© 2011 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible. Thomas Aquinas, 13th century philosopher
Contrary to what some people may think when they read the above quote, I am certain that Thomas Aquinas was not talking about man-made Global Warming. In fact, the very notion of man-made Global Warming would have seemed a Godsend to him because it was quite cold in his day and central heating was a long time away. I bet he would not have been horrified by the prospect of more warmth. But I digress.
Aquinas had faith in God, no more so than the Global Warming environmentalists have faith in their concept of Global Warming and no amount of data to the contrary seems to be able to shake that faith in the least. Yes, I know the name Global Warming got changed recently to a more sensible name given that there is no data showing a connection with man’s activities and the temperature of the planet.
Names are such a sticking point in this debate. It is important that we remember that in the 1970s the environmentalists were shouting about something they called Global Cooling. Winter was set to set upon all humans because of greenhouse gases and only wealth redistribution could save the planet. Humans were to be frozen to death all over the planet by the year 2,000 which I admit seemed a long time off.
Then abruptly in the 1980s the exact same danger of death to all humans got changed by the environmentalists so that it was instead tied to the concept of Global Warming. Wow, one moment I am stocking up on long-johns and then the looming danger was burning up because people did not want to do wealth redistribution. Instead of freezing to death all humans would burn to death by the year 2,000.
Over the last forty years intelligent and some not so have cussed and discussed Global Cooling and or Warming with nothing really coming of it other than our society has spent a great deal of time and money talking the faith that something that could not be verified was about to happen unless we participated in wealth redistribution.
Then it happened. A couple of years ago I noticed it was déjà vu all over again as the environmental movement sprinted in a new direction. Because their data did not fit the name, with a straight face they announced that when things were really cold it was because of Global Warming. Most people laughed at them and said it was a pretty bad name, eh?
So the environmentalists thought and they thought and they thought and came up with a new name to scare us into redistribution of our wealth to them: Extreme Climate Change. Whatever the weather, it is ECC. Cold last week, darn, we need to deal with those greenhouse gases that are causing the extreme climate change. Gets hot. Same. Gets tepid, you guessed it, ECC. Like the saying, “To someone holding a hammer every problem looks like a nail.”
Again, the cure for each of the above was government intervention and confiscation of money from some citizens to give to others. Regardless of calling it Global Cooling or Warming it is easy to accept using faith and impossible to ascertain otherwise.
As a society we are in a quandary with the debate about making a serious change in our actions on the faith that Global Warming is a fact and not a faith statement. What to do? Perhaps we should reason together.
Not that I compare myself with Albert Einstein other than our musical enthusiasm is well beyond our competence. But what Einstein did to discover the theory of relativity was to construct thought experiments rather than invest lots of money in test equipment.
So let us use think our way through this question. First, if man-made global warming was fact and not faith we would have a target as to the amount of greenhouse gases to remove to stabilize our planet. The expressed target would keep us from removing too much and thereby making things worse for humans. But climate advocates have no target nor do they hypothesize what to do if we go too far changing the environment.
Likewise, if we did have the ability to warm the Earth upon a human notion, why should we not. Certainly in Death Valley they can use a little relief, but much of the rest of our country could use a push upwards of temperature to extend the growing season. Why not do that if we can? So, is there a perfect temperature for the Earth? Why not?
As a researcher I believe in the predictive power of data, not just the descriptive ability. For someone to convince me of Global Cooling, Warming or Extreme Climate Change I want to see correlations between the change agents in a predictive model and extend both directions. Namely, if too much greenhouse gases cause temperatures to fall, to rise or to be unsteady, let me see that in action over the centuries of data.
But the data does not fit the prediction models. Where does that leave us? We just have to fall back on faith that there is such a thing. Faith works for me and God. I guess for some people it works for Global Warming.
