A decade ago, a story on National Public Radio, referring to a study from the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,” said global warming was at that point “irreversible.” A couple of years earlier, the WorldWatch Institute claimed that by 2000, global warming had already been responsible for “150,000 excess deaths annually.” In between those gloomy assertions, the Union of Concerned Scientists was sure “global warming is happening” and that man was the “primary cause.”

Today, adherents call it “climate change.” And, according to a professor in Zurich, “it’s already begun.”

Of course there could be no other possible explanations for what’s being observed — and for what’s being assumed, given that the temperature record can’t be trusted. No chance there are other factors. Not the sun, not the natural climate cycle, not wobbles in Earth’s rotation or its varying elliptical orbit around the sun, nor ocean currents. It has to be human activity.

Because the narrative says so.

So what does the science say? It doesn’t always say what the zealots tell us it does. Take, for instance, a rather recent University of Alabama-Huntsville study. One of its authors says its calculations indicate that the climate models have predicted essentially twice the warming that has actually occurred.

“The real atmosphere is less sensitive to CO2 than what has been forecast by climate models,” said climatologist John Christy. “This suggests the climate models need to be retooled to better reflect conditions in the actual climate, while policies based on previous climate model output and predictions might need to be reconsidered.”

Or in other words, “the rate at which Earth’s atmosphere is warming has not significantly accelerated over the past 23 years.”

Is this not science? Should it be discounted because it refuses to conform to the narrative?

Yes, there are studies and papers that claim man is warming his planet. But why should they be given greater weight than scholarly work that casts doubt on the global warming story? Because there are more the latter? No, that’s not this works. Not at all.

Science is ever searching for answers. It seeks discovery. Politics, though, is not reason. It is tribal, divisive, rarely principled, and often hysterical. And it is politics that wash over us on the climate issue and drown out rationality. That’s why we’re continually scolded, incessantly menaced, and routinely lectured. For decades we’re told the end is nigh, yet it never comes. A lot could be learned from that.

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