Global Warming!

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the warm weather we’ve been having this winter, but naturally all the true believers are out in force telling us that this is global warming. Never mind that Europe has been plunged into a preliminary mini-Ice Age, and never mind that the last few winters here have been miserable.

Sure, if the last twenty winters had been like this, I’d be prepared to believe in global warming. Or if during the last twenty years, each winter had been warmer than the last, I’d be prepared to believe in global warming. But that hasn’t been the case. The last few winters have been pretty miserable.

One thing we skeptics can be thankful for is that the general public, after the Climategate scandal, decided that we were right, and it is now the true believers who are having to defend their views. For some time I wondered what caused this huge shift. But then I reflected that many people today have been to college and have dealt with ideological professors in the humanities and social sciences who demand that certain views be espoused on papers if their students want to get an A. The Climategate scandal showed these people that science professors can act the same way, and not just toward students, but also toward fellow researchers. This is why I believe that in ten or twenty years, all of today’s research will be looked at with a skeptical eye, and people won’t accept it unless it’s been done again by those who are more committed to the truth.