In the days when UFOs were big news, someone – as usual I have forgotten where I read this, but it might have been in something by Arthur C. Clarke – once put forward a very good reason not to believe that the US military were concealing alien visitations: “If there really were UFOs,” said a military man, “all us captains would be majors.”
And so they would. The proven existence of alien spaceships buzzing around in our atmosphere would prompt a vast expansion of the armed services. No doubt the governments of the world would also pour resources into the sciences. Administrators, too, would need more power and money in order to deal with the dramatic changes to our accustomed mode of life that might be necessary. The alien threat, scary though it would be, would be so good for so many people in receipt of a government salary that I am quite surprised that no one of any significance propagated it. In fact, according to believers in UFOs, the military-industrial complex went to great efforts to pooh-pooh the whole idea. Given the benefits it would have brought them, maybe I should revise my cynical views about bureaucrats.
That was then. This is now. These days the threat of global warming rather than flying saucers is good news for many people getting a government salary.
Some people will read this as meaning that I take climate change to be a group delusion, as UFOs were. Not so. I believe it is happening a little less strongly than I did in 2006 but I do not know. Back then I said, “The consensus convinces because there is no good reason to suppose that so many eminent scientists are lying or deceiving themselves when they say climate change is happening. But if you give me cause to believe that departure from the consensus gets a person ostracised, then there is a good reason.” I still think this, but I have become equally aware of another incentive for scientists to believe that global warming is happening.
Via Tim Blair and Benny Peiser comes a beautiful example of how the words “climate change” have come to be seen as the key to the government strongbox.
In the Guardian, Tariq Tahir asks:
“Changing behaviour will be as vital as new technologies in tackling climate change. So where is the funding for linguists, anthropologists and sociologists?”
The red things you see everywhere are tongues hanging out.
“If we were asked as institutions to help solve major global challenges, and asked what is the ‘dream team’ that we would want to field for doing that,” says Wellings, “as soon as you start to put that together, there are engineers, technocrats and very often people in the humanities and the social sciences.”
and
He points to the School of Oriental and African Studies, a member of the 1994 group. “I don’t know what the future of geopolitics is, but I do know that in the future we are going to have to turn to people such as those at Soas, who are experts in languages and anthropology from that part of the world. It will be an inevitable response that we will need a world-class centre of excellence of the sort that we already have there.”
In the meantime, Wellings, who is also vice-chancellor of Lancaster University, fears there will be less money for academics to engage in speculative research in social sciences and humanities.
and
Diane Berry, Reading University’s pro vice-chancellor for research, echoes this argument. “It is clearly important to protect funding for Stem subjects and medicine. However, we cannot afford to conceive our science base too narrowly – we must protect our wider research base.
“This is because addressing current and future global challenges depends on the successful interplay of all subjects. Furthermore, the boundaries between the natural sciences and the social sciences and humanities are becoming increasingly fluid as research at the frontiers of knowledge becomes increasingly inter- and multidisciplinary.”
The fact that people believe something because they have incentives to do so does not make their beliefs untrue. But it is a reason for caution.
Natalie, I recently saw a fascinating show which pinned the blame for the UFO scares on… The CIA! The belief was that the military wanted to cover up what it was doing, and where it was doing it, so the russian spies wouldn’t know where to concentrate their attention. They preferred people to think that it was aliens joyriding, than to blame the pentagon for any weapons that might go wrong.
And they even got the Russians to believe this! Some of the Stealth aircraft made secret trips over the USSR, which the russians attributed to aliens. Andropov, according to eyewitnesses, thought it likely that aliens were making free use of the skies.
So, for conspiracy buffs, the CIA wanted people to believe in aliens. This would fit the facts better.
Heck, when have people ever not put their mouths where their money is?
Talking of UFO’s – What would happen if we really had a publicly acknowledged Alien visit? No papers, no visas, no recognised health checks…….Would our Customs have to detain them and stick them in a detention centre with a view to deportation? And how exactly would they arrange the deportation? Or would we have one rule for real Aliens and another for our “worthless” brothers and sisters on planet Earth?
Part of my scepticism about the anthopogenic element in climate change arises from the response of pretty much every government. If this is a real problem as described we would need engineering solutions to rising sea levels; agricultural solutions to develop new crops better suited to the changed climate; and socio/economic solutions to the problems that will be caused by mass migration (at a rate that will eclipse the recent movements and the problems they caused).
Not only have I seen no suggestion that these are useful investments; potential solutions are actually banned by many governments (the EU bans GM research which would be necessary to quickly develop suitable crops for a changed climate for example). The only action governments are taking is to propose new taxes on certain activities. It is possible, of course, that governments are simply sticking their heads in the sand and hoping a few new taxes will solve everything, but the total absence of any other measures suggests even they don’t really believe it.
MarkE, they’re not quite doing nothing. They are, for instance, blighting vast swathes of the countryside with useless windmills and demonising cheap incandescent lightbulbs in favour of expensive fluorescent bulbs.
And both the US and Britain have passed actual laws mandating a massive reduction in carbon emissions in thirty or forty years time.
And then of course there’s Cap’n’Trade and energy taxes and bankrupting Coal fired power producers.
Oh, you want them to actually take real steps to maintain our energy requirements for the 21st century? Things like create the planning climate whereby the energy producers can build a dozen new nuclear power plants to replace our current, ageing, base load stock? Or plan adaptive measures for when it gets hotter or, (just as likely), colder in the next thirty years?
I vacillate between seeing the whole AGW thing as a Soviet plot that took on a life of it’s own after the end of the cold war, Soros and his pals wrecking western civilization for shits and giggles, or a particulary egregious example of the cascade effect whereby the new science of climatology was set up specifically to prove AGW, and anyone who disagrees gets branded as a troublemaker and doesn’t get any funding.
If that doesn’t convince you that our governments desire nothing less than their subjects’ deaths, then I honestly don’t know what will.
Kevin B:
Not just expensive, but also emitting a disgusting light spectrum that makes everything look cold and unnatural. I mean, who are they kidding? If people really liked the light of CFLs as much as the good old-fashioned incandescent light, they wouldn’t have to be propagandized and legally forced to switch to them, no more than their ancestors had to be coerced to switch from candles and petrol lamps to electric light.
Along with recycling, the lightbulb issue is one of the clearest indicators of the essentially religious nature of popular environmentalism. Following the environmentalist prescriptions is considered an expression of personal piety and devotion, and refusing it is viewed as an expression of personal evil, even if you can support such a decision with rational economic and technical arguments.
In April 08, I put together a review of CFL’s and some of their difficulties that are not talked about, or printed on the box.
The CFL Advertising Account
And, here is my favorite information about Global Warming.
Dispelling the Global Warming Myth
There is a very close correlation between global temperature and solar output. See the graph. That even seems reasonable in its own way. (smile)
Some raised an interesting point recently — How does Natalie (or anyone else) “know” there is scientific concensus about alleged Anthropogenic Global Warming?
One way would be to read every scientific journal. But if you did that, you would know enough to make up your own mind. You would not talk about “concensus” — it would be right because you know why it is right and can point to the evidence yourself.
The other way would be to have some journalism graduate from the BBC tell you there is “concensus”. In real science, appeals to authority do not carry much weight. Appeals to spotty journalism students talking about subjects they do not understand carries no weight at all.
When the US Congress held hearings on this back in the bad old pre-Obama days, they got a list of over 700 scientists who disagreed with part or all of alleged Anthropogenic Global Warming. Some “consensus”! Of course, the Spotty Muldoons at the BBC have no interest in talking with those particular scientists.
Natalie,
Just hang out at http://www.realclimate.org for a while and look at the convoluted reasoning used to support AGW and the censorship of opposing views and you might reasonably come to the conclusion that AGW is crap.
There’s no tropical troposphere hot spot, the oceans haven’t gained any heat in the last 5 years, there’s plenty of polar ice, we have only 30 years of somewhat reliable satellite data, the surface temperature record is flawed and has been fiddled with, there is ongoing concealment of methods and data by the AGW crowd preventing replication of results and proven misuse of statistical methods(the infamous hockey stick) and good evidence of climate change in the past which cannot have been due to people (Greenland, MWP, Roman warm period, little ice age).
How much more evidence does anyone need to drive a stake through the heart of this?
I agree with Mike and others.
You cannot form your opinion on AGW in a roundabout way, by evaluating the possible psychological and economic motivations of the warming scientists vs others.
You must consult someone whose honesty and ability are evident to you. But, probably best, you need to evaluate the evidence yourself .
There are no shortcuts.