The damage to science

Matt Ridley has a good piece up at Quadrant, describing the damage that is being done to science by the religious adherence to global warming dogma. There are many memorable quotes in it, but here's one to set the cat among the pigeons:

Much of [the] climate war parallels what has happened with Islamism, and it is the result of a similar deliberate policy of polarisation and silencing of debate. Labelling opponents “Islamophobes” or “deniers” is in the vast majority of cases equally inaccurate and equally intended to polarise.

Read the whole thing.

Comments

[Jeff Norman]

It may just be my personal bias but it seems to me that many of the articles written by those sceptical of climate alarmism are well written and argued (like Matt Ridley's article), whereas articles writtenby believers of climate alarmism tend to rely upon misdirection, obfuscation and assertion. Does anyone else share this observation?

[Martin A]

Jeff Norman - Yes.

Whether it's the Met Office's Chief Scientist, a true believer blogger, or the Pope.

[hunter]

Speaking of obfuscation, if one listens carefully, one can hear the dog whistle in His Holiness's latest Encyclical.
He is calling for measures to be taken against the "wealthy". The "wealthy" is vaguely defined but clearly condemned.
Now if we examine history what other group did the Church and others vaguely define and clearly condemn?
"Perfidious Wealthy" is much more politically correct after all.
And of course this allows a Jesuit Pope of the liberation theology mold plenty of room to be politically correct and rub elbows with those pesky dictators and kleptocrats

[Raff]

See Climate Wars Bingo

[osseo]

See Climate Wars Bingo?

...or better still, don't bother. Whatever else the comments there are, they certainly aren't physics.