Andrew Bolt: Facts no longer count in climate debate

Saying that data now shows surprisingly little proof of warming, even if it is the truth, is just asking for trouble.

UH, oh. The latest satellite measurement of the Earth’s temperature is bad news. At least for me.

January’s figures show the planet has barely warmed above the average of two decades ago. Just 0.12 degrees up.

True, global warming saint Greta Thunberg wails that “entire ecosystems are collapsing”. Sadly, even “Liberal” Prime Minister Scott Morrison says we should cut our emissions to zero by 2050 to stop “more severe droughts, floods, fires”.

But just 0.12 degrees above average in January? Your home heater can’t even register a change that small.

And that’s all the warming we’ve got, says probably the most reputable of the four measurements of world temperature: the NOAA satellite record, as calculated by the University of Alabama at Huntsville.

Of course, monthly records go up and down, and the last two years were hotter.

Even so, the world isn’t warming anywhere as much as predicted by the vast majority of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s models.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg

So why is this bad news for me?

It’s because such facts no longer count. Not when they contradict a theory of the political and media elite. Using them just proves you’re evil.

There’s science to back this up. Last week I talked to Glenn Geher, professor of psychology at the State University of New York.

Geher said he’d decided to study a claim by Jonathan Haidt, the famous social psychologist, that people on the Left (but not only them) could get too moralistic to listen to reason.

Geher’s team quizzed nearly 200 professors and found, yes: academics of the Left — especially women — were more likely to rate “social justice” and emotional well-being ahead of academic rigor and the pursuit of knowledge. Crudely put, they tended to put feelings above facts.

How often do we see this? It’s now dangerous to note that genealogical records suggest all the ancestors of “Aboriginal historian” Bruce Pascoe are white. Or to report that no one I know has yet named 10 children truly stolen just for being Aboriginal.

And Liberal MP Craig Kelly cannot quote the dozens of studies showing ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine help stop people dying from the coronavirus, if given early and with zinc, without being branded a “nong” and “dangerous menace” for “undermining” the “health message”.

Saying that data now shows surprisingly little warming ... that’s asking for trouble.