roots of the cult of global warming

BabyTrollBlog begins to plumb the depths:

For a very long time,... I have tried to persuade leftists of my acquaintance of the error of their ways... by inviting them to ask questions... But here lately, I've wondered if even this moderate approach makes sense.

It is, I am coming to be ever more firmly convinced, a category error to impute reasoned motivation to the campaign to enshrine -- scorn quotes -- "Global Warming" as holy writ, unchallengeable as an article of faith and therefore to coerce mankind into witless and counterproductive, even lethally perilous, alterations in behavior. I just don't think such motives are there.

I can't escape the sense that, some time ago -- perhaps about the time that amateur climate freaks were flapping their tiny arms all about over the coming ice age -- some group or individual hit upon this scheme as a means by which their agenda -- a palpably collectivist and nihilistic (indeed, anti-human) agenda -- could be put into action.

It's hard to talk or write about this without sounding like Mel Gibson's character in Conspiracy Theory. Commies under the bed and all that. Vast, shadowy groups governing behind the scenes, pulling the strings of elected officials. Scientists bought off into supporting outright lies and fabrications. Journalists who refuse to see the truth. It's just nuts.

And, yet, the concept is highly seductive.

The idea of human action having so grand and sweeping an effect on the environment in the first place sounds ... silly on the face of it. And then, when you examine the evidence that ought to demonstrate the matter clearly (according to the proponents of the même), not only does it not support the postulations on the table, but -- where it gives any indication at all -- it seems to contradict the entire contention. Yes, there has been approximately a one-degree rise in average temperatures -- in the places where we have measured them -- over the past 130 years. Yet, this in no way translates into a significant -- even an actual -- global rise. Not that it can't have happened, but that we don't know. And there's no way for us to know. Though the levels of carbon in the atmosphere seem to have risen substantially, there is no clear link to human activity. The whole edifice of anthrogenic atmospheric carbon-caused climate change falls apart on close examination, starting with how much carbon got into the atmosphere and when (and how we "know" what the levels were).

Acceptance of the idea, then, flies in the face of logic, knowledge, and observable fact. Yet, people do accept it -- readily so. Not that you can impute that to conspiracy. People have always believed silly things -- and ruled mankind based on those beliefs -- so there's nothing new there. But it seems as though, once something is clearly wrong, more people ought to be dropping the idea like it was a hot rock out of a volcano that just flew into their fielder's glove.

But the drumbeat of the big lie keeps coming. Despite repeated repudiation at the polls, despite clear evidence contradicting their claims, despite the disavowal of myriad competent authorities, despite very real contentions that their aims almost inevitably will result in poorer lives and even misery and death for billions of human beings, the proponents of the climate change scare keep at it. (emphasis mine)

How many bites do you give the dog? We know where this poisonous combination of junk science and collectivist political nostrums end up. We've seen it too many times before -- in the last century alone -- to just let it go. So when do we wake up and stop imputing reason to the opposition and call a spade a spade?

When do we admit that, while men of goodwill can disagree, the Left is not of goodwill. When do we accept that our quest for civility is founded in a category error?