Fools Who Once Were Smart

Edge.orgThe title is somewhat ironic, since we are all fools in our own way. But some people set themselves up -- via the mainstream media -- as quasi-infallible authorities over topics they could not know very much about. I am referring particularly to such journalists, writers, and intellectuals as George Monbiot, Bruce Sterling, Carl Zimmer, and a host of other celebrities who have used their public platforms and facility with language as a weapon against people who knew more than they (or had a much better perspective) about the complex mechanisms of climate.

Now that the religion of carbon hysteria is collapsing of its own fabrications and contradictions, how will these knowledgeless know-it-alls (on that topic at least) explain their complete and utter mistakenness? Will they apologise to all of those they have derided and accused of being in the pockets of the oil industry? Not likely. More likely they will try to find scapegoats to blame for misleading them, like Monbiot -- who is now demanding ClimateGate's Phil Jones' head on a platter.

Over the past several weeks, several important supports of the climate catastrophe orthodoxy have come crashing to ground. Yet another pillar of the orthodoxy of carbon hysteria has collapsed with a recent publication by Professor Eelco Rohling of the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science (hosted at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton). The study demonstrates that climate scientists are unable to predict anthropogenic effects upon the climate into the future, due to a totally inadequate and incomplete picture of what the climate would be like without anthropogenic impacts.

According to the 'anthropogenic hypothesis', long-term climate impacts of man's deforestation activities and early methane and carbon dioxide emissions have artificially held us in warm interglacial conditions, which have persisted since the end of the Pleistocene, about 11,400 years ago.

...The researchers found that the current interglacial has indeed lasted some 2.0-2.5 millennia longer than predicted by the currently dominant theory for the way in which orbital changes control the ice-age cycles. This theory is based on the intensity of solar radiation reaching the Earth at latitude 65 degrees North on 21 June, the northern hemisphere Summer solstice.

But the anomaly vanished when the researchers considered a rival theory, which looks at the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth the same latitude during the summer months. Under this theory, sea levels could remain high for another two thousand years or so, even without greenhouse warming.

"Future research should more precisely narrow down the influence of orbital changes on climate," said Rohling: "This is crucial for a better understanding of underlying natural climate trends over long, millennial timescales. And that is essential for a better understanding of any potential long-term impacts on climate due to man's activities." _SD

Another study taking a different approach arrived at a similar conclusion: The precise influence of anthropogenic CO2 on long term climate change is currently unkown.

No doubt all of these "slow-to-catch-on" champions of the climate catastrophe orthodoxy of holy warmers are personally competent in some ways. Else, how would they have achieved the influence they have achieved?  Yet, somehow in the act of intentionally and knowingly influencing the views of millions of people, these individuals -- mere journalists (and sometimes politicians) -- set aside the necessary humility that persons of sound judgment require in such circumstances.

By mocking and deriding everyone who disagreed with them -- in front of an audience of millions -- they set themselves up for a fool's pratfall when those whom they mocked were proven right.

No, they are not total fools. Just foolish enough to fall into the hole they dug for themselves. Just try not to repeat their mistakes.