Hey Newsweek: Why not just call us heretics?

FRANK MIELE

If you wanted to see an example of biased journalism, a good place to start would be the Aug. 13 cover story in Newsweek about global warming.

The issue's cover says "Global Warming Is A Hoax," but there is an asterisk, which leads to the statement "Or so claim well-funded naysayers who still reject the overwhelming evidence of climate change."

In other words, Newsweek has an agenda to promote global-warming hysteria, and they don't feel any need to give equal time to a point of view they disagree with. Indeed Newsweek's author Sharon Begley denounces global warming skeptics as "deniers," a term which I think establishes the pseudo-religious quality of the global warming crusade as well as anything.

We are indeed reaching the point where "science" has become the equivalent of religious dogma, and "deniers" of the "received truth" (from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in this case) have the same status as the poor saps who dared to tell the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (previously known as the Inquisition) that church dogma was wrong.

Although "deniers" of the faith of global warming cannot yet be executed, they can be excommunicated - from the one true church of government funding for scientific research - and that threat of lost funding has marginalized skeptics of global warming to the point where they probably feel a little like Galileo under house arrest.

Newsweek complains that some of the scientists who do not recite the Catechism of Climate Change, as declared by the Intergovernmental Panel, have taken what can only be considered 20 pieces of silver from the Whore of Babylon, also known as ExxonMobil. To quote Newsweek, "Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change."

The language is virtually identical to that used by the Catholic Church to describe the damage done to "true faith" by anyone who dared to use the lever of science to pry people out from the confines of ignorance. And just as the Inquisition would try to link heretics to Satan, so too does the modern inquisition against global-warming skeptics - for in this day and age there is surely no greater demon than ExxonMobil, is there?

But for just one moment, let us ask the obvious question: What difference does it make where I get the money to do my scientific research, if indeed it is scientific research and not just propaganda? Obviously no difference at all. The earth is still going to be revolving around the sun, regardless of who paid for my lunch.