Interview with a Climate Expert

The Maine Questioner, “A Voice in the Wilderness”, is pleased to share with you an interview we had recently at our offices in Bangor with Thermal A. Phollie, PhD, esteemed Senior Climatologist at the National Institute of Confabulation.

MQ  Good morning, Professor.  We are so pleased that you agreed to take time from your busy schedule to meet with us.

TP  Thank you for the invitation. You may just call me “Doctor”. Yes, we have been very busy, especially in my field of expertise, the Department of Elucidations. We have been flooded lately with requests to speak to various citizens’ groups after the release of our new publication, “Against Common Sense“.

MQ  Yes, I suppose all this business about the polar vortex has people worried.  But hasn’t that been around for ages ? 

TP   You’re right, under various names, but at the Institute we prefer “polar vortex”, which  is appropriately serious.  It reminds people of angry, drowning polar bears, which everyone associates with catastrophic man-made global warming. It must draw attention to the imminent  climate disaster.

MQ  As it’s quite well accepted now that there’s been no global warming for the last sixteen years, and 35 years ago you said we were facing an ice age, how do you explain that and still insist that we face a crisis, Doctor?

TP  It’s not difficult.  The issue of mankind’s responsibility for all the recent odd weather  we now put under the heading of “climate change”. You can’t go wrong there.  And now all the best climatologists refer to the flat-line global  temperature graphs as “the present pause”. We used to believe that we’d all be cooked if the warming we observed in the 1980’s and ’90’s continued,  but now we’re projecting that dangerous warming is certain by the year 2150, unless the  ice age we predicted in 1979 comes first.

MQ  Doctor, what about  those computerized climate models which have predicted steep increases in world temperatures for the last three decades?  Arctic Ocean ice  rebounded substantially this past summer, didn’t it?  And how about all those ships stuck in the ice this year in both the arctic and antarctic? How do you explain that?

TP   It has been a challenge to explain to the scientifically illiterate why ‘cold snaps’ are only ‘weather’, while  heat waves anywhere in the world are signs of anthropogenic global warming.  We know now that the “missing heat” predicted in our models is actually submerged deep in the oceans.  And that all that sea ice, as the recent icebound Australian expedition revealed to us, has slid off continental glaciers due to melting brought on by man-made climate change. Our  theorem explains everything, if only people are intelligent enough to understand it.

MQ  But Doctor if, as they say, skepticism is the norm of science, why all the attacks on those who disagree with you, like “denialists”, “flat-earthers”, and such?  Why not engage them in debate?

TP   Should we ever question the objectivity of the United Nations or of our federal  government?  They tell us it’s “settled science”.

MQ  Of course. Could you tell us a bit more about your work, Doctor?

TP  Certainly.  We have several areas of concern at the Institute. For example, we have the Department of Hysteria (DOH).  We take carbon dioxide (CO2), which we all know is a  trace gas with minimal “greenhouse” effect, and reveal its deadly nature.  It’s been challenging to educate the public  that CO2, which is colorless and odorless, and vital for all plants and animals, is quite dangerous. Our DOH was critically successful in creating the terms “carbon pollution” and “clean energy” which send an essential message.

MQ  With our current budgetary restrictions, sequestration and all, does the Institute have concerns that your work will continue unimpeded?

TP None at all.  We have the assurance of  billions  in research support, as long as all our publications reflect what the United Nations climate panel has announced.  It’s government money, and the president applauds our enthusiasm.  It should have Big Oil and the Koch brothers envious, making  private support for the “skeptics” look like chump change.

MQ  Just  one more question, Doctor.  What happens at the Institute if world temperatures start to fall, as some scientists are now predicting?

TP  They’ve been working on that over at the DOH.  It’s all about acidification of the  oceans.  Our seas are turning into a giant toxic bath of carbonic acid which will kill every living thing.  It’s the correct fall-back, and necessary.

MQ   Thank you Doctor.  This has been very enlightening.

TP   My pleasure.

Alan W. Boone, MD, of Bangor is a Presque Isle native, a retired medical oncologist and lively satirist.