I’ve stayed away from the subject of global warming before. The primary reason is that I’m somewhat of an agnostic. It is in defense of reasonable agnosticism, or the scientific method, that I finally speak.
A thinking person will see the subject as so vast and so ultimately unknowable or predictable and the costs of global warming advocates’ proposed actions so apparently unsettling – even disastrous -- to human progress as we know it (particularly in the West where technology’s benefits are manifest compared to any prior or current alternative) that a thinking person cannot blithely go forth with global warming warnings.
Yet the possible (versus what advocates say is probable) consequences of rejection are presented as so dire that I hesitate at taking a position that may doom us to climate purgatory or worse. That’s why the scientific method, the thinking person’s agnosticism, is most needed.
A hypothesis is disproven by failure to predict, replicate, and be simpler than alternatives. The scientific bases of global warming advocates’ forecasts is now largely exposed as severely lacking in scientific rigor and reeking of manipulative deception. Global warming advocates’ “proofs” are invented vapors.
But, this is not per se a definitive disproof of the hypothesis. It is a clarion call for any of the hypothesis’ advocates who have any integrity or deserve repute to come clean and propose new, transparent, tested and testable scientific work. Otherwise, and until, none of their severe remedies can be tolerated.
At the same time, it is a repeat lesson in exposure of the destructive consequences of the past 100+ years of anti-modernist, anti-Western utopianism pursued by leftists who seek power over the rest of us. Their prior “gods” – socialism, communism, fascism, for example – failed in every way. Their fears of an inability to compete, and their seeking of power and position, impels them to new utopian schemes that again reek of self-aggrandizement, now with global warming mania, regardless of the prices and burdens imposed on the masses yearning for improved living conditions and more freedoms of choice. This, as usual, fits neatly with the self-preserving enrichment and entrenchment of faux populists in the underdeveloped countries.
We do know that reasonable emission controls on engines, smokestacks and chemical discharges are beneficial to the quality of life we require in the US. Still, the costs, the loss of jobs and manufacturing, and the dislocations of adjustments have been tremendous. We now know that when taken to minute-reduction excess, the benefits are outweighed by the penalties.
We, also, know that domestic substitutes for producing energy – whether wind or geothermal or shale or nuclear, along with conservation efficiencies -- are preferable to imports of oil that fund foes and deplete our wealth.
As with more honest scientists, we need more honest politicians. They must be willing to take strong stands, lead, and persuade based on the highest empiricism – instead of sneakily impose -- in pursuit of reasonable environmental and self-sufficiency goals rather than in pursuit of personal profiteering and election contributions. Otherwise, as with those who fail to live up to scientific standards, politicians who fail to live up to democracy’s standards should be rejected. The established measures are clear.
