Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy, another of the inevitable "Big Ones" that periodically ravage the Jersey Shore, has predictably brought more calls to combat "climate change." The NJ Star-Ledger has run several editorials demanding draconian government policies to reign in "carbon polluters" and promote non-CO2 emitting sources of energy. Their editorials such as this one are full of vague approximations, false assumptions, semi-plausible generalizations, and so on, all leading to a call for--you guessed it--more government controls on industry and our lives.
"Something is terribly wrong with our climate, and it’s past time to face that reality," it opens breathlessly. The editors say that "Climate change deniers can still find an isolated scientist or two to challenge conventional wisdom. But every major scientific organization says climate change is a serious problem and that mankind contributes to it." Who are the "scientist or two?" How much does mankind "contribute?" Why is climate change a serious problem, and not a beneficial development? How much government funding do these "major scientific organizations" receive, and how does that funding effect their claims? And if most agree on climate change, what makes them right and the minority wrong? It was once "conventional wisdom" that the earth is the center of the universe, the earth is flat, and the human race can be perfected through eugenics.
I've left the following comments:
The "climate denier" charge is a straw man, since no one disputes climate change. It has always been, and always will be, regardless of the degree of human contribution.
So why use it? The "climate denier" straw man serves an important intimidation purpose: It is a smear tactic to implicitly equate opponents of the Left's statist agenda with "holocaust deniers" and thus Nazi sympathizers. This is quite interesting and ironic, given the American Left's heavily fascist economic ideology.
The government-funded climate "science" establishment is shamelessly exploiting super-storm Sandy to attack the economically vital and morally heroic fossil fuel industry so vital to our industrial civilization, in order to feed more subsidies to the "alternative energy" corporate welfare scheme. The editors want to "deny" the "ideological debate about the size and role of government" even as it advocates for a monumental increase in the size and role of government--an ideological position that Hitler would have certainly embraced.
The irony doesn't end there.
In a recent editorial, the editors condemned Richard Mourdock for attempting to "use the machinery of the state to force women into compliance" with his religious views. Yet what are the editors doing, if not using "the machinery of the state to force" their quasi-religious climate views on those of us who disagree with their statist "solution" to the natural phenomenon of climate change?
Related Reading:
There They Go Again
The Wreckage of the "Climate Consensus"
Aborting "CO2 Machines"
You Can't Fix a Hurricane With Climate policy--Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
Power Hour: Climate Science and Global Warming with Dr. William Happer
Power Hour: Questioning Climate Science with Dr. Richard Lindzen
1 comment:
You make some good points.
I happened to speak to a fellow scientist about this today. He thinks of human-caused climate change along the same lines I do string theory. It gets all the money and fame, but there are alternative theories for both, equally plausible but they get little funding.
That said; it is likely that human action does affect the climate to some degree (just like plants and bacteria affect the earth’s climate). The extent or this or even if it is a problem is debatable.
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