I tried to live-blog this morning, to very little effect and perhaps much frustration. The event I was watching included the Dalai Lama of Climate Change, former Vice President Al Gore, who testified today before the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce. I found him earnest but incredibly dulling, though dulling not by being boring, but by over-reaching and over-stating. Mr. Gore's most bold claim is that the scientific community -- the "consensus" -- is unanimous: mankind is the primary source of global warming and climate change.
Mr. Gore spent much of his opening statement arguing that CO2 levels are dangerously high; he sees a "correlation" between CO2 levels and increased temperatures. In fact, at one point in his testimony, Al Gore argued that the planet "has a fever" and that, though we are only talking about a few degrees of increased temperature, everyone would agree that the difference between 98.6 and 103.6 is cause for grave concern. Irrespective of this absurd anthropomorphism of the planet and the fundamental weakness of the analogy, Mr. Gore believes that the evidence proves causality, and that the proof is irrefutable.
As I have noted before, confusing correlation and causality is utterly unscientific. Mr. Gore commits this non causa pro causa fallacy right before our eyes; he says it with emphasis and conviction, and yet, seemingly, too few notice. If I were to argue that my age and CO2 emissions have increased in a directly proportional relationship, I could not be dismissed as unscientific, for CO2 admissions
have increased as I have gotten older. But surely everyone would snicker at me if I concluded that my increased age is the cause of CO2 emission increases world-wide or, more pertinently, that CO2 emissions are causing me to get older. A correlation does not a causality make.
This is all, truly, quite alarming, though not because it is such bad logic, but because such bad logic is touted as brilliant and courageous leadership by the sychophants sitting in front of Mr. Gore. But Mr. Gore's presentations are nothing of the sort. He is confusing things to promote an agenda, an agenda which might very well be himself. That he is sitting in such high places is not surprising; what IS surprising is how successful he has been in convincing others that the science is unanimous, infallible and indisputable.
If you are not sure the debate is alarming, perhaps these lines from Pulitzer Prize-winning essayist Ellen Goodman, a columnist at the Boston Globe, will open your eyes:
"I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future."Ms. Goodman's hyperbole -- one that borders, I believe, on the immoral -- can be found in her February 9, 2007 column,
No Change in Political Climate. Of course, no one in the scientific community that I know is denying, or has denied, that climate data show a noticeable warming trend, so Ms. Goodman might argue that she is safe: people who deny the
trend are this era's Holocaust deniers. But we know she is not saying that; she is asserting that anyone who disagrees with Al Gore and his band of unanimous, all-knowing scientists is the child of Holocaust-denying parents, so to speak. That Ms. Goodman's language utterly cheapens the historical and moral value of the Holocaust is undeniable; her remark is a contemptible cheap-shot and she should be soundly chastised for making it.
There is more to all of this, of course. As some of you may know, the recent news-cycle has brought to us the curious counter-arguments to global warming models offered by University of Copenhagen's Bjarne Andersen; the reports can be found all over the web, like
here,
here, or
here. As these links show, the idea of a
global temperature, particularly an average one, is fraught with problems; one report says that Mr. Andersen argues that "compiling temperatures from various places and averaging them would be like calculating the average phone number in the phone book." Good for Mr. Andersen. At least his study shows that the scientific community, at least those like Mr. Andersen who study thermodynamics, are not all of one mind.
WHAT DOES IT MATTER?Perhaps you have heard or read what the Czech President Vaclav Klaus
has said in the past few days. President Klaus is ringing a different alarm. According to the Prague Daily Monitor, Klaus has written to the US Congress warning that "the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is not communism or its various softer forms." The biggest threat is "ambitious environmentalism." Klaus wrote:
"[I am] really concerned about the way the environmental topics have been misused by certain political pressure groups to attack fundamental principles underlying free society. …While discussing climate we are not witnessing a clash of views about the environment but a clash of views about human freedom. …the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central, now global, planning of the whole world."But I need to quote even more of this fine article for our purposes here:
"[Klaus] noted that this ideology wants to replace 'the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central, now global, planning of the whole world.' "Its followers, Klaus added, consider 'their ideas and arguments to be an undisputable truth' and use sophisticated methods of media manipulation to exert pressure on politicians to achieve their goals.
"Klaus claimed that the environmentalists' argumentation is based on the spreading of fear and panic, and in this atmosphere they continue pushing politicians to adopt 'illiberal measures, impose arbitrary limits, regulations, prohibitions, and restrictions on everyday human activities and make people subject to omnipotent bureaucratic decision-making.'
"Klaus also said that environmentalists 'neglect the fact that both nature and human society are in a process of permanent change,' that there is and has been no ideal state of the world, and they ignore the future economic and technological progress."
I find this all philosophically fascinating. I wonder if you do too.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
