global warming.” Now it is “climate change.” Why the change in nomenclature? Try to get a coherent answer from supporters. That is not possible. I think it was because they were being brutalized because there had been a cooling trend from 1940 through the mid-70s.
3. Discrediting Opponents – One of the things that brings into question the creditability of the supporters of this movement is their need to denigrate the people who express a non-conforming opinion. It starts with point one above, but there are multiple cases of scientists who varied from the orthodoxy who were attacked and belittled:
Lennart Bengtsson, a Swedish Meteorologist, came out and questioned Global Warming in 2014. Fifteen days after he joined the Global Warming Policy Foundation he quit because he was being harassed. Bengtsson stated he had come under "an enormous group pressure. I see no limit and end to what will happen. It is a situation that reminds me about the time of McCarthy. I would never have expecting anything similar in such an original peaceful community as meteorology. Apparently it has been transformed in recent years. I had not expecting such an enormous world-wide pressure put at me from a community that I have been close to all my active life."
Judith Curry is an American climatologist and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She recently quit her position fed up with the tribal nature of the climate-science community and the stonewalling over the release of data and its analysis for independent review.
This is just two examples, but if the strength of your case is there then why would you need to take actions against people like these to suppress legitimate questioning or peer review.
4. Settled Science – Yes, gravity is settled science; this is not. The Theory of Relativity was something we lived with all our lives. Who does not know Einstein’s theory? We accepted it as is, but it was just recently proven. The entire idea of using this term questions the scientific basis of the arguments being made and is just another way to browbeat the opponents.
5. Funding Sources – The supporters frequently question the veracity of the opponents because of their funding sources. The implication is that the scientists supporting the climate change orthodoxy are pure of heart and wallet. That could not be any further from the truth. They do their own back flips to receive funding and the creditability of their sources are just as questionable as the ones who don’t support the orthodoxy.
6. Hottest Years on Record – I am sure you recently heard that 2016 was the hottest year on record. They will cite 16 of the 17 warmest years have been in this century. But did you know that the survey they cite goes back a total of 136 years. And the earth is 4.5 billion years old. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t trust the temperature measurements done in the 19th century. In fact, I trust them very little until after 1950. Stating these are the hottest years on record means exactly what? And did you know that the increase last year, which was affected by El Nino, was .04 degrees Celsius. That means if everything continued on with similar increases it would take 25 years to increase one degree.
7. The Climate Models – The scientists who question the orthodoxy of climate change often cite they cannot prove the models that are used by the supporters. But you don’t even need to be a famous climatologist to question this. Do you believe that these people can predict the weather at the end of this century – 83 years from now? La Nina was supposed to hit in Southern California in 2016. It appears to have shown up this year. They cannot even get that right. Yet they want to significantly reorient the energy sources in our society. And what happens 83 years from now if they are wrong – do they just say “sorry”?
8. Rigged Numbers - The recent revelation by a whistleblower that the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provided rigged numbers to the people behind the Paris Accord shocked everyone except for those who blindly believe all regarding climate change. This validated that the supporters have ulterior motives that drive their interests beyond good science.
This isn’t to say that man has not had some effect on the atmosphere or that we are not going through a period of global warming. These are just some points to bring in to question the militant orthodoxy of the current climate change universe.