Climate change doomsayers reach a fevered pitch

I’m a traitor. That’s right, I’ve committed treason. And we’re not talking about the run-of-the-mill, sell-out-your-country kind of treason. That stuff is for amateurs like Benedict Arnold and the Rosenbergs. I’ve sold out the entire planet.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says so, therefore it must be true. The Times certainly wouldn’t print false information now that Jayson Blair is gone.

In fairness to Mr. Krugman his treason charges were aimed at congressional opponents of the cap and trade bill, not at obscure web columnists such as me. But no doubt his target is anyone with the audacity to question man-made climate change and the omnipotent government it promises. Mr. Krugman, climate change science is anything but settled and consensus does not make science.

Mr. Krugman points out that MIT research predict a nine-degree temperature escalation by 2100. That’s a compelling assertion; MIT is a prestigious and respected institution. However, Richard Lindzen takes a different view. He says the fears of man-made global warming are silly and amount to children hiding in dark closets trying to scare each other.

“So what?” you say. “Who is Richard Lindzen anyway?”

Oh, didn’t I mention that he’s a professor of atmospheric science at MIT? Excuse my oversight.

Of course, one dissenting voice could simply be the crazy uncle in the attic. But lunacy isn’t a qualification for a professorship at MIT. Eccentricity maybe. But not lunacy. Professor Lindzen is neither loony nor alone in his assessment.

Ian Plimer is a professor and geologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia. He says our climate is changing just as it has always changed and there’s nothing humans can do about it. He likens human-induced global warming to a religion whose prophet is Al Gore.

John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, takes a similar view, calling man-made global warming a “scam.” Coleman says that within 20 years the fallacy of today’s climate change argument will be apparent. By then, if we continue trying to “save” the planet, the change in our lifestyles and the damage to our personal and economic liberty will be irreversible.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) last year declared that global warming was real and the science was settled. However, 650 scientists disagreed, many of whom had previously supported the IPCC position.

Other knowledgeable scientists who don’t believe man’s activities are contributing significantly to climate change include Fred Singer of the University of Virginia, Sherwood Idso of Arizona State and Frederick Seitz, the former president of the National Academy of Sciences.

Speaking of Mr. Seitz, his Petition Project has collected over 31,000 signatures from global warming skeptics. Obviously, merely signing a petition means nothing. Any unqualified person, someone like me, can sign a petition. But Seitz’s petition doesn’t include any old Tom, Dick and Harry.

Each signer is reviewed and well qualified to render opinions based on climate data, including more than 9000 PhDs. These global warming dissenters range in expertise from atmospheric and environmental sciences to physics, chemistry and general engineering.

The point isn’t what I know or don’t know about climate science. The point is that plenty of intelligent, qualified scientists don’t buy the “consensus” of their peers. That means the science isn’t settled at all and the consensus could well take us in a direction we don’t want to go.

Cap and trade forces us to sacrifice our individual and economic liberty to combat a problem that may not exist and is even less likely to be our fault. And it’s based on forecasting temperatures 100 years down the road when we can’t even predict the temperature in Manhattan two weeks from next Tuesday.

Indeed there is scientific opposition to the idea of man-made global warming. Those who claim otherwise are the deniers. They may be the ones guilty of treason, too.