Recently a letter was published criticizing the Global Warming “deniers” for their lack of understanding that this subject is now covered by a “consensus” among scientists that Global Warming is an established fact.
There are several problems with this admonition, the first of which is that no such “consensus” actually exists and, second, that an implied, simple, “broad understanding” of a mixed group of people on any subject is usually detrimental to its enhanced understanding. The experiences of Galileo, Copernicus and Flat-Earth believers can serve as sobering examples.
In fact, “consensus” in the Natural Sciences and Engineering is proof of nothing unless the phenomena being studied is the result of a broad series of observations and measurements from which there are no exceptions to the proposition being studied. The “Laws” of Thermodynamics and Mechanics are classic examples of this.
Yet, even with these historically celebrated cases, there is always the caveat that applications of the principle involved will produce a predicted result only when those applications fall within a range of specified parameters. Our understanding of the Natural World is always enlarged by “objective skepticism”, not by “consensus”, which comes later after the facts are convincingly established.
In the matter of carbon induced “Global Warming” there is the disturbing problem that for the past 10-15 years the average measured temperature of the near-earth environment has decreased, as it also did in the 40-year period 1940-1980, even though the CO2 atmospheric concentration increased. This contradiction is one reason for “skepticism” of the current promotion of Global Warming.
Should your readers wish to learn more about this and the hundreds of qualified scientists who could be classified as “deniers,” they are referred to www.ClimateDepot .com.
- John A. Clark
Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering
University of Michigan
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