Climate change: the damage to science (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, June 19, 2015, 15:14 (3446 days ago) @ David Turell

A refreshing review by a science writer of the damage to the reputation of science as an entity that should have trust, because of all the spurious claims about warming and the attempt to silence critics, and of course the huge piles of money that influence the game. He takes a middle road, yes there is some warming, but it won't cause much trouble.-http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/19/the-climate-wars-damage-to-science/-"I dread to think what harm this episode will have done to the reputation of science in general when the dust has settled. Science will need a reformation. Garth Paltridge is a distinguished Australian climate scientist, who, in The Facts, pens a wise paragraph that I fear will be the epitaph of climate science:-"We have at least to consider the possibility that the scientific establishment behind the global warming issue has been drawn into the trap of seriously overstating the climate problem—or, what is much the same thing, of seriously understating the uncertainties associated with the climate problem—in its effort to promote the cause. It is a particularly nasty trap in the context of science, because it risks destroying, perhaps for centuries to come, the unique and hard-won reputation for honesty which is the basis for society's respect for scientific endeavour.-"And it's not working anyway. Despite avalanches of money being spent on research to find evidence of rapid man-made warming, despite even more spent on propaganda and marketing and subsidising renewable energy, the public remains unconvinced. The most recent polling data from Gallup shows the number of Americans who worry “a great deal” about climate change is down slightly on thirty years ago, while the number who worry “not at all” has doubled from 12 per cent to 24 per cent—and now exceeds the number who worry “only a little” or “a fair amount”. All that fear-mongering has achieved less than nothing: if anything it has hardened scepticism."