Up until the 17th century people were persacuted for saying that Earth was not the centre of the universe and went around the sun. We all know what happened to Galileo for daring to question the order of things and poor Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for his troubles. Galileo and Bruno tried to find the truth but they were percieved by those in power to be a threat.
In the 20th century scientist's working in the former Soviet Union were constrained by its politics. If research contradicted the tennets of Marxism it was dismissed and the scientist's responsable often found them selves in the Gulags. Apparently Marxism is incompatable with 'bourgeois' theories like the Big Bang and Black Holes. It is obvious that scientific enquiry and truth were a threat to Communist, Soviet Union.
In the 21st century we have a bunch of scientist's studying global warming. But the problem is that global warming is a
percieved threat to the existing political ideology in some countries like the US and Australia. NASA scientist's have been alledgedly censured by the US government for talking up Global warning and in Australia apparently the same has happened with our government leaning on CSIRO scientists. Sounds a bit like 17th century Rome and 20th Century Moscow. And what is our current political ideology? It has names like 'neo-libralism' and 'economic rationalism' which in a nut shell is the free flow of capital, allowing the market forces to determine everything ( it is almost the opposite of communism). The problem is that in reducing the amount of CO2 that is put in the atmosphere by human activities requires regulation of the free market. And that means the Ideology does'nt work.
The facts are that global warming is being contributed to by us humans, enought scientist's and experts have come out and said so and to me it make's sense. It is a problem that will dwarf terrorism unless something is done about it NOW. But of course global warming is a threat to market forces and political idealogues.
I hope I didn't bore you all to death
