Science and Politics

If you are a real scientist, you might say something like this:

It has been shown, in the laboratory, that atmospheric concentrations of CO2 create a greenhouse effect that would tend to warm the surface of the Earth. Admittedly this is just under laboratory conditions, and not actual observations in the real atmosphere, but still, the results are quite convincing.

We have also been able to record a significant increase in the tiny concentration of CO2 in the real atmosphere, and there is some evidence, from various proxy ways of measuring global temperatures, along with a brief history of actual measurements, that there has been a slight warming trend since the beginning of the industrial revolution.

Both the proxy and the actual measurements have a lot of problems, for a number of different reasons, but we have done our best to massage the data to make it as reasonable and accurate as possible.

There have apparently been even wider fluctuations in global temperature in earlier, pre-industrial times, but nevertheless, all other things being equal, we surmise that there is real evidence that human activities are contributing to a warming trend.

There are many other factors which affect the climate, some fairly well understood, some not as well understood, but there is a strong possibility that human emission of CO2 is warming the planet, to some extent.

Many other factors, which the computer models do not take into account, have apparently counteracted this warming trend for the past eleven years or so, but the overall trend is expected to continue, once these other factors have ceased to mask it.

That is really where the science stands. But that’s not good enough. There is no way that the desired environmentalist, statist political agenda can use that kind of scientific assessment to further the cause. Nobody will vote for an emergency that is so equivocal.

Hence the campaign to discredit skeptics (deniers!?), to declare the debate over, the science unequivocal, and the consensus that the end of the world is nigh. Since the revelations from East Anglia, the cries of impending climatic doom have only gotten more strident.

That’s what the emails are really all about, the corruption of science by politics. There is real science, but it has been pressured and seduced into juicing the stats, dissing the dissenters, and hiding the data. These are hustles that rightfully belong in the political sphere.

Now the debate really is over. The science has been exposed as having been corrupted by politics. The real science is not sufficient to mandate radical transformation of domestic and global economies, or radical enhancements of global governance.

Good. Now we can get back to real science. Real politics, like the poor, ye shall always have with you.