Has the global warming alarmism movement hit its apex? Maybe so.Christy's op-ed is here. An excerpt that echoes what I've often argued against alarmists:
In recent weeks, we've seen a resurgence of hard scientists who have come out strongly against the warm-mongers, the latest of which is Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change member John R. Christy. In an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal, Christy tells the world that not only does he believe it's unproven that humans cause global warming, he's refusing his "share" of the Nobel Peace Prize that he was awarded because it was based on a misunderstanding of science.
Mother Nature simply operates at a level of complexity that is, at this point, beyond the mastery of mere mortals (such as scientists) and the tools available to us. As my high-school physics teacher admonished us in those we-shall-conquer-the-world-with-a-slide-rule days, "Begin all of your scientific pronouncements with 'At our present level of ignorance, we think we know . . .'"The hook for alarmism among the general population, that more than likely doesn't know one thing about climate history, is that any changes in climate are proof that said changes are caused by humans, simply because they don't know how it's changed dramatically in the past, long before there were humans driving SUVs.
I haven't seen that type of climate humility lately. Rather I see jump-to-conclusions advocates and, unfortunately, some scientists who see in every weather anomaly the specter of a global-warming apocalypse. Explaining each successive phenomenon as a result of human action gives them comfort and an easy answer.
Others of us scratch our heads and try to understand the real causes behind what we see. We discount the possibility that everything is caused by human actions, because everything we've seen the climate do has happened before. Sea levels rise and fall continually. The Arctic ice cap has shrunk before. One millennium there are hippos swimming in the Thames, and a geological blink later there is an ice bridge linking Asia and North America.
The media, exploiting the sensationalism of the alarmist narrative, is quick to ascribe any unusual or destructive weather to "catastrophic global climate change.". Whether it's the fires out in California or floods in England, the stories include the obligatory "Scientists aren't certain these events are caused by global climate change, but they fit into the predictions." Isn't that convenient? The alarmist predictions call for bad weather, therefore any bad weather jibes with their predictions. In the mind of a gullible public that's just as good as proof.
Also, apparently the only solution to the problem they perceive is some form of government control, whether it involves the U.N. implementing crooked wealth redistribution schemes, punishing taxes on fossil fuels, or outright socialism. If you suggest that maybe one good way to reduce carbon emissions is to favor nuclear power they balk, partly because they're still stuck in the old paradigm in which nuclear power is evil and too dangerous.
We can expect a flurry of op-eds and blog posts attacking Christy by portraying him as a Bush tool or in the pay of evil oil companies.
