Re: NBC: An Inconvenient Truth



It didn't take one scientist very long to point out just how sloppy and
downright dishonest your "contrarian" is, Balloon. Perhaps that's what
happens when people write about science as if Milton Friedman was a
climatologist, not an economist.

"As someone who works on understanding the earth's ecosystem for a living, I
am often put off by irresponsible claims about the effects of global
warming. Nevertheless, it bothers me to see Thomas Sieger Derr repeat two
persistent myths of the global warming skeptics' camp, one of which is
simply false, the other of which is self-refuting.

The first myth is that "there is not a very good correlation between
atmospheric carbon dioxide and past climate changes." This statement is true
over the relatively recent period since the end of the last glaciation. Yet
when viewed over a longer period, say the last 700,000 years, the
correlation is actually extraordinarily good, as confirmed by ice core
records taken by the Vostok Project and the European Project for Ice Coring
in Antarctica (EPICA). Higher carbon dioxide levels are the leading
hypothesis invoked to explain higher temperatures during the Cretaceous
period, to resolve the "faint young sun" paradox (i.e., to explain why the
earth did not freeze over in earlier times when the sun was not as bright),
and to explain the emergence of the earth from global glaciation during the
Neoproterozoic period. For many climate scientists, myself included, these
correlations, rather than the output of climate models, represent the best
calibration of the potential impact of global warming. The calibration that
emerges, while not catastrophic, is significant.

Professor Derr's second mistake is to claim that "the likeliest cause of
climate trends seems to be solar variability." The actual change in solar
radiation associated with known variability is much smaller than the change
in the atmosphere's ability to trap radiation associated with carbon
dioxide. Proponents of the solar variability hypothesis must come up with an
amplifier for solar forcing that does not serve as an amplifier for
greenhouse gas forcing. This they have failed to do. Thus, while certain
models are able to attribute warming during the first part of the twentieth
century to solar variability, those same models also predict a significant
response to greenhouse gas forcing.

As a responsible scientist I am limited to what our best understanding,
embodied in models of climate, actually shows. What it shows is global
warming resulting from carbon dioxide emissions. While the hysterical
rhetoric of many environmental groups is of little use, it is equally
useless to refuse to admit that the best available science may have
something to say about the relative merits of a given plan of action."

Anand Gnanadesikan
Plainsboro, New Jersey

"SMBalloon" <smballoon@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:35pk62dm1r3kdadt745jihrt7arg16a2ce@xxxxxxxxxx
On Tue, 16 May 2006 18:14:24 -0500, "gumboman" <noemail@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Just
35 or so years ago, the so-called indisputable science showed us
entering a new ice age, and those scientists who didn't buy into that
were the ones who had their motives questioned.


I've seen you make this type of remark before and I don't remember this
being the case. In fact, it seems as if you are dead ass wrong. I called a
couple of friends who also remember nothing like this occurring,
particularly the assertion that it was scientists who were having their
motives questioned if they didn't subscribe to some 'indisputable'
science.

Here is a contrarian viewpoint:

Strange Science
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by Thomas Sieger Derr
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2004 First Things 147 (November 2004): 5-7.

Global warming has achieved the status of a major threat. It inspires
nightmares of a troubled future and propels apocalyptic dramas such as
the summer 2004 movie The Day After Tomorrow. Even were the Kyoto
treaty to be fully implemented, it wouldn't make a dent in the warming
trend, which seems to be inexorable. Doom is upon us.

Except that maybe it isn't. You might not know it from ordinary media
accounts, which report the judgments of alarmists as "settled
science," but there is a skeptical side to the argument. Scientists
familiar with the issues involved have written critically about the
theory of global warming. The puzzle is why these commentators,
well-credentialed and experienced, have been swept aside to produce a
false "consensus." What is it that produces widespread agreement among
both "experts" and the general public on a hypothesis which is quite
likely wrong?

The consensus holds that we are experiencing unprecedented global
warming and that human activity is the main culprit. The past century,
we are told, has been the hottest on record, with temperatures
steadily rising during the last decades. Since human population and
industrial activity have risen at the same time, it stands to reason
that human activity is, one way or another, the cause of this observed
warming. Anything wrong with this reasoning?

Quite a lot, as it turns out. The phrase "on record" doesn't mean very
much, since most records date from the latter part of the nineteenth
century. Without accurate records there are still ways of discovering
the temperatures of past centuries, and these methods do not confirm
the theory of a steady rise. Reading tree rings helps (the rings are
further apart when the temperature is warmer and the trees grow
faster). Core samples from drilling in ice fields can yield even older
data. Some historical reconstruction can help, too-for example, we
know that the Norsemen settled Greenland (and named it "green") a
millennium ago and grew crops there, in land which is today quite
inhospitable to settlement, let alone to agriculture. Other evidence
comes from coral growth, isotope data from sea floor sediment, and
insects, all of which point to a very warm climate in medieval times.
Abundant testimony tells us that the European climate then cooled
dramatically from the thirteenth century until the eighteenth, when it
began its slow rewarming.

In sum, what we learn from multiple sources is that the earth (and not
just Europe) was warmer in the tenth century than it is now, that it
cooled dramatically in the middle of our second millennium (this has
been called the "little ice age"), and then began warming again.
Temperatures were higher in medieval times (from about 800 to 1300)
than they are now, and the twentieth century represented a recovery
from the little ice age to something like normal. The false perception
that the recent warming trend is out of the ordinary is heightened by
its being measured from an extraordinarily cold starting point,
without taking into account the earlier balmy medieval period,
sometimes called the Medieval Climate Optimum. Data such as fossilized
sea shells indicate that similar natural climate swings occurred in
prehistoric times, well before the appearance of the human race.

Even the period for which we have records can be misread. While the
average global surface temperature increased by about 0.5 degrees
Celsius during the twentieth century, the major part of that warming
occurred in the early part of the century, before the rapid rise in
human population and before the consequent rise in emissions of
polluting substances into the atmosphere. There was actually a
noticeable cooling period after World War II, and this climate trend
produced a rather different sort of alarmism-some predicted the return
of an ice age. In 1974 the National Science Board, observing a
thirty-year-long decline in world temperature, predicted the end of
temperate times and the dawning of the next glacial age.
Meteorologists, Newsweek reported, were "almost unanimous in the view
that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of
the century." But they were wrong, as we now know (another caution
about supposedly "unanimous" scientific opinion), and after 1975 we
began to experience our current warming trend. Notice that these
fluctuations, over the centuries and within them, do not correlate
with human numbers or activity. They are evidently caused by something
else.

What, then, is the cause of the current warming trend? As everyone has
heard, the emission of so-called "greenhouse gasses," mostly carbon
dioxide from burning fossil fuels, is supposed to be the major culprit
in global warming. This is the anthropogenic hypothesis, according to
which humans have caused the trouble. But such emissions correlate
with human numbers and industrial development, so they could not have
been the cause of warming centuries ago, nor of the nineteenth-century
rewarming trend which began with a much smaller human population and
before the industrial revolution. Nor is there a very good correlation
between atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and past climate changes.
Thus, to many scientists, the evidence that greenhouse gasses produced
by humans are causing any significant warming is sketchy.

The likeliest cause of current climate trends seems to be solar
activity, perhaps in combination with galactic cosmic rays caused by
supernovas, especially because there is some good observable
correlation between solar magnetism output and terrestrial climate
change. But that kind of change is not predictable within any usable
time frame, not yet anyway, and, of course, it is entirely beyond any
human influence. The conclusion, then, is that the climate will change
naturally; aside from altering obviously foolish behavior, such as
releasing dangerous pollutants into our air and water, we can and
should do little more than adapt to these natural changes, as all life
has always done.

That is not a counsel of despair, however, for global warming is not
necessarily a bad thing. Increasing warmth and higher levels of carbon
dioxide help plants to grow (carbon dioxide is not a pollutant), and,
indeed, mapping by satellite shows that the earth has become about six
percent greener overall in the past two decades, with forests
expanding into arid regions (though the effect is uneven). The Amazon
rain forest was the biggest gainer, despite the much-advertised
deforestation caused by human cutting along its edges. Certainly
climate change does not help every region equally and will probably
harm some. That has always been true. But there are careful studies
that predict overall benefit to the earth with increasing warmth:
fewer storms (not more), more rain, better crop yields over larger
areas, and longer growing seasons, milder winters, and decreasing
heating costs in colder latitudes. The predictable change, though
measurable, will not be catastrophic at all-maybe one degree Celsius
during the twenty-first century. The news is certainly not all bad,
and may on balance be rather good.

There is much more, in more detail, to the argument of those
scientists who are skeptical about the threat of global warming. On
the whole, their case is, I think, quite persuasive. The question,
then, is why so few people believe it.

Part of the answer is that bad news is good news-for the news media.
The media report arresting and frightening items, for that is what
draws listeners, viewers, and readers. The purveyors of climate
disaster theories have exploited this journalistic habit quite
brilliantly, releasing steadily more frightening scenarios without
much significant data to back them up. Consider the unguarded
admission of Steven Schneider of Stanford, a leading proponent of the
global warming theory. In a now notorious comment, printed in Discover
in 1989 and, surely to his discomfort, often cited by his opponents,
Schneider admitted:

To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up scary
scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little
mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the
right balance is between being effective and being honest.

This sort of willingness to place the cause above the truth has
exasperated Richard Lindzen, Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT,
who is one of the authors of the science sections of the report of the
International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body responsible for
an increasing crescendo of dire warnings. In testimony before the U.S.
Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, he called the IPCC's
Summary for Policymakers, which loudly sounds the warming alarm, "very
much a child's exercise of what might possibly happen . . . [which]
conjures up some scary scenarios for which there is no evidence."

This brings us to the second part of the answer, which concerns the
political and economic consequences of the policy argument. The IPCC
is a UN body and reflects UN politics, which are consistently
favorable to developing countries, the majority of its members. Those
politics are very supportive of the Kyoto treaty, which not only
exempts the developing countries from emissions standards but also
requires compensatory treatment from the wealthier nations for any
economic restraints that new climate management policies may impose on
these developing countries. Were Kyoto to be implemented as written,
the developing countries would gain lots of money and free technology.
One need not be a cynic to grasp that a UN body will do obeisance to
these political realities wherever possible.

The Kyoto treaty would not make a measurable difference in the
climate-by 2050, a temperature reduction of maybe two-hundredths of a
degree Celsius, or at most six-hundredths of a degree-but the
sacrifices it would impose on the United States would be quite large.
It would require us to reduce our projected 2012 energy use by 25
percent, a catastrophic economic hit. Small wonder that the Senate in
1997 passed a bipartisan resolution, the Byrd-Hagel anti-Kyoto
resolution, by 95-0 (a fact rarely recalled by those who claim that
America's refusal to sign on to the treaty was the result of the Bush
administration's thralldom to corporate interests).

Most of the European countries that have ratified Kyoto are falling
behind already on targets, despite having stagnant economies and
falling populations. It is highly unlikely they will meet the goals
they have signed on for, and they know it. Neither will Japan, for
that matter. The European Union has committed itself to an eight
percent reduction in energy use (from 1990 levels) by 2012, but the
European Environment Agency admits that current trends project only a
4.7 percent reduction. When Kyoto signers lecture non-signers for not
doing enough for the environment, they invite the charge of hypocrisy.
There is also the obvious fact that adherence to the treaty will hurt
the U.S. economy much more than the European, which suggests that
old-fashioned economic competitiveness is in the mix of motives at
play here. The absurdity of the treaty becomes obvious when we
recognize that it does not impose emissions requirements on developing
countries, including economic giants such as China, India, and Brazil.
(China will become the world's biggest source of carbon dioxide
emissions in just a few years.)

A third reason why global warming fears seem to be carrying the day
goes beyond these political interests; it involves intellectual pride.
Academics are a touchy tribe (I'm one of them); they do not take it
kindly when their theories, often the result of hard work, are
contradicted. And sure enough, the struggle for the truth in this
matter is anything but polite. It is intellectual warfare, entangled
with politics, reputations, and ideology; and most of the anger comes
from the side of the alarmists. People lose their tempers and hurl
insults-"junk science," "willful ignorance," "diatribe," "arrogant,"
"stupid," "incompetent," "bias," "bad faith," "deplorable
misinformation," and more. Consider the fiercely hateful reaction to
Bjorn Lomborg's 2001 book, The Skeptical Environmentalist. He
challenged the entrenched and politically powerful orthodoxy and did
so with maddeningly thorough data. His critics, unable to refute his
statistics, seem to have been enraged by their own weakness-a familiar
phenomenon, after all. Or perhaps, with their reputations and their
fund-raising ability tied to the disaster scenarios, they felt their
livelihoods threatened. In any case, the shrillness of their voices
has helped to drown out the skeptics.

Finally, there is a fourth cause: a somewhat murky antipathy to modern
technological civilization as the destroyer of a purer, cleaner, more
"natural" life, a life where virtue dwelt before the great
degeneration set in. The global warming campaign is the leading edge
of an environmentalism which goes far beyond mere pollution control
and indicts the global economy for its machines, its agribusiness, its
massive movements of goods, and above all its growing population.
Picking apart this argument to show the weakness of its pieces does
not go to the heart of the fear and loathing that motivate it. The
revulsion shows in the prescriptions advanced by the global warming
alarmists: roll back emissions to earlier levels; reduce production
and consumption of goods; lower birth rates. Our material ease and the
freedoms it has spawned are dangerous illusions, bargains with the
devil, and now comes the reckoning. A major apocalypse looms, either
to destroy or, paradoxically, to save us-if we come to our senses in
the nick of time.

It is clear, then, given the deep roots of the scare, that it is
likely to be pretty durable. It has the added advantage of not being
readily falsifiable in our lifetimes; only future humans, who will
have the perspective of centuries, will know for certain whether the
current warming trend is abnormal. In the meantime, the sanest course
for us would be to gain what limited perspective we can (remembering
the global cooling alarm of a generation ago) and to proceed
cautiously. We are going through a scare with many causes, and we need
to step back from it, take a long second look at the scientific
evidence, and not do anything rash. Though the alarmists claim
otherwise, the science concerning global warming is certainly not
settled. It is probable that the case for anthropogenic warming will
not hold up, and that the earth is behaving as it has for millennia,
with natural climate swings that have little to do with human
activity.

Thomas Sieger Derr has been writing on environmental ethics for many
years. He is Professor of Religion and Ethics at Smith College and the
author of Environmental Ethics and Christian Humanism.

(end of contrarian opinion piece)


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Op-ed writers should just shut up about scientific matters
    ... The scientific debate about whether there is a global warming ... climate scientists reported last month that the evidence for ... recent IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report." ...
    (rec.sport.football.college)
  • Re: Doom is at the Door
    ... The world's top scientists warned last week that ... > climate change is taking place today, ... > global warming, comes into force after a seven-year delay. ... as the seas rise dramatically. ...
    (sci.energy)
  • Re: OT: Al Gore has completely lost his mind!
    ... contribution to global warming. ... Hint for you: No scientists were. ... complicated than the story sold to us by many climate scientists or ...
    (rec.autos.sport.f1)
  • Re: NBC: An Inconvenient Truth
    ... particularly the assertion that it was scientists who were having their ... Global warming has achieved the status of a major threat. ... all of which point to a very warm climate in medieval times. ...
    (rec.music.artists.springsteen)
  • O.T. Many Scientists Debunk Gore!
    ... You know the movie that most of the scientists that the AP quoted have NOT ... what do world climate experts actually think about the ... ice is grounded, it has to break off in beautiful ice cascades. ... whether global warming is really happening? ...
    (alt.guitar.amps)