Can we agree to tolerate disagreement?
Swedish climatologist Lennart Bengtsson’s “defection” from an alleged climatological consensus has been greeted with hysteria from some colleagues. His sin was joining the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which challenges the received wisdom.
The alleged scientific consensus is that mankind, in its industrial phase, is not only a cause but the pivotal cause of recent global warming/“climate change.” Also that our carbonic effusions are triggering not mild, normal, nothing-to-panic-about global climate variation but imminently catastrophic variation.
Is it okay to dispute these and related hypotheses?
Debate about complex scientific contentions isn’t a bad thing. New knowledge is gained both by positive investigation and by correcting errors and misinterpretations. One does not abet scientific inquiry by treating any challenges to a favored explanation as per se illicit, regardless of evidence or argument.
But Bengtsson reports that he has been subjected to enormous pressure “from all over the world that has become virtually unbearable to me … I see therefore no other way out … than resigning from GWPF. I had not been expecting such an enormous world-wide pressure … from a community that I have been close to all my active life.”
What’s the message? “Regardless of your reasons or credentials, don’t dare deviate from our ‘consensus,’ at least not publicly — or else we’ll make your life very very hard.” Whatever the motives and goals here, they have nothing to do with either the methodological or the social requirements of science.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
6 replies on “A Sweltering Storm of Orthodoxy”
Yes, and the truth of the matter is governments are changing the weather, heating the planet, and destroying the biosphere via geoengineering, especially stratospheric toxic aerosol spraying worldwide – though mainly on NATO countries. They are creating the monster their covert programs have purportedly been aimed to solve. Ref. http://www.SkyderAlert.com, geoengineeringwatch.org, and this video trailer Look UP! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1TRQpJrYmU).
Once again Paul I have to caution you that the spam check arithmetic is becoming overly challenging. You’re going to lose followers. 🙂
In 1066, William the Conquer landed troops at the old Roman fort of Pezveney castle on Pevensey island on the coast of England, prior to his executing the Norman Invasion of England. It was connected to the mainland by drawbridge.
It is now a mile inland.
For a thousand years, Pisa, Italy was a major seaport and trade center. It is now 5 miles inland.
Neither town has risen.
The sea has fallen.
The oceans are now trying to return to their normal level.
The government is using this as a excuse to usurp power and control.
So what was the “enormous pressure” Bengtsson is under? Did someone threaten to break his legs? If a member of the dog fighting community was to join PETA, do you think he would have some “pressure”? Someone tell him that switching sides is always stressful and that he can stop whining.
I do not see this as whining. I see it as a scientist not going along with ” the in thing” of the moment. When i was in college, it was global cooling. That scenario-FL would have major snowstorms and blizzards; the farm belt would be covered by glaciers; etc Now, the seas would eb rising, etc.
But, the grrat oen said the debate is over, so all must be like lemmings, and spend ourselves further into insolvency so a chsoen few ( friends of the great one) can make money; and nothign is really accomplished.
I once saw a great cartoon. Two cavemen were talking. One said to the otehr ” this weather change, all because of these new weapons- these bows and arrows. They are changing everything”. (approximate wording)
Now, it si cars, SUV’s; a/c etc
“When i was in college, it was global cooling”.
That’s certainly a reasonable perception, but it is not correct. If you care to do a Google Scholar search, you will find the majority of climate change studies supported warming. The danger of cooling was a possibility though because the planet is 1500 years late for the beginning of the next ice age. Even today, we’re unsure why that is.
The only theory I’ve read so far is that man created some warming long ago. For example, the American Indians practiced widespread deforestation by use of fire. This encouraged the spread of buffalo, which produce large amounts of methane. Europe was also deforested and rice paddies in Asia produced large amounts of methane. Etc., etc.