You will always hear “I follow science” as if this is supposed to end the debate but the leaves the most important question, which science do you follow? The statement that “I follow the science” assumes the debate over a specific point is over and everyone agrees. Science does not work that way, instead science is forever the search for truth and as we found out during the Covid pandemic, much of what we originally believed proved to be true was shown to be false. Masks did not stop transmission or for that matter neither did the vaccines. The experts overestimated the projected death from the virus, and no one gave much consideration to the impact of the lockdowns on the economy and the education of our children. Nowhere was the idea of risk versus benefits considered. Nor did it help that Covid deaths stats included people with died with Covid and those who died because of Covid, thus overestimating death totals.
Climate change is no different, since we are told that the debate over humans is responsible for present warming, and it is all bad. Again, it depends which science you follow, is it the science of Michael Mann or the science of Judith Curry or Richard Lindzen? While most of us are exposed to the former but Curry and Lindzen have over the years produced enough science to dispute the narrative that climate change is human driven and bad.
Last year, Andrew Dessler debated Steve Koonin on the questions, “Does the world need to rapidly convert to using renewable energy to save the planet from global warming?” and Koonin crushed him. It is a rarity that climate alarmists just as Dessler will debate their counterpart and the reason is obvious, Climate realist often get the better of the argument as their own science is solid. Galvin Schmidt and his team a few years ago debated Richard Lindzen team on a similar question and Schmidt was so thoroughly outclassed that he will not face an opponent ever again. Alex Epstein, who has written books on the importance of fossil fuels, has had at least three debates canceled when his opponents simply didn’t show up.
There is enough debate about what is causing present warming or even if it is bad. Certainly, we have seen in the increasing wealth throughout the world, more people escaping poverty into the middle class plus we are feeding more than double the population better diet over the past five decades, so one would think that maybe there is another side to the debate. You can argue that rising CO2 and warming is good for the planet, or you can argue that there are many other variables involved but you can’t argue that the science is settled and debate over. A better argument is that to follow science means all options are open when discussing climate change since we are basing policy on science. If science is wrong or if the policy recommendations have higher risk than the benefit of solving the problems, it will prove disastrous.
We saw with the Pandemic; the policy recommendations were based on incomplete data, but no real debate was allowed as the skeptics were essentially ignored with no real scientific exchange. The same thing is equally true with climate change in which many of the changes will impact the quality of life of Americans and reduce their prosperity. Again, no real debate is being allowed among policy makers and again disastrous policy will be the results.
The Donelson Files 