Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Cowering for Research Money?


Does this Cox and Forkum cartoon demonstrate one reason why more scientists are not coming forward against the cult of global warming???

The view of adherents of Global Warming is narrow and non scientific. They call those who question their views "deniers" while they are unwilling to follow their own scientific training to verify all scientific evidence that exists. Why don't they look into the influence of the sun's solar maximum cycle on global warming? Is it because they have chosen an agenda to follow? Are they trying to give scientific justification to their political views? I don't believe science should be either right or left wing politically, but should be a continuing search for quantitatively and independently verifiable truth. It should be completely seamless from political view to another; you should not be able to discern a scientist's politics from their research. Science wants to know what is true, not what is politically expedient. Scientists should never have their research grants withheld or ever have their reputations be threatened just because they are researching an arena that is not the current political "fad."

Global Warming Extremists are more religious and political figures than they are scientists. What they believe has only partial proof and is more of a fantasy, like the "Global Cooling" hype of the 70s. What if they put their efforts into developing cleaner, low cost forms of energy? Wouldn't this be much more productive (and even profitable)? Then their work would have a more significant impact on the global ecology.

UPDATE:

Here is an article from Real Clear Politics by Thomas Sowell discussing the Channel 4 documentary "The Global Warming Swindle".



2 comments:

Jim said...

A 2003 study by Ogurtsov, Jungner, Kocharov, Lindholm, Eronen, Nagovitsyn, and Yu published in Solar Physics examined the relationship between the solar maximum cycle and climate. What they found was that this cycle does have short-term effects on climate, but that this phenomenon is inadequate to explaining the warming trend we're seeing now. These same researchers have also looked at tree rings, solar magnetic fields, irradiance, cosmic rays, and sunspots in an effort to get a clearer picture of the many factors that could potentially influence climate. These researchers are all contributors to the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change), the world's foremost scientific body studying climate change.

So, my response to your question, "Why don't they look into the influence of the sun's solar maximum cycle on global warming?" my answer would be, "They have, and they are."

As far as your concern that scientists questioning global warming might not be able to get funding, I would respond that all scientists who study climate change for a living are doing exactly that: constantly questioning and challenging the science. This is the scientific method. Global warming "skeptics" have had no trouble at all getting funding--indeed, the opposite may be true. They are positively inundated with funding. Well-known skeptic Richard Lindzen of MIT has gotten $2500 a day for "consulting" on behalf of ExxonMobil. Others have received similarly handsome paychecks. The trouble for them is that the peer-reviewed scientific research doesn't support their claims that global warming is a hoax.

Jim said...

By the way, I completely support your argument in favor of more research for clean, renewable energy. I just don't see any evidence--scientific or otherwise--to support the notion that global climate change is some sort of religious cult, or powerful conspiracy.