Guest Submission: Fictitious Government Plot

Peter Johnson

The ways that deniers exploit any minor anomaly by using cherry picked data, is truly insidious, but I think we need to also give some attention to the bizarre scenarios and fictitious stories used to justify a supposed government plot.

Thanks for pointing out that the fact that so many scientists in different countries around the world all support the facts about human caused global warming. A conspiracy that vast would truly require suspending all reason to believe. And the fact that all major scientific organizations around the world concur with what is happening, truly places this issue in true perspective.

Even though, most of the climate projections from the 1970s have been proven to be quite accurate, if the people behind the plot back then were to be proven accurate, we can only assume that dumb luck has smiled on them by actually providing the weather extremes that we are now seeing throughout the world, and since most of the original climate scientists must now be of advanced ages, they bought into an enormous diabolical plot that would probably only benefit their grandchildren on the basis of making incredible lucky guesses. Unless they took a time machine to the post 2000 world, they would have had no way to verify that their supposedly false projections would come true--as many have.

The whole government conspiracy assumes that without government grants, most climate scientists would have no way of making money, but since when is it true that scientific research only examine one particular issue--even if it had long ago been proven that global warming was false, I'll wager that scientists would still have their hands full of various forms of climate research involving other aspects of climate, or would be doing research in entirely different fields. Besides how many times have we seen a research scientist in any walk of life, living a rich and opulent lifestyle? The plot would also, certainly not be a partisan one either, since many Republicans and even several Republican President have been in power since climate change became the subject of much research, so why would the GW Bush's administration for example, not try to work with researchers to change their story. GW is largely responsible for ignoring the Kyoto agreement, and as an oil rich millionaire has no reason to want to place a burden on big oil such as reducing their C02 emissions. Did you hear about any massive numbers of scientists taking Bush's 8 years as a opportunity to declare their freedom and renounce cruel liberal taskmasters--I didn't! But if this falsehood becomes important enough for them to deny, I'm sure that deniers will create some other fantastic spin to justify the existence of such an incredible plot.

What is the most perplexing thing of all, is why average Americans who are not very familiar with scientific knowledge of any kind, are so willing to take the words of laymen and political opportunists who are often employed by conservative think tanks and/or big oil? Everyone knows that if we want our kidney stones removed we should consult an accredited surgeon, but deniers have successfully circulated the idea that somehow those employed by big oil and those funded by organizations which benefit from denial, are more qualified to edify us, even if they have far more motives and special interest backing to justify their lies than any typical research scientist. The day this myth is shattered and really hits home, we may be on the way to a world in which average people are aware of the truth--hopefully sooner than later!