Dear Editor:
Thank you to the Advertiser for being the means for an open dialogue on important matters like science and climate change.
RE: Accept the science, March 7.
The scientific process is not about consensus. It is about producing repeatable results that then can be considered fact. Just one experiment can potentially change the truth about any previously settled fact. But climate science is very subjective, after all we cannot put the Earth in a test tube to see if humans are the primary cause of climate change. Ever more sources of non-human sourced methane are being found and we do not know if they are being added to the climate change computer models.
Ian Martin says we have to accept all science reports as valid because they are the product of the same scientific process. But how does he know if all the scientists followed the scientific process correctly or honestly and that the results were used ethically?
Think of thalidomide, a drug that went through the scientific process, a major disaster from which many Canadians are still suffering today. Think of DDT, a chemical that went through the scientific process, a major disaster from which nature has only recently recovered.
Think of the sugar industry which bribed Harvard University professors to change their studies to say only too much fat in the diet is detrimental when they knew too much sugar also is bad for our health; a major disaster of obesity is the ongoing result.
It is foolish to blindly trust the “scientific process”. Scientists are as prone to world-view “blindness”, to greed, to desire for position or glory, and to influence from powerful corporations and governments as the rest of us. It is more commonly called having a “sinful nature” or in the no-morals evolution regime “survival of the fittest” and “red in tooth and claw”.
The climate change scientists had better be right if they are going to turn our economy and culture upside down. I really don’t see a non-fossil fueled airplane in the offing. Are we going to shut the airline industry down to “save” the earth? Fat chance.
Sure we can load carbon taxes on air travel to reduce it, but the rich will still pay and the pollution will continue. Will we shut down stinky polluting snowmobiling and other entertainment that uses fossil fuels to travel like professional and non-professional sports of all kinds to “save” the earth? Fat chance.
So who will have to make the changes to “save” the earth? Vigilance is needed against vested interests and non-vested interests in government, educational institutions and corporations. We need to be open-minded to truth but must not allow ourselves to be brainwashed by subjective “science”.
However, one good result of climate change fear-mongering is that the strangle hold the fossil fuel industry had on innovative energy production is loosening. In the past the oil industry worked hard to shut down new research on alternative methods of energy production.
I have hope now that cheaper and easier ways to produce energy will become available to the poor of the world.
Jane Vandervliet,
Erin