The Galileo Movement. Just the name is a travesty of truth.
This motley mob of morbidly morose miscreants persist in espousing the most ludicrous, self-refuting claims in regard to denial of human-induced climate change I think I’ve ever read. They should by rights have taken the name of the Roman emperor who reputedly fiddled as Rome burned, rather than that of a true scientist who suffered for his pursuit of that truth at the hands of fools like themselves.
I’ve known of this cretinous collective for some time, but never bothered to find out anything more than I presumed to be the facts about them. That they’re climate change deniers of the worst possible kind. The kind that will deliberately spread untruths as a means of spreading their own brand of nihilism. Have a gander at the following from their website:
- Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the air are less than 0.04%
CO2, and other trace gases, are measured in parts per million, not as ill-defined percentages of the atmospheric entirety. This is a false representation
- There has been no increase in global atmospheric temperature since 1998. ‘Global warming’ is not happening;
This despite the years 2005 and 2006 being among the hottest on record
- Carbon dioxide is a natural trace gas essential for all life on Earth. With Nature annually producing 97% of all CO2, CO2 is obviously not a pollutant
No-one has ever suggested that CO2; is a pollutant. It is however one of many greenhouse gases which are increasing in proportion to the overall atmospheric gaseous mix
- Ocean temperatures have been flat or slightly cooling since 2003
Which oceans? North or South hemispheres? At what depths? Bald statements containing zero science And so the red-herring, misdirection and simplistic denialist ‘ostrich syndrome’ claims go on.
I think it’s safe to say that scientists advising the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) either are or are closely aligned to climate science studies. Radio announcers and journalists with no science background whatsoever simply cannot be believed when proselytising their scepticism. More pointedly, the founders of this spurious group of vested interests – Messrs Smit and Smeed – are not climate scientists but retired business people with clear interests in making money. What some might consider to be a truly honourable undertaking, making money from the sweat of the brow[http://www.galileomovement.com.au/who_we_are.php#A]. Sweat of the brow of a metallurgical chemist and air-conditioning engineer, not a duly accredited science collective with a specific interest in the global ecology, diversity of species and planetary climate.
What I find most remarkable, and most damning of so-called movements like this is the willingness to turn and bite one of their own – a scientist, not a radio announcer or air-conditioning engineer – when one of their own finds that science is throwing up data which questions previously held understandings about the nature of things. The willingness to question and ability to accept changed data is at the root of all science, therefore the so-called Galileo Movement cannot in any reasoned assessment be regarded as a scientific or science-based collective. They’re just a bunch of nay-sayers for the sake of being so. Luddites who cannot stand the fact that their standard, unchanging universe is actually changing underneath them, and that they, as members of the human species, are responsible.
I make the following challenge, which I make to all climate change deniers, indeed to anyone reading this who disagrees with my rubbishing of idiots and fools like this Galileo Movement.
Our planet is 4.6 billion years old. It has harboured life as we understand it for approximately 3 billion years. Complex multi-cellular life arose some 500 million years ago. Our genus, Homo, arose some 2.3 million years ago. Homo sapiens some 200,000 years ago so in terms of the existence of life on this planet, human beings have been around for just 0.00667% of the planetary timeframe. At least two major mass extinction events have occurred that we – that means ‘science’ – are aware of. One of those is postulated to have come from an external source, ie: an asteroid impact. That life persists is amazing in and of itself. Life evolves to suit changing conditions. Some change, some die out but in all, life itself persists. We know from geological studies, ice core research and dendroclimatology to mention just 3 areas of study that climate on this planet is, has been and will continue to be variable. What we apparently don’t know, or more pointedly are unwilling to accept, is the impact of just 300 years – that’s 0.02% of the span of humanity’s existence as Homo sapiens – of industrialisation on the global climate. Human industrialisation provides a greater platform for global climate change than any other naturally occurring source over any given timeframe. Our industries pump out more toxic gases, more pollutant liquids and release more stored carbon into the atmosphere, oceans and soils than any other naturally occurring source. The impacts of our industrial activity are not single dimensional, but multi-dimensional. We change atmospheric mixes and ocean PH balances change and food chains change and migratory patterns change. We aid the warming of the atmosphere and climate changes, weather patterns change, ecosystems change and species die out. The planet will survive, at least for another 5 billion years which is when the Sun is supposed to run out of puff. Life on this planet will persist until that time, in its many and varied forms despite what humanity may do to the global ecology. Life that persists probably won’t be us or any of the species we know of today, except maybe for the great survivors like the crocodilians. Surely though, the focus of climate change studies is about maintaining a status quo where conditions we enjoy today we can continue to enjoy for millennia into the future. The species we share the world with should come with us, not merely become road-kill under the wheels of our selfish progress. So, my challenge to climate change deniers is simple. Prove to me beyond all doubt that 300 years of human industrialisation isn’t having any deleterious impact on global climate, and I’ll give consideration to your belief that if we ignore change it won’t happen. I know that proof can never be supplied, which is why I will continue to rubbish deniers & call them out for what they are. Agents abetting the destruction of all life on Earth as we currently know it.