The issue of climate change is quickly becoming one of those
issues where any discussion of it is immediately cut off, because the matter is
considered to have been settled. That is
a possibility, but anyone who has taken Politics 101 knows that the quickest
way to silence the opposition and prevent a debate is to act as if the issue
has already been settled, and there is nothing really to discuss. If some people didn’t get the memo, that just
shows how little they know.
I question the claims of climate change for a number of reasons. The first two reasons come from my graduate
studies. My work was not in the physical
sciences, but there are certain common features in most or all fields of higher
learning that are relevant here.
My first reason comes from the fact that science, like
almost all intellectual disciplines, values the latest research and findings
over that of the past. You wouldn’t
teach a class on chemistry with a textbook written in 1940. You wouldn’t even want one from 2012.
Scientists today can measure the temperature anywhere on the
planet at any time and derive an average global temperature. They could not do this prior to the age of
satellites. In fact, prior to the use of
satellites, the concept of deriving an average global temperature was wishful
thinking. Global temperatures would need
to be taken almost simultaneously in order to derive an average, and this was
impossible before the use of satellites.
I have no doubt that if this issue had contrary political
implications, all pre-satellite global temperature data would be deemed
inconclusive. And this matter of
political implications is the second reason I question climate change.
For many questions posed to researchers in any field, there
are usually not enough facts to fill in all the blanks, and the presuppositions
of the researcher generally provide the framework with which to interpret the
facts.
Facts can answer simple questions, like what was the high
temperature in Chicago on July 1, 2014, but they are like dots on a sheet of
paper. How they are connected to form
what picture depends on the person viewing the dots.
The prevailing narrative in Western civilization right now
is political correctness. This was
birthed in secularism, and other expressions of this worldview include
environmentalism and globalization.
Environmentalism is about a lot more than recycling and
getting emissions tests for your car.
The planet has become an object of reverence, and most industry is now seen
as harming the planet and reflecting human disregard for it.
Globalization is political correctness on a worldwide scale. It isn’t just about free trade, but it says
in part that all nations are equal, one culture is as good as another, and rich
nations became rich at the expense of the poorer ones. There shouldn’t be rich nations and poor
nations. It’s not fair. The wealth should be distributed, as though
wealth were either an accident or the result of greed and exploitation. The United Nations wants rich nations to
share their wealth with the poorer nations, because the richer nations are primarily
at fault for climate change.
Unfortunately, we no longer have rich nations, except maybe
Germany. All the other Western nations
are essentially broke from keeping up with all the other politically correct
mandates.
Since most scientists who worry about global temperatures
rely on government funding for their livelihoods, and the government is known
to use that funding to discourage dissenting views, and the government has
shown itself to be untrustworthy more often than not, and for the other two
reasons I noted, I don’t trust the hysteria that is now common with regard to
the climate.
In fact, I have learned to beware, be very afraid, whenever
the government says these is a crisis that we have to act upon
immediately. That is a sure sign that
the government will ask for a huge spending bill that will reward their donors
and further bankrupt our country. And
their haste in doing this is meant to keep anyone from finding out all the ways
they are going to screw us, even those who will be voting on it.
