There is little disagreement in the media that Al Gore is greatly responsible for bringing the subject of man-made global warming into the public glare. Gore has been on a roll since the Academy Awards gave his film, An Inconvenient Truth, the prize for the best documentary of the year, and it will not be a surprise if the Norwegian Nobel committee awards him the peace prize for his efforts in the push to end man-made global warming.
Science and politics have co-existed in an uneasy relationship for a very long time. The reason is simple. In science “truth” is meant to be independent of human preferences and its discovery occurs through the scientific method of conjectures and refutations.
In politics “truth” is often a claim made on the basis of some authority—church, charismatic leader, majority opinion in a democracy—and selective evidence.
Politicians since Archimedes in ancient Greece have sought advice of scientists in the making of public policy. Yet there is a difference between open and closed societies in how scientific advice is sought and given, and in protecting the delicate balance between science and society.
The Gore phenomenon in an open society has placed science and politics at odds in a manner that is somewhat new. We are observing how celebrity status of a politician (or a former politician) in the media may bend the rules of science to serve a particular public policy.
Gore insists the causal connection between human activity and global warming is proven by consensus, and there are many scientists who agree.
But there is another body of scientific opinion that questions such consensus, and it views proposals for cutting back carbon emission as too heavy-handed and will do more damage to the economy of countries like Canada than the expected good.
I recall a neat story about Albert Einstein when asked how he felt that some 200 German scientists assembled by the Nazi regime had declared his science was bad. Einstein replied that all it took was one scientist to prove him wrong.
Gore and his supporters can draw upon science for their politics, reconcile contradictions between what they do and what they profess, and may even turn a profit out of the public policy they promote without breaking any laws.
Gore is the founding chairman of Generation Investment, a company established in 2004. It provides business with assessments of “risks and opportunities presented by climate change” for long term profitability, said David Blood, Gore’s partner and former CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
Science is expected to be value-free and politically neutral. But scientists are human and not entirely immune to politics, especially when science is dependent on public-funding.
The insistence by Gore that his moral crusade is scientifically unimpeachable is confusing to that segment of the public who genuinely want to understand what to make of the unsettled debate among scientists about climate change and global warming. To resort to smear by parties on either side of the debate only deepens the suspicion of political considerations driving science.
We know from recent past experiences, however, that long-term predictions on issues where human agency and nature intersect—such as population or renewable resources—turned out differently.
This record of science being fallible might be a small consolation. Yet it is a helpful reminder. Scientists, when true to their vocation, will ask of the public not to abandon skepticism as a “truth” seeking tool—unlike politicians in general being insistent on consensus when “truth” is uncertain.
He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Islamic Pluralism based in Washington, D.C., a Senior Fellow with the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, and an academic-consultant with the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. He has been a consultant with CIDA on development issues and has published widely in academic journals on foreign policy matters and area studies of the Middle East and South Asia.
Mansur is featured on the documentary Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West produced by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He also unsuccessfully ran for the Canadian Alliance party in 2000.
Mansur has been accused by Canadian Islamic Congress of using "provocative, self-serving rhetoric", and for "promoting an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim agenda".
He is an Ismaili Muslim.
At a press conference on October 2, 2008, Mansur stated that "Islam is my private life, my conscience...[but] my faith does not take precedence over my duties...to Canada and its constitution, which I embrace freely;" "I am first and most importantly a Canadian;" "only in a free society will you find Islam as a faith and not a political religion." Mansur also criticized New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton, whom Mansur said "has gone to bed with Islamists", because he is running candidates in Ontario and Quebec who are closely identified with the push for Sharia law.
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