Since Lionel and I opened our big mouths about Gore and Oscar the other day, I have been doing a fair amount of media – most friendly and some unfriendly. On the unfriendly (or suspicious) side the favorite argument seems to be that the majority of scientists say AGW is a serious danger – therefore it must be. Of course we don’t know that that’s really true and, even if it is, what we have been reading in the Climategate emails makes their motivations for such opinions more than a tad suspect. A cursory review of history reminds us that majority rule is a silly approach to science, in any case. If it were so, we would still be assuming the world was flat.
But never mind. It is majority rule (of a weird sort) that Obama and other leaders (all of them relatively ignorant about science themselves) are relying upon in their grand plans to combat global warming at Copenhagen and beyond. It’s kind of funny, really, if you take a step backwards and look at it. I imagine a number of those leaders are really nervous. They’re secretly afraid perhaps that the Speaker of the Danish Parliament, Thor Pedersen, has a point when he opines: “Unfortunately I seem to experience that scientists say: ‘We have a theory’ – then that crosses the road to the politicians who say: ‘We know’. Who can be bothered to hear a scientist who says ‘I have a theory’ when politicians go around saying ‘I know’.”
Are you listening, Barack Obama? Probably not.
UPDATE: According to the Timesonline, the UN’s IPCC and the UK’s Met Office are now going to be doing some investigating of the data and emails. The Met Office’s study, which promises a new transparent way of looking at climate research, won’t be complete until 2012. The UN (no surprise) gives no date for its investigation. But still Our President heads to Copenhagen to drive a multi-billion (trillion?) dollar international agreement on “Climate Change” by Dec. 14. Saturday Night Live writers, start your engines.
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