CONSENSUS WATCH – 5/1/2007

An ongoing series dedicated to vigorously monitoring emerging threats to The Consensus that global warming is real, man-made, and must be addressed immediately if we are to forestall cataclysm. After all, without consensus, science is merely an ongoing journey of exploration and discovery.

Reports of observed warming on Mars and other planets has lent renewed credibility to theories that elevated levels of solar activity are a major cause of global warming here on earth in direct contradiction to The Consensus.

This has forced those who support The Consensus to take another look at their models which had consistently predicted that growing levels of alarmism, increasing releases of hysteria, and the accumulation of threats and professional admonishments would result in the complete eradication of such unsettling dissent. Clearly this warrants further study. In the meantime, just assume that everyone is in the pocket of Big Oil.

Another assault on The Consensus this past week came from renowned hurricane forecaster William Gray whose research suggests that natural cyclic changes in ocean currents are the primary source of global warming and not man-made CO2 noting that while Consensus climate models have predicted increased hurricane activity, such activity has actually decreased over the past 40 years.

This is terribly unfair. No one can possibly expect nature to live up to the grandeur and majesty of IPCC climate change models and frankly, those who expect it to need to show a little more humility. Let’s face it, nature isn’t perfect and sometimes, well, it's just going to get it wrong.  But that's okay, because if we’re serious about The Consensus, and we're willing to go that extra mile and do the hard work that is necessary, we can make sure that nature fits the model. But only if we have the will to make it happen. 

These various alternative theories have also begun to create the appearance that there might not actually be a consensus regarding anthropogenic global warming. This is partly because of an erroneous belief that science is a process by which a hypothesis is formed based on recorded observations and then subjected to independent verification through experimentation intended to reproduce the predicted results.

Where anyone got that idea we don’t know.

In reality, science is a process in which competing theories are reconciled through a process of negotiation and compromise.  It is this willingness to "give a little" in order to reach broad agreement immune to any further input that is the true spirit of scientific inquiry.

In fact, it was this very process that produced Einstein’s famous theory of special relativity. While not widely known, Einstein had originally lobbied for a far more conservative E=MC while more aggressive physicists argued that E=MC³ would be much more dramatic.

The gridlock was not broken until Niels Bohr brokered a compromise with Austrian scientist Friedrich Hasenöhrl who agreed to “meet Einstein halfway” if Max Planck would agree that m = (8/2)E/c^3 properly represented the association of mass via inertia with energy.

And thus we ended up with E=MC² and a revolution in quantum physics was born.

These developments highlight the importance of moving quickly to get legislation in place that will take aggressive action in support of The Consensus. Yes, these annoying disruptions to The Consensus may continue but once legislation is in place it tends to stay in place.

Or did you think you were helping to fund the Spanish-American War these past 100 years?

J.