The Science of Ridicule: Flat Earth Progressives Denounce Non-Climate Change Fanatics

In a perfect world, the words “science” and “skeptic” would go together like biscuits and gravy. Alas, we live in that enlightened era when so-called scientists grab oodles of cash from the gubmint and lambaste anyone who doesn’t agree with their theories as ideologues or even Nazis (actually, I think Nazis would be quite warm to the theory which provided them with the rationale for controlling all property, natural resources, and human life). But wait — wouldn’t so-called scientists calling out any opposition to their theories whatsoever as ideological  be, I don’t know, inherently ideological?

Here is an idea, chaps. Instead of running your insipid mouths about how we little-brains can’t understand the nuances of climate science, why don’t you cut your hyper-arcane arguments down to size with an Occam’s razor, and just for kaka and giggles, quantify how much impact man has on the greenhouse effect? Wouldn’t that be a more potent form of argument than running around like chicken littles with your heads cut off yelling “the earth is warming!” or “the climate is changing!” for decades on end?

Oh, wait. That would pretty much end the hysteria right there, wouldn’t it? Because extrapolating from government figures, man’s impact on the greenhouse effect is less than 1/300. Yes, that’s right. All the claims for global control of natural resources in order to supposedly prevent mankind from destroying itself and our sum contribution to the greenhouse effect (we’re not even talking major warming variables that humans have no control over, such as solar activity) is roughly 1/33rd (man’s contribution to the yearly rise of CO2) of 3.618% (CO2’s impact on the greenhouse effect). And I would love to see a climate scientist prove me wrong, here’s a novel thought, by showing his work.

And just to prove how politicized science has become, let’s observe the petty, pathetic behavior of the man who calls himself the President of the United States. Barack Obama, that brilliant scientific scholar, recently had the temerity to condemn climate skeptics (a term that should be synonymous with climate scientists) as members of the “flat earth society.” Here is what the lecturer who doesn’t even have the fundamentals right had to say:

“Now, here’s the sad thing. Lately, we have heard a lot of professional politicians, a lot of the folks who were running for a certain office, who shall go unnamed, they’ve been talking down new sources of energy. They dismiss wind power. They dismiss solar power. They make jokes about biofuels. They were against raising fuel standards. I guess they like gas guzzlers. They think that’s good for our future. We’re trying to move towards the future. They want to be stuck in the past!” Obama exclaimed to cheers from the crowd. “If some of these folks were around when Columbus set sail, they probably must have been founding members of the flat earth society. They would not believe that the world was round!”

No, Mr. President, the sad thing is that you don’t know what you’re talking about, and you are usurping the power to dictate economic policy based on a big lie. On the bright side, here’s my chance to give the smartest president in the history of presidents a public lesson in science, economics, and history. Oh, lucky day!

First off, we just showed (again, novel idea) that the claim man is irredeemably harming the planet through burning fossil fuels rests on feet of clay. This is probably why the theory is sinking in the public muckity muck faster than Obama’s approval rating.

Secondly, supply and demand dictates that when a good or resource becomes scarcer, it also becomes more expensive. This means that the more fossil fuels we use, the more price-competitive alternative energy resources become. Such price pressures are historically a major driver of innovation and efficiency improvements. But to hear Obama and friends tell it, the United States became an industrial-technological powerhouse through state planning. Wrong! Eli Whitney, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford all innovated due to competition and/or the profit motive.

The U.S. did not become the world’s foremost power by accident. Take your hands off the wheel, Mr. President, and enjoy the ride to the future.

Lastly, comparing free market advocates who believe that competition is the engine of progress and scientists who hold to the method of reasoned hypothesis falsification to flat earthers is absurd. In fact, the notion of there being a flat earth was debunked in Western Civilization by Eratosthenes in 230 B.C. (but we should cut Obama some slack because he’s obviously not a big fan of the West; well, maybe on his NCAA brackets). But for the Double Jeopardy daily double, the idea that people believed in a flat earth and therefore Columbus set out to prove them wrong was a myth manufactured by Washington Irving.

Science has rarely if ever advanced under the auspices of state planning, and when it has, it has usually been in those “noble” areas of endeavor as nuking other human beings into oblivion or otherwise contriving nefarious ways to control them. This isn’t a surprising state of affairs when government is at the helm of science. Government exists to control people. That’s what it does. A market, on the other hand, embeds the values of average citizens into the manufacturing of goods: products are devised and distributed according to the tastes for leisure, pleasure, comfort, desire, and needs of consumers. Put that way, free market capitalism and a healthy skepticism of state-run science doesn’t seem like such a backwards idea, does it?