Posted on 01/22/2019 4:03:06 AM PST by dennisw
The latest issue of Nature magazine has a fascinating article that goes some of the way in vindicating Ronald Reagan’s infamous “gaffe” about how trees cause air pollution (because they do), but offers much much more about the problems of politicized and supposedly “settled” climate science. The article is called “How Much Can Forests Fight Climate Change?“, and it walks through just how unsettled this question is. The subhed to the story offers a good summary: “Trees are supposed to slow global warming, but growing evidence suggests they might not always be climate saviours.”
Toward the end of the article is this stunning statement from Christopher Williams, an ecologist at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, who is studying the issue:
“I have heard scientists say that if we found forest loss cooled the planet, we wouldn’t publish it.”
Why not? I thought science was the search for truth, no matter what. You will not be surprised to learn that dissenters from climate orthodoxy in this subfield have received death threats.
The whole article is worth reading if you have the time, but here are a few highlights:
Although trees cool the globe by taking up carbon through photosynthesis, they also emit a complex potpourri of chemicals, some of which warm the planet. The dark leaves of trees can also raise temperatures by absorbing sunlight. Several analyses in the past few years suggest that these warming effects from forests could partially or fully offset their cooling ability. . .
Some researchers worry about publishing results challenging the idea that forests cool the planet. One scientist even received death threats after writing a commentary that argued against planting trees to prevent climate change. .
EXCERPTED
L8r
From President Eisenhower's farewell address:
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present--and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
How many Angels can dance on the head of a pin. It is the Sun that warms and cools the planets of the solar system. Infinity plus one. Infinity minus one. An Angel here, an Angel there. Seriously, some of these scientists need to go to the comic book store to study up on the newest Captain Marvel character. I have heard she is a hot chick and maybe or maybe not she is a cheese cake waitress.
That part of Ike’s address, which followed the better known part about the military-industrial complex, was truly prescient.
Much of science is no longer a search for the truth, but agenda driven research designed to validate a point of view (often political). A good scientist will look for alternative explanations that align with his data, and not ignore data that goes against his hypothesis.
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As for the lies from the left, a prominent journalist with the Washington Post told me face to face that it was, "more important to tell the larger truth," in the situation under discussion the fact that guns are bad, "than to report the facts on an individual story."
Every Democrat is a violent totalitarian thug.
Scientists have gone from trusted purveyors of objective truth in years past to media whores willing to twist their professional opinions to satisfy the highest bidder.
Want to rile up the public about your latest crackpot idea in order to get rich selling carbon credits? Just throw a bunch of grant money towards some professor with expensive tastes & a spendy wife and he’ll magically find proof of whatever you want.
The area of Antarctica that is losing the most ice has been found to have volcanoes erupting deep under the ice sheet. Climatologists thought that the increase of monsoonal rain in the Kimberly region of Australia was due to climate change. They found that it was caused by particulates in air pollution from Asia. These facts are omitted from media attention by design. Fake it till you make it. These facts were found while I was casually surfing the web. You have a lot of useful idiots out there who parrot the party line and have absolutely no knowledge of even the basics of earth science. I always tell these dummies that if they really care about climate change then go kill yourself and erase your carbon footprint for the planet.
Or, as Alinsky said: “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the Revolution.”
Just my observation on forests.
There been times I walked into our farm’s woods and found it stifling hot and couldn’t leave quick enough. Others times a refreshing respite from the summer’s heat.
My thoughts were because of the humidity but then I didn’t have a government grant to spend millions studying it.
How can you trust someone who doesn’t even know which sex they are? They’re kooks.
OK!! Everybody pay attention!
Lesson for today:
1. The sun is 1,300,000 times as big as the earth.
2. The sun is a giant nuclear furnace that controls the climates of all its planets.
3. The earth is one of the sun’s planets.
4. The earth is a speck in comparison to the size of the sun.
5. Inhabitants of the earth are less than specks.
Study Question: How do less-than-specks in congress plan to control the sun?
This is the consequence of not paying attention or not realizing the effect of public policy.
Bill Clinton caused this years ago when he changed WHY science was funded. He added the promotion of policy (remember the policy wonk?) an explicit reason for something to get funded. Before that politics was not a reason to fund research.
Conservatives ever asleep at the wheel, just rolled over and said OK.
One-size bromides about how trees are bad are not useful.
The climate change scam is solely about taxing
use of fuels. It is all about money—taking it from
your pocket and putting it in theirs.
Nothing says rigorous scientific rebuttal like a death threat.
Emotionalism = Irrationality = Liberalism.
A: What number does the government want?
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