This blog post by statistician Matt Brigs hits the nail on the head–“people believe global warming not because of the science but because they desire its ‘solution.'” He makes several important observations to back up his claim. First he notes that “proof has all but disappeared from major media stories on global warming” and goes on to explain that “Proof-stories are those that say ‘The science predicted this-and-such, and here is the evidence verifying the prediction.'” The reason for this is that the data no longer supports the claims. According to Briggs “The reason is simple: there is little in the way of proof that the dire predictions of global warming are true, and much evidence, plain to the senses, that they are false.” Of course he is referring to facts like global temperatures have not been rising for about 17 years now; that all of the global warming models have far over predicted actual warming; hurricanes are neither becoming more frequent or more intense; the rate of sea level rise is not increasing, to name a few.
Briggs suggests that for progressives the truth has little importance because the issue is not about discovering truth but implementing a policy. I would argue that the true goal is government control of energy. And this is where demonization and the manipulation of mob psychology comes in. Briggs observes:
the president and his party want the only acceptable argument to be “I believe“. Anybody who offers calm, logical arguments against the theory of “catastrophic” man-made global warming, such as observing models do not make skillful predictions, must be shouted down, shunned, driven from polite society, called evil, labeled as brutes, shamed, fired, de-funded, imprisoned…
When a True Believer meets a skeptic he sticks his fingers in his ears, stamps his feet, and screeches “Denier!” (or “Bigot!”) as if this is a knock-down devastating rebuttal. In the True Believer’s favor, a rampaging mob does earn a certain respect.
