Much like the alternative energy field, the climate skeptic field is competitive, entrepreneurial, and constantly pushing the cutting edge. Venture capitalists like the Koch brothers have seeded numerous innovators, who are all discovering new methods previously unimaginable. Today’s Wall Street Journal has an op-ed by Robert Bryce, offering up new arguments against climate science that truly advance the frontiers of climate science denial.
Bryce argues that Al Gore, and his scientist buddies, have failed because carbon emissions are rising:
Here’s a reality check: During the same decade that Mr. Gore and the IPCC dominated the environmental debate, global carbon-dioxide emissions rose by 28.5 percent.
This is kind like like arguing, in 1949, that since Winston Churchill started warning about the Iron Curtain, the USSR has expanded its control over Eastern Europe, so let’s ignore that blowhard. Listening to him has gotten us nowhere!
Even more imaginative is this:
People have made versions of this argument before, but always as a reductio ad absurdum of climate science skeptics. The argument goes like this: We can’t be completely sure about any scientific conclusion, not even the theory of relativity, so we might as well listen to the best scientific conclusions available. Bryce starts down that path, but veers off: Since we can’t be sure of any science, let’s ignore climate science. He doesn’t seem to realize he’s made the case for ignoring all science.
I have an idea — why don’t you jump out your window? We can’t be completely sure about the theory of gravity!
