Thoughts on Global Warming Denial

by Karl Auer

[I wrote this on 26 February 2012 in the Link mailing list, in response to a message by a global warning denier. I've removed the denier's name as the response is not specific to that person's points. I've also madde a few minor edits. -K]


I'll trust Ockham's Razor over you, any day.

The alleged political interests that would create a conspiracy of the scope and depth that you seem to espouse are shadowy and vague. You presuppose a level of collusion and collaboration between political entities that have shown no capacity to do either in - well, basically all of recorded human history.

And the same level of collusion is alleged between scientific entities, where you are basically saying that thousands upon thousands of scientists, from dozens of different countries, in hundreds of different organisations, working within dozens of different political structures and hundreds of different funding models, are perfectly happy to betray their training and lie through their teeth. That a few might do so is believable. That so many would do so defies all rational belief.

The interests that benefit from global warming denial are clear and obvious, and collusion and collaboration between them is constant and historically clear. Similar destabilisation programs have been delivered by not-dissimilar groups in the past - one need look no further than the textbook example of the pro-tobacco lobby.

Trillion-dollar commercial interests are far more likely to produce a denialist campaign than political interests. For a start, it doesn't require any collusion or collaboration!

There will always be evidence for and against any scientific thesis. The more supporting evidence there is relative to the contradicting evidence, the more likely the theory is to be "true". There is a major difference, however, between "incomplete" and "wrong".


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Page last updated 27 February 2012