The claim that the science debate over climate change is settled
violates the most important of Newton’s Laws. This violation is not of
the famous Laws of Motion but of a little known set of derived bylaws,
Newton’s Laws of Experts, a major contribution to understanding social
dynamics.
Newton’s Laws of Motion may be simply stated as:
First Law: every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion unless acted upon by an external force;
Second Law: the rate of change of momentum is directly proportional to the applied force; and
Third Law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
The bylaws, Newton’s Laws of Experts, are as follows:
First Law: every expert persists in his state of rest or opinion unless acted upon by an external grant;
Second Law: the rate of change of opinion is directly proportional to the applied grant; and
Third Law: for every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.
The First Law of Experts is well known and can be demonstrated
in countless universities, institutes and research bodies. There are
two major influences. First, the need to appear relevant to the wants
of society means engagement in the great issues of the day. This has
been brought on by well intentioned but misguided policy that assumes
innovations, financial, technical or other, spring fully developed from
academic research and national needs should determine the areas of
research interest. Read rest...
The global warming movement gorged itself on reports that recent years were some of the warmest on record. But when other years, such as 2006, were cooler than recorded, global warming threatened to become a bad joke uttered through frostbitten lips. But it turns out global cooling is also caused by increased emissions of greenhouse gases. Or so we are told. So now it's called climate change, rather than global warming.
That's not the only example. Take the term "greenhouse gases." Gas is never good, particularly in crowded places. And it's not a far stretch from "gas" to "pollutant." So limiting the emission of greenhouse gases--"GHGs," to the initiated--into the earth's atmosphere is really all about limiting the emission of pollutants poisoning the very air we breathe. Or so we are told, as corporations trip over themselves in the race to become the greenest.
Greenhouse gases, though, if one investigates carefully, consist mostly of water vapor and carbon dioxide, the latter emitted when humans exhale. But no one would grant bragging rights to controlling emissions of water vapor and carbon dioxide. Thus, the term "greenhouse gases" was born.
It's also common to hear about the "scientific consensus" that climate change is caused by manmade emissions of greenhouse gases. It's a made-up term. A "consensus" is "an opinion held by all or most" (Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th ed. 2002.) So "scientific consensus" must be an opinion held by "all or most" scientists.
Leave aside the inconvenient fact "all or most" scientists don't hold the opinion that climate change is caused by manmade emissions of greenhouse gases. "Scientific consensus" is like what Richard Dawson used to say on Family Feud: "Survey says …." Read the rest...
More than week after the big U.N. Climate Change Conference wrapped up in Bali last month,
Ms. Henny-Penny, founder and now Recording Secretary of The Holy Order
of The Sky is Falling, is finally back from that fabled isle herself.
"I was so exhausted from that wonderful conference, I just had to rest
for several days," she told us when we caught up with her this morning.
For
two weeks delegates from 180 countries talked endlessly, congratulating
one another on their perspicacity for discovering that if they cranked
down industrial society to a crawl they might reduce carbon emissions
enough for the sky to begin ascending again.
"The speeches were thrilling," said Ms. H-P. "Toward the
end, our Pontiff, Al Gore, brought the audience to a standing ovation
when he denounced the United States for dragging its feet on global
warming."
What did the conference
accomplish? we asked. She replied, "This was the 13th conference of the
countries that signed the U.N. Convention on Climate Change. The
conferees agreed on the Bali Roadmap. The official report says this
will 'chart a course for a new negotiation process to be concluded by
2009 that will ultimately lead to a post-2012 international agreement
on climate change.'"
"You mean they have met 13 times and this
time, after two weeks of talk, their great accomplishment was to agree
to talk for two more years so that -- perhaps -- they can come up with
something to replace the flawed Kyoto Accord," we replied. No wonder
the U.S. Senate opposed "Kyoto" by 95-0 when it was first brought up.
"Well,"
she sniffed, "As the Pontiff says, the polar ice will melt, coastal
plains and cities will be flooded and the temperatures will zoom if we
don't do something." When we said the Bali Roadmap sounded like a good
excuse for more two-week paid vacations in tropical resorts, she
mumbled something about "skeptics." Read the rest...
Dozens of eyewitness reports indicated that former vice president Al
Gore deliberately attempted to raise the earth's temperature in order
to boost box office receipts for An Inconvenient Truth, his documentary film about global warming that was released in May.
DESPERATE MEASURES
Former vice president Al Gore takes a flamethrower to the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica to boost weekend ticket sales for An Inconvenient Truth.
"We have accounts from concerned citizens that Mr. Gore purchased a
Cadillac Escalade SUV several months before [his film] opened in
theaters," said Kimberly Blume, spokeswoman for the California-based
environmental group Friends Of The Earth. "Not only did Mr. Gore use
his new gas-guzzler to make short trips to the grocery store, he also
left the vehicle running 24 hours a day in the driveway of his
Tennessee home with the air-conditioning on full-blast."
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