Essay by Eric Worrall
PHD student Sanam Mahoozi asks whether we should all follow Mexico’s example and elect a scientist leader like former German Chancellor Angela Merkel to guide us through the climate crisis.
Can Scientist Leaders Help Countries Fight Climate Change More Effectively?
Sanam Mahoozi
Contributor
June 29, 2024, 1:33 a.m. EDT
Updated June 30, 2024, 2:21 a.m. EDTAt the beginning of June, Mexico made history by electing its first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, a scientist with a background in physics and an advanced degree in energy engineering.
His victory has sparked a discussion about whether leaders with scientific expertise can have a positive impact on advancing climate policy around the world.
In the past, that combination has been a boon to environmental causes.
For example, Margaret Thatcher, the former British Prime Minister, was a trained chemist who raised awareness of global warming in a powerful speech at the United Nations in 1989 when many people did not take the issue seriously.
Then there is Angela Merkel, the former Chancellor of Germany, whose doctorate in quantum chemistry, played a key role in promoting the 2015 Paris Agreement.
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Let’s see what Rachel Kyte, professor of climate policy practice at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford has to say about this topic in an interview with Forbes via email.
As for women, “we can see some leaders with a background in science, if not climate science, who can lead their countries to be ambitious about climate action.”
“Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel immediately come to mind. They can ask scientists and understand the implications for action, regardless of the ideological position of the party, “whether conservative, religious or liberal.
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Let’s see what Dr. Peter Gleick, member of the US National Academy of Sciences, co-founder and Senior Fellow of the Pacific Institute spoke about this topic in an interview with Forbes via email.
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Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sanammahoozi/2024/06/29/can-scientist-leaders-help-countries-fight-climate-change-more-effectively/
Scientific knowledge is not an automatic guarantee of political competence. Peter Ridd’s mishandling of the academic freedom case shows that groups of scientists are just as likely to make bad decisions as anyone else.
Angela Merkel is also politically incompetent, in my opinion. He may be a proponent of green policies, but his green policies are responsible for Germany’s energy crisis. Merkel’s 2011 decision to shut down Germany’s nuclear reactors increased Germany’s dependence on Russia.
There are many dangers of Russia being an unreliable energy partner. President Trump is trying to warn Germany of the consequences of reckless energy policy in 2018, while Merkel is still in charge. German diplomats laughed in Trump’s face.
Margaret Thatcher is an interesting case. Despite the fact that Thatcher played a major role in promoting climate change in the first place, in her 2002 memoir, Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World (New York: HarperCollins), he expresses his concern about climate change concerns being used as an excuse to promote global tyranny, and criticizes exaggerated claims of scientific certainty. It is sad that greens who refer to Thatcher as a right-wing green leader consistently fail to give a fuller picture of her views.
… The doomsters’ favorite subject these days is climate change. This has some attractions for them. First, the science is so rarely obscure that it is not easily proven wrong. Second, we all have an idea about the weather: traditionally, in England at the first acquaintance say a little more.
Third, since there is clearly no plan to change the climate that can be considered only on a global scale, this provides a good reason for supra-national socialism throughout the world. All this refers to the level of calculation. But perhaps that misses half the point. Rather, as it is said of Hamlet that there is method in the madness, one feels that in some gloomy alarmists there is much madness in the method.
Indeed, there is no sense of proportion which characterizes many pronouncements on the matter by wise men. Thus, President Clinton in his visit to China, which is a serious strategic challenge for the US, told his host, President Jiang Zemin, that his biggest concern is the prospect “your people can become as rich as our people, and instead of riding bicycles, they will drive cars, and more greenhouse gases will make the planet more dangerous for everyone.”
However, it will be hard to beat former Vice President Gore’s apocalyptic hyperbole. Mr. Gore believes: ‘The split in the modern world between mind and body, man and nature, has created a new kind of addiction: I believe that our civilization is, in effect, addicted to the consumption of the earth itself.’
And he warned: “If we do not find a way to transform civilization and a way of thinking about the relationship between man and the earth, our children will inherit the desert.”
But why choose America? The British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, said: “There is no greater national task than defending our coastline. But the most immediate threat today is the invading sea. Britain has found, it seems, a worthy successor to King Canute.
The fact that seasoned politicians can say such things – and get away with it – reflects the new level of climate change dogma in the left-wing ruling class….
Read more: https://www.amazon.com/Statecraft-Strategies-Changing-Margaret-Thatcher/dp/0060199733 (pp. 449–50)
The Forbes writer also quotes our old friend Peter Gleick as an authority, which is pure comedy. Gleick was forced to resign as chairman of AGU’s scientific ethics committee, after he was outed for using a social engineering computer hacker trick, impersonating real Heartland Institute officials, to gain unauthorized access to internal documents. To add to the mess, Gleick included the forged document with the leaked stolen document, which he claimed was passed on by an “anonymous source”.
In the original leak, Gleick did not clearly distinguish the fake “anonymous source” documents from the real documents stolen from Heartland.
Unbelievably, Gleick is still a member of the US National Academy of Sciences – which in my opinion begs the question of the level of immorality or depravity required to get someone out of that organization.
I don’t know what kind of President of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo will make. But having a background as a scientist does not guarantee that he will be a competent leader. The signs in my opinion are not encouraging – in 2019, when she became the leader of Mexico City, Claudia introduced a raft of radical green policies. If Claudia turns out to be another green policy obsessive like Angela Merkel, Mexico may experience German-style energy price pain.
