The Gospel of Global Warming
People, generally, acknowledge that climate changes, but most remain skeptical that it’s man-made or apocalyptic.
Rather than “settled science,” global warming activism has become a cult-like evangelistic movement outside normally-accepted skeptical approaches to the rest of science. In fact, pagans at Time magazine published “The Case For Making Earth Day a Religious Holiday,” even though, for years, satellite records of atmospheric global temperatures have discredited the “97 percent consensus” parroted by climate zealots.
Author Michael Crichton lectured: “Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had. […]The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.”
Global temperatures have increased only about 1.0 degree Celsius since the Industrial Revolution, and, statistically, have flat-lined for more than two decades.
Climate alarmism is based on human models that, for decades, have generated many predictions that never materialized. In science, only one wrong prediction is enough to disprove any model.
Clearly, one need not be a world-class intellect like Crichton to spot gaping holes in activists’ global warming theory, so it’s baffling that many otherwise-functioning adults of average intelligence cannot, or, perhaps, refuse to risk apostasy by questioning climate dogma.
Galileo and Pope Urban VIII disagreed about the nature of the cosmos. Ultimately, Galileo’s observations discredited official church doctrine, however, like the intolerant Renaissance church, today’s climate clerisy excommunicates heretics, while self-superior cultists indulge in condescending, adolescent derision.
Nonetheless, despite decades of “education” campaigns by government officials, media, subsidized industries, environmental organizations, public/higher education, and entertainment, global warming is low on the list of public concerns.
David Harsanyi explains:
“During this era, [special interests have] gone from gentle nudging to stern warnings, to fearmongering, to conflating the predictive abilities of scientists with science itself, to launching ugly campaigns to shame and shut down anyone who deviates from liberal orthodoxy…
“The static polls are a…devastating indictment of effectiveness of the environmental movement…
“[I]f you haven’t been able to win over the public over in [decades] of intense political and cultural pressure, you are…down to two options: …[R]evisit your strategy, open debate to a wide range of ideas… Or, you can try to force people to do what you want.”
Politically-motivated and career-invested climate evangelists have chosen force.
In 2012, Donald Brown, a professor of “Climate Ethics,” charged skeptics with a “crime against humanity.” The same year, Professor Richard Parncutt of the University of Graz, Austria, demanded the death penalty for skeptics.
NASA’s Gavin Schmidt warned dissenting climate scientists: “Groups perceived to be acting in bad faith should not be surprised that they are toxic within the science community. Changing that requires that they not…be seen to be acting in bad faith.”
It’s instructive that researching and interpreting climate science is subject to “faith” tests. The climate clerisy’s fear of doubters illustrates how completely climate “science” has devolved into “theology.”
The Powerline blog’s John Hinderaker writes, “Enormous amounts of money are being made by ‘green’ fraudsters, utilities and politicians who tell us we are in the midst of a transition from fossil fuels to wind and solar energy. …. [N]o such transition will take place, ever…
“Why? Because wind and solar are both obsolete technologies. They produce electricity less than one-half of the time… [T]hat will never change.”
Plus, grid scale storage batteries are both inadequate and impractical. David Wojick did the math:
“Grid scale storage…needed to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar is impossibly expensive…
“[O]ur working estimate of the required storage is…250 million MWh. America today has less than 20 thousand MWh of grid scale battery storage, which is next to nothing. Grid scale batteries today cost around $700,000 a MWh. For 250 million MWh we get an astronomical total cost of $175 trillion dollars just to replace today’s fossil fuel-generated electricity needs with wind and solar. Even the fantastically low cost estimates that some people are proposing puts the cost around the total GDP of America.”
If global warming alarmists genuinely cared about science, they would admit that their models are junk, their true interests are political and/or financial, and that climate cultists’ commitment is faith-based.
https://www.pottsmerc.com/2023/05/30/jerry-shenk-the-gospel-of-global-warming/
