Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Climate scientists worried about cuts to their funding have decided to try to secure their supply of cash by running for Congress.
Politics & Climate Change: More Scientists Running For Congress In Affront To Trump
March 9th, 2018 by Steve Hanley
No president in US history has demeaned science and scientists as much as Donald Trump. His antediluvian attitudes about science and climate change infect policymaking at all levels of government. Not only is he personally a dunce when it comes to higher order thinking, he has surrounded himself with cabinet secretaries like Scott Pruitt, Rick Perry, and Ryan Zinke, who slavishly follow the gospel according to Charles and David Koch.
Perry told those attending the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston this week that is was “immoral” to suggest poor people in Africa shouldn’t have access to electricity made from burning fossil fuels. Pruitt has been busy scrubbing all mention of climate science from the EPA website and replacing scientists on its staff with political hacks while Zinke wants to pillage federal lands for their oil, gas, and coal resources.
All the anti-science rhetoric has resulted in a backlash from the scientific community. A political action group calling itself 314 Action, which was founded in 2016 to support candidates who have scientific or technical backgrounds, is recruiting scientists to run for office in 2018 and the response has been strong. Many scientists disdain the soul-wrenching wretchedness of politics, with its emphasis on grubbing for money from wealthy backers who expect a return on their investment. Then there is the character assassination that inevitably flows from the opposition to consider.
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One of those seeking to fill Smith’s seat is Joseph Kosper. A Democrat who is a graduate of West Point, Kosper is a trained aerospace engineer. He tells the press, “I absolutely feel that science is under attack. It’s the opposite of when John F. Kennedy said he wanted to get us to the moon in less than 10 years. The way Trump is going, in 10 years he’ll have us back in caves.” Kosper promises on his website he will value only two things when he is elected — input from his constituents and “verified scientific data.”
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The evidence is ordinary people consistently rate climate change last on their list of priorities.
Attempting to run for Congress on a single issue which people rate as less important than everything else they’ve been asked about, in the hope that this evidence is wrong, is the triumph of theory over observation. But I guess we are talking about activist climate scientists.
I can hear their slogan now:
“VOTE FOR US!
We lie better than the politicians!”
He is not an aerospace engineer or scientist. While he has a BSc in aerospace engineering, he has done no science activity. He went on to other fields for his masters and work.
Politicized science demeaned itself. Didn’t need any help from the current Executive for that. The previous Executive, however, did help it to demean itself.
Kosper would be “in like Flynn” if he’d just come out as trans in the Democratic party. As white straight male in the Democratic party, he has 3 strikes against him.
So Cosper is a Aerospace Engineer grad from West Point.
On another note, I’m a service academy BS Civil Engineering degree and an EIT in Colorado and a biomed PhD from a university in eastern Mass.
I’d debate Cosper on the validity of climate change alarmism any day. Cosper clearly either doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, that alarmist climate science is totally dependent on cargo-cult science climate models. As such, he’d get his butt handed to him in no short time.
Air Force has always enjoyed spanking West Point.
But we’d both be declared guilty of “Mann”-splaining, since neither of us are PhD climate scientists. Thankfully.
“…but I guess we’re talking about activist climate scientists.”
That about sums it up.
“The evidence is ordinary people consistently rate climate change last on their list of priorities.”
Most of those choices affected people in their everyday lives and/or were directly about values. It’s not a good comparison with “action on climate change.”
61% of global respondents to a Pew poll considered climate change to be “a major threat to our country.” The only greater threat was ISIS.
http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/08/01/globally-people-point-to-isis-and-climate-change-as-leading-security-threats/
The media blurb is terrible, but I think it would be great to have a few scientists in Congress. It’s about time! Just because someone is a scientist doesn’t mean he (or she) is any less fit for office than an actor or businessman.
If all they are going to do is push progressive crap dressed up as science, then no thanks.
Why exactly do you believe a so called poll of global respondents should be relevant to a US election?
Apparently these nitwits didn’t get the memo. The blue wave is more like a swirl.
Yeah, the Blue Wave just barely got the beachgoer’s feet wet.
Please elect Mann to Congress. No more certain way to show the other members what he really is all about.
Albert Einstein, a Jew but not an Israeli citizen, was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952 but turned it down, stating “I am deeply moved by the offer from our State of Israel, and at once saddened and ashamed that I cannot accept it. All my life I have dealt with objective matters, hence I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official functions”.
He succinctly explained why scientists should NEVER be political leaders.
Einstein serves as the counterexample that demonstrates the Dunning-Kruger Effect: a cognitive bias wherein people of low ability suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority derives from the metacognitive inability of low-ability persons to recognize their own ineptitude; without the self-awareness of metacognition, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their actual competence or incompetence.
Similarly, any scientist who has ambitions of serving in a political office serves as a living example of this effect.
Truly smart people are keenly aware of how much they don’t know.
“verified scientific data.”? I wouldn’t vote for him . He should have have said “verifiable scientific data” Does he know we have a law called the Data Quality Act?
You can either be an activist, or a scientist. There is no such thing as a “activist scientist”.
Another activist cretin masquerading as a scientist. Good riddance to bad rubbish!
Trump can be lucky about global warming, even if this year the first LENR system is automated. However, in this case, geoengineering will also be needed, as the interruption of pollution can temporarily cause further warming.
“Kosper promises on his website he will value only two things when he is elected — input from his constituents and “verified scientific data.””
Ah, so what’s he going to do, if elected, if his constituents tell him that they agree with the current administration’s policies on climate change?
Typically West Point weeds out those with serious character flaws. Clearly this is not a perfect process as this deceptive and misleading candidate shows.
Since Trump is cutting budgets that have supported and grown the number of climate scientists they are now looking to fields in which their skills of manipulation of facts and double talk are valuable assets so politics is a natural.