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Saturday, March 30, 2013

Praise Be the Science

Science is hard:

‘Creation Care’ advocate Todd Levasseur published a full-length editorial this week in the Charleston Post and Courier arguing that people have a religious obligation to become global warming activists. He wrote, “Maybe it is time for an 11th Commandment: ‘Thou shalt not emit greenhouse gases.’”

But faith will do. Which is a nice Plan B since the Science Wall is being challenged as the fear of being called a "denier" seems to be visibly declining even in usually loyal media outlets:

The new issue of The Economist has a long feature on the declining confidence in the high estimates of climate sensitivity. That this appears in The Economist is significant, because this august British news organ has been fully on board with climate alarmism for years now. A Washington-based Economist correspondent admitted to me privately several years ago that the senior editors in London had mandated consistent and regular alarmist climate coverage in its pages.

Oh, they still say global warming is a problem. But they've taken that first step by admitting that the model has not measured up. Remember, climate alarmism is based not on actual data but on a model of predicted pretend data far into the future. That model has lots of problems in design and data, and it predicted that temperatures would continue to rise while carbon dioxide was added to the atmosphere. For the last 16 years, or so, the temperatures have not gone up even as carbon dioxide has been added to the atmosphere. Shouldn't that be considered a problem?

And no, it isn't a defense of the models to say that the models are right except for whatever they didn't think of to include in the model to account for the flat temperatures of late. That's the point of the skepticism--the model is flawed. And the model's extreme predictions are the basis of calling for extreme (and costly) measures to stop the predicted warming (and the predicted bad effects--if they are bad) carried out by strengthened national governments and by granting powers to international bodies.

I can hardly wait for the rigorous science-ish debate about how many carbon credits can fit on a pinhead like Michael Mann.

Now go and emit no more.