Op-Ed: Climate changes - A Short Exploration of Agenda-Driven 'Science'

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Anyone who reads my op-eds knows that I'm not sold on this notion of "man-made global warming." Do I believe we need to hold people and industry accountable to make sure that they aren't poisoning the ground, water, and air with their wastes? Yes. Do I believe that we should be good stewards of the natural resources that we have? Yes. Do I believe that mankind, short of total and complete nuclear holocaust, can devastate the planet? No, and I'm not so sure that even nuclear war would obliterate the world. Life as we know it, perhaps, but Planet Earth, Mother Terra, would continue.

I digress.

Al Gore was recently given a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on making people aware of man-made global warming. There are articles upon articles about the consequences of the warming of the planet, everything from an increase in the number of teen marriages and pregnancies to a decline in the number of teen marriages and pregnancies, rises in the populations of polar bears to declining populations of polar bears, the list is incredible of people saying that the same things will or won't happen because of global warming. I said at the time and I still maintain that Gore is a charlatan out for nothing more than staying in the limelight and fattening his own wallet.

And now we're faced with another immanent and pending problem. That's right, folks, Global Cooling is coming soon to a city near you.

Though arguments presently rage over the issue of climate change, only one side is getting the lion’s share of the publicity. The global warmists win hands down on that score. The realists’ argument is plainly not fashionable. It does not win votes, it does not win business and it’s certainly not appealing to the mass media!

That the Earth’s climate is undergoing change is without question. As to its reasons, and its history, they are the nubs of the arguments posed by both the short-term pro-global warming pundits and those who take a longer view.

Believe it or not, in the not-too-distant future, this Earth is in for a big freeze—guaranteed! But it will not be due to any of the long-term cyclical changes that periodically contribute to either a rise or fall in the Earth’s temperature. This freeze will, indeed, be brought on by the hand of man! More of that later.

Take away the intense politics surrounding the global warming debate, take away the self-interest groups, business interests, legal, bureaucratic and mass media influences that all seek to make a buck out of driving public hysteria over the fads and fashions of the age, and pure science—given the history of cyclical changes in the Earth’s temperatures—reveals that man has little influence on the overall surface temperature of the Earth. Man’s influence on temperature is localized at best.

Ok, let's all let out a huge collective sigh of "oh crap."

No, really, take a moment and let's all let out a collective sigh.

Ready?

"Oh, crap."

Okay.

Let's try to look at this objectively, putting aside our political leanings for just a bit and going back to our earth science classes back in the days before political correctness invaded the classrooms. Let's go back to science classes that were actually based on, you know, science. In the early days of our planet, it was a huge molten ball of lava spinning around the sun and cooling over a period of several million years, forming the earth's crust. Eon's passed, and due largely to volcanic activity, our atmosphere was formed. More eon's pass, and life begins, very small life first, moving on to bigger and bigger life, all this time, it's still HOT on Planet Earth, third rock from the Sun. More time passes, there are dinosaurs walking on the face of the Earth, big old lizards like brontosaurus, t-rex, velociraptor, triceratops, so on and so forth. Still a very, very hot climate. Somewhere along the way, a meteor lands in the Gulf of Mexico, possibly the cause of the decline of the dinosaur. Time passes more, there are ice ages, followed by more warm periods, more cooling periods, man arrives on the planet at some point during these transitions, and lo and behold, the Earth continues to warm and cool through the millennia, both before and after the arrival of humanity.

And now, several thousand years after the advent of civilization, we, mankind, are trying to take credit for something that we cannot do: control the weather.

Politics and science, real science, lie at odds with each other in their purpose and intent. Science answering to politicians creates skewed results in order to justify a continuation of funding for research.

Pure science is no longer there, unless you look to young children with their chemistry sets, magnifying glasses, microscopes, and glass slides, and foaming volcano experiments. Science today has become so entrenched in playing politics that it's no longer an unbiased, analytical process. The research process has become so dependent upon government and industrial funding that scientists are often left at the mercy of political or commercial agenda and real findings are not presented in their final reports.

Even medical examiners are now being ordered by judges to withhold findings in their autopsies. This trend is even shown in food research. Several years back, everyone was told about the cholesterol content of eggs. It reached a point where egg sales were taking a tremendous hit, and low and behold there was a campaign presented to show the benefits of eating eggs. Eggs were popular again. We've also been told about how introducing oatmeal into our diets can decrease cholesterol. There is also research that shows that it may not be the wonder food that it was promised to be.

And now we're faced with the prospect of global cooling. Global warming was just getting warmed up as an industry, but now we're told that global cooling is the real threat to our existence as a species. Perhaps, however, there is another culprit lurking in the shadows that threatens us. Perhaps there is something lurking out there that hasn't been addressed because we're too busy listening to one side say one thing and then the other side says something else. Perhaps, possibly, the real culprit is junk science that is being spoon fed to the world under the guise of actual research, junk science that exists for the sole purpose of feeding political agendas and keeping the populace of the world in a state of confusion so that they don't know what to believe.

Is it possible that we, as a society of humanity as a whole, can reach a point where we can demand that the scientific community be given leeway to actually discover things rather than to bombard us with contradictions?

Contradictions can not exist. Neither can a falsehood in the light of fact.