The science of Ecological Economics is explained in a 2003 paper titled “Post-Normal Science”1 by S.Funtowicz and J.Ravetz for the International Society for Ecological Economics. The paper is available online at the Society’s web site. The modern debate over climate change has seen a clash between hard and soft science. Politicians who control the distribution of trillions of dollars often need a ‘scientific’ opinion on which to base these lucrative expenditures. Thus the use of science as a tool for political advantage became popular; after all, if scientists who are too often funded by the politicians, could demonstrate a crisis existed, who could argue against funding the research and development for a solution.
In 2003 the biggest socioeconomic and health crisis available world wide was identified as global warming. While expanding military conflicts across the middle-east dominated headline news, investment opportunities in solutions to combat global warming were gaining the attention of globalists with their eyes on the nearly unlimited combined wealth of the industrialized nations. Unlike lucrative but risky investments in military conflicts, the climate will always be changing and thus an industry built on fighting to stop it will be never ending.
The most famous investor in the ‘green industry’ is also the most famous alarmist, Al Gore. Gore made headlines in 2006 with the release of a film based on his global warming slide show. The New York Times reported “Mr. Gore has seen support for his views rising within the business community: Investment in renewable energy sources like wind and solar is skyrocketing…” as government subsidies increased in these industries, “their costs plummet,”2
Gore’s sales pitch was simple; invest in green energy industries or suffer the painful consequences of global warming killing off life on Earth as we know it. His predictions of the complete melting of the Arctic ice cap flooding coastal cities as well as polar bears becoming extinct in only 10 more years created headlines and a cult-like following. Thanks to his green investing, Gore’s net worth grew to exceed an estimated $200 million. 3
But after more than a decade with not one single prediction Gore had ever made about global warming coming to pass, Gore joined the chorus of those who renamed their cause from global warming to climate change. Clearly, since no one could deny the climate was ever changing, the “inconvenient truth”4 of man-caused global warming would be an easier sell.
The United Nations created a panel to direct the UN’s efforts (a.k.a. expenditures and regulations) and regularly published data gathered by government organizations and universities to confirm the predictions that global warming was a reality. But in late 2009, it was discovered that the temperatures being reported were higher than the temperatures actually being recorded. The Arctic Ice was increasing. The polar bear population counts were increasing at a rate that saw the counts double in 10 years instead of the bears becoming extinct. Then. in a scandalous discovery, data supporting global warming occurring at an alarming rate was proven to be fake.5 Global Warming had not been increasing at the alarming rate identified by “post-normal” scientists who were a key factor of the ecological economics of climate crisis.
The U.S. agencies charged with gathering ‘proof’ of the threat to humanity were named in the 2015 State of the Union address by President Obama. He said that climate change poses a greater threat to Americans than even terrorism.
“I’ve heard some folks try to dodge the evidence by saying they’re not scientists; that we don’t have enough information to act,” Mr. Obama said in the speech. “Well, I’m not a scientist, either. But you know what –- I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA, and NOAA,…”6
However, when NASA and NOAA and NSIDC were all discovered to have adjusted their data7,8 to fit the need of the politicians’ rhetoric, the ‘scientists’ on which Obama was counting to justify more taxpayer money to be given to stop man-made climate change were discredited to an almost irreparable level.
It is often reported that there is a consensus of scientists about the causes and solutions for climate change. Such science by consensus would have seemed unimaginable just a few decades ago. But the abandonment of the traditional scientific methodology in lieu of the new science of ecological economics has become the preferred method for advancing political agendas and gaining power and wealth.
When President Obama made the claim that climate change was the greatest threat to future generations, he was not totally wrong. Climate change has always caused life on Earth to evolve, even go extinct. But barring an event of catastrophic proportions such as another meteor impact, the changes to life have historically occurred over thousands and millions of years, not a decade or two as is now mandated by the standards in the new federally backed common core education program. Starting with elementary standards, erasing the teaching of traditional scientific method and accepting ecological economics as a discipline of science is arguably more dangerous for our immediate future generations than any of the other ‘man-made’ threats seeking solutions by government handing over taxpayer money to ‘post-normal’ scientists and political donors.
The Daily Caller news foundation 03/16/2016
the title of a film produced in 2006 based on Al Gore’s predictions of the destruction by man-caused global warming.
Article: the Telegraph “The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever”
published Feb 7, 2015 by Christopher Booker
President Barack Obama – State of the Union Address – Jan 20, 2015
“Global Warming ‘Fabricated’ by NASA and NOAA” – James Delinpole. July 2, 2016 – http://principia-scientific.org/?s=NOAA+scandal
“NSIDC Busted!” Stephen Goddard, posted April 23, 2016 – https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2016/04/23/nsidc-busted/