Contrary to popular perception, “cancel culture,” in which people or their opinions are shamed and shut out of the discussion when they don’t conform to whatever those shouting the loudest or rioting in the streets believe, isn’t a new phenomenon.
For more than two decades, politically connected climate scientists have been leading the cancel culture movement.
These researchers abandoned the pursuit of knowledge and human progress for the pursuit of political power to impose their vision of how society should be shaped. Rather than seeking an understanding of the world through the use of the scientific method and its reliance upon data and empirical falsification, they’ve promoted the political notion of consensus as to how knowledge is obtained, and comity, rather than experimentation, as to how progress is made.
They “cancel” through making personal attacks, denial of funding, removing “opponents” from positions, and suppressing the research of any researcher or analyst who dares to disagree with the so-called consensus position that humans are causing catastrophic climate change.
Honest scientists who cling to the quaint notion that climate change theory should be tested against data are deemed retrograde or climate deniers, whose views aren’t worthy of being considered in these days of post-modern climate science. Indeed, many cancelers advocate for imprisoning climate skeptics.
Let’s look at just a couple of examples of in which academic conferences and media headlines have given consensus, cancel culture science pride of place over the facts when it comes to alarming climate claims.
Based solely on the unsupported assertions of consensus climate researchers, the media has been flooded with stories claiming human-caused climate change is causing famine and starvation.
These reports show crop yields have been booming and hunger and malnutrition declining as, and in large part because, carbon dioxide concentrations have been rising.
Studies from Africa to England and Wales, to North and South America, to Thailand and beyond, find that any link between human climate change and the spread of malaria, Dengue fever, West Nile virus, and other vector-borne diseases is either grossly overstated or outright false.
Indeed, historically, colder periods are linked to famine, as crops fail, and to the rapid spread of pandemics, such as the bubonic plague, which ran rampant during the little ice age. By contrast, pandemics typically wane, though they don’t disappear, and hunger and malnutrition decline sharply during relatively warm periods.
Albert Einstein once said, “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.” Sadly, climate researchers would cancel Einstein if he said that today.
There is an old adage in legal circles, “When the law is on your side, pound the law; when the facts are on your side, pound the facts; when neither are on your side, pound the table.” For three decades, climate alarmists have been pounding the table. They hold rallies carrying placards and wearing T-shirts that say “Believe Science,” even as their actions betray science.
Too many climate scientists have become sideshow hucksters hoping to sell the general public the dangerous notion that giving government experts greater control over our lives will allow us to control the weather, and make the world a utopia. Ask the people in Cuba, Hong Kong, North Korea, or Venezuela how that’s working out for them.