MIT professor Richard Lindzen on Al Gore, global warming, and climatology:
Bill Clinton has become the latest evangelist for Mr. Gore’s gospel, proclaiming that current weather events show that he and Mr. Gore were right about global warming, and we are all suffering the consequences of President Bush’s obtuseness on the matter. And why not? Mr. Gore assures us that “the debate in the scientific community is over.”
That statement, which Mr. Gore made in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, ought to have been followed by an asterisk. What exactly is this debate that Mr. Gore is referring to? Is there really a scientific community that is debating all these issues and then somehow agreeing in unison? Far from such a thing being over, it has never been clear to me what this “debate” actually is in the first place.
The entire global warming fad seems to be something like a pair of bellbottoms — someone tells me they’re in style, but I just don’t get the fashion.
What’s worse about this is the continuing mantra from people who want to believe this stuff. And what are the solutions? More government, more controls, the separation of human beings from nature (i.e. sealing off National Parks to let them grow “wild”), and the type of dreamworld that makes the watermelon comparison of environmentalists — green on the outside, red in the middle — a reality
Dr. Lindzen’s conclusions?
So what, then, is one to make of this alleged debate? I would suggest at least three points.
First, nonscientists generally do not want to bother with understanding the science. Claims of consensus relieve policy types, environmental advocates and politicians of any need to do so. Such claims also serve to intimidate the public and even scientists–especially those outside the area of climate dynamics. Secondly, given that the question of human attribution largely cannot be resolved, its use in promoting visions of disaster constitutes nothing so much as a bait-and-switch scam. That is an inauspicious beginning to what Mr. Gore claims is not a political issue but a “moral” crusade.
Lastly, there is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition. An earlier attempt at this was accompanied by tragedy. Perhaps Marx was right. This time around we may have farce–if we’re lucky.
There you have it. The Big Lie as a political tool for change, no matter whether the facts (or the public) tell otherwise.