Editor,
The ignorance displayed in Matt Grocott’s recent column “My beef with Terry” was breathtaking. Not just of humanity’s role in climate change but in a near complete lack of understanding about how science works.
Editor,
The ignorance displayed in Matt Grocott’s recent column “My beef with Terry” was breathtaking. Not just of humanity’s role in climate change but in a near complete lack of understanding about how science works.
While we often talk about “laws” of nature, these aren’t divine edicts that must be accepted through faith. They derive from rigorous, no-holds-barred intellectual warfare. Laymen are often amazed at the intense heat that’s routinely part of the process.
But it’s part and parcel of figuring out which theory best fits observation. Scientific “laws” are only ever contingently true; they are always subject to being overthrown. This means there will always be clashes and arguments about theory and the validity of data within the scientific community.
So how does a bystander (which most of us are) tell what’s “true?” By looking for consensus among experts. And not just any expert: You want to look to researchers who have focused their efforts on the topic. Always applying the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt, not the unattainable, and unscientific, total absence of doubt.
Even a brief survey of the relevant literature shows there is little doubt humans are playing a significant role in climate change. Could that view be wrong? Sure! Is it likely to be? No. Because the overwhelming weight of the data and expert analysis is that we are indeed cooking the planet.
Ignoring that is to bet heavily on an inside straight. No rational poker player does that and, we, as a society, shouldn’t either.
Mark Olbert
San Carlos
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(6) comments
Mark - nice try. You need to come off your pedestal and realize that our biased, corrupt news media have disproportionately promulgated the climate change issue to the extreme. Even our lame brain President is falling for it. Similar to the political bent, little attention by prevailing news sources has been provided to the other side of the argument to question that a crisis indeed exists. We are not cooking the earth and if the earth were cooking it is likely because of activity beyond human control. If you were a student of history you would find that occasional climate extremes have been with us for centuries.
Good morning, Mark
I'm sure you've seen comments in the DJ labeling conservative minded readers as misguided, uneducated and gullible. Those comments imply that folks on the left side of the aisle are just the opposite. Are they?
Three writers who lean left... James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian... submitted outlandish and wholly fabricated left leaning fake "studies" for publication. Seven left leaning journals accepted their papers for publication and those bogus studies were accepted by academia after a thorough review. It appears almost anything supporting the left's narrative is fit for publication and consumption by regular folks who lean left. Hmmm... who is misguided, uneducated, and gullible?
Here we go again, with Mr. Olbert and claims of “consensus among experts” and “not just any expert.” Now if we look at those “experts” what time frame are these folks cherry-picking to support their assertions? Who is funding these “experts” pushing this global warming scam? I’m betting many, if not all, are receiving funding from governments/special interest organizations pushing for a global warming narrative. Because if you look to our Earth’s past, you’ll see that CO2 levels were much, much higher than today, yet there were no cars or air conditioning. Note that we’ve never encountered a “Steam” age while we’ve undergone numerous Ice Ages. It’s interesting that after periods of high CO2 levels, inexplicably, these levels have gone down, without folks thinking they could control Mother Nature.
BTW, Mr. Olbert, during our last public tete-a-tete, I asked for your input but you ghosted me… Let me refresh your mind… I called you out on not being able to rebut the hypocrisy of governments talking the talk but not walking the walk. I asked for a comment on COP climate conference folks taking over 400 private planes to attend, being bathed in air-conditioned comfort, and dining on steaks from methane-producing cows while preaching, ironically, about carbon emissions. I asked for a comment on Al Gore taking jets all over the place to talk, ironically, about greenhouse gases. As in that case, and now, is this quote from Jack Nicholson’s character in A Few Good Men still apropos, “You can’t handle the truth!”? The consensus among experts, and not just any experts, at the DJ will likely return a yes, but a few valid answers may create reasonable doubt. Your move, sir…
Mark Olbert's reply is totally sensible and the perfect response. Yikes, it's terrible how seriously some people take the idea that there's a worthless "Green Agenda" and a liberal coalition intent on making us all change for no reason. Climate change is real, real, real. Everyone should join in to come up with solutions, not to ignore. the problem.
Repeating the same baseless claim 3 times does not provide for solutions. You are just opiniated without substance. The Green Agenda was created to line the pockets of Biden's cabal, nothing more, nothing less. Aren't you just thrilled to pay $5 for a lousy gallon of gas and 20% more for your groceries? What has that done so far for mitigating the elusive climate crisis?
The climate has changed for eons and no doubt man’s emission are contributing to it this time. But there is no proof that it is catastrophic and greening of the earth has been a positive. Our warming today is part of a once every 1,000 year warming cycle, the last one being the Medieval Warming. We're lucky it's not the cooling part of the cycle that caused the Little Ice Age in the 1500s and starved people to death due to too little CO2 in the air to grow crops according to Patrick Moore who founded Greenpeace.
Technology is well on the way to developing green energy that is cheaper and wil drive out fossil fuels. And there are inexpensive ways to cool the planet with aerosols if needed before that. Had the left not outed nuclear energy we’d have much less CO2 today. If the left got its wish and shut done all fossil fuels use before we had less expensive green energy, it would cause massive deaths in poor countries around the world
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