The Exigent Duality
The Weather - 20:09 CST, 12/31/14 (Sniper)
I wonder how far back the history goes of politicians and Statists using the weather as an excuse for totalitarianism? I know that it goes back at least to the 1970s-- my dad told me that when he was in school, the teachers were trying to persuade all of the students that due to pollution, Earth was about to enter into a cataclysmic ice age.

Needless to say, that didn't happen. Then from my life time, I've had politicians and Statist school teachers trying to tell me that due to pollution, the Earth was going to overheat-- so, exactly the opposite as the previously failed prediction.

Then when the predictive qualities of all of those models failed, the politicians and the scientists, who get their money from the politicians in the form of grants, gently changed to the "climate change" phraseology.

With that terminology shift, these people have created the perfect tautology! In the past five years alone, I've read or heard all of the following from news outlets at various points:
  1. When there was too much water and ocean levels were slightly higher, it was due to "climate change"
  2. When there was too little water and California started suffering from a draught, it was due to "climate change"
  3. When some record high temperatures were set around the world, it was due to "climate change"
  4. When a whole slew of record low temperatures were set, it was due to "climate change"
  5. When it was pointed out that the same model was, ex post facto, being used to explain both record high and low temperatures, a scientist replied that the variability of the temperatures was due to "climate change"
  6. When the polar ice caps showed some melting, it was due to "climate change"
  7. When the polar ice caps showed record ice growth, it was due to "climate change"

And those are just the news articles; one time there was a heavy rain while I was at work, and I had a coworker tell me-- dead serious-- that it was raining due to "climate change." And anyone who points out the tautology is called a blasphemer-- a "climate denier."

If you want big government, and are willing to use ex post facto reasoning to confirm your worldview no matter how intellectually dishonest it makes you, then creating this sort of perfect tautology is very useful; heads I win, tails you lose.