When climatologists such as John Coleman debunk AGW, the believers contest that he is not the right kind of scientist to dispute the “science”.  He is after all “just a weatherman”.

Al Gore is certainly no scientist and has less credentials than John Coleman on the subject.  Yet he is considered an authority on the subject by the believers. The “science” is debatable; the “certainty” is disturbing. Gore has consistently refused to debate the issue. “The debate is over” is certainly not the language of science. Nor is treating skeptics like heretics.

Climate Gate has shown that even “scientists” can be biased by the influence of money.  For every “scientist” that supports AGW there is a “scientist” debunking it.

The greater fallacies in the AGW argument are fallacies of logic, not science.  The idea of certainty in such a hugely uncertain and massive realm just defies common sense.

Science welcomes skepticism, religions generally do not.

George Will writes on Climate Gate in the Washington Post; The Climate -change travesty

Excerpt:

Barack Obama, understanding the histrionics required in climate-change debates, promises that U.S. emissions in 2050 will be 83 percent below 2005 levels. If so, 2050 emissions will equal those in 1910, when there were 92 million Americans. But there will be 420 million Americans in 2050, so Obama’s promise means that per capita emissions then will be about what they were in 1875. That. Will. Not. Happen.

Were their science as unassailable as they insist it is, and were the consensus as broad as they say it is, and were they as brave as they claim to be, they would not be “goaded” into intellectual corruption. Nor would they meretriciously bandy the word “deniers” to disparage skepticism that shocks communicants in the faith-based global warming community.

Bjorn Lomborg is an economist who writes on global warming.  He acknowledges that the global warming exists, but he doubts the severity of the problem and the potential for success from many of the misguided policies being proposed.

In the 8/28/09 Wall Street Journal Lomborg  notes in “Technology Can Fight Global Warming” that there are many much less costly solutions to the problem than onerous policies that restrict growth and seem nearly politically impossible.  Increase planting of trees, for example,  would absorb expelled CO2.

More intriguing is a proposal from J. Eric Bickel and Lee lane to have boats spray seawater into clouds above the ocean reflecting more sunlight back into space.  While costing billions it would seem small compared to the costs of the growth killing government proposals.  Similar proposals have been made to lighten the color of our asphalt and roof tiles to reduce heat absorption.

While these proposals are questionable the idea of seeking better and more cost effective solution in applications of technology rather than in cumbersome and destructive government policies is worthy of strong consideration if we can extract political ideology from the science.

One of the commonly acknowledged grave mistakes of the response to the Depression of 1929 was the Smoot Hawley Tarriff, which largely killed foreign trade in an effort to save domestic jobs.  Not only did it make the depression worse it created many of the global economic conditions that led to World War II.

The insidious cap and trade legislation threatens to make the same mistake. Acknowledging that the bill will kill American jobs our vapid leaders’ response is to use trade restrictions to penalize countries that do not comply with our plan to control the weather . This can only make a bad economy much worse.

While President Obama has criticized American arrogance in the field of foreign affairs, what could be more arrogant than America, who has consumed and produced her way to the top of the economic pyramid,  now seeking to deny the resources to poorer countries to grow their economies.

We should expect retaliatory tariffs that will hurt our exporters and as other countries develop their own middle class, they will be less and less dependent on American consumers.  If other countries do not follow our cap and trade model our efforts will have practically no effect of climate temperatures.

Obama considered previous administrations arrogant for trying to impose political systems of freedom and democracy on other nations.  He is even more arrogant for believing he can control global tempreatures, and then trying to force  other nations to comply with a very uncertain and questionable program with trade restrictions.  We will be the greater victims if this policy.

The episode of Joe McCarthy’s communist witch hunt including the blacklisting of Hollywood writers with suspected, rarely proven (as if that should even matter), communist ties was one of our most embarrassing episodes in our recent history.

McCarthy was able to capitalize on the fears of world communist domination to scare us into trashing our most basic liberties such as free press and due process. The actual arrest of a few communist spies was just like adding gasoline to the fires of fear.

Anyone who opposed McCarthy was deemed suspect and thus was dissent squashed and reason trampled. Apparently the witch hunt started with an uneventful speech that was surprisingly given legs by unexpected press coverage. But once the story got legs McCarthy rode it for all it was worth until the fateful hearings when the Senator starting charging the Army with harboring communists; It was then that Joseph Nye, the army’s chief legal representative, startled the Senator and the Chamber with his famous smack down, “”Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

That comment was greeted with applause, and McCarthy quickly descended into shame and oblivion, and faced censure in the Senate. Edward R. Murrow also took a courageous stand on his show, “His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. [...] We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully.”

In spite of a free press and unlimited sources of information we have not escaped the dangers of a sycophantic press who fear being called ‘racist’ for challenging the reason or policy of a minority, or a ‘denier’ (i.e. as in ‘holocaust denier’ ) for challenging the claim ‘the debate is over’ (Al Gore’s response to challenges about global warming) when in fact the debate never occurred. Such accusations bring the same chill to dissent as ‘communist’ did from Joe McCarthy.

Any challenge to a political orthodoxy must come from within its own party to be effective. The opposition is never taken seriously and in this new era where most seek or filter the news to confirm their existing opinion, calls for change and contrary evidence cannot even be heard.

But we should remember Joseph Nye and Edward Murrow that it just takes one voice to expose a fraud and stop it dead in its tracks.