Pseudoscience of Climate Change

By Alex Markovsky

April 2007

George Bernard Shaw so aptly wrote, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.”

There couldn’t be a better description of Jonathan Overpeck, Ph.D., a professor and dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan and the author of the article “Whatever it Takes,” posted on TheHill a few months ago.

In his article professor Overpeck made a torrent of apocalyptic predictions and delineated a host of “inexorable and accelerating” calamities attributed to Global Warming. “I care about future generations, who stand to inherit either an unimaginable climate change disaster or a world transformed that is free of climate change, toxic air pollution, mass extinction, and the terrible economic and health burdens that massive climate change is sure to create,” he wrote.

The author insists that “Success in our battle against climate change requires the deliberate and strategic spending.” He authoritatively concluded that “warming and associated climate disasters become inevitable and largely irreversible” (emphasis mine).

Haven’t we danced to this dance before? Indeed, only then, in the mid-1970s, scientists and the media overwhelmingly supported global cooling with the same vigor and urgency as professor Overpeck supports global warming today. The cover of April 28, 1975, issue of Newsweek proclaimed “The Coming Ice Age.” In the article “The Cooling World,” the magazine suggested the disasters similar to those predicted in the article “Whatever it Takes.” On June 24, 1974, issue of Time magazine, the article “Another Ice Age” painted a bleak picture for the future of our planet: “When meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe, they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. “The trend shows no indication of reversing” (emphasis mine).

Scientists have been telling us that humanity will end in ten years for the last fifty years. Their track record predicting the future is as trustworthy as prophecies of the Oracle of Delphi.  Carl Grant Looney, Ph.D. in his dazzling book “Climate Change and the Emergence of Civilization: Global Warming, Great Floods and Ice Ages” assembled spectacularly wrong predictions made by the leading scientists around 1970.

Does anyone remember the “scientific” theory of “acid rain” propagated during the 1970s and 1980s, which was supposed to destroy the forests and poison our lakes and rivers unless we closed down coal-fired power plants?

Aren’t we happy that President Reagan was wise enough not to “trust the science” or rather not to trust the scientists?

Speaking of trust, we should be aware that most scientists live off government research grants. The golden rule of business, “who has gotten the gold – sets the rules” applies to scientists just as it applies to everyone else. Therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised that many scientists choose to support this campaign of coercion and demagoguery. The essence of demagoguery is to raise and distill emotions into action. In this case, to push the government agenda, even if the stated objectives are demonstrably absurd. Such as Dr. Overpeck’s desire to have “a world transformed that is free of climate change.”

It is a fact that climate has been in constant flux for millions of years. The collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt and the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia around 2200 B.C. was brought about by a catastrophic rise in temperatures and subsequent droughts. At the same time, the European continent was being subjected to a prolonged ice age. Some may be surprised to learn that the Romans grew grapes in northern England. Hence, temperatures on this planet were a lot higher then. Given the level of erudition of global warming advocates, we should wonder whether they are aware that neither the Bronze Age civilizations nor the Romans had cars, oil refineries, or coal-fired power plants.

Dr. Overpeck has failed to offer any confirmation that human activities are having any impact on the Earth’s temperature one way or the other, and no amount of pomposity can compensate for the lack of scientific evidence.

Besides greenhouse gases, there are other more persuasive causes such as the Sun’s activity, the Earth’s reflectivity, atmospheric pressure, angle of rotation that impact the planet’s temperature. Therefore, there is no reason to be alarmed.

What is alarming are prophetic absolutism and fanatical devotion to the cause by the disciples of the Church of Climate Change. Unable to define their objectives in quantifiable terms, they nevertheless are prepared with religious fervor to do “Whatever it Takes” to justify the unlimited expenditure, strangulation of production of hydrocarbons, and to place the power generation under tight government control.

Global Warming or Climate Change is neither an economic nor environmental project; it is an ideologically driven movement. In an ideological struggle, the more determined and more vocal side usually wins regardless of the validity of the arguments. Hence, it doesn’t matter whether it is cooling, warming, or ambiguous climate change. It is, paraphrasing James Madison, “instrument for bringing the many under the domination of the few.”