News, Views and Debates 16 Dec, 2020
No Good News on CO2 Allowed
By David Kreutzer
Support for climate science has been steadily undermined by politicians catering to businesses dependent on fossil fuels and by religious conservatives suspicious of science because it argues for evolution.†H. Holden Thorp, Editor-in-Chief, Science journals
The quote above comes from one of Holden Thorp’s weekly editorials in Science, the most prestigious peer-reviewed science journal in the U.S., if not the world (the British publican Nature, would be its only competitor). It is hard to imagine a more bigoted statement regarding religious conservatives. That it comes from the chief gatekeeper for the American Association for the Advancement of Science makes it all the more disturbing.
I have yet to meet anyone, including many religious conservatives, whose skepticism of climate science and policy has anything to do with evolution or even general suspicions of science. The skepticism is driven by a myriad of reasons mostly having to do with the disconnect between data and the models predicting climate catastrophe and crises.
The skepticism is also driven by a perception of research bias, both overt and subtle—a very understandable bias for researchers wanting to get their results past editors with the prejudice revealed in the quote above. Unfortunately, Holden Thorpe is not alone. Climategate made that abundantly clear.
https://co2coalition.org/2020/12/16/no-good-news-on-co2-allowed/
