Rather than doubling down on the misguided notion that science is an authority that can dictate policy, scientists should strive to delineate between scientific facts and their political preferences
There is as presumption of either/or, all thru this article. In other words, 'If we are right, they must be wrong. If they are right, we must be wrong'. That is NOT how the scientific method works.
Donald Trump is not a scientist, and he knows it. John Kerry is not a scientist, but he thinks he is. I am a science teacher. I've taught earth science, including climate change.
The things that Trump says do not offend me. In fact, he rarely criticizes actual science. He criticizes the policy wonks who try to pretend they know what they're doing.
On the other hand, I find John Kerry highly offensive. He is a poser. He is pointless. People like him are why so many people distrust "The Science". Real science and real scientists are as reliable and trustworthy as it gets. But you'll find few of them in DC or on an MSM show.
John Kerry stated: " it’s time to go into overdrive and “accelerate” the transition to green energy." By which he means the very much not green wind & solar.
This the same John Kerry who owns 6 houses 12 cars 2 yachts and a private jet, while lecturing us about how we need to restrict our energy consumption. And then he pushes the charade of buying carbon credits to account for his energy gluttony. When we know >90% of those schemes are fraudulent.
John Kerry was the guy who killed the highly successful IFR or Integral Fast Reactor program, which could replace 3.2M tonnes of coal with 1 tonne of spent nuclear fuel, depleted uranium or natural uranium and eliminate 870K tonnes of ash and 7.7M tonnes of CO2. While generating 170lbs of nuclear waste that need only be contained for 300yrs, drop it down a borehole, easy-peesy. Why isn't John Kerry and his boss, Bill Clinton, on trial now for crimes against humanity since they are more responsible for this "existential threat" than just about anyone on the planet?
On what basis do you think first-order negative impacts from carbon emissions outweigh the first-order positive impacts? The positive effects are routinely ignored. It is difficult to find any serious attempt to balance the positives and negatives. What we do know with considerable confidence is that FAR more people die from cold than heat.
An alarmist says temperatures have increased since the industrial revolution - a skeptic says temperatures have increased since the end of the "Little Ice Age".
" Thus, when Trump has done things like call the entire concept of climate change a hoax, this can legitimately be called out as science denial." Not necessarily. Not if Trump is using the ridiculously uhelpful term "climate change" to mean your points 1 through 4 - which is exactly how it is used most commonly.
"Climate change" is what the alarmists say when they mean anthropogenic climate forcing. Skeptics, like me and those commenting here, generally are quite comfortable with the knowledge that climate always changes, and always has. Science has not managed to thoroughly explain the mechanisms involved. But it's a good guess that attempts to stop this rollercoaster are not wise.
Mr. Trump and his voters are perfectly capable of understanding the fuzzy semantics. For some reason the alarmists are not.
I agree with you completely, but I am skeptical that it will happen.
Scientists are people first, and when humans are in groups of people where virtually everyone shares certain moral beliefs and they are under attack by other groups, they cling tighter to their beliefs.
The reason why most climate scientists got into the field is because they wanted to join a moral cause to save humanity from itself. If they were to come out openly and say that they can only supply information and politicians need to make trade-off with uncertain consequences (which is the truth), then governments would remove the trillions of dollars in funding for Green energy, the climate change movement would collapse and their life work would be destroyed.
Individual scientists with integrity may do that, but not the rest. They chose their path a long time ago.
I might want to re-emphasize the long-standing difference between the "two cultures" on university campuses where those in the sciences (and engineering) pursue truths about nature and about the works of humanity in respect to the laws of nature, whereas those on the other side of campus, H2S, as one wag of a colleague once put it, study the arts, history, sociology, and the like. The B school and the Law school interpret the above in pursuit of their interests.
The STEM types in the College of Engineering have next to no responsibility for the weirdness emanating from H2S.
Ruth, sometimes I think that once climate change was defined as a problem, the logical solution to decarbonization would be empowering engineers to develop lower-carbon choices? Instead we got sermons on how to live our lives from atmospheric scientists and modelers, and mucho billions spent on predicting the future to the gnat's eyebrow. If it were an emergency, all the funding should go toward solutions. Otherwise climate change is just a trough for anyone to feed at with the appropriate rationalization. A person might even wonder whether "climate change research" is in some sense a disciplinary echo of the old hierarchy of the theoretical over applied sciences.
Once again I need to reiterate the actual fact and the actual science about Climate Change. And that is that it is pretty much irrelevant.
The real problem is not Climate Change but the legitimate aspirations of Developing Nations to reach a modern standard of living, with a functioning Industrial Economy, which will require a 5X increase in World Primary Energy supply. And major increases in Oil & Gas needed just to supply petrochemical industry, including vital polymers, fertilizer & lubricating oils, which will grow accordingly. That is where Oil & Gas consumption should be prioritized, not for energy.
There is no way fossil is capable of supplying that level of energy economically. Or is renewables capable, not even close. Not even fossil + renewables. The only energy source capable of supply that level of energy economically is Nuclear. Just the resources of thorium and uranium on the accessible portion of the Earth's land mass would power that level of energy consumption for 20Myrs. Fusion resources would supply that much energy past when the Sun dies. Happy coincidence, Nuclear energy has insignificant GHG emissions, so that just makes the Climate Change question irrelevant.
Add to that Nuclear releases negligible toxic emissions, far, far less than any other energy source. So, the simple truth is, the energy transition needs to be to Nuclear, nothing else matters. And because of that, the Climate Change Grifters despise nuclear more than even fossil. And go to great lengths to blockade nuclear expansion. With their $trillions in wealth.
And during the past year, we have seen how vulnerable our current energy infrastructure is to economic blackmail and war. The specter of even worse and longer Middle East wars stands before us. We could care less about the Middle East if not for all the Oil & Gas there. It's just a big sandpit. But we have a World of Oil & Gas hegemony, mostly centered on the most geopolitically unstable regions on Earth. Replacing Fossil with ubiquitous Uranium & Thorium is just a giant insurance policy for humanity, insurance against economic strangulation.
So how do we go about replacing most energy (primary energy, including electricity & heat)? These two videos will explain it:
Energy Transition: Nuclear SMRs vs Renewables, Energy Transition Crisis:
"This video explains how advanced small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) technology can be used to completely replace all of the energy we now derive from fossil fuels, for less investment than what’s already been spent on renewable energy in the last two decades alone."
Good example of that tech needed:
Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor, Copenhagen Atomics Onion Core - Thomas Jam Pederson @ TEAC12
Absent in the article is another factor contributing to polarization and anger on the issue of energy; mandates forced upon and economic "takings" from those that disagree with the underpinnings of those mandates and takings.
The fundamental theory of mandates is that normal people are too stupid to make the "right" choices in their lives so therefore "we in power" (with 51% consensus) will dictate how you should live.
This is why you cannot buy an incandescent light bulb, why your dishwasher takes all day to wash your dishes, why your wash machine does not fill with enough water to properly clean your clothes, why electricity prices are climbing despite cheap and abundant coal and gas resources, why your only choice in a new car is a tiny Rube Goldberg turbo engine that is more complex and unreliable than normal engines, why your car stupidly shuts down and starts up at every stoplight, why your taxes are rising while rich folks get tax credits on their shiny new EV toys and unwanted solar/windmill farms in their backyard and surrounding countryside.
On the horizon are government controlled thermostats, government caused blackouts due to inadequate power generation, forced EV adoption whether it works for you or not..
Every one of these slights is a freedom taken away from you and is one more misery to what is already difficult living conditions for many Americans. All brought to you by the "we in power" 51%.
The fundamental fact of mandates is that they are just tools of oppression & wealth transfer and almost always have ulterior, nefarious motives. It has nothing to do with the 51% or even the 10%. It has EVERYTHING to do with the 0.01%, whose lust for wealth & power is beyond comprehension. We seen that clearly with their economy destroying, wealth transfer (to them) Covid Plandemic. Not one policy they mandated might the least bit of sense medically.
I'm a firm believer in the Free Market. No mandates. If they really believed CO2 was such a problem (hint: They don't) they would just have a revenue neutral Carbon Fee & Dividend. Which rewards the energy frugal and punishes the wealthy energy gluttons. No preferential mandates, exemptions or subsidies given to the political favorites, wind & solar. Or EVs. Let the Free Market sort that all out.
An astonishingly stupefying piece, hubristically and misleadingly crafted from top to bottom. The entire exercise is based on the assertion that the Left's presentation of science is always correct, just occasionally overstated, over heated, or over demanding. Never is it posited, let alone proven, nor admitted, that it at times has been outright lies.
Masks? Immunity? 6 feet of social distancing? Worse and more weather destruction? Food pyramid? Safe Marijuana? Deadly Ivermectin? Extinct species? False predictions of too many kinds to count? Dissenting or questioning people, dismissed as populist, right wing, ignoramuses.
What part of today's science, politically aligned and enforced, is trustworthy? Genderbending minors? I'll put our commonsense, wide ranged reading, and real world experience up against manipulated consensus science any day. Our world will be better off for it.
Are we criticizing ALL science, or only the science that deals with climate change and public health around Covid? Because I don't recall a demonizing or politicizing of the scientists who raised warnings about cigarette smoking and the limiting of cigarette advertising, about the science behind sulfur and nitrous oxide removal from coal-fired plants that were contributing to acidification of lakes and creating smog in cities. I also don't remember a huge push-back on the removal of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) from refrigerants to close the hole in the ozone. All of these were science-researched conditions that countries were able to get behind and resolved. That resolved problems and saved lives because we listened to scientists and didn't try to question their findings based upon their supposed political leanings. Could it be that those scientist promoted changes that didn't greatly impact big oil or the efficient operation of the economy? Just saying.
I don't know why you feel that "most science is conducted within a university setting," but in good science practice you should provide the reference for this. Yes, most science published in some top journals, like Science and Nature, is authored by academics but this is because their editorial boards are biased against industry scientists. A significant majority of all scientist work in industry and more PhDs, the elite of scientists, work in industry, at 47.1%, than in academia, at 43.8% (NCSES. NSF 21-319. April 2021).
There is much to be said about this essay; some good, some not so good. Generally, I agree with the conclusion that resetting is necessary, though I cannot say that fault lies exclusively within science, but also with its cheerleaders in the media, or our educational system.
How does science need reset? Well, Richard Lindzen made a very good point when he said that you “have to fund science in ways that there are no incentives for promoting things.” Show me the incentive, and I’ll show you the outcome. Some time ago, Gianluca Alimonti and his associates published a paper in which they concluded that “on the basis of observational data, the climate crisis that…we are experiencing today, is not evident yet.” Piltdown Mann and friends were outraged by this, and demanded the paper be retracted. Eventually, it was, but public spectacle of that process left the stain, and stench, of censorship. Science needs to return to the heady days of searching for truths and not products to sell. It needs to abandon the technique of slander and denigration as argument.
How is does our educational system need reset? I learned in elementary school that the earth’s climate has always been changing, so of course “climate change is real.” Our educational system needs to do a better job of fostering critical thinking, and teaching (and reinforcing this) concept of how to disagree constructively without slander and ostracism. The observational data about climate change is that people are leading longer, healthier, more productive lives than at any time in history, and people are safer now than anytime in history from the ravages of climate. Where is the alarm in this?
How do we reset the media? Good luck with that. But one way we, as scientists, can do this is to stop feeding them bullshit information. This essay has several great examples of this, but I will focus on two. First, you say “most science is conducted within the university setting.” That is preposterous! Energy companies like Exxon and BP are technology powerhouses. Do you think that they don’t do scientific research? What about pharmaceutical companies? Was the Covid vaccine conceived at Harvard Med School, or in a pharmacy lab? What about agriculture? Do only universities do research on seed quality and engineering, or irrigation techniques, or harvest methods? Have you ever heard of Bell Labs?
Second, you reinforce the consensus storyline by referencing the “oft-quoted “97% to 99% scientific consensus on global warming.” “Consensus” has no place in scientific vernacular. Consensus is something that happens between two kids in the back seat of a Buick; it does not occur in a laboratory. Science is about upsetting the consensus, not voting for it. We have allowed the media to obliterate the line between information and opinion.
As as illustration of how bad things are at the Toronto District School Board the following is an extract from an article by Michael Lau in the National Post:
In condemning capitalism, the TDSB newsletter predictably attacks the “deadly activities of the fossil fuel industry, which continues to pollute, burn, and ransack the planet in the face of mounting human suffering” — a claim again contradicted by the facts, which show fossil fuels have helped power literally billions of people out of poverty.
Elsewhere the newsletter highlighted a recent climate change conference organized by the TDSB and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, which was attended by 250 teachers and keynoted by a representative from the David Suzuki Foundation. One workshop encouraged teachers to integrate “age-appropriate climate action into their classrooms, schools, and communities,” while another explored how public schools can “address the climate crisis that students are experiencing here and now” and a third concerned “engaging students in environmental advocacy.”
"There are various hypotheses as to why scientists and academics hold left-leaning views, but I am skeptical of the self-serving notion that more credentialed people hold these views because the views are somehow fundamentally more true. While it may be the case that most academic scientists engage in research that entails quantitative rigor constrained by empirical data on narrow research questions, scientists often conflate this day-job activity with the notion that their political worldview is also arrived at through pure empiricism and rationality. On the contrary, I would argue that scientists arrive at their political opinions in mostly the same way everybody else does: through a combination of their natural temperament, the culture they are embedded in, personal experience, and the resulting incomplete and oversimplified models of the world."
Also, I think it's important to include social pressure from others not to stray from the "approved" science. Throw in the fact that most of the granters, federal and otherwise, are on the left, creating a lot of pressure for researchers to tow the "approved" science line, anything less is a career-limiting move.
Very important issue, very important stand: to combat fuzzy elision of political goals as science, very well examined and contested. Let's get this word out there.
Some points:
Issuing research conclusions about things that cannot be determined with scientific method, indicates that the research method is flawed, it has not achieved application of scientific method. To remedy an increase in rigor and criticism is needed.
True that left and right is not distinguished by smart and dumb, but beyond different perspectives why is it that the western liberal trend captured and weaponized sections of science? And why did the capture also align censoring and skewing of publication and associated rewarding/demoting careers? The liberal political science narrowed the scope of research, contrary paradigms that encourage wide research scope are needed.
The left and right in US are similar to the French Revolution? that is unclear - in France the left wanted change and the right wanted to preserve the current system configuration. Formally in the West the left wants to preserve the current system configuration and the (nativist) right wants rearrange it at least. But also in substance the nativists imply more fundamental situations can be changed while liberals deal in baubles because fundamental changes are taboo. The curtain is being lifted on many taboo subjects which is favorable for science to regain dynamism.
Its not an encouraging sign that a scientist thinks science is under attack and must defend itself differently. No science is performing poorly in some ways and needs to self correct. A humble appraisal of self failures and deficiency would be an encouraging sign.
Very well considered and presented thoughts. Watching what happened from the outside on Nov 5th very clearly confirms your well placed beliefs and I agree. The demonisation of “Science” from one side of the political spectrum has most certainly been exaggerated by the extremism of what has become the now norm of almost all scientific publications!
We need to open up to the ideas of “investigation” and hypothesising with the inclusion of all relevant impacts which must allow societal and economic considerations to play equal part.
And let’s not forget that with more votes counted (I watch this daily), the so called “mandate” becomes weaker and weaker. What needs to happen is the motivation of population involvement in democracy and less alienation. IMHO of course.
"Finally, we have physics-based mathematical models that allow us to conduct simulated hypothesis tests of what the world would look like with and without increased greenhouse gas concentrations. The oft-quoted “97% to 99% scientific consensus on global warming” applies to statements 1 and 2. "
That is false.
Computer models are not scientific evidence.
The quote of '97% to 99%' consensus has been shown to be false many times but some people keep repeating that false statement.
To be scientific there must be real-life experiments, hypothesis and predictions, not simulated climate computer models.
For scientific evidence there must be (repeatable) predictions of the exact climate in each small section of the earth at a near future date, maybe in 2026.
Then, in 2026, we can see if the prediction is correct or not.
And the prediction must be repeatable forother near-future dates.
That is real science.
If it the prediction is not correct then they don't know enough about the earth's atmosphere and physics to make any realistic prediction.
The earth's climate has been changing naturally for millions of years.
Climate change is normal and natural.
The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has been constantly changing naturally for millions of years.
I think the optimal rate of decarbonization is a particularly interesting point where science could regain credibility by disagreeing with the nominal political consensus
The only IAM model that includes CO2 fertilization as a benefit found net benefits of warming to 2°. Nordhaus revised his optimal pathway down, to about 3°. A model run using a weakly supported cost of warming 10x higher than Nordhaus found a midpoint of 2.1°
This is quite astonishing. These models are likely relying on literature endemically biased towards finding costs more often than benefits, and don't cap actually severe cost possibilities at something like the cost of a hard stop with geoengineering. They starkly disagree with the expressed consensus of scientists "speaking consensus to power" in the words of Roger Pielke
The core fact of climate change is that the choice of a temperature target was politically chosen and it is widely presented, including by most scientists themselves, as representing a primarily scientific choice. If we rate science denial by absolute deviation from a scientific consensus then the 97% rhetoric as applied to the nominal political consensus is the big Kahana
I believe it's important to understand that most scientists probably aren't aware of this. The information ecosystem incentivizes alarm from the start and rachets upwards from the choices of topic and assumptions of papers, to the summaries of those papers, to the articles written about them, to the headlines of the articles. The proposed consensus on climate change is technically, not primarily scientific and driven by the enduring bias to predict catastrophic future outcomes from cooling in the late 1800's to warming in the 30's, cooling again in the 70's, to now
Contrasting reasonable and comprehensively balanced optimal pathway literature with the claimed consensus may be a key area for science to reclaim its integrity and independence from narrative
There is as presumption of either/or, all thru this article. In other words, 'If we are right, they must be wrong. If they are right, we must be wrong'. That is NOT how the scientific method works.
Donald Trump is not a scientist, and he knows it. John Kerry is not a scientist, but he thinks he is. I am a science teacher. I've taught earth science, including climate change.
The things that Trump says do not offend me. In fact, he rarely criticizes actual science. He criticizes the policy wonks who try to pretend they know what they're doing.
On the other hand, I find John Kerry highly offensive. He is a poser. He is pointless. People like him are why so many people distrust "The Science". Real science and real scientists are as reliable and trustworthy as it gets. But you'll find few of them in DC or on an MSM show.
John Kerry stated: " it’s time to go into overdrive and “accelerate” the transition to green energy." By which he means the very much not green wind & solar.
This the same John Kerry who owns 6 houses 12 cars 2 yachts and a private jet, while lecturing us about how we need to restrict our energy consumption. And then he pushes the charade of buying carbon credits to account for his energy gluttony. When we know >90% of those schemes are fraudulent.
John Kerry was the guy who killed the highly successful IFR or Integral Fast Reactor program, which could replace 3.2M tonnes of coal with 1 tonne of spent nuclear fuel, depleted uranium or natural uranium and eliminate 870K tonnes of ash and 7.7M tonnes of CO2. While generating 170lbs of nuclear waste that need only be contained for 300yrs, drop it down a borehole, easy-peesy. Why isn't John Kerry and his boss, Bill Clinton, on trial now for crimes against humanity since they are more responsible for this "existential threat" than just about anyone on the planet?
On what basis do you think first-order negative impacts from carbon emissions outweigh the first-order positive impacts? The positive effects are routinely ignored. It is difficult to find any serious attempt to balance the positives and negatives. What we do know with considerable confidence is that FAR more people die from cold than heat.
We are also starting to understand that plants are more productive surrounded by higher concentrations of CO2.
An alarmist says temperatures have increased since the industrial revolution - a skeptic says temperatures have increased since the end of the "Little Ice Age".
" Thus, when Trump has done things like call the entire concept of climate change a hoax, this can legitimately be called out as science denial." Not necessarily. Not if Trump is using the ridiculously uhelpful term "climate change" to mean your points 1 through 4 - which is exactly how it is used most commonly.
"Climate change" is what the alarmists say when they mean anthropogenic climate forcing. Skeptics, like me and those commenting here, generally are quite comfortable with the knowledge that climate always changes, and always has. Science has not managed to thoroughly explain the mechanisms involved. But it's a good guess that attempts to stop this rollercoaster are not wise.
Mr. Trump and his voters are perfectly capable of understanding the fuzzy semantics. For some reason the alarmists are not.
I agree with you completely, but I am skeptical that it will happen.
Scientists are people first, and when humans are in groups of people where virtually everyone shares certain moral beliefs and they are under attack by other groups, they cling tighter to their beliefs.
The reason why most climate scientists got into the field is because they wanted to join a moral cause to save humanity from itself. If they were to come out openly and say that they can only supply information and politicians need to make trade-off with uncertain consequences (which is the truth), then governments would remove the trillions of dollars in funding for Green energy, the climate change movement would collapse and their life work would be destroyed.
Individual scientists with integrity may do that, but not the rest. They chose their path a long time ago.
I might want to re-emphasize the long-standing difference between the "two cultures" on university campuses where those in the sciences (and engineering) pursue truths about nature and about the works of humanity in respect to the laws of nature, whereas those on the other side of campus, H2S, as one wag of a colleague once put it, study the arts, history, sociology, and the like. The B school and the Law school interpret the above in pursuit of their interests.
The STEM types in the College of Engineering have next to no responsibility for the weirdness emanating from H2S.
Ruth, sometimes I think that once climate change was defined as a problem, the logical solution to decarbonization would be empowering engineers to develop lower-carbon choices? Instead we got sermons on how to live our lives from atmospheric scientists and modelers, and mucho billions spent on predicting the future to the gnat's eyebrow. If it were an emergency, all the funding should go toward solutions. Otherwise climate change is just a trough for anyone to feed at with the appropriate rationalization. A person might even wonder whether "climate change research" is in some sense a disciplinary echo of the old hierarchy of the theoretical over applied sciences.
Well, why was the reactor in Boelter Hall at UCLA shut down? They had some of the solutions to smog in LA and to climate change now.
Once again I need to reiterate the actual fact and the actual science about Climate Change. And that is that it is pretty much irrelevant.
The real problem is not Climate Change but the legitimate aspirations of Developing Nations to reach a modern standard of living, with a functioning Industrial Economy, which will require a 5X increase in World Primary Energy supply. And major increases in Oil & Gas needed just to supply petrochemical industry, including vital polymers, fertilizer & lubricating oils, which will grow accordingly. That is where Oil & Gas consumption should be prioritized, not for energy.
There is no way fossil is capable of supplying that level of energy economically. Or is renewables capable, not even close. Not even fossil + renewables. The only energy source capable of supply that level of energy economically is Nuclear. Just the resources of thorium and uranium on the accessible portion of the Earth's land mass would power that level of energy consumption for 20Myrs. Fusion resources would supply that much energy past when the Sun dies. Happy coincidence, Nuclear energy has insignificant GHG emissions, so that just makes the Climate Change question irrelevant.
Add to that Nuclear releases negligible toxic emissions, far, far less than any other energy source. So, the simple truth is, the energy transition needs to be to Nuclear, nothing else matters. And because of that, the Climate Change Grifters despise nuclear more than even fossil. And go to great lengths to blockade nuclear expansion. With their $trillions in wealth.
And during the past year, we have seen how vulnerable our current energy infrastructure is to economic blackmail and war. The specter of even worse and longer Middle East wars stands before us. We could care less about the Middle East if not for all the Oil & Gas there. It's just a big sandpit. But we have a World of Oil & Gas hegemony, mostly centered on the most geopolitically unstable regions on Earth. Replacing Fossil with ubiquitous Uranium & Thorium is just a giant insurance policy for humanity, insurance against economic strangulation.
So how do we go about replacing most energy (primary energy, including electricity & heat)? These two videos will explain it:
Energy Transition: Nuclear SMRs vs Renewables, Energy Transition Crisis:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=yBF2fGUO5cQ
"This video explains how advanced small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) technology can be used to completely replace all of the energy we now derive from fossil fuels, for less investment than what’s already been spent on renewable energy in the last two decades alone."
Good example of that tech needed:
Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor, Copenhagen Atomics Onion Core - Thomas Jam Pederson @ TEAC12
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqxvBAJn_vc
Absent in the article is another factor contributing to polarization and anger on the issue of energy; mandates forced upon and economic "takings" from those that disagree with the underpinnings of those mandates and takings.
The fundamental theory of mandates is that normal people are too stupid to make the "right" choices in their lives so therefore "we in power" (with 51% consensus) will dictate how you should live.
This is why you cannot buy an incandescent light bulb, why your dishwasher takes all day to wash your dishes, why your wash machine does not fill with enough water to properly clean your clothes, why electricity prices are climbing despite cheap and abundant coal and gas resources, why your only choice in a new car is a tiny Rube Goldberg turbo engine that is more complex and unreliable than normal engines, why your car stupidly shuts down and starts up at every stoplight, why your taxes are rising while rich folks get tax credits on their shiny new EV toys and unwanted solar/windmill farms in their backyard and surrounding countryside.
On the horizon are government controlled thermostats, government caused blackouts due to inadequate power generation, forced EV adoption whether it works for you or not..
Every one of these slights is a freedom taken away from you and is one more misery to what is already difficult living conditions for many Americans. All brought to you by the "we in power" 51%.
The fundamental fact of mandates is that they are just tools of oppression & wealth transfer and almost always have ulterior, nefarious motives. It has nothing to do with the 51% or even the 10%. It has EVERYTHING to do with the 0.01%, whose lust for wealth & power is beyond comprehension. We seen that clearly with their economy destroying, wealth transfer (to them) Covid Plandemic. Not one policy they mandated might the least bit of sense medically.
I'm a firm believer in the Free Market. No mandates. If they really believed CO2 was such a problem (hint: They don't) they would just have a revenue neutral Carbon Fee & Dividend. Which rewards the energy frugal and punishes the wealthy energy gluttons. No preferential mandates, exemptions or subsidies given to the political favorites, wind & solar. Or EVs. Let the Free Market sort that all out.
An astonishingly stupefying piece, hubristically and misleadingly crafted from top to bottom. The entire exercise is based on the assertion that the Left's presentation of science is always correct, just occasionally overstated, over heated, or over demanding. Never is it posited, let alone proven, nor admitted, that it at times has been outright lies.
Masks? Immunity? 6 feet of social distancing? Worse and more weather destruction? Food pyramid? Safe Marijuana? Deadly Ivermectin? Extinct species? False predictions of too many kinds to count? Dissenting or questioning people, dismissed as populist, right wing, ignoramuses.
What part of today's science, politically aligned and enforced, is trustworthy? Genderbending minors? I'll put our commonsense, wide ranged reading, and real world experience up against manipulated consensus science any day. Our world will be better off for it.
Are we criticizing ALL science, or only the science that deals with climate change and public health around Covid? Because I don't recall a demonizing or politicizing of the scientists who raised warnings about cigarette smoking and the limiting of cigarette advertising, about the science behind sulfur and nitrous oxide removal from coal-fired plants that were contributing to acidification of lakes and creating smog in cities. I also don't remember a huge push-back on the removal of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) from refrigerants to close the hole in the ozone. All of these were science-researched conditions that countries were able to get behind and resolved. That resolved problems and saved lives because we listened to scientists and didn't try to question their findings based upon their supposed political leanings. Could it be that those scientist promoted changes that didn't greatly impact big oil or the efficient operation of the economy? Just saying.
I don't know why you feel that "most science is conducted within a university setting," but in good science practice you should provide the reference for this. Yes, most science published in some top journals, like Science and Nature, is authored by academics but this is because their editorial boards are biased against industry scientists. A significant majority of all scientist work in industry and more PhDs, the elite of scientists, work in industry, at 47.1%, than in academia, at 43.8% (NCSES. NSF 21-319. April 2021).
There is much to be said about this essay; some good, some not so good. Generally, I agree with the conclusion that resetting is necessary, though I cannot say that fault lies exclusively within science, but also with its cheerleaders in the media, or our educational system.
How does science need reset? Well, Richard Lindzen made a very good point when he said that you “have to fund science in ways that there are no incentives for promoting things.” Show me the incentive, and I’ll show you the outcome. Some time ago, Gianluca Alimonti and his associates published a paper in which they concluded that “on the basis of observational data, the climate crisis that…we are experiencing today, is not evident yet.” Piltdown Mann and friends were outraged by this, and demanded the paper be retracted. Eventually, it was, but public spectacle of that process left the stain, and stench, of censorship. Science needs to return to the heady days of searching for truths and not products to sell. It needs to abandon the technique of slander and denigration as argument.
How is does our educational system need reset? I learned in elementary school that the earth’s climate has always been changing, so of course “climate change is real.” Our educational system needs to do a better job of fostering critical thinking, and teaching (and reinforcing this) concept of how to disagree constructively without slander and ostracism. The observational data about climate change is that people are leading longer, healthier, more productive lives than at any time in history, and people are safer now than anytime in history from the ravages of climate. Where is the alarm in this?
How do we reset the media? Good luck with that. But one way we, as scientists, can do this is to stop feeding them bullshit information. This essay has several great examples of this, but I will focus on two. First, you say “most science is conducted within the university setting.” That is preposterous! Energy companies like Exxon and BP are technology powerhouses. Do you think that they don’t do scientific research? What about pharmaceutical companies? Was the Covid vaccine conceived at Harvard Med School, or in a pharmacy lab? What about agriculture? Do only universities do research on seed quality and engineering, or irrigation techniques, or harvest methods? Have you ever heard of Bell Labs?
Second, you reinforce the consensus storyline by referencing the “oft-quoted “97% to 99% scientific consensus on global warming.” “Consensus” has no place in scientific vernacular. Consensus is something that happens between two kids in the back seat of a Buick; it does not occur in a laboratory. Science is about upsetting the consensus, not voting for it. We have allowed the media to obliterate the line between information and opinion.
My two cents, adjusted for inflation.
As as illustration of how bad things are at the Toronto District School Board the following is an extract from an article by Michael Lau in the National Post:
In condemning capitalism, the TDSB newsletter predictably attacks the “deadly activities of the fossil fuel industry, which continues to pollute, burn, and ransack the planet in the face of mounting human suffering” — a claim again contradicted by the facts, which show fossil fuels have helped power literally billions of people out of poverty.
Elsewhere the newsletter highlighted a recent climate change conference organized by the TDSB and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, which was attended by 250 teachers and keynoted by a representative from the David Suzuki Foundation. One workshop encouraged teachers to integrate “age-appropriate climate action into their classrooms, schools, and communities,” while another explored how public schools can “address the climate crisis that students are experiencing here and now” and a third concerned “engaging students in environmental advocacy.”
"There are various hypotheses as to why scientists and academics hold left-leaning views, but I am skeptical of the self-serving notion that more credentialed people hold these views because the views are somehow fundamentally more true. While it may be the case that most academic scientists engage in research that entails quantitative rigor constrained by empirical data on narrow research questions, scientists often conflate this day-job activity with the notion that their political worldview is also arrived at through pure empiricism and rationality. On the contrary, I would argue that scientists arrive at their political opinions in mostly the same way everybody else does: through a combination of their natural temperament, the culture they are embedded in, personal experience, and the resulting incomplete and oversimplified models of the world."
Also, I think it's important to include social pressure from others not to stray from the "approved" science. Throw in the fact that most of the granters, federal and otherwise, are on the left, creating a lot of pressure for researchers to tow the "approved" science line, anything less is a career-limiting move.
Very important issue, very important stand: to combat fuzzy elision of political goals as science, very well examined and contested. Let's get this word out there.
Some points:
Issuing research conclusions about things that cannot be determined with scientific method, indicates that the research method is flawed, it has not achieved application of scientific method. To remedy an increase in rigor and criticism is needed.
True that left and right is not distinguished by smart and dumb, but beyond different perspectives why is it that the western liberal trend captured and weaponized sections of science? And why did the capture also align censoring and skewing of publication and associated rewarding/demoting careers? The liberal political science narrowed the scope of research, contrary paradigms that encourage wide research scope are needed.
The left and right in US are similar to the French Revolution? that is unclear - in France the left wanted change and the right wanted to preserve the current system configuration. Formally in the West the left wants to preserve the current system configuration and the (nativist) right wants rearrange it at least. But also in substance the nativists imply more fundamental situations can be changed while liberals deal in baubles because fundamental changes are taboo. The curtain is being lifted on many taboo subjects which is favorable for science to regain dynamism.
Its not an encouraging sign that a scientist thinks science is under attack and must defend itself differently. No science is performing poorly in some ways and needs to self correct. A humble appraisal of self failures and deficiency would be an encouraging sign.
Very well considered and presented thoughts. Watching what happened from the outside on Nov 5th very clearly confirms your well placed beliefs and I agree. The demonisation of “Science” from one side of the political spectrum has most certainly been exaggerated by the extremism of what has become the now norm of almost all scientific publications!
We need to open up to the ideas of “investigation” and hypothesising with the inclusion of all relevant impacts which must allow societal and economic considerations to play equal part.
And let’s not forget that with more votes counted (I watch this daily), the so called “mandate” becomes weaker and weaker. What needs to happen is the motivation of population involvement in democracy and less alienation. IMHO of course.
"Finally, we have physics-based mathematical models that allow us to conduct simulated hypothesis tests of what the world would look like with and without increased greenhouse gas concentrations. The oft-quoted “97% to 99% scientific consensus on global warming” applies to statements 1 and 2. "
That is false.
Computer models are not scientific evidence.
The quote of '97% to 99%' consensus has been shown to be false many times but some people keep repeating that false statement.
To be scientific there must be real-life experiments, hypothesis and predictions, not simulated climate computer models.
For scientific evidence there must be (repeatable) predictions of the exact climate in each small section of the earth at a near future date, maybe in 2026.
Then, in 2026, we can see if the prediction is correct or not.
And the prediction must be repeatable forother near-future dates.
That is real science.
If it the prediction is not correct then they don't know enough about the earth's atmosphere and physics to make any realistic prediction.
The earth's climate has been changing naturally for millions of years.
Climate change is normal and natural.
The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has been constantly changing naturally for millions of years.
CO2 concentration change is normal and natural.
I think the optimal rate of decarbonization is a particularly interesting point where science could regain credibility by disagreeing with the nominal political consensus
The only IAM model that includes CO2 fertilization as a benefit found net benefits of warming to 2°. Nordhaus revised his optimal pathway down, to about 3°. A model run using a weakly supported cost of warming 10x higher than Nordhaus found a midpoint of 2.1°
This is quite astonishing. These models are likely relying on literature endemically biased towards finding costs more often than benefits, and don't cap actually severe cost possibilities at something like the cost of a hard stop with geoengineering. They starkly disagree with the expressed consensus of scientists "speaking consensus to power" in the words of Roger Pielke
The core fact of climate change is that the choice of a temperature target was politically chosen and it is widely presented, including by most scientists themselves, as representing a primarily scientific choice. If we rate science denial by absolute deviation from a scientific consensus then the 97% rhetoric as applied to the nominal political consensus is the big Kahana
I believe it's important to understand that most scientists probably aren't aware of this. The information ecosystem incentivizes alarm from the start and rachets upwards from the choices of topic and assumptions of papers, to the summaries of those papers, to the articles written about them, to the headlines of the articles. The proposed consensus on climate change is technically, not primarily scientific and driven by the enduring bias to predict catastrophic future outcomes from cooling in the late 1800's to warming in the 30's, cooling again in the 70's, to now
Contrasting reasonable and comprehensively balanced optimal pathway literature with the claimed consensus may be a key area for science to reclaim its integrity and independence from narrative