Climate science not 'from the left'

In his letter of Jan. 27, Mark Agather suggested that my scientific recommendation concerning global warming and those of all of our country’s leading scientific organizations are not credible because they come from the “far left” of the political spectrum.

From the nature of his comments, it also appears that Mr. Agather pays attention only to selected bits of pseudo-science that is published regularly and widely on the editorial pages and bloggery of our public media. Therefore, I seriously doubt that he knows many or even any within the group of real American scientists he is referring to.

Since I spent my entire career working with that group of scientists, I happen to know how inaccurate his view of them is. Among those scientists I have not noticed a predominant political view. Most of them, in fact, seem to be relatively detached from political activity and content to focus on the science at hand.

Mr. Agather’s comments remind me very much of Adolf Hitler’s attempt to refute the new insights into quantum and relativistic physics that were emerging right under his nose in the 1930s. He preferred to dismissed these new insights, labeling them fraudulent “Jewish Science.” As a result, many of the very brightest of this scientific class, including strong political conservatives such as Edward Teller, moved to the United States of America, where they subsequently used their scientific skills to win World War II and then the Cold War against communism and the USSR.

In addition, the new industries and jobs created by these new insights into the laws of Mother Nature helped make the USA the dominant financial force in the world throughout the remainder of the 20th century.

We are fortunate that the scientific views of the vast majority of America’s real professional scientists have very little to do with any politic affiliations they might have. This minimizes our chances of proceeding down a path of intellectual stagnation such as Germany took between the years of 1933 and 1945.

It is useful to remind ourselves that Mother Nature determines what happens and she pays no attention whatsoever to the political preferences of human beings. While Mr. Agather’s comments might be comforting to the “Business as Usual” forces of America, they are also socially irresponsible.

The United States possess the best scientific communities that have ever existed in essentially all areas of science and to ignore their collective views concerning the most probable course of Mother Nature constitutes nothing more than unwarranted wishful thinking along with an astounding level of stupidity.

Since I have noted that many of the ultra-right political persuasion do not seem to know this — while they simultaneously criticize the quality of education being offered by our public schools — it leads me me suggest that they themselves go back to school and upgrade their deficient understandings of science.  

Grimsrud is a resident of Kalispell.