In an exchange with a heckler, Sen. Ted Cruz gave a masterful mini-lecture demonstrating his grasp of the essence of science, confounding the major media reports that he "flunks" a test aced by Democrats contending for the presidential nomination.
See video:
At a lobster restaurant, a "climate activist" demanded that Cruz answer – yes or no – the question "Do you deny climate change?"
The form of the question is the equivalent of "Do you deny that the earth is round?" The implication is that if the answer is "yes," you are a medieval flat earther and thus unqualified to be president.
TRENDING: Greatest Show on Earth: The Hur report hearing
Cruz explained that science is not a matter of belief or computer models or expert opinion, but of objective data and facts. The fact is that satellite data show no rise in atmospheric temperature for nearly 20 years.
He also points out that in the 1970s some of the very same scientists were predicting an ice age – if we didn't adopt the same remedy they are demanding now: drastic cuts in the use of the fuels that power the world's economy.
And since people hit with record winter cold are finding it hard to "believe in" global warming, the threat has morphed into "climate change." It might be cold, or warm, or dry, or wet, or stormy, but it will be unprecedented disaster – if we don't cut the use of carbon-based fuels.
Three different apocalyptic scenarios – too cold, too hot, and changing – but the same remedy.
Cruz didn't mention a still earlier threat, again with the same remedy: that we would run out of "fossil fuels." The very name implies a limited supply from dead dinosaurs and primeval forests. The fact is we have plenty of hydrocarbon fuels to last for a century or two, especially of methane, the main component of natural gas.
There truly is an emergency, though. A political emergency. If the "climate" activists don't get their way at the Paris climate summit now under way, their drive toward a global wealth-redistribution, energy-rationing bureaucracy might fail.
Obama is in Paris, claiming that climate change is the greatest threat confronting humanity. Meanwhile, escalating tensions in Ukraine and the Middle East could set off a nuclear war. There is widespread civil strife, and hordes of migrants (mixed with jihadis) are overwhelming Europe. But climate change is a driver of conflict, says Prince Charles – still another problem with the same solution.
Apparently, all Democrats running for president agree with Obama. The Associated Press had eight scientists judge the "scientific accuracy" of candidates. Hillary Clinton was the star on their politically correct scale, scoring 94, while former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley earned a 91. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders got only 87; he was downgraded for "exaggeration" during one of the debates, when he suggested that the earth may become "uninhabitable."
The lead examiner was Michael Mann, best known for the "Mann-made hockey stick," which supposedly proves the assertion of unprecedented rapid warming. This graph, based on "reconstructions" by secret methods of a limited set of historical "proxy" data such as tree rings, has been quietly withdrawn from official publications of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – a move that has not been reported by the major media.
The gang of eight inquisitors gave Cruz 6, Carson 13, Trump 15, Rubio 21, Fiorina 28, Paul 38, Kasich 47, Christie 54, and Bush 64 on their Mann-made, upside-down scale.
There is a multi-billion dollar global cabal of government-funded scientists, wealthy non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and crony capitalists that profit from "finding" human-caused climate effects or from tax subsidies for unreliable, economically nonviable, otherwise unaffordable substitutes for the fuels that make modern industry and prosperity possible. Their darlings like Mann resort to character assassination in an attempt to silence scientific critics, who face loss of their livelihood, onerous "investigations" and even threats of prosecution for speaking out.
Cruz tops the honor roll of those intelligent and courageous enough to confront fraudulent establishment pseudoscience. It is not surprising that a highly skilled lawyer and a neurosurgeon are leaders, and the career politicians are trust-and-parrot followers of politicized science and a global big-government agenda.