Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher and professor. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century.
“The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finallyverified, retires from the game.”
Don’t worry, scientist Roger Pielke, Jr., informs us. He is doing fine — he has tenure.
It is too bad, though, that he no longer works in climate science.
He was drummed out of that endeavor by journalists, big-monied foundations, and the White House.
Are you skeptical? Well, drill down into the Podesta emails on WikiLeaks. There you can read infamous billionaire Tom Steyer gloating, “I think it’s fair [to] say that, without Climate Progress, Pielke would still be writing on climate change for 538,” a popular website. Pielke has not been published there at all since 2014.
Pielke had made the mistake of publishing the results of his research. He claims not to be heretical on the main points of the current orthodoxy. But Pielke ticked off all the wrong people with his demonstration that the evidence did not back up the climate change movement’s much-repeated charge that the weather has gotten more traumatic as the planet has gotten warmer.
Pielke relates all this in a fascinating Wall Street Journal commentary, “My Unhappy Life as a Climate Heretic.” Pielke is actually somewhat philosophical about the political and foundational forces arrayed against him — expressing more dismay at his betrayal by journalists and academics.
“You should come with a warning label,” jested one journalist who had merely quoted him. “Quoting Roger Pielke will bring a hailstorm down on your work from the London Guardian, Mother Jones, and Media Matters.”
This “hailstorm” is more widespread and damaging than the results of global warming itself. It effectively distorts both scientific research and the news.
Thus, a political orthodoxy rides herd over public opinion. Over us. By squelching good journalism and honest science.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Florida’s inland waters are clogging up with algae. You can now see the “algae bloom” from space.
What’s the big deal? Well, it stinks. “The blue-green algae, also known as cyanobacteria, contain toxins that are highly dangerous to humans,” explains Harry Sayer at the Orlando Weekly. “Ingestion may cause nausea, vomiting, and liver failure.” No wonder, then, that the State of Florida is in alarm mode, preparing to spend millions of dollars to fight it.
The problem is: fighting water plants is not easy.
Easy or no, it’s a crisis. Animals are “in distress, some are dying,” says a resident of a beach town to which the algal mess has spread. Tourism? Gone. Who wants to smell that mass of green gunk? Gov. Rick Scott has declared a state of emergency. Understandable.
Over at ClimateProgress, Samantha Page has found something else to attack: “Climate Denier Marco Rubio Tries To Tackle Toxic Florida Algae, Is Baffled By Cause.” Now, Florida Senator Marco Rubio ® is not a “climate denier” — a term of art that should make everyone, including environmentalists, cringe. He doesn’t deny the existence of climates. Or climate change. Page quotes him as being skeptical of the effectiveness of proposals to turn the direction of climate change around, back to its previous conditions, to which we have comfortably adapted.
Well, that’s his job.
Still, it is almost certain that increased CO2 in the atmosphere has aided algae growth here and elsewhere. It’s nature’s response. Algae converts the gas to biomass and oxygen.
But Page is also right: the state should look into industrial and agribiz pollution, too, as causes. That is, after all, a basic function of law and government.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Thirty years ago, in June, 1986, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee met to consider the problems of ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect, and climate change.
Present at those hearings was today’s climate Cassandra, James Hansen, then of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies. And he was predicting that “global temperatures should be nearly 2 degrees higher in 20 years,” according to Associated Press reporting at that time.
There was some sloppiness either in Hansen’s account, or the AP’s, for in one part of his testimony Hansen claimed that his institute’s climate models projected, for “the region of the United States, the warming 30 years from now is about 1 1/2 degrees C, which is about 3 F.”
Ronald Bailey, the science writer over at Reason, tries to make sense of this mess of numbers, models, and predictions.
Oh, and actual, tabulated results.
Hansen’s predictions went, as Bailey put it, “definitively off the rails when tracking the temperature trend for the contiguous U.S. between 2000 and 2016. Since 2000, according to the NOAA calculator, the average temperature trend has been downward at ‑0.06 F degree per decade.”
That’s not the whole picture, though: “global temperatures have increased by 0.51 C degree since 1986, so perhaps the man-made global warming signal has finally emerged.”
No matter, though, as Bailey notes, “the United States and the Earth have warmed at considerably slower pace than Hansen predicted 30 years ago.”
Which suggests that Hansen’s models may be inspired more by wish, fear, and ideology than genuine science.
So, to those who wish to rush to “do something” (anything?) to combat “climate change,” take it slow. Follow the pace of the Earth itself.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Tragedy has hit the environmental movement: The price of oil is going down.
And may go down further.
While environmentalists quiver, science writer Ronald Bailey chortles. “Resource depletionists” — the prophets of “peak oil” — should, he says, hide their heads in shame! They’ve been so very, very wrong in the prophecy biz.
As oil descends towards $20 per barrel, we should ask ourselves: where’s the tragedy? Well, it will postpone the switch to non-fossil fuels. The need is far from obvious, and the incentive is to use energy in its cheapest, most efficient forms.
But if increased CO2 in the atmosphere is destabilizing the planet’s atmosphere and ecosystem, cheaper oil (and thus more burning of it) might lead to the much-ballyhooed tragedy for all.
Still, that’s a big “if” — the more we learn about the climate, the more doubtful the identified CO2 causation and attendant doom.
Besides, global warming catastrophism’s implicit message — the “need” for global political control over everybody and everything to “manage” climate changes — seems awfully convenient for those who just love intrusive government … on “principle.”
It echoes the Keynesian technocratic conceit in economics — that experts should manage the economy by fiscal methods (increasing debt) and monetary intervention (central bank interest rate manipulation and bad asset purchase). It’s pretty obvious that they shouldn’t, because they’ve demonstrated they can’t.
As prices for oil defy “peak oil” prophets’ predictions, it becomes obvious: the world works differently than dreamed up by the prophets of doom.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
The climate change pact just completed at the United Nations conference in Paris is, the Washington Post informs us, “historic.”
The New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, and just about every other paper uses that very word in their headlines, too.
“The 12th of December, 2015, will remain a great date for the planet,” declared French President Francois Hollande, dubbing it “the most beautiful and the most peaceful revolution that has just been accomplished.”
“History will remember this day,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon predicted. President Obama called it a “turning point for the world.”
Chris Mooney, in a deeper analysis for the Washington Post, agreed that all the hoopla was “more than warranted.”
But Mooney also acknowledged that, “this document, by its very nature, depends on … Countries, companies and individuals all across the planet [doing] the right things — and very hard things, at that.”
How hard?
Essentially ending any emission of greenhouse gases in the next half-century.
“Achieving such a reduction in emissions would involve a complete transformation of how people get energy,” the New York Times reported, “and many activists worry that despite the pledges, countries are not ready to make such profound, costly changes.”
As the negotiator for the Federated States of Micronesia put it: “We’ve agreed to what we ought to be doing, but no one yet has agreed to go do it. It’s a whole lot of pomp, given the circumstances.”
“What’s more,” adds Mooney, “even if everyone plays by the rules, the standards and goals set out by the Paris agreement may not be enough to prevent the catastrophic effects of climate change.”
Historic? History will determine that.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
