This is a follow up post to my earlier review of Michael Crichton’s book “State of Fear.” Crichton points out the danger of the power play that environmentalists  make when they appeal to certitude in their scientific findings. Every time I read a new article on the subject I find this is exactly what the environmentalists are doing. Note the quotes in this article: “’Smoking gun’ on humans and global warming claimed.”

“The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, is the latest to report growing certainty about global warming projections.”

“There can no longer be genuine doubt that humanmade gases are the dominant cause of observed warming.” James Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

I am not passing judgment on the debate about global warming. I agree with Michael Crichton that global warming is a real phenomena and that we need to do something about it. However, I am noting these articles because the scientific community is appealing to “certainty.” They are doing this so as to exercise power in the politics of the environment. They are making truth claims with the intention of influencing policy decisions. They want to foment fears that climate catastrophe is just around the corner (or the Day after Tomorrow)  so that they can exercise control over us.

The thesis of Michael Crichton’s book is to warn us about such power plays by environmentalists and to propose an alternative approach. This approach involves doing scientific research that is independent of powerful environmental and scientific institutions such as the Goddard Space Institute or Scripps Institution of Oceanography. For this research to have real integrity it must be separated from the power and financial interests of these institutions.  Otherwise, we simply should not trust the research that these scientists produce because it is so closely tied to the money they need to fund their institutions.

The more I read articles whose source is this type of science, and that use words such as “smoking gun”, “increasing certainty” and “no more genuine doubt,” the more I view this as 21^st Century propaganda intended to concentrate power in the hands of a scientific and political elite.

As a person of faith, I believe there is only one entity that ought to have all power and dominion and that is Jesus Christ. Faith at work must discern the powers and principalities that seek to dominate our culture and shape our attitudes and behaviors. Unless we think critically about these influences, we will be co opted by them to serve their interests.

Jesus made the world. He has an interest in its preservation. We need to work for his interest in preserving it, not the interests of institutions that seek to preserve power for the few while controlling the many.