Lacking the required science/math gene, I don’t engage in debates over matters pertaining to these two fields. You won’t find posts here on the merits of lack thereof of global warming, because truthfully who am I to judge the merits of the research? However, politics is another matter and the hot button global warming political issue sure seems to be a case where the science follows the political dictates. Ethan Epstein presents an interesting look at climate science’s recent history (The Weekly Standard: “What Catastrophe?”) and introduces Richard Lindzen, the contrarian Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at MIT, a leading critic of the global warming alarmist stance:
“If Lindzen is right about this and global warming is nothing to worry about, why do so many climate scientists, many with résumés just as impressive as his, preach imminent doom? He says it mostly comes down to the money—to the incentive structure of academic research funded by government grants. Almost all funding for climate research comes from the government, which, he says, makes scientists essentially vassals of the state. And generating fear, Lindzen contends, is now the best way to ensure that policymakers keep the spigot open.”
“Lindzen contrasts this with the immediate aftermath of World War II, when American science was at something of a peak. “Science had established its relevance with the A-bomb, with radar, for that matter the proximity fuse,” he notes. Americans and their political leadership were profoundly grateful to the science community; scientists, unlike today, didn’t have to abase themselves by approaching the government hat in hand. Science funding was all but assured”.
Epstein writes, “But with the cuts to basic science funding that occurred around the time of the Vietnam war, taxpayer support for research was no longer a political no-brainer. “It was recognized that gratitude only went so far,” Lindzen says, “and fear was going to be a greater motivator. And so that’s when people began thinking about . . . how to perpetuate fear that would motivate the support of science.” So, here the issue moves from the science to the political realm and therein lies the problem with so much of the global warming hype – a crisis creates a political nudge (to borrow from a Cass Sunstein book on political propaganda about how to motivate people and get them to accept changes deemed for their own good – the nanny state guidebook, if you will). Among academia there has been a narrowing of the mind in recent decades and those who dare challenge the prevailing orthodoxy quickly find themselves publicly cast into the marginalized Fox News viewer pot, as just another far-right loon. Climate change, née global-warming, rests as settled science and no skepticism or questioning is allowed.
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