'Establishing Truth By Perpetual Repetition'

That's the method used by global-warming Cassandras as described yesterday by Richard Lindzen, MIT professor of atmospheric sciences. His Wall Street Journal Op-Ed (paid subscriber link) comes to mind upon reading Earth's Climate Warming Abruptly, Scientist Says by Doug Struck.

Struck:

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Earth's climate is undergoing an abrupt change, ending a cooler period that began with a swift "cold snap" in the tropics 5,200 years ago that coincided with the start of cities, the beginning of calendars and the biblical great flood, a leading expert on glaciers has concluded.

The warming around Earth's tropical belt is a signal suggesting that the "climate system has exceeded a critical threshold," which has sent tropical-zone glaciers in full retreat and will melt them completely "in the near future," said Lonnie G. Thompson, a scientist who for 23 years has been taking core samples from the ancient ice of glaciers.

Thompson, writing with eight other researchers in an article published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said the ice samples show that the climate can and did cool quickly, and that a similarly abrupt warming change started about 50 years ago. Humans may not have the luxury of adapting to slow changes, he suggests....

Which is just another in a series of global-warming advocacy pieces. These stories wouldn't have to be described as advocacy--Struck is simply reporting on a study--except these are virtually the only kind of studies the Post ever reports on. In the WSJ Op-Ed behind the paywall but discussed at Fausta's Blog  Professor Lindzen weighs in on claims by Al Gore that "the debate in the scientific community is over:"

That statement, which Mr. Gore made in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, ought to have been followed by an asterisk. What exactly is this debate that Mr. Gore is referring to? Is there really a scientific community that is debating all these issues and then somehow agreeing in unison? Far from such a thing being over, it has never been clear to me what this "debate" actually is in the first place...

To believe it requires that one ignore the truly inconvenient facts. To take the issue of rising sea levels, these include: that the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940; that icebergs have been known since time immemorial; that the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average. A likely result of all this is increased pressure pushing ice off the coastal perimeter of thatcountry, which is depicted so ominously in Mr. Gore's movie. In the absence of factual context, these images are perhaps dire or alarming.       

They are less so otherwise. Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why...

Some ice sheets grow. Others shrink. Guess which kind we get to read about.

Now, Lindzen points to some areas where competent scientists do agree: There's been some warming  on average over the past century, and a rise in carbon dioxide levels. Beyond that there seems to be little consensus, and no reporting on its absence.

Cross-posted at Wizbang's Carnival of Tracksbacks.

Comments

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I remember my high school World History teacher saying that the basic Goebbels technique of the Big Lie is to simply repeat the same falsehood so often that some people believe there must be some truth to it. Do it long enough and most people believe it's mostly true.

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