Science runs amuck: film at 11:00

February 1, 2007, was a dark day in Paris…sort of.

In a gesture of good will, the city of Paris doused the Eiffel Tower’s 20,000 lights for five minutes on the eve of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report consenting that global warming is “very likely” manmade.

“Very likely” manmade? Such strong, scientific rhetoric has not been used since the Catholic Church’s assertion that Galileo was full of heresy in his defense of a sun-centered galaxy.

Strangely, some experts frowned on the Parisians’ politically charged (and uncharged) move. They said that the lights-on, lights-off maneuver could actually consume more energy than simply leaving the lights alone because of a massive power spike when all the lights turned back on.

Still, it’s the thought that counts, right?

The communication and rhetoric used and surrounding the global warming issue is, well… let’s just say it doesn’t really fit a scientific issue at all.

Phrases like “consensus” (another favorite proof of the pro-global-warming group) and “very likely” go better with election results than the scientific true or falsity of global warming. The question of global warming is a scientific one, not one of consensus. Science isn’t consensus, because what is a consensus? Agreement. True science isn’t based on blanket statements of consent, for if it did, our earth would still be the agreed-upon center of the galaxy and bleeding would still used by doctors to heal the sick.

There’s also been a lot of name-calling. Usually scientists reserve the name calling for kingdoms, phyla, classes, orders, genera, specie, etc. But with global warming, the names are being pelted on people.

Scott Pelley, correspondent for 60 Minutes, compared skeptics of global warming to “Holocaust deniers.” And back in September of 2006, Grist magazine’s David Roberts wrote, “When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards – some sort of climate Nuremberg.”

Professor emeritus William Gray from Colorado State University, a staunch global warming skeptic and the World’s Most Famous Hurricane Expert, said in a Washington Post story that Al Gore believed in global warming “almost as much as Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews.” Elsewhere, Gray took a swipe at noted Colorado University climate researcher Kevin Trenberth, accusing him of “selling his soul to the devil to get (global warming) research funding.”

Ding-ding-ding. End of round one, everyone back to their corner.

Interestingly enough, Gray has been one of the few to acknowledge the lack of love surrounding the topic of global warming. “Yes, I’m incendiary,” Gray admitted. “But the other side is just as incendiary. The etiquette of science has long ago been thrown out the window.”

But if manmade global warming really is happening, if it really is a fact, then why doesn’t the entire scientific community agree to the facts? Facts are facts. The way I see it, there are only two possible explanations for the bickering and heated disagreement amongst the scientific community: (1) Someone is right and someone is wrong and the wrong side is unwilling to admit their wrongness, or (2) The heat of the global warming debate is being supplied by political and not scientific forces.

Last April, 60 scientists and climatologists came together to put in writing their views of global warming, and it’s safe to say they didn’t consent to the “consensus” of manmade global warming. The prominent scientists declared, amongst other things:

“Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future . . . It was only 30 years ago that many of today's global-warming alarmists were telling us that the world was in the midst of a global-cooling catastrophe. But the science continued to evolve, and still does, even though so many choose to ignore it when it does not fit with predetermined political agendas.”

The incendiary Gray would agree. “It's about politics,” he says. “Very few people have experience with some real data. I think that there is so much general lack of knowledge on this.”

In this Postmodern world, aren’t all viewpoints encouraged? Why the inconsistency with “global warming deniers”? Science is all about debate and not about silencing viewpoints that run against the politically correct grain.

“This scare [world destruction via manmade global warming] will run its course,” asserts Gray. “In 15-20 years, we’ll look back and see what a hoax this was.”

Why does no one listen to the skeptics? “No one can hear without a preacher,” the saying goes, and the mainstream media has clearly shown itself to be on the side of the alarmists. One of TIME Magazine’s recent cover headlines read, “Be Worried. Be Very Worried.” Frantic attention was paid to the story about stranded polar bears, but Sweden’s reindeer, starving due to the thick ice that’s guarding their lichen food source, were ignored.

Roger Pielke, who runs the Climate Science Weblog (climateschi.atmos.colostate.edu), said, “If the media honestly presented the views out there, which they rarely do, things would change.”

Another reason might be due to the money flow. Global warming alarmists are green in more ways than one: Virgin Air’s Richard Branson gave $3 billion dollars to the global warming cause; the Sierra Club’s 2004 budget was $91 million; the Natural Resources Defense council boasted of a $57 million 2004 budget as well. Who wouldn’t want to consent to global warming?

Is Gray getting in on the money? Hardly. Gray often attributes Al Gore’s rise to the vice presidency as the beginning of funding battles. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA both left Gray out in the cold and began channeling money to those who would consent with manmade global warming.

Then, of course, there’s the UN, which has the power to dish out money and prestige and recognition like ushers hand out bulletins on Sunday mornings. And that’s precisely what politics is all about: money and prestige and power. Neither Gray or other skeptics, like famous meteorologist Neil Frank, have been approached by the IPCC.

Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, sent a mass of chilly air towards the UN and its IPCC, saying, “It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists . . .”

Global warming isn’t solely a scientific issue. It is intrinsically political, for both sides of the argument, but the stronghold of consensus, supported by pillars of political correctness, is debunked by a large number of scientists who refuse to play the PC game.