QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 7:48 A.M. ET:  One of the most discouraging reports in recent days tells us that the Obama administration is forging ahead with policies and regulations that blindly accept the "settled science" of climate change – that it is caused by human activity – despite substantial doubts from a number of researchers.

Climate change has become a political, not a scientific issue.  Accepting the "settled science" is demanded by the left, which wants to use the climate-change "crisis" as an excuse for transferring vast sums from developed countries to third-world countries, the "victims" of global warming.

But S. Fred Singer, the former director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service and professor emeritus at the University of Virginia, has been campaigning against the "settled science" mantra.  What he says about science is worth considering:

A commonly cited "proof" for anthropogenic global warming (AGW) claims there is a "scientific consensus" - based mainly on a flawed study by University of California science historian Naomi Oreskes, published in the journal Science in December 2004. However, a 2003 poll by German researchers of 530 climatologists in 27 countries showed just 34.7 percent endorsing the AGW hypothesis, while 20.5 percent rejected it - with the rest undecided. In a 2006 survey of 793 members by the National Registry of Environmental Professionals, 41 percent disagreed that recent warming "can be, in large part, attributed to human activity." There are statements from scientific groups and professional societies on both sides of the issue.

But even if a majority of scientists had voted for AGW, that's not how science works. Unlike in politics, the majority does not rule. In fact, every advance in science has come from a minority that found that observed facts contradicted the prevailing hypothesis. Sometimes it took only one scientist; think of Galileo or Einstein.

Very well said, and the entire article is well worth reading.  The media is doing its usual absysmal job of covering this subject.  It shouldn't be too difficult for a team of trained science reporters to determine what we know and what we don't know about global warming, yet no one seems to want to do it.  Why the fear?  I think we know why.  Left-wing trendiness dominates the media, and it isn't going away.

December 30, 2010