By Andy May
From Wikipedia:
Fascism /ˈfæʃɪzəm/ is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and control of industry and commerce that came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.
There have been some disconcerting items in the news lately. This one is disturbing, from Germany. To quote Professor JØrgen Randers:
“… if people don’t want my preferred solution, then people are stupid, shouldn’t be allowed to decide their fate, and we should install a climate dictatorship instead.” To read more about Professor Randers ideas, see here.
Then we find others trying to punish climate skeptics (aka “deniers”) as criminals:
“Climate change denial should be a crime,” declared the Sept. 1 headline in the Outline. Mark Hertsgaard argued in a Sept. 7 article in the Nation, titled “Climate Denialism Is Literally Killing Us,” that “murder is murder” and “we should punish it as such.” The Washington Times.
Climate Activist John Gilkison has called for “Climate Crime trials” for climate skeptics and has sentenced many skeptics to death. Those sentenced to death include Senator James Inhofe, Marc Morano, Myron Ebell, Bjorn Lomborg, Matt Ridley and Roy Spencer. Climate Depot.
Or this from Mark Hertsgaard in The Nation:
“To refuse to act against global warming is to condemn thousands of people to death and suffering today and millions more tomorrow. This is murder, even if Trump’s willful ignorance of climate science prevents him from seeing it.” See here to view at the source.
So, now we murder or jail people who view ambiguous climate data differently? Are we in for another Inquisition? See figure 1:
Figure 1 (source Michael Ramirez, Investor’s Business Daily))
Some will claim that “97%” of scientists believe that climate change is man-made and dangerous, although this “97% consensus” nonsense was disproven years ago (see here). And, consensus is a political thing, it has nothing to do with science. Einstein was once asked about a book entitled “100 Authors against Einstein.” It was a book of 53 essays supposedly refuting Einstein’s theory of relativity. His reported response:
“Why 100 authors? If I were wrong, then one would have been enough!”
While the 97% consensus has been debunked, there are some reliable surveys of scientists that illustrate where we are. Below, as figure 2, are some survey results collected by Dr. Ronan Connolly and Dr. Michael Connolly:
Figure 2
As can be seen on the left, almost all scientists believe climate change and global warming are occurring. It is surprising that the numbers are not 100%, but they are very high in any case. When scientists are asked about whether the warming is natural or human-caused the story changes. Nearly everyone agrees that humans have some effect on climate, but far fewer are convinced that humans cause most of the changes to climate or global warming. The debate, quite rightly, is about how much human emissions and land-use changes affect our climate and whether or not this is dangerous.
Science is not determined by consensus, it is determined with data, analysis and proper scientific procedure. We would probably still think the world is flat, the Sun revolves around the Earth, and be riding horses and donkeys if it were done by consensus. Once a scientific idea is supported by enough data and analysis to overwhelm all skeptics, it becomes a solid and entrenched theory. This is the case with the theory of relativity, although certainly not the idea of dangerous man-made climate change. The idea that there is such a consensus persists, even though thousands of scientists are skeptical (The Telegraph). To make man-made dangerous climate change a solid theory will require convincing those thousands of skeptical scientists, let’s hope it is done with data and sound reasoning, and not guns.
