Needless to say, this is so total science fiction. Nobody has ever done anything like it, but H.G. Wells could have thought it up a hundred years ago.
Real engineering is based on good science, but there is no good science here. Climate modeling is baby science — still crawling around in wet diapers. There is a huge difference between settled science, like the solar system, and baby science. Climate modeling has no track record of solid performance. That is why climate predictions have to be made for a hundred years from now, because that makes them impossible to disprove. Nobody is going to wait 100 years to find out. But the money has to be taxed now, to empower science frauds and hype-mongers who promise to save our hides in 2100. Give me your money now to save the earth in 2100!
“Global warming” is more Scientology than science. It is an act of pure imagination. The only thing climate models have in common with real science is the word “science.” All the climate prophets are playing on public ignorance. If you confuse Scientology with science, you can confuse climate modeling with real science.
The key is that the science establishment, like any power class, wants to control the media narrative. That is why our Galileos today are told to shut up by hype peddlers like James Hansen and John Holdren.
Political establishments haven’t changed since Galileo. They don’t care if they are defending theology or secular ideology; they just want more and more power. Obama didn’t appoint our new “science czar” to ensure honesty and integrity in the climate debate. On the contrary, this guy was appointed for political loyalty, exactly the reason why the pope appointed Galileo’s inquisitor.
The very idea of a science czar is Stalinist.
True science always respects the skeptics. Einstein disagreed profoundly with Nils Bohr about quantum mechanics, but can you imagine Albert Einstein demanding that Bohr be put on trial for his beliefs? Or vice versa? But that’s what James Hansen has been saying.
These people are totalitarians in spirit. But healthy science must stay open, because nature always comes up with big surprises — as Einstein found out about quantum mechanics. Skeptics are just as necessary to healthy science as passionate advocates; neither one can presume to know the truth before the evidence comes in. Look at Science or Nature magazine any week and you will find both confirmation and negation of leading-edge hypotheses. To close one’s mind prematurely is to attack science itself.
The only real sin in science is to apply totalitarian methods to punish free and open debate. That is a sure road to disaster. What’s alarming today is not hypothetical global warming, but a very real infiltration of Stalinist thinking into universities and research institutions.