Prejudice

 At this point in man’s journey on planet earth, almost all scientists are optimistically focusing on solutions to our rapidly warming climate. Despite this, there is still doubt in many citizen voter’s minds the climate is warming rapidly. This is most likely because the internet is full of misinformation. Recently I was sent, by two independent individuals, the same link to a “Market Analyst” who denied the climate would continue to warm. This was a zombie video, (videos which crawl out from the grave repeatedly). It was first released in 2016.

The video was riddled with errors. To start with one glaring error was made in the first 17 seconds. The narrator said, “It is getting colder and dryer…”

Here is what NASA says, “The planet's average surface temperature has risen about 2.12 degrees Fahrenheit (1.18 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere and other human activities. Most of the warming occurred in the past 40 years, with the seven most recent years being the warmest. The years 2016 and 2020 are tied for the warmest year on record.” Just a note, no meteorological organization, worldwide, to include NOAA, disagrees with this NASA assessment.

After 17 seconds one could have saved him or herself a lot of wasted time and deleted the misinformation artist. At the end of this column, I will tell you why we do not delete charlatans but believe them. In the meantime, let me tell you a quick pilot story.

When you board an aircraft, you can be confident it will safely get you from A to B. You can be confident of this because scientists know aeronautics, engineers design each part to function and survive, and the FAA (the Federal Aviation Administration) demands each part on the aircraft can be traced back to a licensed vendor. Each part, its description and how to remove/install it and how to test it is described in a manual called, “The Book”. Each highly trained and licensed mechanic must have access to The Book, and even the page referencing what they are working on must be visible.

 In the Army, I was a maintenance test pilot. I was the last person in a long chain who had the last say before putting an aircraft on the line. If the maintenance required was extensive, the checks I had to make were long and methodical.

In one instance, my checks went faster than planned. I was on deployment to Guatemala. One of our Hueys made a successful emergency landing in a farmer’s field a long way into the countryside south of Guatemala City. The engine needed to be replaced so we assembled a maintenance team with a hoist, tools, and the Book.

We set off with a map and one person who could speak a tiny bit of Spanish, me. Before the deployment, I picked up a couple “Spanish in 15 minutes a Day” books. I bring this up only because speaking a tiny bit of any language and addressing people politely works amazingly well. There is a saying, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.”  I was king for a couple days.

The problem Huey was about a mile from a small town. As the mechanics started taking out the troublesome engine, a schoolteacher hiked her fourth graders out to see the helicopter. We lifted them into different seats and put our helmets on them. They were the best-behaved kids. We also rounded up extra pencils and pens as gifts. In a poor country a pen or pencil makes a nice gift.

An ice cream vendor visited too. He did not drive out. He pulled his ice cream wagon loaded with one flavor, out to us. In the heat of the day, it was a welcomed treat.

After a couple days the mechanics said it was time for me to do something other than inflicting my horrible Spanish on the local Guatemalans. I looked over the paperwork, preflighted, and buckled myself to the mended helicopter.

Just as I started to crank, a man rode by on a beautiful white horse. The start, other than having a horse walk by, was normal. The maintenance team looked over the running helicopter for leaks.

The next step in the test flight is to lift off into a low hover and “feel” for anything wrong, check the control response, and check over the gauges to make sure all was working properly. Unfortunately, dry Guatemalan soil is black dust. My downwash picked it up and I was enveloped in it.

A helicopter pilot in a snow, “white out” or in a dust “brown out” has two choices. He can reduce power and make a blind landing, or he can make an instrument takeoff, (ITO). I chose the latter. I had a tiny tunnel of visibility in front of me and through it ran a riderless white horse.

The takeoff was successful, and I flew to base. In retrospect the safer thing to do would have been to land since I had not done all the checks I should have. 

One thing I can say for sure, I am grateful for disciplined mechanics who did things by “The BOOK”.

I like to claim the modern book of science started in 1660 when the Italians formed the “Academy of the Lynx”. The goal of the ambitious 18-year-old founder, Federico Cesi, and his fellow philosophers of nature, was to understand all natural science. The Italian science academy and the Pope’s Pontifical Science Academy trace their lineages to this original national effort at acquiring wisdom. In retrospect, it could be said this was the humble beginnings of “The Book”.

Modern climate science often traces its roots to a man named Joseph Fourier. In 1824, he asserted the earth was warm because sunlight passes through the air easily and then, when it hits earth, it changes to radiant heat. He claimed this radiant heat was slow to escape because the atmosphere has something in the air which must slow its escape.

This was proven correct in 1861 when the insulative gasses, the greenhouse gasses, were identified by John Tyndall*. Scientists have continually built on and challenged this hypothesis and it has never been proven wrong. Thus, another chapter was added to the ever expanding “Book”.

By 1981 The head of our NASA Goddard Institute, James Hansen, along with his team of scientists at NASA published a study, “Climate impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide”. It came on the heels of many well-researched papers and could well have served as a new chapter in the Book, titled  “Man’s Influence on Climate”.

The research paper came out thirty years ago. Since then, the mountains of supporting studies in reputable science journals have been piling up not only warning us what was coming but now documenting the fact it has arrived.

While the science community is united, our internet is packed full of video creators who have no standing in the science community, no science background, and it appears no moral foundation.

We give these people, these lacking appropriate education, without reputation, and devoid of sensible moral argument equal credibility to men and women who have dedicated their lives to scientifically acquired truths.

And, as promised, here is why: “You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.” Robert Heinlein.

This quote, by the famous writer, may encapsulate the ignorance which afflicts our collective judgement about our Book of Science. And, which undermines our union.

·       Dear Ladies, the person who first discovered the greenhouse gasses was Eunice Foote. I will leave it to you to raise her name to its proper place in history.