Strange days for indie cylcists
Topic: RANTING&RAVING
3/13/05 - Noticed a post on the fixed gear gallery bicycle forum (www.fixedgeargallery.com)
about the recent spike in warm weather and felt compelled to make a comment about global warming "scarologists". The result was worth to behold. Several people posted responses, ranging from "the President and Michael Chricton have their heads up their @sses" to touting the melting snows and glaciers as evidence. The most telling was the one statement that we should "forget about" the "hockey stick graph" and look at other studies. The graph in question was produced to show an apparently recent jump in global temperature (hence the name -- it resembled a hockey stick on it's side). The downside was that this graph was based on either dishonest of flawed research; no one attempting to replicate it could get the same results twice. The refutations, however, are dismissed as unmportant or "discredited" because one person involved supposedly worked for the energy industry. But if that's a conflict of interest, what do they have to say about all the scareologists who either work for or receive government funding -- funding they can only attract if they make the problem seem like a immediate and worldwide threat to life as we know it -- and a government that will benefit substantially, in terms of power gained, from any new regulations?

Moreover, beyond prefacing any recognition of the refutations with the word "discredited" (it wasn't but that's what they say) the global warmers also say to just ignore the graph for good or ill and look at "other evidence". But saying to forget about the graph and look at other evidence -- when the graph was *the* most compelling evidence, and all the other evidence is proported to illustrate the exact same thing as the graph -- is like saying, "okay, I'm wrong, but I'm wrong". What's the point? The point is if you are brazen enough about these things people will assume you are correct, sort of an updated "big lie". It may be that the people making these assertions are unaware of the fact that both examples they gave are identical, and so saying to ignore one and focus on the other is like saying ignore both; or, they may be counting on their audience not noticing this.

The reactions also contained examples of begging the question (i.e., circular argument) and other philosophical errors, such as appeal to authority, which was evident in "let's see, 10,000 scientists vs. two media whores" -- meaning the President of the US and author Michael Chricton.
Even *if* all 10,000 of those scientists are experts in climate (they aren't, but let's *suppose* -- it seems the thing to do these days) -- ten thousand people are just ten thousand people. Human beings. Capable of making errors. Like the infamous graph they'd love to forget, which was touted before government meetings and summits by officials from all over the globe, before someone found it was bogus.

The result? Rather than address the errors ? and the ideological motivations that led to them ? they?d rather just forget them and ?move on? to other examples of the same muddy thinking. The terrible irony is that anyone who disagrees with this hard-line orthodoxy of ?global warming? which is so prevalent in the cycling world, so otherwise focused on independent thinking, is attacked as a shill for the Republican party. There?s irony for you ? parrots accusing a dissenter of parroting.

It may be that a NASA study shows one thing, and a study of tree frogs another. But the big picture is that ?global warming? is no more proven fact ? or even a theory ? than global cooling was 30 plus years ago. At best, it is a theoretical assertion. And the burden of proof in any debate is on the one making an assertion ? especially of this magnitude.
Sadly, there is no debate, because no one wants there to be. The bike world is one protected, in large part, from the idiocy to which much of the modern world is susceptible; bicyclists can see the pointlessness of their SUV driving neighbor?s behavior, or of a society that tells them they are sub human unless they own a pair of 200$ jeans and an Ipod. Sadly, on this issue, though, the green trend of the bicycle world ? seen as a sort of ?counterculture? reaction to the sometimes spendthrift consumerism of the rest of the modern world ? is not a rebellion but an ideological iron curtain.

The result is that a theoretical assertion is presented as fact, and any critic is faced with a dizzying array of logical fallacies ? starting with being asked to prove that ?global warming? is *not* real.

In short, in the one area that matters ? ideas ? the bicycling world is stifled by an ideological orthodoxy. Like all orthodoxies, when unchallenged this leads to intellectual stagnation. The sad fact is that were it not for this the world could learn so much from cyclists. But all this sort of lock-step thinking does is make us look like, at best, like ignorant tree-huggers and knee-jerk reactionaries -- and at worst, intellectually dishonest scaremongers.

Part of it is the cultural influence ? despite their status as rebels due to their chosen form of locomotion many cyclists are young and therefore have emerged from schools rife with environmentalist propaganda and politicized science.

One has only to think back to all the predictions some of these "scareologists" (the writer of "the population bomb" comes to mind) have made that were proven utterly wrong. It is a track record typified by the hockey stick graph. Maybe that is why some so eagerly want to forget "the graph" and look at other examples of essentially the same thing: It is the perfect symbol for the global warming industry, and hardly a flattering one.

I'd say for all his media whoreness, Chricton is at least more honest. His books are at least marketed as known fiction. But at least cyclist proponents of the global warming scare are not hypocrites; they ride rather than drive frequently. The same cannot be said of most scarologists. But being consistant about being wrong is not proof that one is right.

In the meantime, it has become so "green" in the bike world these days that, to paraphrase the old Kermit song, it's hard not to be. Hard times cometh for those of independent thought on two wheels.

- Elvis