Right and Reasonable
In one of those cutesy Facebook aphorisms, with a picture of made-up actor Laurence Fishburne on the cover, was the caption ”What if I told you questioning science is science”. True science is an objective and systematic pursuit based on falsifiable predictions that are tested through experiments or observation.
The truth of science is that it is never absolute. The investigation of science begins as a hypothesis, theory, or supposition and is then tested and re-tested, and potentially reexamined many times. It only takes one failed test to contradict or invalidate the hypothesis and then discard that science or hypothesis as false.
Thus, science is always or continuously, as the maxim states, a matter of questioning. Science is never a matter of sentiment or harmonizing an opinion with your favorite politician, journalist, friend, or occupational groupthink. The operative word in the initial definition of science is ”objective”. In many cases, in countless opinions and in deficiencies of self-examination this word is absent. Science, especially the natural science of climate has been tainted, corrupted, and sullied by politics.
It has also been contaminated by money and especially by those that cannot, even after decades of failed observation and contrary scientific evidence, admit defeat. Politics plays a huge role in the Mark Twain quote, “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
There are four main categories of science, formal, natural, applied, and social. Within these primary categories, there are about 50 sub-categories of varying topics or subject matter. The science or word that does not appear anywhere is ‘consensus’ - the paramount branding used by those claiming human-generated climate change is real.
If consensus was a real science then those that believe in it should also believe in the “Great Barrington Declaration” with a majority of scientists calling for the complete elimination of Covid mandates because they have and continue to cause irreparable damage including devastating effects on short and long-term public health.
However, because of ideological and political convictions, I am convinced that those who believe in the consensus science of climate change do not believe in the consensus science of the Great Barrington Declaration. Why - because they are on the exact opposite side of the political spectrum.
Not that it matters, but those proclaiming consensus in climate change have it mathematically wrong– the Global Warming Petition Project cites many more signatories in opposition than any claim of consensus for proponents. Again, not that consensus is any substance of science, but like any supposed evidentiary claims made by climate alarmists, the opposition again proves otherwise.
So why is climate alarmism still alive? First and foremost like most all political matters, irrespective of the subject, the progressive left yells, by far, the loudest and generates an intense degree of the ostensible agreement simply through an elevated measure of decibels. The silent or more tactful majority is much less inclined to howl.
Much of the mass media is on the side of the progressive left . . . which of these titles would sell news – “the world will be catastrophically devastated in a certain number of years to come” or “everything in the world’s climate is just fine”. You assuredly know the answer.
The leftist politicians, who yell just as loud or perhaps louder than the rebellious activists, have several ulterior motives that the fear of climate change can propel. These causes include socialism, globalism, and authoritarian control. This has come much more apparent now with the blatant advancement of racial issues, government intrusion through the invalidation or weakening of constituted rights, significant increase in regulation, defunding of the police as well as suppression of fully transparent voting.
Money for biased reporting, tainted studies, and predisposed studies largely favor activist scientists and their political ilk. There is no amount of money that can compete with the gargantuan amounts of taxpayer funding infused by the world's governments and reticently by their favored, privileged, and partisan NGOs. There are many that would agree with me on all of this except there is the fear of affronting friendships, or because of angst, it is too arduous to stand up and be heard, or ideologically it may offend family and friends. Some simply ignore everything I may write and chose to succumb to the louder voices of alarmism and the left’s media and feel safe in their climate solitude.
There is also the constant concern with unwarranted censorship as well as the gratuitous and erroneous accusations of misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech. I simply ignore all those in the pursuit of what is right, reasonable, and salutary – something called the truth.
