What is a Climate Scientist
Who is a climate scientists??
This was a piece published four months ago. It is a repeat and ask the question what is a Climate scientists? Does a Nobel prize winning scientist counts?
Steven E. Koonin is a theoretical physicist, who served in the Obama administration at the Department of Energy debated Andrew Dessler who is the director of Climate Studies at Texas AM over whether we have a climate emergency last year. Koonin is not considered a “climate science” but he worked on these issues among other issues dealing with energy and during this debate, he often got the better of Dessler in their exchanges. Alex Epstein, a philosophy major, has written two excellent books on fossil fuels and he too had a chance to debate Dessler and he more than held his own against the Climate scientist. (Epstein recently in a Twitter post that he had three debates cancel when his opponents refuse to show up after agreeing to debate him. Many climate alarmists refuse to debate their opposite number even though Dessler is perfectly willing to go toe to toe with his skeptical opponents.)
When Nobel Prize Scientist John Clauser commented critically on Climate change science, his speech in front of the International Monetary Fund was canceled. I often heard that Clauser is not a “climate scientist” but he is one of the most preeminent scientists and certainly can criticize what he views as poor scientific methodology.
In studying our climate means we have to look at a variety of variables from the impact of the sun, review our geological past, the universe itself to the oceans as well as studying our weather. Nor can we forget the study of energy and show the impact of energy including fossil fuels both good and bad. Climate science is a relatively new specialty, coming aboard over the last three or four decades due to the Climate change hysteria, but the study of climate has long been studied.
Our planetary history has featured big swings in climate for warm temperature that supported Dinosaurs to Ice ages where much of our hemisphere was under mile of ice during these periods of time. There is historical data including archaeology studies that showed for example that Vikings had farming colonies in Greenland around 1000 AD, but as the climate turned colder, the colony would be abandoned. This is a historical fact you can read in any history book detailing the adventures of the Vikings.
I observed that when you hear “I follow science” as if this is supposed to end the debate but the leaves the most important question, which science do you follow? The statement that “I follow the science” assumes the debate over a specific point is over and everyone agrees. Science does not work that way, instead science is forever the search for truth and as we found out during the Covid pandemic, much of what we originally believed proved to be true was shown to be false. Masks did not stop transmission or for that matter neither did the vaccines. The experts overestimated the projected death from the virus, and no one gave much consideration to the impact of the lockdowns on the economy and the education of our children. Nowhere was the idea of risk versus benefits considered. Nor did it help that Covid deaths stats included people with died with Covid and those who died because of Covid, thus overestimating death totals.
Climate change is no different, since we are told that the debate over humans is responsible for present warming, and it is all bad. Again, it depends which science you follow, is it the science of Michael Mann or the science of Judith Curry or Richard Lindzen? While most of us are exposed to the former but Curry and Lindzen have over the years produced enough science to dispute the narrative that climate change is human driven and bad.
Climate realists often get the better of the argument as their own science is solid as we saw when Koonin debated Dessler. Galvin Schmidt and his team a few years ago debated Richard Lindzen team on a similar question and Schmidt was so thoroughly outclassed that he would not face an opponent on the same stage. There is enough debate about what is causing present warming or even if it is bad. Certainly, we have seen in the increasing wealth throughout the world, more people escaping poverty into the middle class plus we are feeding more than double the population better diet over the past five decades, so one would think that maybe there is another side to the debate. You can argue that rising CO2 and warming is good for the planet, or you can argue that there are many other variables involved but you can’t argue that the science is settled and the debate over. A better argument is that to follow science means all options are open when discussing climate change since we are basing policy on science. If science is wrong or if the policy recommendations have higher risk than the benefit of solving the problems, it will prove disastrous. It also means that just because that someone has “climate scientist” on his resume doesn’t mean he is the only expert or has all the answers on climate. Alex Epstein became an expert in energy and his books show the benefits of fossil fuels and he is as much of expert as any Climate scientists on the issue of energy. So, who is a Climate scientist or even a Climate expert?