TRUMP VS AAAS SCIENTISTS

Posted by: chaamjamal on: July 21, 2020

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THIS POST IS COMMENTARY ON THE NEWS ITEM THAT 1,200 MEMBERS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE HAVE SIGNED A PETITION URGING PRESIDENT TRUMP TO TAKE CLIMATE ACTION

 

 

PART-1: WHAT THE MEDIA SAYS 7/21/2020

As Donald Trump denigrates the advice of his own administration’s scientists, more than 1,200 members of the US National Academy of Sciences have now signed an open letter urging the president to “restore science-based policy in government” as a response to Trump’s refusal to act on their warnings over the climate crisis

 

PART-2 CRITICAL COMMENTARY

1. That 1,200 AAAS members signed the petition may seem impressive but if the media had had a bit of science education they would have wanted to know how many AAAS members didn’t sign. For the record 118,800 members did not sign.
2. Yet another way to write that headline would have been “As Donald Trump denigrates the advice of his own administration’s scientists, about 1% of the members of the AAAS have now signed an open online letter urging the president to “restore science-based policy in government” (99% didn’t).
3. Some open questions to the media and to the 1% of the AAAS members who signed the online petition: (1) What does {science-based policy in government} mean?  (2) What is the role of a body such as the AAAS in government such that it can impose policy on an elected government in a democracy that requires the government to take climate action? (3)  What advisory role if any did the AAAS play in providing the Trump administration with the climate science data and the answers to the critical issues about climate action raised by the Trump administration?
4. If no history of an advisory role exists for the AAAS, the petition serves only to underscore the extreme limits to which climate action activism has been stretched. The need for such protracted and continually upgraded fear based activism against fossil fuels to greater and greater fear levels does not improve confidence in the science of climate science. It does just the opposite.
5. Such theatrical climate activism exposes a weakness in the science of climate science and the greater the need for activism the greater the evidence of this weakness that has recently been elevated by the finding that “Internal variability in the climate system confounds assessment of human-induced climate change and imposes irreducible limits on the accuracy of climate change projections, especially at regional and decadal scales” as described in a related post [LINK] .
6. IN CONCLUSION WE FIND THAT THE AAAS PETITION SIGNED BY 1% OF AAAS MEMBERS IS NOT AN EXPRESSION OF SCIENCE BUT A FORM OF CLIMATE ACTIVISM THAT REVEALS NOT THE STRENGTH OF THE SCIENCE BUT ITS WEAKNESS. 
7. IT IS THIS WEAKNESS THAT REQUIRES GREATER AND GREATER ACTIVISM TO IMPOSE A KIND OF HOLINESS ON THE WORD SCIENCE AS A WAY OF SELLING THE CLIMATE AGENDA AGAINST FOSSIL FUELS.