Global Warming Is a Politcal Science
Dec 10th, 2009 | By Byron King | Category: Energy, Featured
Last week, the global warming movement crashed, along with its holier-than-thou “only we can save the world” aura of empirical certitude. It’s more like “political” science now — literally — and there are 3,000 e-mails to prove it. Down with the ship went the last semblance of unblinking, unthinking willingness to submit to draconian, Procrustean “cap and trade” legislation against fossil fuels.
The cause of the crash was a batch of purloined e-mails from the University of East Anglia and its so-called Climate Research Unit (Climate Research Fabrication Unit is more like it). When the contents of the e-mails hit the fan, the U.K. Telegraph headlined that “This Is the Worst Scientific Scandal of Our Generation.”
On this last point, we can now see how much of the conventional wisdom about carbon dioxide (CO2), and related “global warming,” marches to a drumbeat that permits no foot to fall out of step. The East Anglia e-mails reveal a transnational cabal of scientists whose ethics and methods mirror those of Stalin’s favorite biologist, Comrade Trofim Lysenko.
That is, these modern Merlins of global warming have massaged the climate data to fit their preconceived anti-CO2 theories. For many years, the climate change Godfathers have humiliated and intimidated scientists who dared to disagree. They’ve squashed dissent. They’ve blackballed academic journals that didn’t toe the line of politically correct global warming wisdom. And they’ve done it all under the rubric of “peer-reviewed” science — where they are the peers über alles. Nice work, if you can get it.
The global warming crowd claims that the climate change is a phenomenon that’s wholly man-made — mostly in the industrialized West, and particularly by industries in the U.S. of A. The science is settled, they claim. You can’t argue with it. No, indeed. And how convenient!
But as someone who studied geology (admittedly at Harvard, where they’ve been teaching the subject only since 1787) and has been in and around the earth sciences for over 35 years, I always wondered why the proposed remedies for global warming and climate change are not really solutions to the alleged problem.
I mean, the so-called remedies for global warming mostly call for U.S. and other Western nations to pay high-energy taxes on carbon-based fuels. And the remedies call for the West — especially the U.S. — dramatically to curtail CO2-emitting energy sources. Oh, and Wall Street will be able to trade “carbon credits,” like it’s done with such success in the field of mortgage-backed securities and the like.
Meanwhile, under the proposed cap-and-trade schemes, the developing world gets a whole banana boat full of unspecified “climate reparations” from the West, all while burning lots of coal and using more and more energy from any and every source. Huh?
To my way of seeing things, the proposed remedies for global warming never added up. Now, with the release of the East Anglia e-mails, we know that things were never supposed to add up. The whole global warming and remedies process is designed to lasso a perceived “environmental” problem and use it to fulfill a laundry list of campus-Marxist political agendas. And quite a bit of the mainstream West swallowed it, hook, line and sinker.
Now that the cat is out of the bag (to change metaphors), is cap and trade dead? Have we reached a teachable moment about things like future energy use and industrial development? Will we see a period of backing down and thorough re-examination?
Or are there too many big shots, with too much ego and too much money, already too invested in the man-caused global warming process to admit of any doubt? Follow the money, I suppose.
Then again, there might not be much money to follow. Sometimes, deliverance comes from the strangest places…
Until we meet again,
Byron King
December 10, 2009
Byron King
Prior to joining Penny Sleuth, Byron received his Juris Doctor from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, was a cum laude graduate of Harvard University, served on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations and as a field historian with the Navy. Our resident energy and oil expert, Byron is the editor of Outstanding Investments and Energy and Scarcity Investor. Byron has made frequent appearances in mainstream media such as The Washington Post, MSN Money, Marketwatch.com, Fox Business News, CNBC's Squawk Box, Larry Kudlow, Glenn Beck and PBS Newshour. He also had a feature article written in the Financial Times, and has appeared on both CNN and Marketplace radio broadcasts. Byron has also been quoted in various international publications such as The Guardian and De Volkskrant, and has been a guest on Canada's CBC television broadcast.
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Byron, dear, you are a prime favorite around here…but I’m a tired old lady right now. How did the bed of Procrustes get into this? LBT
Byron, lately I have asked many people if they know the largest cause of Global Warming. Of course people will mention carbon dioxide or high levels of water vapour. I then tell them nope, the largest cuplrit by far by over 98 percent, is the Sun! No one knows what to say then and I mean not one argument whatsoever. By the way, I am from mid-northern Canada and we are experiencing a noticeable cooling during the winter months. By this Saturday the temps are going to go down to the minus 40d Celsius range. This is approximately 2 to 3 weeks earlier than normal. If carbon dioxide was indeed such a pervasive global warming instrument, why have we experienced such cold temperatures that at many times are quite prolonged for up to 3 weeks at a time, not just a few days at a time as in the past? It is interesting to note that Sunspot activity has decreased the last few years as well as Northern Lights activity during the recent winters. Northern Lights activity is dirtectly connected to Sunspot activity too. Anyway, thank mother nature for the sun as we would not be here complaining about anything if it were not for this wonderful source of heat and light. Best Regards, CanadaNorth
Canada…how about “the largest cause of Global Warming is deliberate misinformation for profit?” We’re miserable right now, the Siberian Express having gotten all the way down to where we are, where it has been lingering for days. I figured you were probably in the seventies! Linda
Short sighted buffons all of you the left and the right so smug and sure of yourselves neither can say for sure if it is happening or not yet you all run around flapping your jaws back and forth with nothing but meaninless dribble coming out. the climate of the earth is not something you can easily quantify it is something that is just too complex to nail down there are too many variables not only unnatural ones but natural ones as well and change comes whether you are ready for it or not. this debate really of course has nothing to with trying to protect the planet because no one the left or the right will really change its all about money as it always is one side wants things to stay the way they are and the other side wants to make itself fell better(i mean pockets fuller) by offering carbon credits what a joke
To the frightened reader in Hawaii who reported that he is getting more and more scared the more he reads . . . read the report of the NON-Governmental International Panel on Climate Change released
on June 2 of this year. This is the committee that functions without United Nations funding and without
their mandate to demonstrate a relationship between human activity and climate change (remember
when it used to be called “global warming”?) They claim that thousands of peer-reviewed articles that
disagree with the conclusions of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change have been ignored
by the climate change advocates. Our friend in Hawaii might want to Google “Unstoppable Solar
Cycles” for a very scientific alternative view to the one that’s causing his anxiety.
Cheers, Dave
At least the scientists are slightly capable of embarrassment. I read that one even resigned from something:
Scientist: 01
Bankers: 00
Wouldn’t it be great to read which universities awarded them degrees? And for what?
Good thing they don’t question Darwinism.
They wouldn’t be able to lecture to undergrads about how we’re evolving the ability to act responsibly about global warming.
Warning: The video runs for over one hour!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....r_embedded
Linda had a comment on how cold it was since my last post. Well Linda, it got even colder than last time of even the weather forecast. Two days ago Edmonton, Alberta broke the cold record for the date at -46.1 d cesius. The previous year the record was broken too for the same date at a recorded temp of -36.1 d cesius. Obviously this new record smashed the previous years record by a breathtaking amount (hah, hah). By the way, look up -46.1 d cesius and convert it to fahrenheit, really, it will take your breath away. I am still thinking of our famous Dr. David Suzuki and your famous Al Gore, where are these silly sounding men now? Suzuki seems to have pulled a vanishing act and Mr. Gore? Regards, CanadaNorth
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