Climate Dogma and the ‘Ignorance of Experts’

Vijay Jayaraj

Much of the media’s playbook is straightforward: Push repeatedly a predetermined agenda. I was one of perhaps billions of people who fell for this tried-and-true method of mass deception. Even some of the most intelligent people came to fear a climate catastrophe on our beautiful blue planet.

If you have found yourself among the deceived, be not discomfited by your error. Individuals are preoccupied with their lives and lack the time or proficiency to explore the complex nuances of climate science.

Most consumers of news are vulnerable to the work of clever writers quoting seemingly legitimate policymakers and scientists handpicked by the United Nations to convey apocalyptic information. Falling for the classic fallacy of Appeal to Authority is a common result. Statements are taken to be true just because someone in authority said so.

The public, weary of complexity, craves simple villains and saviors. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is the perfect evildoer – a threat that can be taxed, regulated and rallied against. Meanwhile, policymakers revel in the power that a perpetual emergency bestows on them. The confusion of a crisis and the proclamations, ultimatums and deadlines that ensue alternately produce paralysis and panicked action.

But science doesn’t care whether the declarations come from Newton or Einstein or some 19^th century monk fussing with the genetics of peas. It is only concerned with whether a theory can be proven through observations of the real world and confirmations of conclusions. And that is where the faux climate crisis falls flat on its face.

Climate science is not a monolith of precision. Despite the confident pronouncements of international panels, the mechanisms that govern temperature shifts are riddled with unknowns.

Temperature records have been heavily adjusted by gatekeeping agencies like NOAA. Moreover, these records often originate with thermometers in urbanized locations that are prone to artificial warming, whose precise effects have not been established. Furthermore, the modelers of future temperatures predict what the global temperature will be with an accuracy of one-tenth of a degree 80 years into the future, yet their meteorologist colleagues can’t achieve that precision from one day to the next.

There is also a methodological flaw: an over-reliance on models that peer into an uncertain future rather than test hypotheses against real-time data. Science thrives on observation and experimentation. Think of Pasteur culturing bacteria or Friar Mendel studying yellow and green peas.

However, popular climatology has inverted this process. Researchers backed by financiers looking for particular results build elaborate simulations based on assumptions about clouds, solar effects, and CO₂ and treat the outputs as gospel. When temperature trends stubbornly refuse to match projections, the response is to tweak the models rather than question their foundations.

The United Nations, for example, says that anthropogenic CO₂ emissions have caused global temperature to rise about 1.2 degrees Celsius since 1750. But this relies on data that has been adjusted, fabricated and influenced by human infrastructure.

It was also observed that the climate models used to justify forecasts of warming consistently fail to replicate observed temperature trajectories and patterns of sea ice coverage. Models predicted warming of up to 0.5 degree Celsius per decade, but satellite and ground data show an increase of just 0.1 to 0.13 degrees Celsius. Arctic sea ice, which was expected to shrink sharply, has instead stabilized since 2007.

“These models overplay CO₂’s role,” says former Delaware state climatologist Dr. David Legates. “They don’t fit reality,”

Clouds remain a “wild card” in climate models because their formation and feedback effects are poorly represented in the computational frameworks that dominate policy discussions. Climatology must return to its empirical roots, prioritizing real-time observations over model prophecies.

Meanwhile, the public should be introduced to a happy truth: In the past few decades, most of Earth has greened. Plant coverage has grown by 18 million square kilometers, and the main cause is the increase in atmospheric CO₂. Some villain, that carbon dioxide!

The real crisis lies in conflating political agendas with scientific truth. To those who claim that “the science is settled,” recall the words of physicist Richard Feynman: “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”

Only by embracing skepticism and open discussion can we craft resilient policies – ones that allow the world to flourish without mortgaging the future to a dogmatic march toward energy poverty and a denial of human potential.

This commentary was first published at American Thinker on May 14, 2025.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO₂ Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.