Freedom of Speech a Victim of Global Warming
As this Jakarta Post article points out, by refusing to even debate the “global warming deniers,” they have essentially limited our freedom of speech and hindered the scientific method.
Following this line, there are signs of a growing intolerance in the debate about global climate change. Climate-change denial has become a taboo that invites a sense of moral repugnance for the deniers.
An article in the respected weekly, Newsweek (The Truth About Denial on Aug. 13, 2007), equated global warming skeptics to Holocaust deniers. At the same time, reputable scientists were accused of being paid to create confusion in the face of consensus
Those skeptical about projected impacts of climate change are either accused of crimes against humanity or treated as cranks or “flat-earthers of the 21st Century”. Perhaps worse, climate-change skeptics are often deemed to be lackeys of industrialists or oil companies.
As it turns out, most “skeptics” are simply those that raise doubts about the certainty of computer models of the future that predict climate doom. For their part, non-deniers readily accept long-term projections for climate change that rely upon computer models.
Citing computer model forecasts to justify scientific consensus about climate change beggars logic and denies real world experience. As it is, weather forecasters and economists using similarly-elaborate computer models are legendarily inept in making short-term predictions.
Demonizing or ridiculing those that doubt the extent and cause of climate change has a chilling effect on free speech that makes open, rational debate almost impossible. For example, Great Britain’s Royal Society asked ExxonMobil to cease funding groups that “misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence”. It is disturbing that such an august body would claim that any scientific enquiry be treated as though it reveals untouchable, cast-iron facts.
People must realize that science is all about questioning the norm. Without asking questions and constantly reviewing what is happening, there would never be any advances. Global warming deniers aren’t as ignorant as the media portrays us. Most of us are just deeply concerned with the arguments for anthropological warming and the lack of those on the man-made warming side to address these questions we have. Most of the time they just brush aside our questions and arguments as being made by those in the pocket of oil companies. Until there is an honest debate concerning the global warming issue with real science involved that can be peer tested and reviewed, then the truth will not be found.
