True North

Did I miss something? I mean, seriously, did I miss a memo or a new “standard norm” out there that states:

“Credentials come at least second next to other motivating factors when speaking authoritatively on asinine topics that impact all of our lives.”

I don’t get it. Al Gore’s lack of any substantial credentials on climate change science aside, let’s look locally at this bizarre new trend…

Next Friday (1/4/08) there will be a forum on climate change in Ely, Minnesota. And who, you may ask, will be putting on this forum? Well, I’m glad you ask.

• Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty: Obviously an authoritative source on climate change and global warming. After all, he has signed away Minnesota’s future to the Sierra Club and Al Gore in the name of those “issues.” Of course, he is not a scientist. He is a lawyer and a politician.
• Will Steger: An adventurer, explorer and “expert” on the arctic. Of course, he’s not a scientist either, but since he’s an “expert” he might as well be since his opinion carries just as much - if not more - weight than scientific evidence. The closest he ever came to science was a high school science teacher.
• Mining and paper industry representatives: Uh huh. I’m not sure how these people have anything to do with climate change and global warming, but they will be there.
• Union advocates: Always a source of objective and useful data - especially when it comes to climate change.
• Unidentified “academic experts”: This always translates into people who can talk big and use scary words in rambling sentences to cover up for the fact that they are talking out of their asses.

So where are the climate scientists? Where are the atmospheric scientists? Where are the paleoclimatologists, or physicists or even the statisticians?

You have a governor who is more concerned with his reputation within the Sierra Club than with actual science and the well being of his state, you have a completely biased and unobjective arctic adventurer with an ego problem, you have “experts” that aren’t even identified and you have labor and industry representatives which, well, still confounds me as to their role in this whole thing.

And supposedly we (as in, we the skeptics) are the ones being lead astay when it comes to climate change and global warming? The only people I listen to on this hot issue are people with certifiable and relevant credentials. Environmental and earth scientists. Physicists. Mathematicians and statisticians. People who have spent their lifetime studying the earth, the climate and the environment. People with years of education and stacks of diplomas and research papers to their name.

Ya know… Credentials.

Cross posted from "Pro Patria," Comments always welcome.