From the Powerline:
About six weeks ago Dr. Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama Huntsville (a center for lots of NASA activity and climate research) published an important new paper with William Braswell in the Journal of Remote Sensing entitled “On the Misdiagnosis of Climate Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance.” Translated from the scientific lingo, the paper essentially argues that discrepancies between what the climate models say should be happening and what we actually observe happening (namely, the pause in warming over the last decade) means we still don’t have a complete picture of cloud behavior…
…Well, you can imagine what happened next. Not content with attacking Spencer and Braswell for their heresy, the Climate Inquisition has forced the resignation of the editor of the Journal of Remote Sensing…
The BBC also finds another problem with Dr. Spencer – seems he’s a committed Christian! Well, that tears it – when Christians are involved you know that something is fishy! Can’t have Christians casting doubt upon climate change orthodoxy, now can we? In classic Stalinist mode, liberal fascists have not only got the editor to resign, but got him to state that he shouldn’t have published the article.
Some years back I wrote an article entitled The Death of Science…about how politicized scientists, themselves, were destroying the respect science had among the public. For well more than a century, if you put the label of “science” on an assertion, belief among the public was automatic…but now we’ve all seen just too much nonsense dressed up as science. It just makes matters worse when we see dissenting scientists persecuted for speaking up.
The really bad news here is that we do need science – we need, that is, to be able to use our human reason to discover what we can of the truth. God made the universe intelligible and gave us reason so that we may explore the universe. From what we can see, God wants us to learn the truth…but we can’t learn the truth if we are forever cutting ourselves off because of some prejudice. It used to be that religion was, at times, a bar to free inquiry…now the ostensible advocates of free inquiry are standing athwart the pursuit of truth yelling, “stop!”. If these people get their way, we’ll shortly be back in a dark age…free inquiry will stop, innovation will dry up and we’ll even start to forget things we’ve already learned.
Everyone who is in favor of the truth – who is fearlessly determined that the truth be known, come what may, should be frightened about this sort of action. A few corrupt purveyors of an ideology are trying to shut down debate…shut down the search for truth. They are doing it because great, big gobs of money are at stake, as are the reputations of those who have most ardently advanced the notion that human CO2 emissions are a primary culprit in global warming…an assertion which is at the least entirely unproved, and at worst is outright false. If we want to be a people of truth, we’d better darn well put a stop to this.
Blogs For Victory 
What pretty much convinced me that this was a political issue rather than a scientific issue was about 10 years ago when it became patently obvious that Liberals were, by and large, coming down on the side of alarmism and Conservatives were coming down on the side of skepticism. Since then the evidence has been stacking up in favor of changes in climate and global temperature being overwhelmingly caused by natural forces. Even using the alarmist side’s own figures, civilization could spend trillions of dollars and not affect the global temperature more than a few hundredths of a degree. If mankind can spend a substantial portion of global GDP and not affect statistically significant change, then why not spend the money on something else. Ahhhh, therein lies the dirty little secret. Spending money on something where, no matter how much you spend, it’s never QUITE ENOUGH, is how Liberals maintain power. There’s no power involved in providing clean drinking water or cutting the Malaria rate for an African village, or spread literacy across the third world.
Bottom line, we’re inching closer to the 10-year deadline issued by Algore back in January, 2006. Once we get to that point, and things are no worse, the argument will essentially be over. Will the Left walk away with their collective tails between their legs? Nah, they’ll just find a new crisis and start all over again.
If liberals consider themselves to be grounded in science, then why wont they let the scientific process with respect to to AGW unfold? Consensus has no part in science, and that is all they have at the moment, however, that consensus is weakening as new information comes forward, and more and more scientists find the flaws in the theory. It seems that liberals are more interested in hi jacking science rather than following it.
Cluster,
I think what it really boils down to is that they’ve figured out how to turn science into a money-laundering scheme.
In an interesting commentary that is somewhat related to the climate change issue, I discovered a couple years ago that the tiny, 40 watt cfl’s are great for recessed stairway safety light fixtures. I had been using specialty 11 watt incandescents for the first 10 years we lived in our house, and they would last, on average 60 – 90 days, at a cost of around $3.00 each (we have two fixtures on the stairway to our basement). I bought a six-pack of 40 watt cfl’s at Sam’s Club in July, 2009 for around $10, and 26 months later we’re still on the original two bulbs in the stairway. I was at Sam’s Club last week, and noted that the same 6 pack of 40 watt cfl’s is now under $5, or about $.80 each. So the free market is even affecting one of the Left’s pet products. Either economy of scale has kicked in, or they couldn’t sell them unless they lowered the price. Either way — a win/win for American consumers.
the free market is a beautiful thing.
This blog is not a depository for nothing but insults, etc, etc. //Moderator
boobie
too stupid and ignorant to comment on
Deleted. Again. //Moderator
“too stupid and ignorant to comment on”
Yes, you are. And Mark is evidently too frightened to comment. Anybody else want to take a stab at it? Or are you all too stupid and ignorant and/or too frightened?
“A few corrupt purveyors of an ideology are trying to shut down debate…shut down the search for truth.”
Oh, you mean like how evangelicals are trying to shut down the search for truth by Christians who acknowledge the basic scientific fact that Adam and Eve were nothing more than a myth? No, you couldn’t mean that–it would strike at your own hypocrisy, and you lack the intestinal fortitude for such a thing.
We need, to be able to use our human reason to discover what we can of the truth, Mark. Why are you so vehemently opposed to that?
Bodie,
Well, there’s a shocker…you mean someone is claiming that the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall is a myth? For goodness sake, no one has ever done that before…
Look, its fine for people to believe whatever they want to believe…as for me, the Fall is the thing which makes the most sense in human history. But, believe as you wish..but you can’t be a Christian and not believe in the Fall because if there wasn’t a Fall then there is no need for a Savior. To complain about being “forced out” under these circumstances is akin to claim you were forced out of of the Mets fan club when you started rooting for the Yankees.
As for the good professors and their dissidence from Adam’s Fall, it is clear that whatever their scientific credentials, they have little theological knowledge. Human genomes – the matter which makes up humanity – has nothing to do with the Fall. There might have been a billion human-like creatures…but there was only one Adam, and he Fell…and we are his descendents.
So you admit that when science and your religious dogma are at odds, you choose dogma over science. Thanks for that, Mark. I’m sure you’ll try to weasel out of it later, though.
ADOM = THE MAN……..educate your self boobie.
yes, too stupid and ignorant.
Frightened?
from some girlyman leftist?
PFFFFtttttttttt
“ADOM = THE MAN……..educate your self”
Educate yourself on how to spell “Adam” and “yourself,” OK, neocon Haggard?