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.

Nor does it matter how many scientists say something. Consensus is not the equivalent of truth in the scientific realm - otherwise the sun really would revolve around the earth because that is what everyone believed for thousands of years. Consensus can be developed around error just as easily as around truth because all that consensus reflects is the human tendency to groupthink. It is an aspect of politics, not science. Indeed, consensus in science is meaningless unless there is first a Galileo, an Edison or a Pasteur to lead the way.

Can anyone name the Galileo of global warming?

I didn't think so.

But yet, there is Newsweek shaming the millions of people who don't buy the official dogma of the Church of Climate Change and denouncing them as "deniers," as if the science behind global warming is supposed to be unquestioned, unchallenged and unerring like the Bible or the pope (take your pick).

Well, there are many people who refuse to recite the Catechism of Climate Change, but yet Newsweek and other outlets of received truth insist that there is no room for doubt. A few examples will suffice: We are not supposed to notice that climate change has been happening for millions of years. We are not supposed to notice that the earth has witnessed a cycle of warming and cooling since it was created, and that the last ice age ended just 10,000 years ago. We are not supposed to ask whether the global warming that has been taking place for the last 10,000 years (long before the Industrial Revolution) may simply be continuing because of planetary conditions beyond the control of man. We are not supposed to notice that the issue of global warming has conveniently been replaced with the issue of climate change so that fear about the climate can now incorporate any kind of anomaly, whether it is hotter temperatures or cooler ones. We are just supposed to shut up, get in line, and march in lockstep to the official irrefutable undeniable indisputable conclusions of people who say they are way smarter than the rest of us.

Well, sorry, but I've never been very good at toeing the party line. So pardon me while I raise my voice of doubt.

Mankind always sees itself as at the center of the universe. It always has, and it probably always will. Thus, virtually each tribe in the world has a creation myth that describes how God created them as a chosen people. People also have a tendency to blame themselves for the effects of nature. In the past this was usually manifested as a belief that God had sent the rain or the drought or the snowstorm as punishment for some human sin or failing. Likewise, people would engage in propitiatory acts ranging from dances to human sacrifice in order to convince the gods to send the correct amount of rain or sunlight or provide the correct conditions for good hunting or farming.

Given the psychological tendency to see weather as human-caused (as a mechanism of reward and punishment), is it any wonder that most people see changes in weather today and think that mankind must be responsible for it?

Of course not.

But please don't tell me, as Newsweek had the audacity to do, that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal." The only thing unequivocal is the past, and what we know from the past is that if there had not been global warming 10,000 years ago, we would never have developed agriculture, which would have meant we would never have developed cities, which meant we would never have created universities, which meant we would not have had to listen to people complaining about how warm it is today.

As for the future, I suppose it would be nice to know more about it.

But rather than wait for scientists to accurately predict what the weather will be like in 100 years, I think I'll set my sights a little lower. I'll be happy if the weather forecaster can accurately predict what the weather will be like next weekend for the fair.

Until he can do that, I think I will sit out this panic, put a few more charcoals on the greenhouse-gas emitting barbecue grill, and sit down for a good read about the trial of Galileo.