Opinion: Climate censorship is worse than you think
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Tony Lam Comments: Yes. Science is never "settled" If you can't debate it. If they call you a "denier" If they ban your accounts. That's not science. That's POLITICAL SCIENCE.
Steve Ambler, Special to Financial Post
Published Sep 13, 2023 • Last updated 2 days ago • 4 minute read
Censorship over opinions concerning whether we are in a climate emergency, catastrophe, apocalypse or even worse has made headlines recently because of the well-known travails of Jordan Peterson, who has been ordered by the College of Psychologists of Ontario (CPO) to undergo re-education at the hands of a social media “expert” for an indefinite period and at his own expense.
The CPO reprimanded Peterson for, among other things, remarks he made on a Joe Rogan podcast concerning climate-change policy, a subject that bears no relationship to his clinical practice as a psychologist.
Many observers have pointed out the chilling effect of the CPO ruling: members of any professional association (engineers, lawyers, accountants, medical professionals, teachers, etc.) will now hesitate to speak up on matters of public interest, even if these have nothing whatsoever to do with their professional activities.
Even worse (if possible) have been the tactics used to discredit Peterson’s views. Consider an article by Josh Marcus in Britain’s Independent noting that Peterson supported his climate views by referring to a 2021 book (“Hot Talk, Cold Science”), one of whose co-authors, S. Fred Singer, was the founder of an organization that received some funding in the past from the Heartland Institute, which in turn received some funding in the past from Exxon.
Conclusion: Peterson’s views are therefore to be completely discounted. Worse than merely an ad hominem attack, this is guilt by extremely indirect association. Moreover, Marcus failed to mention that Singer was a Princeton physics Ph.D., that his co-authors have Ph.D.s in atmospheric physics and climatology and that their book includes two forwards by Princeton physicists, one a former president of the National Academy of Sciences. Concerning the link with dirty fossil fuel money, the Heartland Institute notes, “When Exxon was a donor to Heartland, from 1998 to 2006, its contributions of about $50,000 never exceeded more than five percent of our annual budget.”
Needless to say, Peterson’s views should not automatically be accepted because of the credentials of the authors he cited. On the other hand, they should not automatically be dismissed for the reasons the Independent invokes — even if they were true. Like any propositions about science or public policy, they should be discussed and debated openly and publicly and evaluated on their merits. Peterson makes no claim to being a climate scientist. But intelligent, well-informed lay persons who have clearly done their homework must not be discouraged from participating in open debate.
These days, however, censorship extends not only to intelligent lay persons such as Peterson but also to views that have passed peer review and been published in prestigious academic journals. Two recent cases illustrate what some call the “censorship industrial complex.”
In the first, a group of Italian scientists published a paper in The European Physical Journal Plus that, relying on official data, assessed trends in extreme weather events. They concluded — correctly given the data but not politically correctly — that there are no noticeable trends in the frequency or severity of extreme weather events in recent years. The article initially passed peer review and was published in 2022. Then, a group of academics including Michael Mann of Climategate fame, complained to the editors, who retracted the article.
The second case is a good example of the chilling effect of censorship. Patrick Brown, co-director of the climate and energy team at the Breakthrough Institute and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, published (with co-authors) a paper in Nature on California’s wildfires entitled “Climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California.” More important than the contents of the paper are what it left out, however. In an article in the Free Press, Bari Weiss’ new media company, Brown wrote, “I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell … And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain pre-approved narratives — even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.”
Science advances when scientists express clear hypotheses and test them against the data. It requires open debate. It does not advance by consensus or political pressure; in fact, it is blocked by political pressure and appeals to consensus.
Citizens are expected to vote concerning matters such as climate-change policies. They benefit from exposure to all sides of these issues. Those who would instead deny climate dissent need to recall a famous line from John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty: “He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.”
Financial Post
Steve Ambler is professor emeritus of economics in the École des sciences de la gestion, Université du Québec à Montréal.