In my latest National Post column I warn of a massive breach of trust if reputable opinion doesn't stop shaming and shouting down people pointing to serious defects in climate change alarmist orthodoxy.
Our documentary project "The Environment: A True Story" has already reached 20% of its funding target. Many thanks to all those who have backed it so far and are helping spread the word. Now let's get to the next milestone and then on to full funding so I can produce this film. If you're opposed to bad policy based on flawed science, and tired of the bullying and false claims (like that 97% of scientists agree with the alarmist scenario on man-made climate change, endlessly repeated by journalists and by politicians like Barack Obama but dissected here by the Friends of Science), make a pledge now so I can tell the real story of what we do know about the past history of the Earth and what it means for all of us today and tomorrow.
The time is right. Let's make it happen.
The ludicrous claim that 97% of scientists support the alarmist position on man-made climate change was dissected in another excellent talk at the 2017 EEA "Essentials of Freedom" conference, by Michelle Stirling of "Friends of Science". For a disquieting examination of how this much-trumpeted but entirely inaccurate figure was arrived at, download the Friends of Science publication here.
It’s time to set the record straight on "man-made" climate change. And that’s what I’m going to do with my new documentary project looking at what we really know about the Earth’s climate, not just cherry-picking from the last ten years or a hundred, but looking back thousands, millions and hundreds of millions of years. It’s going to expose a lot of hype, bad science and unjustified shouting on the part of the alarmists and lay out what we really know.
The climate has always been variable. And yes, sometimes it changes in ways that can spell trouble. But hysteria, misinformation and name-calling won’t help us deal with anything that might be coming our way. Virtually everything the conventional wisdom maintains on climate, about what we know and about what’s probably happening, is demonstrably false and it’s time to cut through the scaremongering and tell the real story.
I’m really excited about this project. I’m convinced the time is right to push back against the exaggeration, alarmism and intellectual bullying. But to make it I need your help. We’re crowdfunding it, as we have our last four documentaries. So it will only happen if you and people like you contribute, large amounts or small, and crucially share it with friends, family and associates in person, on Facebook and Twitter, by email and any other way you can.
I’ve set a minimum goal of $50,000 because for that I can make a documentary on this vital topic. But I want to be completely frank that to make a truly polished film, to get the gear we need, to travel to important locations and to help sustain us in our work, we need to get well past that minimum, to a "stretch" goal of at least $100,000.
So if you’re ready for some sound information and straight talk on "man-made climate change", click on the Kickstarter link to back the project, and share it as widely as you can.
"Doubt comes at the window, when inquiry is denied at the door." Benjamin Jowett
"When good economists die, they come back as physicists. When bad economists die, they come back as sociologists. It is an old joke, but class envy is no stranger to academics: Everyone wants to go up-market in the rigour wars." Paul Kedrosky in National Post May 5, 2001
On this date back in 1616, February 26, the Catholic Church made its infamous effort to undo Joshua 10:12 and make the sun move in the sky. Or at least it ordered Galileo to shut up about the fact that it made far more sense to regard the Earth as in motion around a stationary sun. Confirming once again Robert Conquest’s 3rd Law of Politics: "The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies." Because to this day almost nothing seems to confirm the beliefs of anti-Catholics that the Church is repressive and obscurantist than this episode.
In my view the charge is not entirely fair. Even when it comes to science, the Catholic Church has very often taken very sensible views, in the spirit of Cesare Cardinal Baronio whose comment about the controversy was "The Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go." But this episode with Galileo is the one that sticks in the popular mind.
And for what? After silencing Galileo the Church went on to ban all books advocating the Copernican system as "altogether contrary to Holy Scripture". Galileo himself was unrepentant and despite formally accepting the 1616 decree went on to publish his devastating Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems which earned him a trial for heresy in 1633. And a conviction, and house arrest for the rest of his life.
The sun, you’ll notice, didn’t escape from the stationary position relative to our solar system to which Galileo had assigned it. (It is splitting hairs to argue today, as some do, that the Church was sort of right because the sun does move relative to other stars. The problem was declaring astronomy a branch of theology.)
A mere 122 years later, in 1758, the Church dropped the ban on heliocentric books without actually reversing the verdict against Galileo or allowing uncensored version of Copernicus’ key work De Revolutionibus orbium coelestium or Galileo’s Dialogue. Not until 1820 did the Church go "Ooops" for real and lift the ban on the two books, and a mere 15 years later a revised Index of Forbidden Books no longer listed them.
Eventually Pope John Paul II said it was a mistake to go after Galileo. But I am not sure the conviction for heresy was ever overturned. I mean, you don’t want to rush into things, right? Or rather, having rushed in, you don’t want to rush out just because the building is on fire or anything.
As I say, the Church has often done better on science than in this episode. But if you were in fact part of a cabal of its enemies secretly controlling its conduct, and desirous of discrediting it badly in a way that would last centuries, you’d do just about exactly what they did.
P.S. Conquest’s other two laws are "Everyone is conservative about what he knows best" and "Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing." The extent to which these also apply to the Roman Catholic Church is a matter for another day.