There might be serious dissent within the scientific community, but I’m not sure that this WSJ article demonstrates this.

I’m not taking sides here, by the way; as I said above, for all I know the consensus is correct. But there is a great deal more in play in this debate than just science; there are an awful lot of people who have vested interests and ulterior motives here, and the stakes are very high.

Thanks for the links.

Let’s look at some of the claims:

“Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the “new religion.”

Well, whoopee. Giaever got his Nobel Prize for his research in superconductivity. How does that make him an expert on climate science? He was also born in 1929, and forgive me for speaking the plain truth, 80 year old men aren’t really in top form…

Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief.

Joanne Simpson, born in 1923, is a meteorologist and worked for NASA. But what is the source for the WSJ’s claim? Perhaps it is this statement? What does she say?

What should we as a nation do? Decisions have to be made on incomplete information. In this case, we must act on the recommendations of Gore and the IPCC because if we do not reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and the climate models are right, the planet as we know it will in this century become unsustainable. But as a scientist I remain skeptical.

On, on, on to the next one:

Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.”

According to the Heartland Institute, which is as you know friendly towards skeptics, Dr. Kiminori Itoh is a PhD in Industrial Chemistry. He describes himself (in his own words) as a physical chemist familiar with environmental sciences, and not particularly specialized in climate science. Perhaps he knows what he’s talking about, but Dr Itoh wouldn’t be the first person I’d think to ask about global warming, or the climate in general…

A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton’s Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled.

I don’t think any science should ever be “settled” if that is indeed the position of the American Physical Society. Will Happer is an interesting figure: he thinks we need more CO2, for example, or so at least it is reported. But what about this list? You can find it here. Interesting list, but it brags about adding a neuropharmacologist and a CNN weatherman to the list…so, um, ok. Have to examine the list a little more thoroughly. But if were were to make a list of global warming accepting climate scientists, how many would be on the list? Really, what do raw numbers mean without context. Without context, its just rhetoric.

The collapse of the “consensus” has been driven by reality.

There’s been a collapse? From where?

earth’s temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02

Oh, I feel safer now, ’cause you know, 8 years will let me predict the next 80 years of global climate.

Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans.

Which doomsday scenarios, proposed by whom? Which peer-reviewed research? Published where? And, well, I’m sure there’s peer reviewed research that says the contrary.Oh yeah, the IPCC stuff. But not just there.

A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.

Suddenly, every thing is clear. Wall Street Journal, global financial crisis, …

So what made this article worth reading, exactly?

“Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

There is always need for vigilance when ideologues seize upon an “emergency” to justify radical social or political action, whether it’s the Great War (the excesses of the Wilson administration were, effectively, a period of Fascism in America), the Depression (the National Recovery Administration under FDR and Hugh “Iron Pants” Johnson was little better), the Reichstag fire, the current economic meltdown, or climate change. As Rahm Emanuel said, “you don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste.”