http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/greenhouse-science/method/ollier2008-28.php
Lysenko and Global Warming
Cliff Ollier
Paul Johnson (2008) wrote that the greenhouse bandwagon is like Marxist or Freudian science. A better parallel might be with Lysenko pseudo-science.
Lysenko was an insignificant agriculturalist who thought he had a new way of developing crops that would vastly increase food production in the starving Russia of Stalin. It was called vernalisation, and included treating seeds before cultivation to affect their behaviour.
Significantly, Lysenko introduced his ideas first through politics, and had heavy backing. Some think his idea had a Marxist backing, because it claimed biology could be modified in the way that communists wanted to control people's behaviour. The government was anxious to increase food production and quell disturbances amongst the growers, and Lysenko was an adept propagandist and became a cult leader who impressed the peasants.
Lysenko became the head of the Soviet Lenin All Union Institute of Agricultural Sciences, and ran all the nation's research in the area. He promised to triple or quadruple crop yields.
He demonised conventional genetics, which again suited his masters who believed it was the basis behind fascist eugenics.
Opposition to Lysenko was not tolerated, and was labelled 'bourgeois' or 'fascist'. Lysenko used his position to denounce Mendelian geneticists as "fly-lovers and people haters", which had serious consequences. From 1934 to 1940, with Stalin's blessing numerous geneticists were shot, and others exiled to Siberia. Vavilov, for example, a truly great geneticist and biogeographer, was sent to Siberia where he died of starvation in 1943, and Lysenko in person took over his role of Director of the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Any survivor of the purge had to keep quiet. In 1948 genetics was officially labelled a 'bourgeois pseudoscience' and genetic research came to a halt. Krushchev also supported Lysenko, but after his departure in 1964 the Academy of Sciences investigated the records and a devastating critique of Lysenko was made public. The ban on genetics was lifted in 1965.
When Lysenko denounced Mendelian thought as reactionary and decadent: he also announced that his speech had the approval of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The parallel is that the Global Warming movement was really kicked off by James Hanson, when he gave evidence to a United States Senate Committee in June 1988. Ever since, the IPCC has worked through national and international organisations. Hanson became climate adviser to the US President, to Al Gore and many others including Lehman Brothers, who saw carbon emission trading as a new business opportunity. The IPCC claims its reports are written by 2500 scientists, but in fact they are written by only about 35, controlled by an even smaller number.
Opposition to Global Warming is likened to denial of the Holocaust. We are repeatedly told that there is no debate---hardly a scientific approach. The influence of the IPCC spread throughout the administration, and it became increasingly difficult to get research funding without being a believer in global warming.
Why would governments be persuaded to follow this idea before it was scientifically evaluated? One reason may be that there was a rising tide of what some have likened to a new religion---Environmentalism. Of course no politician wants to be seen as 'anti-environment', nor lose the votes of the Greens. The Greens, for their part, are happy to follow the climate-change line because it gives them enormous political power. As a minor party they hold the balance of power, and the major parties dare not offend them.
The propaganda machine of the IPCC is magnificent, with its greatest tool being the Al Gore film An Inconvenient Truth. It still has enormous impact, although the High Court in Britain did decide it could not be shown in schools without comment because it contained major errors. I suspect this film was the reason the Nobel Peace Prize was given to Al Gore and the IPCC. Another propaganda hit was the "Hockey Stick Graph", purporting to show temperature was rising at an ever-increasing rate. This has been totally discredited, but it still seems to be branded on the collective mind of politicians and the public. Much Government propaganda has been lent to support Global Warming, and major media outlets such as the BBC in Britain have chosen to join in on the Global Warming side.
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In summary, the comparisons between Lysenkoism and Global Warming are:
1. Work first through political organisations.
2. Claim that the science is settled. There is nothing to debate.
3. Disregard or deny all the accumulating evidence that the predictions are wrong.
4. Demonise the opposition (Mendelian geneticists; deniers of Global Warming).
5. Victimise the opposition (execution and exile; loss of jobs or research funds).
6. Relate to a current ideology (Stalinism; Environmentalism).
7. Support a vast propaganda machine.
8. Create a huge bureaucracy where many people have careers dependent on the ruling concept.
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We are repeatedly told that there is no debate---hardly a scientific approach.
Science is not conducted through "debate". Scientists do not sit around like RHP members playing with ideas and deciding which ones they find personally congenial. They conduct experiments and work out which theories are true on the basis of the results of those experiments. The debate about global warming was settled when it was demostrated that if you increase the concentration of carbon dioxide, methane, water vapour and so on, the temperature rises. This is true in a glass jar, and it's true in the atmosphere. Anyone who doesn't believe it has parted company with the basic laws of physics.
Why would governments be persuaded to follow this idea before it was scientifically evaluated?
Because they're taking precautions. In response to the threat of terrorism, governments have introduced new mechanisms of surveillance, tightened up on entry requirements for visitors from the Arab world, confined suspects beyond the reach of due process, and curtailed civil liberties to what some might say has been a frankly drastic degree. Obviously our governments don't known if, when and where terrorists will strike, but they are acting on the assumption that it might be tomorrow and everywhere.
Similarly, we don't know exactly how destructive global warming will be, so our governments are taking precautions against the worst. Having said that, compared to the draconian anti-terrorist legislation, the government response to the threat of global warming - cap and trade, a vague encouragement of renewable energy, a modest tax increase on flights - seem mild indeed. If global warming was being taken as seriously by the state as terrorism, we'd now all be walking around with cards rationing our energy usage.
Originally posted by zeeblebotGood article and observation,,,,
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/greenhouse-science/method/ollier2008-28.php
Lysenko and Global Warming
Cliff Ollier
Paul Johnson (2008) wrote that the greenhouse bandwagon is like Marxist or Freudian science. A better parallel might be with Lysenko pseudo-science.
Lysenko was an insignificant agriculturalist who thought he had a new way of ...[text shortened]... reaucracy where many people have careers dependent on the ruling concept.
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we are moving in the right direction, nobody wants to pollute.... but the expense involved in cap and trade is too high right now.
I helped pump the Great Salt Lake in 1986, and the pump stations are now a mile from the water line,, will they ever be needed again,, who knows?
cap and trade is a money grab....
Originally posted by zeeblebotFunny thing - this is like what Hans Blix and the United Nations said about invading Iraq. Curious how logic can be twisted to suit the outcome required.
Why would governments be persuaded to follow this idea before it was scientifically evaluated? One reason may be that there was a rising tide of what some have likened to a new religion---Environmentalism. Of course no politician wants to be seen as 'anti-environment', nor lose the votes of the Greens. The Greens, for their part, are happy to follow the ...[text shortened]... a minor party they hold the balance of power, and the major parties dare not offend them.
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Maybe the country that likes to impose democracy at the point of its gun might consider that the US consistently wants to outvote 95% of the World's population and do what the US chooses for the benefit of its own interests. Which curiously are the interests of its wealthy elite.
Fact is the US is in a minority on this argument (as on many other issues) except that, in the production of CO2 emissions, the US is a pretty big minority (about 25% ).
Not a democracy but an oligarchy. Not democratic but an international bully.
Originally posted by finneganSaddam failed to cooperate.
Funny thing - this is like what Hans Blix and the United Nations said about invading Iraq. Curious how logic can be twisted to suit the outcome required.
Maybe the country that likes to impose democracy at the point of its gun might consider that the US consistently wants to outvote 95% of the World's population and do what the US chooses for the benefi ...[text shortened]... (about 25% ).
Not a democracy but an oligarchy. Not democratic but an international bully.
Originally posted by Metal BrainNo one disputes that there's been temperature variation through history. Of course the sun's intensity varies. Historically, the earth's temperature has fluctuated around a mean. What man-made emissions of greenhouse gases are doing is shifting the temperature away from the stable mean, in a process which may well be irreversible.
I still think the primary factor is the sun.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090827141349.htm
The medieval warm period was before the industrial revolution
Originally posted by Metal BrainThe point is, the system was stable until we started pumping man-made greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Changes in the sun's intensity might be the main factor in the increases in temperature we've experienced this last few years. However, man-made global warming, even if a minor factor to date, has the potential to destabilise the system so that temperatures will continue inexorably to increase until the planet becomes uninhabitable.
I don't dispute that man made emissions are a factor, but are they the primary factor?
I don't think they are.
Even if they were, how do we know that CO2 is the primary man made culprit and not methane gas?
All greenhouse gases cause problems. CO2 is just the one we have most chance of doing something about.