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What the global warming fear-mongers won't tell you

January 07, 2009|By RON SMITH

Despite what this newspaper's editorialists aver ("A New Year's resolution," Jan. 2, 2009), there is no scientific proof that "time is running out for mankind to take the needed actions to thwart the most disastrous effects of climate change." Nor is it anything more than an unproven assertion to argue that "the relevant scientific community has reached a clear consensus: Many decades of unchecked fossil fuel consumption has pushed the planet far beyond the natural cycle, and the impact of this enhanced warming, especially the forecast rise in sea level this century, could ultimately lead to human suffering on an epic scale."

The Baltimore Sun confidently urges the next president to avoid the temptation of postponing drastic action on this matter because of other pressing problems, such as the worldwide economic slowdown, our wars in Eurasia, etc. - the most important thing in the long term is to "reduce global warming." To this I say: "Nonsense." Oops, that makes me a "flat-earth type," and an all-around bad person, perhaps allied with "certain deep-pocketed traditional energy interests such as coal producers." As you probably know, proponents of global warming are very well funded as well, but space is limited, so let us move on to the idea of scientific consensus, which is oxymoronic.

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Michael Crichton put it this way in a 2003 speech: "Let's be clear: The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period."

The talismanic word consensus is hauled out and used to beat skeptics about the head and shoulders only in cases where the science is far from convincing. Besides, the consensus is not actually there. Search for the book The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution and Fraud and you'll find a list of some of the scientists who depart from the supposed consensus.

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