Rebutting the Climate Alarmism Ideologues
A defining feature of contemporary Western culture is the establishment and defence of certain ideological shibboleths that dare not be gainsayed. These PC orthodoxies are enforced with all the fanaticism of any religious cult, and those who dare to resist are treated as enemies, heretics and apostates.
Plenty of such ideological agendas can be mentioned here. Homosexualism is of course a perfect example, with most Western elites and almost all of the mainstream media marching in step with what the homosexual militants demand. And woe to anyone who dares to differ.
Instead of an objective media which allows for differing points of view, on issues like homosexuality there is only one position. Contrary points of view are censored out, mocked and ridiculed. This was not always the case, but so successful have the militants been in pushing their agenda, and harnessing the coercive arm of the state, that a code of silence has now descended on any heterodox viewpoints.
Another clear example of this is of course climate alarmism. This has now become the reigning orthodoxy, and contrary points of view are not allowed. Those who dare to differ are pilloried and demonised as recalcitrants and worse. Yet some brave voices are willing to go against the flow, and demand that truth be heard in the public arena.
The warmist alarmist establishment hates this, especially when one of their own turns against them. There have been a number of such defectors, and they are of course treated as persona non grata by the true believers. But their voices must be heard nonetheless.
One of these is someone well qualified to speak on such matters. I refer to a former founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore. Several years ago he wrote a very important book describing in detail why he changed his mind on all these matters. I reviewed that incisive volume here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2011/02/19/a-review-of-confessions-of-a-greenpeace-dropout-by-patrick-moore/
He has recently come out with more heterodoxy when it comes to climate alarmism. One news report covers the story this way: “A co-founder of Greenpeace told lawmakers there is no evidence man is contributing to climate change, and said he left the group when it became more interested in politics than the environment.
“Patrick Moore, a Canadian ecologist and business consultant who was a member of Greenpeace from 1971-86, told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee environmental groups like the one he helped establish use faulty computer models and scare tactics in promoting claims man-made gases are heating up the planet.
“’There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years,’ he said. Even if the planet is warming up, Moore claimed it would not be calamitous for men, which he described as a ‘subtropical species’.”
Of course the true believers will dismiss all this, and throw out their mantra, “the science is settled”. Yeah right. As if. Only ideologues with predetermined outcomes in mind throw around this sort of foolishness. Real science is always open to follow the evidence wherever it may lead. And new or changing evidence makes for new or changing assessments.
Charles Krauthammer has recently penned a piece on the myth of ‘settled science’. He begins: “I repeat: I’m not a global warming believer. I’m not a global warming denier. I’ve long believed that it cannot be good for humanity to be spewing tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. I also believe that those scientists who pretend to know exactly what this will cause in 20, 30 or 50 years are white-coated propagandists.
“’The debate is settled,’ asserted propagandist in chief Barack Obama in his latest State of the Union address. ‘Climate change is a fact.’ Really? There is nothing more anti-scientific than the very idea that science is settled, static, impervious to challenge. Take a non-climate example. It was long assumed that mammograms help reduce breast cancer deaths. This fact was so settled that Obamacare requires every insurance plan to offer mammograms (for free, no less) or be subject to termination.
“Now we learn from a massive randomized study — 90,000 women followed for 25 years — that mammograms may have no effect on breast cancer deaths. Indeed, one out of five of those diagnosed by mammogram receives unnecessary radiation, chemo or surgery.
“So much for settledness. And climate is less well understood than breast cancer. If climate science is settled, why do its predictions keep changing? And how is it that the great physicist Freeman Dyson, who did some climate research in the late 1970s, thinks today’s climate-change Cassandras are hopelessly mistaken?
“They deal with the fluid dynamics of the atmosphere and oceans, argues Dyson, ignoring the effect of biology, i.e., vegetation and topsoil. Further, their predictions rest on models they fall in love with: ‘You sit in front of a computer screen for 10 years and you start to think of your model as being real.’ Not surprisingly, these models have been ‘consistently and spectacularly wrong’ in their predictions, write atmospheric scientists Richard McNider and John Christy — and always, amazingly, in the same direction.
“Settled? Even Britain’s national weather service concedes there’s been no change — delicately called a ‘pause’ — in global temperature in 15 years. If even the raw data is recalcitrant, let alone the assumptions and underlying models, how settled is the science?”
He concludes, “Climate-change proponents have made their cause a matter of fealty and faith. For folks who pretend to be brave carriers of the scientific ethic, there’s more than a tinge of religion in their jeremiads. If you whore after other gods, the Bible tells us, ‘the Lord’s wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit’ (Deuteronomy 11).
“Sounds like California. Except that today there’s a new god, the Earth Mother. And a new set of sins — burning coal and driving a fully equipped F-150. But whoring is whoring, and the gods must be appeased. So if California burns, you send your high priest (in carbon -belching Air Force One, but never mind) to the bone-dry land to offer up, on behalf of the repentant congregation, a $1 billion burnt offering called a ‘climate resilience fund.’ Ah, settled science in action.”
Someone well qualified to speak on these issues is S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and director of the Science & Environmental Policy Project. His specialty is atmospheric and space physics. He refers to recent remarks by US Secretary of State, John Kerry, that “The science is unequivocal”.
He writes: “A survey of more than 1,800 members of the American Meteorological Society showed that less than half believe humans are the primary cause of any recent warming. Reviews of published climate papers by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) report on thousands of peer-reviewed studies that contradict the alarmist global-warming narrative; the Chinese Academy of Sciences has published a condensed version of NIPCC reports. But many scientific organizations and academies are still sharply split on the issue of dangerous AGW (anthropogenic global warming)….
“Much has changed since 1997; but one constant is that the proponents of AGW have yet to publish any firm evidence that man-made CO2 is doing anything dangerous. They hadn’t done it in 1988 when James Hansen told a Congressional committee that we are headed to disaster; they hadn’t done it in 1997 when the Kyoto Protocol was signed by almost 200 countries (but never ratified by the US Senate); and they haven’t done it now.
“So the science about global warming cannot be called ‘settled.’ It no longer supports AGW — if indeed it ever did; in fact, there has been no significant warming trend for at least 16 years, while atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by more than 8%.”
But the true believers will not be deterred by facts and evidence. They have a new orthodoxy to push, and they will push it for as long as they can get away with it.
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/02/26/greenpeace-co-founder-no-scientific-proof-humans-are-dominant-cause-warming/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-the-myth-of-settled-science/2014/02/20/c1f8d994-9a75-11e3-b931-0204122c514b_story.html?wprss=rss_charles-krauthammer
http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/02/the_kerry_climate_capers.html
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Bill, great reference to Deuteronomy 11:16-17:
‘Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and he will shut up the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you.’
If AGW is a reality, could it be due to our nations rejecting God and reaping due consequences, rather than due to carbon emissions?
Let’s not forget the professors of atmospheric science John Christy and Richard McNider in response to Kerry’s demagoguing:
“The models mostly miss warming in the deep atmosphere—from the Earth’s surface to 75,000 feet—which is supposed to be one of the real signals of warming caused by carbon dioxide. Here, the consensus ignores the reality of temperature observations of the deep atmosphere collected by satellites and balloons, which have continually shown less than half of the warming shown in the average model forecasts.”
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303945704579391611041331266
Damien. From a Christian perspective I don’t think we will ever “win” with the warmists, no matter what we put forward by way of what we think to be scientific proofs for the opposite of their case. They will simply return with more “evidence” from their secular sources, much of it being scientism as opposed to real science.
We simply cannot argue or debate an ideology as all ideologies are man centered and as such are forms of idolatry. The AGW scam is no exception.
Their central premise is that man’s activity (AGW) is, or will be, so severe in its environmental impact, that uncontrolled global warming will destroy the planet.
Mixed in with any scientific discussion is the complication of strong vested interests (in renewables for energy), and associated politics/policies to diminish or shut down industrial activity, especially in the ‘developed’ world.
All this is part of the secular and/or atheistic view that man alone controls the “environment” and that it is now doomed through AGW.
Mark Steyn rightly ridicules the ‘warmist’s problem well:
” the idea that humanity might take charge of earth’s atmosphere through some supreme triumph of the global regulatory state over democracy, sovereignty, nationalism and political self-interest, the very facts of political human nature.”… is ludicrous!
But I believe the current debate presents us with an opportunity to witness to our sovereign God with counter arguments.
Everywhere Scripture assumes that men understand and accept God as both Creator and sustainer of all things –
(Ps.24:1), and the elements he has brought into being all fulfill his word and serve his purposes (Ps.148:8; Ps.119.91). We need not then fear for the future of the planet for God is able to take care of what he owns!
Likewise the NT everywhere reveals Jesus as Lord over all nature, so that “even the winds and the seas obey him”, and that “all” power is given to him in heaven and upon earth.
Whilst we can and should make true scientific judgements on AGW where we can, I believe our most telling witness will be to the sovereignty of God within his own creation.
Bill, re homosexuality, have you seen this?
https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/please-don-t-ask-vic-kids-to-try-homosexuality
I’m gobsmacked that our ‘leaders’ are so morally depraved as to encourage children to try homosexuality.
I believe in man made climate change – started with one man’s disobedience and really hit at the time of Noah.
In the time of the dark ages you had the “church” which told the people what to believe and if anyone disagreed, they faced the inquisition, the burning of their books and being burnt at the stake.
Now we have “science” and if you dare not to believe what the “scientist” say, you lose your job, face media blackout or ridicule. What’s the difference. Nothing as far as I can see, both try to keep you from the truth to gain power for themselves.
There is really not much point to pray for rain before we as a church clean up our personal and corperate act.
Humans are responsible for a lot of death, but it is due to their disobedience of God, not due to AGW.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
hi Bill
The climate change-one-world-government proponents have orchestrated what they believe to be a perfect scenario: to counteract rising temperatures, now they have to dump toxic chemicals in the atmosphere (via chem trails) to blot out the sun’s rays, which will in turn affect all life on the planet. Heaven knows what will be the outcome of all this tampering with our miraculous planetary systems.
Just another example of man believing he can do better.
Vic Trudeau
What the pseudo-scientists consider to be the most important factor for the Greenhouse Effect, is the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere (CO2).
To determine if this gas is really responsible for the Greenhouse Effect, you can do a little bit of research by yourself.
First you have to find out what the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is, and you’ll easily discover that its total represents 0.038%. Attention! That’s the WHOLE CO2 amount available in the entire atmosphere!
Thus, man made CO2 has to be much less than 0.038%! Right?
The question is…
When even the TOTAL amount, which is itself insignificant to trigger an endothermic reaction in the entire atmosphere, how come might it be possible to man made CO2, which is obviously much more insignificant than the total amount available, to trigger this reaction?
The answer is…
Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD – Jeremiah 17:5
Hi Bill
I’ve had an ongoing dialogue with a Christian friend on Facebook recently about the issue of global warming. I recently came across the following helpful website. You may be interested. It is: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/02/13/peer-reviewed-survey-finds-majority-of-scientists-skeptical-of-global-warming-crisis/
Also, another piece of good news is that the powerful Fox News video story “Global Warming or a lot of hot air” is available once again. It can be watched over the internet on the following site: http://video.foxnews.com/v/2123067994001/fox-news-reporting-global-warming-or-a-lot-of-hot-air/#sp=show-clips
Cheers, Chris McNicol