Meteorologist Likens Fear of Global Warming to 'Religious Belief'

By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
December 02, 2004

Washington (CNSNews.com) - An MIT meteorologist
Wednesday dismissed alarmist fears about human
induced global warming as nothing more than 'religious
beliefs.'

"Do you believe in global warming? That is a religious
question. So is the second part: Are you a skeptic or
a believer?" said Massachusetts Institute of Technology
professor Richard Lindzen, in a speech to about 100
people at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

"Essentially if whatever you are told is alleged to be
supported by 'all scientists,' you don't have to
understand [the issue] anymore. You simply go
back to treating it as a matter of religious belief,"
Lindzen said. His speech was titled, "Climate
Alarmism: The Misuse of 'Science'" and was
sponsored by the free market George C. Marshall
Institute. Lindzen is a professor at MIT's Department
of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.

Once a person becomes a believer of global warming,
"you never have to defend this belief except to claim
that you are supported by all scientists -- except for
a handful of corrupted heretics," Lindzen added.

According to Lindzen, climate "alarmists" have been
trying to push the idea that there is scientific
consensus on dire climate change.

"With respect to science, the assumption behind
the [alarmist] consensus is science is the source
of authority and that authority increases with the
number of scientists [who agree.] But science is
not primarily a source of authority. It is a particularly
effective approach of inquiry and analysis.
Skepticism is essential to science -- consensus
is foreign," Lindzen said.

Alarmist predictions of more hurricanes, the
catastrophic rise in sea levels, the melting of
the global poles and even the plunge into another
ice age are not scientifically supported, Lindzen said.

"It leads to a situation where advocates want us to be
afraid, when there is no basis for alarm. In response
to the fear, they want us to do what they want,"
Lindzen said.

Recent reports of a melting polar ice cap were
dismissed by Lindzen as an example of the media
taking advantage of the public's "scientific illiteracy."

"The thing you have to remember about the Arctic is
that it is an extremely variable part of the world,"
Lindzen said. "Although there is melting going [on]
now, there has been a lot of melting that went on in the
[19]30s and then there was freezing. So by isolating a
section ... they are essentially taking people's ignorance
of the past," he added.

'Repetition makes people believe'

The climate change debate has become corrupted
by politics, the media and money, according to Lindzen.

"It's a sad story, where you have scientists making
meaningless or ambiguous statements [about
climate change]. They are then taken by advocates
to the media who translate the statements into
alarmist declarations. You then have politicians
who respond to all of this by giving scientists more
money," Lindzen said.

"Agreement on anything is taken to infer agreement
on everything. So if you make a statement that you
agree that CO2 (carbon dioxide) is a greenhouse
gas, you agree that the world is coming to an end,"
he added.

"There can be little doubt that the language used to
convey alarm has been sloppy at best," Lindzen
said, citing Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbles and
his famous observation that even a lie will be believed
if enough people repeat it. "There is little question
that repetition makes people believe things [for]
which there may be no basis," Lindzen said.

He believes the key to improving the science of
climate change lies in altering the way scientists
are funded.

'Alarm is the aim'

"The research and support for research depends
on the alarm," Lindzen told CNSNews.com
following his speech. "The research itself often
is very good, but by the time it gets through the
filter of environmental advocates and the press
innocent things begin to sound just as though
they are the end of the world.

"The argument is no longer what models are
correct -- they are not -- but rather whether
their results are at all possible. One can rarely
prove something to be impossible," he explained.

Lindzen said scientists must be allowed to
conclude that 'we don't have a problem." And
if the answer turns out to be 'we don't have a
problem,' we have to figure out a better reward
than cutting off people's funding. It's as simple
as that," he said.

The only consensus that Lindzen said exists on
the issue of climate change is the impact of the
Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty to limit
greenhouse gases, which the U.S. does not support.

Kyoto itself will have no discernible effect on global
warming regardless of what one believes about
climate change," Lindzen said.

"Claims to the contrary generally assume Kyoto
is only the beginning of an ever more restrictive
regime. However this is hardly ever mentioned,"
he added.

The Kyoto Protocol, which Russia recently ratified,
aims to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases
to 1990 levels by the year 2010. But Lindzen claims
global warming proponents ultimately want to see a
60 to 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gasses
from the 1990 levels. Such reductions would be
economically disastrous, he said.

"If you are hearing Kyoto will cost billions and trillions,"
then a further reduction will ultimately result in "a
shutdown" of the economy, Lindzen said.