Burning Up? Examining the Crisis of Climate Change
I’ve been sending out AFA emails for over a year now, but the most recent email about our February 9th Climate Change Forum is the first one that drew some, shall we say, dissenting responses.
Which is interesting, because I always wonder to what extent I’m just “preaching to the choir,” not telling our readers anything new but at least showing them what AFA is doing on a particular issue.
This is the email I sent last week:
“One of the more persistent and pernicious lies in recent years has been the “Crisis” of Climate Change or whatever it is they’re calling it these days in order to crush and control us with ever more regulation.
While the new administration seems to be bringing some common sense to the issue, even deleting the “Climate Change” area from the WhiteHouse.gov website within hours of the inauguration, it’s tempting to relegate the issue to the past, a painful hoax too-long endured but no longer relevant.
Except the reality is this: the narrative is still alive in (at least!) two arenas that still have the potential to affect our lives and livelihood. First, academia, especially as it relates to science, is mired in it. Pick up any science textbook and you’ll find the “horrors” of man-made climate change a key element of today’s indoctrination. And of course, our science faculties in the universities have all abandoned scientific integrity, preferring to be emotional advocates of the party line. See here how the UCLA “science” faculty is dealing with their fear of the Trump administration.
The second arena that is of particular concern is the promise of Governor Brown to continue to shove policies and regulations down our throats, doubling down in the face of whatever sanity might come from Washington on the issue. Here in California we are facing a juggernaut of new anti-capitalist measures cloaked in “to save the planet!” rhetoric and lies.
Because this issue is far from dead, and because of the danger it continues to pose, AFA is hosting a Forum on this critical topic. We are delighted that Dr. Willie Soon, a scientist of the highest order (see his credentials below), will be keynoting this lively and important event. Dr. Soon has long been a celebrated scientist but since speaking out for truth in climate science, has become a target of those who silence all dissenting voices. (Read about some of his experiences here).
Join us, and bring a friend, especially one who is one of the countless pawns of the deceitful “climate change!” hoax.”
The details of the event followed.
This time, the response was clear: not everyone who got the email is “in the choir” on the topic of Climate Change! Or else, the responses I got were because I had oversimplified, conflating the various aspects of believing in, or not believing in (odd words, when we’re speaking of science, aren’t they?) “climate change.”
It seems to me you can either
- feel strongly that the climate is changing in a way that is unprecedented and that it is we humans who are causing it (known as AGW, or “Anthropogenic Global Warming”;
- feel that the climate is changing but it’s negligible, it always has and humans have nothing to do with it;
- believe that the climate is changing but negligibly and in fact, it’s not a bad thing, and
- don’t believe that the climate is changing but that there always have been and always will be swings in temperature.
Those who use Climate Change as the aforementioned justification for imposing control over our air, water and energy (which is, of course, exactly what they’re doing) conflate those who are skeptical in the same way, calling us “Climate Change Deniers,” indiscriminately. They, of course, are in group (a), convinced we are the cause of a catastrophic rise in temperature that will kill the planet. However I feel about it personally, I know a few things that are indisputable.
- I know that the 97% statistic used by the Left as a mallet against any peep of skepticism is an entirely bogus number, derived at in a shockingly unscientific manner, and therefore is irrelevant.
- I know that regardless of the provenance of that number, science never is and never should be a matter of consensus, so it’s irrelevant on that count as well.
- I know that data have been altered in various ways to conform to predictions, also scientifically unethical.
- I know that the furor over the temperature rise this year over last, making it the “hottest year on record – AGAIN!” is based on a temperature increase that’s within the measurement margin of error.
- I know that the means of measuring temperature, where measurements have been taken and numerous other factors have altered so much over the time span for which we have measurements that comparing them is hardly as straightforward as one imagines.
- I know that the total percent of the atmosphere that is CO2 is minuscule, and therefore the idea that our CO2 emissions have anything to do with the climate is absurd.
- I also know that if event A causes event B, then it must always cause B, all other factors being equal. If, all things being held constant, I put a log on the fire, that log will always make that fire hotter. There will never, all other factors held constant, be a time when putting a log on the fire will make it cooler. CO2 has been increasing steadily over decades, including over the period when the hue and cry was over an impending ice age because of falling temperatures. Either a) CO2 doesn’t drive climate, or b) there are other things at play. It’s simply not possible for CO2 to be the driver sometimes but not others, ALL THINGS being equal, and if all things aren’t equal, then we’re back to there being other things at play.
I’ve also asked this question: If those in our (previous) government feel so strongly that climate change, with its attendant rising seas, is a certainty, then why, why have they not made securing our ports a priority? Why do they think that the smarter move would be to enter into an international accord (to which China of course is not a party!) in order to legislate and crush the economy in an attempt to limit it (“2 degrees, $100billion!” is the catchphrase of the Paris Agreement) ? If they see this threat as imminent, and they claim to with much rending of garments, then why do they just stand by while New York, Long Beach, Louisiana, Texas would surely be flooded?
And another question: If they really believe the oceans are rising, why do they all want to live in coastal communities? Just look at housing prices in Malibu, the Hamptons, resort hot-spots all across the country (and the globe!). Yes, there has been erosion, and yes, hurricanes can do permanent damage, but the seas rising, especially to the extent predicted by Nobel Peace Prize and Oscar winner Al Gore, has simply not happened.
Perhaps President Obama WAS right, when he claimed in 2008 “this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” But I sort of don’t think so.
Whatever I happen to think, I know there are sufficient unanswered questions that ALL of us should ask. Skepticism is ALWAYS the exact right starting point, especially in the realm of science, and to mock and silence skeptics is completely counter to what science is. In addition, science is not decided by consensus, even when we have this new study that indicates that the consensus is, in fact, on the side of the skeptics: Of those scientists polled, only “36 percent of scientists … believe global warming is human caused and a serious concern.” Hmm!
Whatever I think, I KNOW that silencing dissent is never the right approach.
And whatever I think, I KNOW that to politicize science and education as has been done in order to further an agenda is a wrong that must be righted, and we at AFA are doing what we can to do exactly that. If you’re in the LA area on February 9th, join us. And if you yourself are a skeptic, come, please come and engage in the debate.
February 9th
6 PM: Reception
7: PM Forum
Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel
$35
(STUDENTS: Email for the Discount Code)
About Willie Soon:
- Physicist, Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences Division, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
- Astronomer, Mount Wilson Observatory
- Chief Science Researcher, Center for Science and Public Policy
- Chief Science Advisor, Science and Public Policy Institute
- Senior Scientist, Marshall Institute
- Science Director, Tech Central Station
- Global Warming Expert, Heartland Institute
- Receiving Editor, New Astronomy
- Member, American Astrophysical Society, American Geophysical Union, and the International Astronomical Union
- Recipient, Peter Beckman Award, Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, 2004
- Recipient, Graduate Scholastic Award, IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society, 1989
- Recipient, Rockwell Dennis Hunt Scholastic Award for most representative PhD thesis, 1989
Education:
- PhD, Aerospace Engineering, University of Southern California (USC), 1991
- MS, University of Southern California
- BS, University of Southern California
