RUTHFULLY YOURS

The favorite cudgel of leftist climate change fear mongers is the appeal to authority, as in that there is “a scientific consensus” that the earth is warming and that changes over the last century are due to human activity. The problem with appeals to authority on extremely broad scientific topics is that they are not subject to easy proof by experimentation, and are quite often wrong. Here’s a list of ten popular theories ultimately proven false, and it omits some major howlers, like therapeutically bleeding people or the geocentric theory of the solar system. Now we can add to that list the “scientific consensus” that diets rich in processed foods and fats lead to heart disease. This idea, which has dominated medical thinking for at least the last half-century, and led to all manner of government policy making, regulation and just plain tsuris over finishing the brisket, is now in doubt.

New studies of pre-modern humans, dating back many millennia, demonstrate that arteriosclerosis (the hardening of the arterial blood vessels that causes blockages and heart attacks) afflicted people who (by necessity and not choice) followed that most rigid of diet and exercise regimens — hunting and gathering. The mummified remains of Neolithic era humans from around the globe demonstrate that arterial disease was about as commonplace in those ancient populations as it is today. Despite the fact that these people had diets low on saturated fats, high in proteins, vegetables and fruits, and engaged in regular and strenuous exercise, they still suffered from heart disease as they aged at about the same rates as modern humans.

At last, we have a peer-reviewed paper that accurately surveys how much support there is for anthropogenic global warming among relevant scientists. And the news isn’t good for Al Gore, nor for Barack Obama, who sees climate change as our number one national security threat.

The widely cited figure of 97% of scientists supporting man made global warming theory has always been a fraud:

…a Canada-based group calling itself Friends of Science has just completed a review of the four main studies used to document the alleged consensus and found that only 1 – 3% of respondents “explicitly stated agreement with the IPCC declarations on global warming,” and that there was “no agreement with a catastrophic view.”

“These ‘consensus’ surveys appear to be used as a ‘social proof,'” says Ken Gregory, research director of Friends of Science. “Just because a science paper includes the words ‘global climate change’ this does not define the cause, impact or possible mitigation. The 97% claim is contrived in all cases.”

The Oreskes (2004) study claimed 75% consensus and a “remarkable lack of disagreement” by the other 25% of the abstracts she reviewed. Peiser (2005) re-ran her survey and found major discrepancies. Only 1.2% or 13 scientists out of 1,117 agreed with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) view that human activity is the main cause of global warming since 1950.

Last week’s mass executions in Saudi Arabia suggest panic at the highest level of the monarchy. The action is without precedent, even by the grim standards of Saudi repression. In 1980 Riyadh killed 63 jihadists who had attacked the Grand Mosque of Mecca, but that was fresh after the event. Most of the 47 prisoners shot and beheaded on Jan. 2 had sat in Saudi jails for a decade. The decision to kill the prominent Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr, the most prominent spokesman for restive Saudi Shia Muslims in Eastern Province, betrays fear of subversion with Iranian sponsorship.

Why kill them all now? It is very hard to evaluate the scale of internal threats to the Saudi monarchy, but the broader context for its concern is clear: Saudi Arabia finds itself isolated, abandoned by its longstanding American ally, at odds with China, and pressured by Russia’s sudden preeminence in the region. The Saudi-backed Army of Conquest in Syria seems to be crumbling under Russian attack. The Saudi intervention in Yemen against Iran-backed Houthi rebels has gone poorly. And its Turkish ally-of-convenience is consumed by a low-level civil war. Nothing has gone right for Riyadh.

Worst of all, the collapse of Saudi oil revenues threatens to exhaust the kingdom’s $700 billion in financial reserves within five years, according to an October estimate by the International Monetary Fund (as I discussed here). The House of Saud relies on subsidies to buy the loyalty of the vast majority of its subjects, and its reduced spending power is the biggest threat to its rule. Last week Riyadh cut subsidies for water, electricity and gasoline. The timing of the executions may be more than coincidence: the royal family’s capacity to buy popular support is eroding just as its regional security policy has fallen apart.