The Climate of Science and the Science of Climate

It has been said that the worst thing to happen to science is that it became a profession. When you depend on someone else for your livelihood, you are expected to avoid expressing disagreement, and to support their goals and objectives. Don't make waves, do as you're told, and you might keep your job. These expectations are as true in science as in any other occupation.

The idea of scientists as independent researchers boldly going forth is largely romantic fiction today

Most scientists today have one of two employers—industry, or universities. Scientists in industry are paid to develop new technologies, refine existing ones, and avoid controversy. Most university scientists are compensated partly by the university, and partly by research grants from governments.

The idea of scientists as independent researchers boldly going forth to investigate new fields and make revolutionary new discoveries is largely romantic fiction today.

Universities exercise fairly tight control over researchers, including threat of withholding tenure. Granting agencies specify what sorts of research they will fund, and often indicate the results they would like to get from the research. Grant awards are often made taking into account how well researchers have performed in meeting requirements in the past. Unless someone wants to spend a short career teaching freshman science courses, one quickly learns to give the customer what they want.

In addition, researchers are evaluated on the number of research papers they have published. An author submits a paper to a scientific journal for publication. The journal editor, in the process known as "peer review" sends copies of the submission to other researchers in the field who have agreed to be reviewers. Many of these reviewers are competitors with the author for the same grant funds. The reviewers evaluate the paper and return their comments to the editor who will decide if the paper will be published or not. Reviewer comments can make or break a paper.

Carbon dioxide was seen as the root cause of almost every environmental problem, either directly, or indirectly

Too often, reviewers evaluate the paper for conformity to "established" science, making sure that currently fashionable views are not seriously challenged. Many good papers challenging Covid dogma were refused publication just a few short years ago because they raised uncomfortable questions about the seriousness of the disease, and pointed out dangers of the experimental mRNA "vaccines" that were being promoted. So how did that turn out?

There is a saying that physics advances obituary by obituary. The same is true in other fields of science, especially in climate science. A career in most sciences spans a period of about 30 to 40 years. People retiring today started their work in the late 1980s, following the beginnings of the environmentalism movements of the 1960s and ‘70s. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed in 1988 and quickly became a major force in shaping government policies and research funding in environmental sciences.

Billed as an impartial organization dedicated to understanding the mechanisms of climate change and providing informed advice to governments responsible for policy setting and decisions, it was actually created with an agenda. The founder, influenced by concerns about overpopulation, use of fossil fuels, environmental degradation, and declining air and water quality, sought a way to shape government policies to address these perceived problems. 

The IPCC was chartered not to investigate a full range of causes of climate change, but rather started with the assumption that human activity was causing climate change, and that the primary mechanism was through increases in CO2 in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide was seen as the root cause of almost every environmental problem, either directly, or indirectly.

This politicization of science through control of research funding influenced an entire generation of scientists

Nearly all electricity generation depended on coal, oil, and natural gas combustion which produced CO2 in copious quantities. Trucks and automobiles burned fossil fuels which led to smog and other air pollution. Oil and natural gas were fundamental raw materials in production of nearly all plastics. Production of fertilizers released huge quantities of CO2, and those fertilizers literally fed increases in population. In short, CO2 production was at the root of modern civilization and industrial production. Whoever could control CO2 would control the world!

Largely as a result of IPCC activities, government funding agencies began funding research aimed at showing how human activities contributed to climate change, usually in some negative way. This politicization of science through control of research funding influenced an entire generation of scientists.

Researchers who questioned the role of human produced CO2 in climate change were often denied funding and publication opportunities Those who persisted in such "climate denialism" were cancelled, disparaged, and often forced to leave their careers for other employment. This situation has persisted for over thirty years, and is only now beginning to change, largely due to retirement.

Not only are hard-core proponents of human caused climate change retiring, but good scientists who stayed silent before are now speaking out as they no longer are concerned about their careers or funding or academic censure. Long suppressed questions are being asked, and the accumulated experience of recent decades is showing that many of the assumptions of CO2 caused climate change don't hold up.

CO2 concentrations do not correlate well with climate changes

Most people don't realize that there is almost no good research showing any connection between human activities and climate change. The supposed connection between CO2 production and climate is being shown to be nonexistent almost daily. In reality, almost all the predictions of climate change are based on computer models of climate.

I have written and used computer models for over 50 years, and even contributed to a model used in a paleoclimate study. Models are useful, but are only as good as what goes into them, and the climate models today have serious flaws both in what they include, as well as what they lack..

The IPCC recently acknowledged that most of the computer models they use in their climate predictions seriously overestimate predicted temperatures. While not specifically mentioned, the IPCC recommended relationship between CO2 and temperatures is a major factor in this overestimation. The IPCC formula says that increased CO2 leads to higher temperatures. As the models increase CO2, the predicted temperatures increase just as the math demands. Reality is much more complex. Further, many significant factors are omitted from the models, or important effects are dismissed, making the models seriously incomplete.

In other words, the entire basis for global climate policy and regulatory actions is built on seriously flawed computer models that give misleading and biased results.

CO2 concentrations do not correlate well with climate changes. Recent studies are showing that temperature changes occur before changes in CO2 concentration—just the opposite of what theory would predict. Sea levels have largely remained stable. There are actually fewer large storms, temperatures outside of urban areas have frequently been showing slight declines, improved understanding of solar cycles and inputs have led to rethinking of the Sun's role in climate change. Negative consequences of many of the ill-considered policies restricting use of fossil fuels, energy production, and mandates of alternative energy sources now have years of experience to draw on for review and revision.

While the climate is actually changing, it is increasingly clear that human activities, including CO2 production, have little or nothing to do with that change

While the climate is actually changing, it is increasingly clear that human activities, including CO2 production, have little or nothing to do with that change. What is clear is that restrictions on CO2 have had major detrimental effects on national economies and individual liberties. Entire countries are now unable to meet their basic energy needs due to misguided and destructive policies that shuttered essential generation facilities in favor of unreliable "green" energy systems that are often unavailable when they are most needed. Curtailment of fertilizer production has greatly increased the risk of global famine, possibly even within the next year. These are but a few of the consequences of bad policy implemented to solve the wrong problems.

Misunderstandings of the causes and consequences of climate change are deeply embedded now in global policies. Many regulators are convinced that policies such as net zero, carbon footprint reduction, conversion to "green" energy technologies, elimination of fossil fueled transportation, 15 minute cities, and many other faulty "solutions" are well founded and based on solid science. People who suggest otherwise are labeled "climate deniers" or "science deniers".

These entrenched adherents are the true science deniers—those who remain convinced of a false reality and who refuse to recognize that real science is never settled, that our understanding of the world is always changing as new information is obtained. Newtonian classical physics gave way to Einstein and then to quantum physics, Biology is transforming daily. The science of climate and climate change is no different.

The real science deniers are those who hold on to false ideas because they have built their careers on them, or their power and status depend on maintenance of those ideas. It would be nice if we didn't have to wait for obituaries. It will be nice when the climate of science catches up with the real science of climate.