Who am I to even comment on the eloquence of Richard Lindzen, who has tried–lord how he’s tried, to educate people on climate science done by real scientists.

Here he provides some wisdom on the mess that is the debate on Anthropogenic Warming.

I would add, as a humble physician–warm is better, what’s the damn panic about a few degrees of warming?

Dr. Lindzen:

Reflections on Rapid Response to Unjustified Climate Alarm
The Cato Institute’s Center for the Study of Science today kicks off its rapid response center that
will identify and correct inappropriate and generally bizarre claims on behalf of climate alarm. I
wish them luck in this worthy enterprise, but more will surely be needed to deal with this issue.
To be sure, there is an important role for such a center. It is not to convince the ‘believers.’ Nor
do I think that there is any longer a significant body of sincere and intelligent individuals who
are simply trying to assess the evidence. As far as I can tell, the issue has largely polarized that
relatively small portion of the population that has chosen to care about the issue. The remainder
quite reasonably have chosen to remain outside the polarization. Thus the purpose of a rapid
response Center will be to reassure those who realize that this is a fishy issue, that there remain
scientists who are still concerned with the integrity of science. There is also a crucial role in
informing those who wish to avoid the conflict as to what is at stake. While these are important
functions, there are other issues that I feel a think tank ought to consider. Moreover, there is a
danger that rapid response to trivial claims lends unwarranted seriousness to these claims.
Climate alarm belongs to a class of issues characterized by a claim for which there is no
evidence, that nonetheless appeals strongly to one or more interests or prejudices. Once the
issue is adopted, evidence becomes irrelevant. Instead, the believer sees what he believes.
Anything can serve as a supporting omen. Three very different previous examples come to mind
(though there are many more examples that could be cited): Malthus’ theory of overpopulation,
social Darwinism and the Dreyfus Affair. Although each of these issues engendered opposition,
only the Dreyfus Affair led to widespread societal polarization. More commonly, only the
‘believers’ are sufficiently driven to form a movement. We will briefly review these examples
(though each has been subject to book length analyses), but the issue of climate alarm is
somewhat special in that it appeals to a sizeable number of interests, and has strong claims on the
scientific community. It also has the potential to cause exceptional harm to an unprecedented
number of people. This has led to persistent opposition amidst widespread lack of interest.
However, all these issues are characterized by profound immorality pretending to virtue.
Malthus’ peculiar theory wherein the claimed linear growth of food loses out to the exponential
growth of population has maintained continuous popularity in the faculty lounge for about two
centuries. It is, therefore, worth noting that Malthus had no evidence that food supply would
increase only linearly. Nor did he have evidence for exponential population growth. Malthus
initially went so far as to estimate an e-folding time for population of 25 years, based on the
population of North America, and ignoring the role of immigration. Although Malthus, himself,
eventually acknowledged these problems, the enthusiasm for his anti-human conclusions remains
strong. Neither the green revolution nor the diminution of famine amidst increasing population
dissuades them. The fact that Chad is poor and the Netherlands is rich never strikes the believer
as odd. Apparently, the growth of cities, the movement of workers from the farm to the city,
and, for much of the developed world, immigration, all served to convince people of means that
there were too many other people around, and Malthusian theory formed a framework for
something they were (and are) eager to believe.
Social Darwinism and its corollary, eugenics, represents another case of a theory without support
that was widely accepted with, at times, horrid consequences. Darwin’s “The Origin of the
Species” had immense influence. It presented a theory whereby natural selection and what were
essentially mutations could account for biological evolution. While it offered valuable insights
into the development of finch beaks, it was hardly meant to describe societal evolution.
Nevertheless, the notion of ‘survival of the fittest’ applied to society had obvious appeal to those
who perceived themselves to be the fittest and who naturally regarded the application as
scientifically justified. It was a small step to eugenics which was the counterpart of modern day
environmentalism during the first third of the twentieth century, and was supported by all the
‘best’ people (including George Bernard Shaw, Margaret Sanger, Alexander Graham Bell, and
Theodore Roosevelt) despite the fact that there actually was a mathematical theorem (the Hardy-
Weinberg Theorem) that showed that the impact of eugenics on the gene pool would be
negligible. Needless to add, mathematics is of no importance to the ‘best’ people. Malthusian
population fears continue to the present, but eugenics was rendered unfashionable by the obvious
implications presented by the Nazis.
While science is a common vehicle for such misuse, the Dreyfus Affair shows that other vehicles
exist. In 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus was accused of passing secret French military
information to the Germans. There was, in fact, no evidence to support this accusation.
Nevertheless, there was again a strong desire on the part of many people in France to believe the
accusation. To be sure, there was the endemic anti-Semitism in France. However, there was
also the humiliation of France’s loss in the Franco-Prussian War, and the desire to blame such
loss not on the army, but on the perfidy of a group that some considered to be ‘outside’. (The
Nazis’ ‘stab in the back’ theory for the German loss in WW1 represents a similar instinct).
Dreyfus was tried (several times) and sentenced to Devil’s Island. Prominent Frenchmen (Emile
Zola in particular) , incensed by the obvious injustice campaigned for Dreyfus, and the issue
literally split France in half (partly because the conflict between Catholics and Secularists also
entered the Affair). Dreyfus was eventually exonerated after the identification of the actual spy
became undeniable.
The current issue of global warming/climate change is extreme in terms of the number of special
interests that opportunistically have strong interests in believing in the claims of catastrophe
despite the lack of evidence. In no particular order, there are the leftist economists for whom
global warming represents a market failure, there are the UN apparatchiks for whom global
warming is the route to global governance, there are third world dictators who see guilt over
global warming as providing a convenient claim on aid (ie, the transfer of wealth from the poor
in rich countries to the wealthy in poor countries), there are the environmental activists who love
any issue that has the capacity to frighten the gullible into making hefty contributions to their
numerous NGOs, there are the crony capitalists who see the opportunity to cash in on the
immense sums being made available for ‘sustainable’ energy, there are the government
regulators for whom the control of a natural product of breathing is a dream come true, there are
newly minted billionaires who find the issue of ‘saving the planet’ appropriately suitable to their
grandiose pretensions, etc., etc. Strange as it may seem, even the fossil fuel industry is generally
willing to go along. After all, they realize better than most, that there is no current replacement
for fossil fuels. The closest possibilities, nuclear and hydro, are despised by the
environmentalists. As long as fossil fuel companies have a level playing field, and can pass
expenses to the consumers, they are satisfied. Given the nature of corporate overhead, the latter
can even form a profit center. The situation within science itself is equally grim. Huge sums of
government and private funding have become available to what was initially a small backwater
field. Science becomes easy when emphasis is on malleable models supported by hugely
uncertain data that can be readily found ‘consistent’ with the models supplemented by fervidly
imagined catastrophic ‘implications.’ Indeed, uncertainty is often exaggerated for just this
purpose. Opposition within the scientific community is immediately met with ad hominem
attacks, loss of funding, and difficulty in publishing.
Of course, science is not the only victim of this situation. Affordable energy has been the
primary vehicle for the greatest advance in human welfare in human history. This issue
promises to deny this to the over 1 billion humans who still lack electricity. For billions more
energy will be much less affordable leading to increased poverty. Poverty, itself, is a major
factor in reduced life expectancy. It requires a peculiarly ugly obtuseness to ignore the
fundamental immorality of this issue.
Although all these issues have strong political consequences, it is by no means clear that their
origin is, itself, political. I would suggest that a more likely situation is that politics is always
opportunistically seeking some cause that fits its needs. However, once an illusional issue
becomes a passionate belief, it becomes impervious to argument. Given how dangerous some
illusional positions are, it is an important problem to know how to avoid them. This is a problem
that is truly worthy of Cato’s attention. Rapid response can only do so much; belief seems to
inevitably trump objective reality when one is free to choose ones narrative.
Richard S. Lindzen
Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Emeritus, MIT
Distinguished Senior Fellow, Cato Institute
September 14, 2014