How the new secularists and skeptics do Monsanto’s dirty work
by Lorna Salzman (March 2015)
Skepticism is in short supply these days even, paradoxically, as paranoia and conspiracy theories spread. The eclipse of the trust in science and modern medicine is in full swing. Irrationality, paranormal beliefs and the ingestion of unproven folk medicine have found audiences and consumers around the world, as have all manner of spiritual and quasi-religious movements. more>>>
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3 Responses
Ms Salzman tells us that anthropogenic warming of the climate is supported by 100% of scientists, if you exclude those who disagree. Furthermore, I am led to understand that Monsanto is an evil entity and that genetic modification of foods is evil. My conclusion is that Ms Salzman illustrates clearly the difference between activist and scientist.
As someone who has taken David Archer’s University of Chicago’s wonderful Climate Science classes and who agrees that all things being equal, increases in CO2 will increase temperature in the earth’s atmosphere (and that increases in fossil fuel use will increase CO2), I nonetheless take exception to the statement about the global warming consensus. There are numerous real scientists not in the pay of oil companies and not religious nuts who question the extent of the forcings necessary to make CO2 a significant near term problem. The problem is that the money available to argue for impending climate catastrophe makes such scientists personas non grata amongst people such as the author.
Please! The actual evidence for CAGW is non-existent. The claims that we’re about to be frog-boiled by slow, and then rapid rises in global temperature are all model based. And you simply cannot model a global climate system of enormous complexity on even the best and fastest of computers. You cannot fit a quart into a pint pot. Besides, the Bronze Age, Late Roman and Medieval Warm Periods are all solidly-supported examples of spontaneous warming that have occurred before. Ocean acidification? Oh, go away. Coral etc. evolved/live in an seas that were in a world with CO2 levels much, much higher than now. So, begging for more heed to be given to climate catastrophists is just vapid. And GMOs, to focus on the other enthusiasm of Ms Salzman? Well, I cannot really share her concern. Frankenfoods remain fictional. So, will I heed Ms Salzman’s call to action? No, for goodness’ sake.