American climate deniers
From my vantage point outside the glass doors, the sea of grey hair and balding pates had the appearance of a golf society event or an active retirement group. Instead, it was the inaugural meeting of Ireland’s first climate denial group, the self-styled Irish Climate Science Forum (ICSF) in Dublin in May. All media were barred from attending.
Its guest speaker was the retired physicist and noted US climate contrarian, Richard Lindzen. His jeremiad against the “narrative of hysteria” on climate change was lapped up by an audience largely composed of male engineers and meteorologists – mostly retired. This demographic profile of attendees at climate denier meetings has been replicated in London, Washington and elsewhere.
How many people in the room had children or indeed grandchildren, I wondered. Could an audience of experienced, intelligent people really be this blithely indifferent to the devastating impacts […]
The climate is changing for the worse but the the belief that CO2 causes it is fading.
The irony is that protecting the status quo is what climate change advocates are doing by refusing to allow their belief in purported CO2 warming to be questioned. Scientific method relies on the ability to examine the assumptions and evidence presented to support a hypothesis and successfully prove or disprove. Climate science as it stands is a religion because it has become heresy to question the fundamental basis of CO2 induced global warming. Science advances at the leading edge because of scientists who question the validity of accepted theory or hypothesis. Someone who dares to call climate change science into question should not be ostracized, fired from their job or called a denier just because they choose to question evidence or authority who does not want their money driven cause or paradigm threatened. People who advocate that it is not acceptable to question are religious bullies who do not understand how science works..or in this case fails to work. Those people may be well intentioned but that does not excuse or change their folly. On the flip side those who question without trying to understand the issue to the best of their ability are also committing folly. It is a tough issue because no one on this planet truly understands all the complexity involved in our atmospheric processes.