Have you ever greeted a friend with, “How are you doing?” and his/her answer is, “Same ole’ thing, just different places and different people.” Well, that is what this week seems like to me when I read that Philippe Verdier, a famous French weatherman known for his daily weather reports on the France 2 channel, announced that he had received a letter of dismissal.
Climate Depot reported the following (read the article here): “My book ‘Climate Investigation’ was published one month ago. It got me banned from the air waves,” said the weatherman, who was put “on leave” from the TV station on October 12. “I received this letter this morning and decided to open it in front of you because it concerns everybody- in the name of freedom of expression and freedom of information.”
Here we go again, the firing of another weatherman over the global warming debate. Another? Yes. Let us go back in time. Do you remember the headline: “Oregon’s official weatherman has good news about global warming-it doesn’t exist” ? In August 2005 Oregon’s State Climatologist George Taylor was fired for his public skepticism on human caused global warming. Remember?
The fact is that human caused global warming is still controversial (see Wikopedia here for some detailed information). Think not? Let us go back in time. Do you remember when the climate conspiracy theory took off when a collection of emails stolen from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) appeared on the internet in November 2009?
Just for fun, let us go back in time even further. Do you remember when the geo/heliocentric science debate was going on in the 1600s. The scientific community was set on the geocentrism universe as Galileo presented the heliocentric universe. Galileo presented supporting evidenced using a telescope. What happened to Mr. Galilei Galileo? In 1633 Galileo was convicted of heresy and placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life.
Do you remember Nicolaus Copernicus? He formulated the model of the universe, that Galileo presented, placing the sun at the center rather than the earth. Copernicus shared his findings in the Commentariolus around 1514. What Copernicus did for science was to remove the “believe what we want” model and introduced a new “proof” model.
Did science investigate this new model over the 100+ years between 1514 and 1633? And here we see the problem. There is a difference between true science and political /religious driven science. Do you think this could happen today? With global warming? With is evolution a theory?
Same ole’ thing. Just as in Galileo’s days and now today, Different religions, different scientists, a different challenge, but the same punishment of those who do not fall into line with the predominate “scientific” world view. Same ole’ thing. non-human cause global warming scientist and non-evolution scientist are ostracized; not because of the facts but because they don’t fall in line – like Galileo did not fall in line.
The fact is that the human caused global warming issue is not about science, religion, nor global warming. It is about money, selling carbon credits, creating a new industry, and people’s greed. Human cause global warming debate is about entrenched agency staff, professors, business, and others who are intellectually dishonest and motivated by the money presage, and notoriety.
Why do I believe this? 1) Examine the history of science and we see intellectual dishonesty ostracizing the intellectually honest. 2) I believe that intellectually honest people will either agree or come to the conclusion that more research is needed.
We will all know the truth about human cause global warming when there is an honest debate of the facts and firing people like George Taylor and Philippe Verdier stops.
Is evolution a theory? We will know the truth about this also when both religions are set aside and there is an intellectually honest debate.