I noticed a few weeks ago that AGW really has become a religion for some. Let us compare it to a traditional religion;
1. It requires belief or faith. AGW hasn't been proved, the science isn't settled (whatever believers say) so most of them eventually have to fall back on pure faith.
2. It has a heaven and a hell, and tells us if we don't follow a certain path the whole world is doomed to "hell".
3. It has priests and organised "worship". Al Gore, Pachauri, Mann, Jones to name but a few.
4. It has unbelievers, sinners or heretics. Aka the "denial" lobby.
5. It extracts tithes. However, religions only extract tithes or donations from believers - the AGW religion extracts money in the form of taxes from us all.
6. It has a sacred text (IPCC AR4). Much like we are told that some passages in the bible are not meant to be taken literally, and do not damage the maessage of the bible as a whole, errors in AR4 are not meant to damage the credence of AR4 or AGW.
Scary, huh?
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Also, Don't forget:
ReplyDeleteGlobal Warming Ten Commandments
Thou shall not do the burning of the evil fossil fuels (except in India and China).
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's Carbon Tax Credits.
Thou shall believe in the one Post Normal Scientific Faith, the AGW theory. All other truths be they provable facts and inconvenient are the product of the baby-eating Big Oil, and thou shall be condemned to CO2 hell for listening to such evil.
Thou shall not use thy brain for discerning the truth.
... etc.
Fatwas
If you commit an evil sin like doing good, reliable, reproducable science that happens to disprove a facet of AGW, you shall be banished from peer review journals and will be victimised by a whispering campaign from Phil Jones, Michael Mann and the rest of the tru believers of the "Hockey Team" brotherhood. So says the great Allah (Gore).
I am afraid that observation is as old as the quills but a good one nonetheless. You missed sacrifices , the offering of a tree for example if you are flying to Spain.Boris did it rather well.
ReplyDeletePopped in to say I liked your remarks on Illiberal Con not to be snidey good stuff .
Like the cut of your gib
"AGW hasn't been proved, the science isn't settled"
ReplyDeleteYou do not understand the philosophy of science.
Science, unlike algebra and geometry, doesn't do "proof". The best status a scientific theory can achieve is not-yet-disproven (Karl Popper).
Similarly, science is never "settled".
AGW theory rests on these pillars:
1 Earth temps are 31*C warmer than it would be without Greenhouse effect (GE). (accepted physical fact)
2 CO2 is a greenhouse gas (physical fact)
3 CO2 has risen by 30%+ since the Industrial Revolution. (observed fact)
4 We cannot explain present temps without factoring in the human-enhanced GE.
The challenge for skeptics is to give a plausible explanation for present temps without enhanced GE.. All the rest is just nit-picking.
The resistance to AGW is motivated by free market fundamentalism, which is most definitely a faith dogma.
Best wishes
Richard
Also, in the end, this is not an academic debate, because we and our children are part of the experiment. The consensus among scientists (yes, with a few exceptions, as is always the case in science) is that we should decarbonise our economy as a matter of urgency.
ReplyDeleteAcademics can debate ad infinitum, but politicians now have to make a choice. Every choice involves a degree of uncertainty.
Say we decarbonise our economy, and it turns out (unlikely as that may be) that IPCC view is wrong? Well, we will have created hundreds of thousands of jobs in insulation and renewable energy manufacturing and taken thousands out of fuel poverty. We will also have reduced the shock of Peak Oil and Peak Gas, and reduced the acidification of the oceans. And addressed our energy security problems. And increased prosperity in hot countries. Not bad, not bad at all.
Say on the other hand, we go the way of the denialists/skeptics, and it turns out, as per all reasonable expectations, that they are wrong?
We will have problems with energy security, Peak Oil, Peak Gas, acidified oceans, acid rain, fuel poverty, unemployment, poverty, civil unrest and finally, massive, catastrophic climate disruption from droughts, floods, crop failures, disease, and war. With massive migration caused by environmental collapse. Not good.
Any sensible decision maker will put our money into decarbonising the global economy.
@ DocRichard.
ReplyDeleteTyler was a physicist for a while, so has some idea of how things work. I think you've got a little mixed up though.
1. Earth surface is 31C warmer than it otherwise would be because of pressure heating of the atmosphere. That isn't the GE.
2. Yes it is. But so is H20, which is more prevalent and more effective as a greehouse gas (look at the spectroscopy if you don't beleive me).
3. Agree with you there, but Arrhenius, the "father" of GE expected a max 1.5C increase in temp with a DOUBLING of the atmospheric CO2 concentration. 1.5C is not a massive temp change given historical (pre industrial) temp changes. Even the IPCC don't really debate this, though they are happy to talk about extremes.
4. We can't explain temps changes at all really. We can barely measure them accurately over any extended period of time. Not easy, this science game. GE does not become the defining factor of temp change unless you use Mann's hockey sticks though.
You say the science is not settled (which I agree), but then allude that is basically is? Can't have it both ways buddy.
As for your next post. Well, some of it is frankly rubbish. Fuel poverty? Renewables cost much more than even nuclear power, and are only happening thanks to massive taxpayer subsidy. Thats putting energy prices up....and peaople INTO fuel poverty.
I agree that an overrelaince on oil and gas isn't a good thing, and would love to see more renewables, but they have to be cost effective.
But then you go on to talk about various other environmental problems, putting them all at the door of AGW, and saying that fighting AGW is the only solution.
Most of the things you mention have *nothing* to do with AGW. In fact, its been shown that in ages where it was a bit warmer crops grew better and mankind thrived - in ice ages we didn't.
You're a green party member by the look of it, and you've fallen for this AGW bullshit along with the rest of them, and forgotten about all the other environmental problems which AGW has subsumed. Destruction of habitats, river and land pollution in China/India. Doesn't matter as long as CO2 production goes down....
So short sighted.