To the editor:
Olson’s (Jan. 8) cartoon about the Conservative government burning a “science” book is a good one. Problem is that he has it the wrong way around. The success of science has depended upon skepticism and there are two glaring examples of when an authoritarian government has condemned scientists who denied “government” science.
In the early 1600s the Vatican insisted that the solar system revolved around the Earth. This involved complicated “models” of crystal spheres with physically impossible motions. The only other example is recent when those that question the “warming” mania are severely condemned as “deniers.”
As a “denier,” Galileo risked political murder. And as Kepler was discovering that the planets revolved in elliptical orbits, he made some money on the side by contriving horoscopes.
The latter is the problem as many researchers found that writing anything about man-caused warming was profitable. The assumption that only CO2 influences climate has always been limited and impractical.
The theory has been unable to explain the Medieval Warm Period when temperatures were warmer than the highs recorded in the last century. It also did not predict the end of warming some 16 years ago.
It is not coincidental that the Little Ice Age occurred during a lengthy period of low solar output. Nor is it coincidental that high temperatures that have so inspired activists occurred during the highest solar activity in over a thousand years.
What makes science real has always been predictability. In the mid 1990s, solar physicists, Livingston and Penn, published their work that solar activity would decline significantly and with this global temps would decline.
So far, so good. Olson’s cartoon treats with Harper’s “silencing” of researchers working for government. As a taxpayer I find it highly offensive to be forced to pay my civil servants to promote authoritarian garbage about global warming.
Bob Hoye,
Vancouver
