Climate Wars in the Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal has recently upped the ante in the climate wars with op-ed pieces. Of particular note is one dated January 26, 2012 and titled "No Need to Panic About Global Warming".

The president of the American Physical Society, Robert Byer, responded with a letter, published on February 6, 2012. Dr. Byer stated that the WSJ is inaccurate in its characterization of the Climate Change Statement by the APS.

The WSJ followed this up with another op-ed on February 21. Then on March 11. And, yet again on March 27.

This is unfortunate in that the editors of the WSJ have no expertise in the area that qualifies them to be making any kind of pronouncement. Additionally, with their choices of references and scientists they are showing they are tools of the fossil fuel industry. The people they quote and the sources they use are funded by such entities and ExxonMobile and Saudi Arabia. Remember that Saudi Arabia also provides funds to such pleasant entities as Al Qaeda. Does anyone believe they have our best interests at heart?

Why is the WSJ doing this? What could their motive possibly be? This is not a case where they are presenting credible science by credible scientists. The scientists they quote are all well-known to be earning up to hundreds of thousands of dollars every year from the fossil fuel industry. Every paper these people have published concerning global warming denial have been shown to be entirely invalid. Very simply, there is no science out there that supports global warming denial. And yet, the WSJ keeps pretending there is. The only people that will buy into what the WSJ says in its editorial page are the people that have rejected science and believe what they want despite the scientific evidence.

If you think I'm wrong about that statement, then take my $1000 Global Warming Skeptic Challenge and prove it.

Now, William Nordhaus has published an article, Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong, in the New York Review of Books. It is a very well done article. Unlike the deniers, he backs his arguments up with science, data and logical arguments. Read it for yourself, if you don't believe me.

All of this is summarized in the journal Physics Today.

What I find most interesting is the claim by the global warming deniers that they are victims and "live in a reign of terror" to be really amazing. Let's be clear that it was the anti-science crowd of global warming deniers that have built a well-funded organization to attack climate scientists worldwide, sometimes literally. Scientists have been subjected to personal slander, had their emails hacked, had their homes attacked and their families threatened. The anti-science crowd cannot refute the data, so they have engaged in a guerrilla war to silence anyone that says anything that might threaten their economic welfare.

It is unfortunate that the deniers seem to be winning the war for the minds of the public because science is not an opinion. It doesn't matter if the deniers convince the public about their anti-science claims. The world does not care. It will continue warming, whether the public believes in it or not.

Which side are you on? The side with the data and science? Or the side with the money?