A good read...

I just wanted to call attention to this excellent opinion piece from Lorrie Goldstein.

Why 'climategate' won't stop greens

The problem, however, is those who hijacked science to predict a looming Armageddon unless we do exactly as they say, have already done their damage.

The moment they convinced politicians the way to avert the End of Days was to put a price on emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the unholy alliance of Big Government, Big Business and Big Green was forged.

Big Government wants more of your taxes. Big Business wants more of your income. Big Green wants you and your children to bow down to its agenda of enforced austerity.

What about saving the planet, you ask? This was never about saving the planet. This is about money and power. Your money. Their power.

 It's been fascinating to read some of the letters to the editors some papers have been publishing in reponse to pieces like this.  Certain papers simply didn't print any that agreed - and I know they got them - but those that disagreed.  Talk about head in the sand responses!  After shooting the messanger (you're not a climate scientist!  How dare you diss [fill name of alarmist person or organization here]?) to chastising the paper for publishing the piece at all, many then went on to talk about concensus and the IPCC as proof that AGW is really happening, and the writers are evil for disagreeing.

Let's see if I get this right.  The emails and code released show that the so-called scientists who's data CONTRIBUTED to the IPCC reports was fudged, massaged, falsified, while they discussed ways to hide information they didn't agree with (because they just *knew* AGW was really happening, even if the data showed it wasn't), thereby calling to question anything the IPCC and alarmist have ever said... but the IPCC and the alarmists are used to "prove" that AGW is real.

Uhm...  yeah.

Maybe they should lie down for a bit until the fever passes, 'cause that sort of twisted "logic" has got to hurt the brain.

While I'm at it, here's another excellent read from Steve Janke.

So what does this have to do with scientists and climate change?  Scientists are supposed to be the purist expression of realists.  For them, it is all about the data.  The data is never right or wrong in a moral sense, it simply is.  What the data shows can't be denied.  Anidealist will gladly ignore or denigrate data that conflicts with his ideal view of the universe, but a scientist does not have that luxury.

A proper scientist does not believe in man-made global warming.  It is a theory that may or may not be supported by evidence.  If not, it is rejected.  It is as simple as that.

For believers in man-made global warming, the ideal universe is one in which global warming is real, and is attributable to Western industrial activity.  From that ideal state flows the ideal solution -- massive de-industrialization of the West and a subsequent reduction of wealth and influence.  From that follows a crash in the standard of living, culminating in dramatic depopulation. 

Don't be naive.  This is what global warming idealists want to happen.

Yes, it is what they want.  Many have even said so rather bluntly. 

Funny how skeptics of AGW have been called deniers and equated to Holocaust deniers who should be put to trail and jailed.  Who are the deniers now?  Deniers of reality, that is.