Why can't we question?

One of the things I cannot stand about the left is how they answer an argument that was never made.

Case in point. Sarah Palin has a thoughtful informed piece at the WaPo today about climategate, her own personal experience with climate change, and what we need to do to move forward.

"But while we recognize the occurrence of these natural, cyclical environmental trends, we can't say with assurance that man's activities cause weather changes. We can say, however, that any potential benefits of proposed emissions reduction policies are far outweighed by their economic costs."

What drives the left insane is when you question them on WHY the earth is warming or cooling. I'm old enough to remember the scary sensational media coverage in the '70's of the scientific papers that discussed the possibility of a new ice age at some point in the future. Afterwards scientists realized that they had overestimated the cooling effect of aerosol pollution and underestimated the effect of CO2, meaning warming was more likely than cooling.

You see what happened there? Scientist were willing to re-address their studies. That is really all we want done today before we radically change the way we live and spend trillions of dollars doing so.

Read Sarah's entire article. Howard Kurtz tweeted that the Washington Post is getting pure h*ll for printing Sarah's piece. I can never get over the left's willingness to silence anything they don't agree with. They bring a whole new meaning to censorship.

Al Gore rebuts Plain in an interview to air Wednesday by asking a ridiculous question:

"The entire North Polar ice cap is disappearing before our eyes ... what do they think is happening?"

This is what I was talking about when I said they answer an argument that was never made. No one is denying a warming of the earth. So this question is absurd. But he did it on purpose, because the left wants everyone to think that those who question man made global warming are questioning global warming in itself. So they answer questions as if people on the other side don't believe in global warming at all. Which is completely false. The only thing many people and many scientists are asking is can we be sure it isn't just the natural changes of the earth, and if man is contributing, is it enough to really make a difference?

These are legitimate questions. but they are brushed off with snotty comments like Al Gore saying "It's a principle in physics, It's like gravity, it exists." Yes, but the questions are why it exists. What people are questioning are the REASONS the earth is warming or why it has been cooling for the last 11 years.

Recently White House Press Secretary Robert Gibss was asked about climategate, in his usual snotty manner he answered, "I think that this notion that there's some debate...on the science is kind of silly." Oh really? Because there are about 450 academic peer-reviewed journal articles supporting skepticism of man made global warming. More than 30,000 American scientists are urging the U.S. to reject the Kyoto treaty. So it is hardly unanimous and it certainly isn't "silly."

Given the e-mails that recently surfaced between scientists determined to prove it is man made, it is clear that data was dumped and data was manipulated. It is also clear that these scientist wanted any data that seemed to contradict their findings to be squashed. That isn't science. That is politics.

And that is what is the saddest thing about this. Once money and politics enter the picture, then the science comes into question.

Years ago I read Michael Crichton's "State of Fear." Crichton was a doctor as well as a writer and he was a "man made" global warming skeptic. His book blended well researched scientific fact with amazing fiction. He footnoted all his scientific information. His book illustrated how this sacred cow of the environmental movement, man made global warming, is motivated as much by money and politics and fear as it is science. He shows us how political leaders (Al gore, I'm looking at you) promote their agenda with slanted, inaccurate portrayals of what the science i saying. And now we know that some of the science was indeed manipulated.

I think given everything we know, to say it's "settled science" is just false. What we need is reputable scientists that don't have a political agenda and can be funded by non partisan grants. The fact is that we understand very little about the nature and extent of any effects of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We need much more research. And this research needs to be conducted on a level playing fired. I know we have done tons of research, but since there seems to be a taint to it and the fact that the e-mails from climategate came from the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment report from the University of East Anglia, whose data we have relied on for man made global warming, it wouldn't hurt to do more. Considering all the money going into this, I don't think it's too much to ask.

From Fox News:

The three most relied-on data series used by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment report came from the University of East Anglia, NASA, and the British Met Office. As noted in my previous piece for the Fox Forum, the problem of secretiveness is hardly limited to the University of East Anglia. NASA also refuses to give out its data. NASA further refuses to explain mysterious changes in whether the warmest years were in the 1930s or this past decade. The British Met office, too, has been unable to release its data and just announced its plans to begin a three-year investigation of its data since all of its land temperatures data were obtained from the University of East Anglia (ocean temperatures were collected separately), though there are signs that things might be speeded up.

People like Paln and myself aren't denying global warming. We aren't even really denying man made global warming. We just know that the science has been poisoned and we need to start over. We are relying on tainted data and data that these scientists refuse to allow others to evaluate. It's that simple.

In the end, science is about questioning. That is the ironic thing about climategate. They clearly wanted to shut down questioning. That isn't science. That is the opposite of it.

If the left isn't afraid of the answers then they wouldn't mind the questions.