Climate Change Skeptics
Welcome Open Debate Under Trump Presidency
News
After years of imposed “scientific consensus” on
global warming, a number of skeptical climate scientists are hopeful that their
views may finally get a hearing under the new administration.
Georgia
Tech scientist Judith Curry, for instance, labelled a
“climate heretic” by Scientific American for
her contrarian views, sees a light at the end of the long Obama tunnel.
“Here’s
to hoping the Age of Trump will herald the demise of climate change dogma, and
acceptance of a broader range of perspectives in climate science and our policy
options,” she wrote last month on her popular blog Climate
Etc.
Part of the problem is that no one
really knows how many climate change skeptics there are among scientists
because of the high personal and professional cost of heterodoxy.
Dilbert
creator Scott Adams has compared climate
change skeptics within the scientific community to “Shy Trump Supporters” who
are too afraid to say what they really think for fear of being ridiculed or
worse. As we can plainly see, he wrote, “the cost of disagreeing with climate
science is unreasonably high if you are a scientist.”
William Happer, professor
emeritus of physics at Princeton University and a member of the National
Academy of Sciences, played his cards close to the vest for years in order
survive in a hostile scientific climate.
“I held my tongue for a long time
because friends told me I would not be elected to the National Academy of
Sciences if I didn’t toe the alarmists’ company line,” he said.
As the political climate changes,
however, climate change skeptics may find their voice and enter a debate that
has hitherto been closed off to them. Happer, for instance, is more
optimistic of what the future holds. “I think we’re making progress,” he said.
“I see reassuring signs.” Dr.
Duane Thresher, a climate scientist with
a PhD from Columbia University and NASA GISS, has pointed to “publication and
funding bias” as a key to understanding how scientific consensus can be
manipulated.
Although scientists are held up as
models of independent thinkers and unbiased seekers of truth, the reality is
that they depend on funding even more than other professions, since much of
their research has no market value. Thus, they will study what they are funded
to study. The Obama administration, which
doggedly denied that a climate debate even existed, funneled billions of
federal dollars into programs and studies that supported its claims, while
silencing contrary opinions. “In reality, it’s the government, not
the scientists, that asks the questions,” said David Wojick, an expert on
climate research spending and a longtime government consultant.
Federal agencies order up studies
that focus on their concerns, so politics ends up guiding science according to
its particular interests. “Government
actions have corrupted science, which has been flooded by
money to produce politically correct results,” said Happer. “It is time for
governments to finally admit the truth about global warming. Warming is not the
problem. Government action is the problem.” Thresher, who has done pioneering
work in both tree ring climate proxy modeling and ocean climate proxy modeling,
says that scientists know far less about historical climate than people are led
to believe.
Scientists us climate “proxies” like
tree rings and ice cores, Thresher says, as substitutes for real climate
measurements. The inferences reached are “inaccurate and unreliable well beyond
what is required for the conclusions drawn,” he states. When it comes to forecasting future
climate trends, however, the situation is even worse, Thresher contends. “Climate models are just more
complex/chaotic weather models, which have a theoretical maximum predictive
ability of just 10 days into the future,” he notes. “Predicting climate decades
or even just years into the future is a lie, albeit a useful one for
publication and funding.”
President-elect Donald Trump’s
choices for key cabinet posts have exhilarated climate scientists tired of
being black-balled as “climate change deniers” just because they raise
uncomfortable questions. Tapping former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to run the Energy
Department, Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma to run the Environmental
Protection Agency, and Exxon chief executive Rex Tillerson as secretary of
state signals a radical change from Obama’s conforming climate alarmists. Every friend of honest debate and
free exchange of information will take heart in the changing environment, where
every voice will be heard. In the area of climate science, the change couldn’t
come at a more opportune time.
More at http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/01/02/climate-change-skeptics-welcome-open-debate-trump-presidency/
More at http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/01/02/climate-change-skeptics-welcome-open-debate-trump-presidency/
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