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A Physicist Ponders the Pause
What bothers me, in the light of the continued denial by some of The Pause — the global climate’s prolonged refusal to grow warmer as the “settled science” predicted — is how this whole climate issue reflects a deeper malaise. It suggests a sort of Calvinistic determinism in which the future is cast in concrete and all that remains for us to do is to remove the form-work. This is in sharp contrast to Eastern philosophy, such as Taoism and the I Ching, which are based on the idea of continuous change. As Heraclitus noted quite some time ago, we may never step twice into the same river.
Determinism has long been there, underlying Western Christian thought, but it has recently come to dominate (or perhaps replace) scientific thinking. I believe that this is an unintended consequence of numerical modeling which is now widespread in science. Computers have, in general, been such a boon to science that no-one any longer questions the validity of some applications, particularly those…
Academics and others who dare to question the majority view are brutally told the science has been settled. Many such dissenters from catastrophist orthodoxy have lost their jobs, been denied promotion, or subjected to constant harassment and ridicule. This not the way science should be done
Aug 25 2024
3 mins
There's a veritable industry of academics raising alarm about how global warming and a polluted, dying planet will leave humanity and the animal kingdom in such a state that cannibalism will be a matter of survival. I'll spurn schoolyard puns and cheap gags except for one, and that by way of good advice: don't give them a big hand
Aug 09 2024
13 mins
I thought initially that this topic was a bit of fun. But it turns out that entomophagy, as the eating of insects is called, is an essential component of the Western lemmings' race to net-zero. Need it be said that one of the biggest and most enthusiastic lemmings is our very own climate crazies at the CSIRO?
Jul 31 2024
15 mins