lindzen-achtergrond-thermometer

Professor em. Richard Lindzen is één van ’s werelds meest gerespecteerde klimaatwetenschappers. Hij heeft 30 jaar atmosferische natuurkunde gedoceerd aan het MIT (‘Massachusetts Institute of Technology’), dat wordt gerekend tot een van de beste technische universiteiten ter wereld. Hij is auteur van meer dan 200 wetenschappelijke artikelen en was de belangrijkste auteur van hoofdstuk 7 van het ‘IPCC Third Assessment Report’, TAR 2001. Hij was tevreden over dit rapport, maar richtte harde kritiek op de Samenvatting voor Beleidsmakers (SPM).

In de loop der jaren heeft hij zich als een van de meest invloedrijke klimaatsceptici ontpopt, waarbij hij veel aandacht heeft geschonken aan de ‘meta’problemen waaraan de mainstream klimatologie laboreert.

Enige jaren geleden publiceerde Richard Lindzen een artikel in het ‘Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons’, onder de titel: ‘Science in the Public Square: Global Climate Alarmism and Historical Precedents’. Men kan zich afvragen waarom dit artikel niet in de bekende bladen over klimatologie en aanverwante thema’s is verschenen. Ik vermoed dat de inhoud ervan niet strookte met het door hen verdedigde opwarmingsdogma en dus niet door het door hen gehanteerde cordon sanitaire wist door te dringen. Reden genoeg om er nog eens aandacht aan te schenken.

Onder de titel, ‘MIT professor: global warming is a ‘religion’’, schreef Michael Bastasch van ‘The Daily Caller’ er het volgende over:

Throughout history, governments have twisted science to suit a political agenda. Global warming is no different, according to Dr. Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“Global climate alarmism has been costly to society, and it has the potential to be vastly more costly. It has also been damaging to science, as scientists adjust both data and even theory to accommodate politically correct positions,” writes Lindzen in the fall 2013 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

According to Lindzen, scientists make essentially “meaningless” claims about certain phenomenon. Activists for certain causes take up claims made by scientists and politicians respond to the alarmism spread by activists by doling out more research funding. — creating an “Iron Triangle” of poor incentives.

triangle

“How can one escape from the Iron Triangle when it produces flawed science that is immensely influential and is forcing catastrophic public policy?” Lindzen asks.

Lindzen compares global warming to past politicized scientific movements: the eugenics movement in the early 20th Century and Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union under Stalin.

However, the MIT professor argues that global warming goes even beyond what these past movements in terms of twisting science.

“Global Warming has become a religion,” writes Lindzen. “A surprisingly large number of people seem to have concluded that all that gives meaning to their lives is the belief that they are saving the planet by paying attention to their carbon footprint.”

“There may be a growing realization that this may not add all that much meaning to one’s life, but, outside the pages of the Wall Street Journal, this has not been widely promulgated, and people with no other source of meaning will defend their religion with jihadist zeal,” he added.

President Obama heeft zich vierkant achter de menselijke broeikashypothese (AGW = ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’) geschaard en verklaard:

“I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that’s beyond fixing,” Obama said. “And that’s why, today, I’m announcing a new national climate action plan, and I’m here to enlist your generation’s help in keeping the United States of America a leader — a global leader — in the fight against climate change.”

Maar waarom dat alarmisme en die grote woorden?

… there has been no rise in global temperatures for the past 15 years.

“[T]he cracks in the scientific claims for catastrophic warming are, I think, becoming much harder for the supporters to defend,” writes Lindzen. “Despite official whitewashes, the Climategate scandal was a clear manifestation of pathology. Opposition to alarm is having some impact among certain groups including physicists.”

Lindzen also muses that politicized scientific movements may have a natural life cycle before they die out, comparing the about 30 year lifespan of global warming alarmism to the roughly equal lifespans of the eugenics and Lysenkoism movements. …

“Environmental advocates are responding by making increasingly extreme claims,” Lindzen writes. “Politicians are recognizing that these claims are implausible, and are backing away from both the issue and support for climate science. The incentive is then for scientists to look elsewhere for support. Regardless of whether this will be sufficient, one can only hope that some path will emerge that will end the present irrational obsession with climate and carbon footprints.”

Aldus Richard Lindzen.

Lees verder hier.

Als toetje hier een voordracht van Lindzen van 18 april op YouTube, waarin hij een taxonomie schetst van verschillende stromingen in de klimaatdiscussie.

Voor mijn eerdere bijdragen over klimaat en aanverwante zaken zie hier, hier, hier, hier en hier.