There should include careful resolutions and explanations of conflicting data, replication, and passing the essential demands of explaining the observations of the climate data.

I have never been in discussions of science and engineering issues where these values weren’t highly respected and determinant. Even competing designs, processes, and theories were lightly defended since the common understanding was that the data would determine which was superior. In contrast, falsely representing the data supporting a particular theory or design, would have been severely dealt with and career limiting.

We have been told by Al Gore and others that there should be a grand debate about global warming. Yet there has been precious little debate worthy of the name. In fact the alarmists have spent much of their time hurling insults, ad hominem attacks, suppression of speech, termination of miniscule funding, calling for Nuremburg Trials, treating opponents as traitors, etc.

The professionals in this group remain silent about these insults in apparent silent support of the nastiness and unprofessional conduct. This is not a debate, this is not science, this is bullying. This suggests there are weaknesses in the global warming theory which can’t stand scrutiny.

One explanation of this may be described by John Ray (M.A., Ph.D.), writing from Brisbane, Australia: “The Holy Grail for most scientists is not truth but research grants. And the global warming scare has produced a huge downpour of money for research. Any mystery why so many scientists claim some belief in global warming?”

This is not a scientific debate, it is not even science. It is too many people, some which Ph.D.s, hardwired into the $5 billion annually spent in the US on global warming issues. This amount of government money available each year is enough to alter human behavior and personal ethics for some people.

The nastiness has happened before many times. For example, consider the fate of Dr. William Happer who was dismissed from his position at the Department of Energy. At the time of his firing he was the Director of Energy Research at the DOE, and a past professor of physics at Princeton University with impressive scientific credentials.

As described in the June 1993 issue of Physics Today, Happer was fired for his attempt to perform some excellent physics and resolve major uncertainties in national “ozone hole scare” of those days.

At the time (and still so) major discrepancies existed between the estimated levels of UV-B radiation and actual measured levels of UV-B. He had proposed a network of UV monitors around the nation to perform the actual measurements and resolve the differences.

Such a program to minimize ozone uncertainties posed a threat to the environmentalists who had promoted ozone hole scare stories about skin cancers, cataracts in animals, and other musings.

This proved to be too great a threat to the environmental myths, and Happer was fired. The guy behind the firing was the powerful and unscientific vice-president Al Gore.

For the readers of the article in Physics Today, it was intimidating to see the firing of a resourceful scientist, the political suppression of sound science, and the irrelevance of science in environmental policies.

There were many more examples of hostility to such scientists. In a major dustup with Dr. Fred Singer (http://tinyurl.com/3xqyqe) misrepresenting his relationship with oceanographer and Al Gore mentor, Roger Revelle, Singer was forced to sue the Gore team for defamation of character which he subsequently won. This is how rough these people are willing to attack their opposition and bend the truth to suit their beliefs.

Singer and Revelle had written a mild admonition about global warming. They had made the simple statement that “The scientific base for a greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify drastic action at this time.” This contradicted statements in Al Gore’s book “Earth in the Balance”, and as a result, Singer (Revelle had died by then) came under attack by the Gore machine.

Mr. Gore had even contacted Ted Koppel in 1994 to look into the skeptics of global warming. It backfired when Koppel concluded “There is some irony in the fact that Vice President Gore---one of the most scientifically literate men to sit in the White House in this century——[is] resorting to political means to achieve what should ultimately be resolved on a purely scientific basis. The measure of good science is neither the politics of the scientist nor the people with whom the scientist associates. It is the immersion of hypotheses into the acid of truth. That’s the hard way to do it, but it’s the only way that works.

The calls for a debate on global warming are empty. There has been little debate and instead personal attacks, threats, loss of funding, calls for speech suppression, and even Nuremburg Trials. In fact Al Gore has a number of unanswered standing offers to debate the global warming issues. (http://tinyurl.com/ypzsyt).

This isn’t science and it never was. It is naked power politics and very destructive and dangerous in the potential impact on the U.S. energy systems. To the extent that CO2 is the source of nearly all life on Earth, the control of CO2 would be a national nightmare. In the words of Richard Lindzen, the regulatory control of all life would be a bureaucrat’s dream. All of this needs to be understood and avoided.

Michael R. Fox, Ph.D., a science and energy reporter for Hawaii Reporter and a science analyist for the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, is retired and now lives in Eastern Washington. He has nearly 40 years experience in the energy field. He has also taught chemistry and energy at the University level. His interest in the communications of science has led to several communications awards, hundreds of speeches, and many appearances on television and talk shows. He can be reached via email at mailto:mike@foxreport.org

HawaiiReporter.com reports the real news, and prints all editorials submitted, even if they do not represent the viewpoint of the editors, as long as they are written clearly. Send editorials to mailto:Malia@HawaiiReporter.com

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