We, the PEOPLE!!

There are still people on earth who still think that the world is flat, or that believe psychics really do see the future with the exception of winning lottery numbers or really good stocks to buy (which is why they still work for $20 an hour).  So it’s no surprise that some folks still reject the concept of global warming and humanity’s role in it, despite tens of thousands of scientists world-wide with empirical data that repeatedly supports the science demonstrating the role of human-produced carbon and other heat-retaining “greenhouse” gases’ impact on the atmosphere, polar ice, and ocean heat-sinks.

Typically, the folks opposing the concept of human-induced or even human-aided global warming claim that it is a hoax, engineered by scientists just to get government grants as well as other money.  The detractors claim that  there is no credible scientific evidence to support human-induced global warming, any more than there is scientific evidence to support evolution.  They access all kinds of scientific ‘facts” of their own in support of their positions.  And occasionally, they will even insert religion into the discussion, as is the case when the creationists try to justify their beliefs by stating that the earth is no more than 6000 year old, and that approximately 3000 years ago, Noah put two of every animal on earth on his arc, including dinosaurs with modern day humans, and mammoths, and every living bacteria, amoeba, virus, mold, and all the other microscopic critters that today survive because of ol’ Noah’s efforts.

But regardless of what “evidence” these folks use, they are always lacking one thing:  Peer-reviewed scientific research that followed the scientific method (Ask a Question, Do Background Research, Construct a Hypothesis, Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment, Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion, and Communicate Your Results) and survived strong peer-review scrutiny of the final result obtained.

A classic example (and one that is going to by embarrassing to all Americans and to America itself) is the expected trip of US senator James Inhofe, republican of Oklahoma.  He made headlines as far back as 2003 when he announced that “global warming is the greatest ever perpetrated on the American People”.

Inhofe has since backed up his claim (so he thinks) that human-induced global warming is a myth by using either archaic, debunked or out-of-context scientific “facts” to support his claim.  They are specifically listed and then specifically disproven here.

Much of what he and his supporters do is similar to the boy standing on a beach on a clear day, seeing where the ocean ends and the sky starts, and determining based upon his “scientific and empirical observation” that the earth is clearly flat with an edge that just drops off precipitously at the horizon.  In fact, most humans before Columbus’ voyages to the new world believed the same thing.  Even the church propagated this miserable misconception based upon flawed “science”, just that they propagated that the earth was the center of the both solar system and the universe.  These examples do reinforce the edict that if you say something often enough, it will eventually become “true” to the people hearing it over and over.

Senator Inhofe, claiming to be a “one-man-truth-squad”, will travel to Copenhagen, Denmark, where the world conference on climate change is occurring.  He will represent his political party, his philosophy, and also his country, since he is an American elected government official.  He will challenge every government leader and every scientist both attending the conference and working in the lab back in their own countries.  He will question their credibility and their personal and professional competence and integrity.  He will do so based upon all of his scientific expertise, achieved during a lifetime of real estate development and politics, and he will shine in the scientific brilliance of his undergraduate degree in business administration from the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which he finally achieved at the age of 38.

In Inhofe’s case, he is arrogant and self-deluded enough to think that he will somehow be given even the slightest amount of credibility by the many government leaders and the many real climatologists, geologists, chemists, microbiologists, anthropologists, physicists, mathematicians, and experts in a variety of other physical science disciplines that will be present, many whom have advanced college degrees in their scientific specialty, and all of whom have studied the evidence of human-induced global warming in their respective fields.

The very vast majority of these scientists from around the world have concluded the same thing:  Human-induced global warming is real, it is here, the effects are already with us, it is accelerating, and the ability to track molecules of human-induced greenhouse gases both in the atmosphere and in precipitation and in the world’s oceans, while a basic scientific capability, is universally seen and proven over and over and over.  But Inhofe will not be stopped.

In fact, if Inhofe tries hard enough, he just might be able to convince all those learned scientists the earth really is only 6000 years old, that Noah had dinosaurs and humans together on his arc, and the the earth really is flat.

Don’t just wish you could be there for the moment the scientific community has their “Inhofe” epiphany?  But if you do, here’s a word of advise for when senator James Inhofe from the USA is doing his “thing”:

Let everyone think you’re Canadian.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 5:37 pm and is filed under The State of Our Country. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.