THE INESTIMABLE VALUE OF DISSENT

For years, the politico-scientific party line for global warming has been that the science is in, human-made global warming is the culprit, we will soon reach (or have now reached, or have long ago reached) the tipping point, and we are now sliding toward catastrophe. Those who remained skeptical were mercilessly skewered, persecuted, denied tenure and research funding, and called every name under the sun (joke!) by the true believers.

But the agnostics persisted, stubbornly digging out data that cast doubt on the standard anthropomorphic global warming (AGW) model, the computer models that presumably supported it, the research methodologies and even the data sets. In other words, instead of being true believers, they were true scientists. And, by degrees, as the facts became available, some of the faithful ones began to waver and, most important, lose their FEAR OF PERSECUTION.

Now AGW orthodoxy gets yet another black eye. NASA, for so long a temple of the AGW faith, has allowed itself to publish a study (see a report in Daily Tech) which states that solar activity, horribile dictu, has an impact on climate change. This is a conclusion that the AGW faithful had resisted ever since their new faith had been birthed.

This is yet another major victory for science and democracy. I hope it has come in time to influence Congress in its struggle with the Waxman-Markey "great big tax" whose only real purpose is to ensure that the self-appointed elect can have more money for their super-expensive toys and chimeric fantasies.