Wall Street Journal: The Climate Change Climate Change
Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation.
If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming. …
…In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program.
The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.) …
I don't doubt that Strassel is carrying the water for certain political aims, but I think her assessment is generally correct. It is intriguing how so many people of a postmodern bent are willing to deconstruct all types of authority, but climate change scientists are Moses coming off the mountain. Science is a human endeavor filled with people who have authentic desires to better the world and people with egos who desire to establish a legacy. Science is also heavily funded and influenced by government and political agendas. Furthermore, powerful economic interests have stakes in scientific outcomes (positive or negative) and are willing to bend science toward their economic interests, usually aided by political allies. The human/political/economic contribution to the emergence of climate change science is rarely considered.
My regular readers know I have doubts about the anthropogenic CO2-driven climate change scenario and even greater doubts about the apocalyptic impact scenarios. There is a joke that says economists have successfully predicted nine of the last five recessions. Climate is infinitely more complex than economies. I'm more concerned about the ecological impacts of consuming natural habitats and creating unsafe environments for humanity today. I also value the creation of renewable energy for political and economic reasons. I hope Strassel is right … that reevaluation is going on … because my perception is that the climate change agenda has been driven at least as much by politics and vested interests (if not more so) as by science.
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