A CBC Ideas podcast about encountering climate change "deniers": http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/decoding-the-resistance-to-climate-change-are-we-doomed-1.4288483. This won't appeal to some, but I point it out for information's sake.
That's an interesting article, Robert, which does an excellent job in contributing to the confusion.
If I were to respond to every misguided point in the article, it would take another 64 pages. However, Naomi Oreskes, does make
some valid points. For many people, the issue might well be about government regulation and intervention rather than the science.
My impression is that most people don't have an understanding of the fundamental processes of the scientific methodology, so it's understandable they can only react emotionally and politically to the issue.
For example, one interesting point that Naomi makes is that 20% of Australians
don't even believe in climate change at all, according to one survey. Such is their ignorance.
This fact perhaps explains in part why a former Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, coined the slogan, which she repeated on many occasions, 'Climate Change is Real'.
Nothing wrong with that of course, except it was a rather puzzling statement for me because of the context in which she used slogan, which was always about CO2-induced climate change. In other words, her slogan appeared to be an abbreviation for 'Human-induced Climate Change is real'. She seemed to be trying to conflate the undeniable fact that climate is always changing, with the far less certain view that human emissions of CO2 are the cause of the current change.
Of course, this is just the nature of politics. However, Science is different. Science does not sweep inconvenient truths under the carpet, or confuse uncertainties with certainty.
As I mentioned before, about 20 years ago, I assumed that the reports in the news media, and interviews with climate scientists in the media, all warning about the potential catastrophe of rising CO2 levels, were true. That's because I was so ignorant on the issue of climate.
However, because of my concern about the issue, and my puzzlement as to why governments were not tackling the problem more swiftly, I became interested in exploring and inquiring about this issue of climate change for myself, and discovered, with some amazement, what appeared to be very relevant facts which were never mentioned during interviews with the climate scientists in the media, or scientists in related fields. The only reason I could think of, for this omission, was that such facts might reduce the alarm about the effects of CO2.
As a perfect example, let's consider the following statement from Naomi Oreskes:
"The evidence is everywhere: forests retreating, glaciers melting, sea levels rising. Droughts, floods, wildfires and storms have increased five-fold over the past 50 years."Do any of you alarmists detect anything misleading here? I do. I'll list them for you.
(1) Forests are retreating because humans are cutting them down for agricultural purposes, and/or the use of the timber.
They are not retreating because of CO2 emissions. In fact, the remaining forests, which we haven't cut down, will tend to expand naturally, with more vigour, as a result of increased CO2 levels.
Increased CO2 levels help green the planet. Anyone disagree?
(2) In a slightly warming global climate, of around 1 degree C during the past 150 years, one would expect at least some degree of
net melting of glaciers and some rise in sea levels. Melting glaciers and rising sea levels are evidence of warming, not evidence that rising CO2 levels are the cause. Anyone disagree?
(3) Droughts, floods, and storms have certainly not increased five-fold over the past 50 years, according to the Technical Summary in the latest IPCC report, which is the great authority for all AGW alarmists. So where is Naomi getting this information?
I'll repeat yet again, the Working Group 1 section of the latest AR5 IPCC report, which deals with the technical evidence, specifically states there is a lack of evidence to support the assertion that floods, droughts and hurricanes have been increasing in frequency or intensity since 1950, globally. Their terminology is 'low confidence', due to a lack of evidence.
Of course, the climate-change alarmists, such as Bart Vanderwolf
, always try to squiggle out of such 'low confidence' claims by this so-called great authority on climate change, the IPCC. Bart tries to argue that 'low confidence due to lack of evidence' does not mean there's a 'low risk' of floods, droughts and hurricanes increasing.
Consider the following scenario. If a group of scientists were to claim it has 'low confidence' that there was any increase in the frequency and severity of floods, droughts and hurricanes during a particular 60 year period in 500 BC, 1,000 AD, or 1,600 AD, due to a lack of evidence, then most people would understand that one could not draw the conclusion that increases in extreme weather events never occurred. A lack of evidence understandably creates uncertainty, and the lack of evidence due to a lack of modern measuring devices in the past, is understandable.
However, in the modern era with sophisticated measuring devices, the world-wide monitoring of extreme weather events, the news media reportage of every major disaster almost immediately it occurs, as well as the regular reportage every day of the past day's weather and future predictions, in most regions that are inhabited by humans, the conclusions to be drawn from a 'consensus' of IPCC technical researchers that there is 'low confidence' due to a lack of evidence that the extreme weather events of droughts, floods and storms have been increasing, has other implications, does it not?
Extreme weather events are the only aspects of climate that people directly experience as being alarming. The reportage of such events is a not only a major news item, but such events are monitored by the bureaus of meteorology, or equivalent organisations, in most areas. Significant data must be gathered, surely. If we can't even gather enough data to be certain that extreme weather events are increasing, or not, as the case may be, then what degree of certainty can the science of climatology achieve in respect of the other extremely complex aspects of climate?
Now, I don't wish to insult Bart, it's not my style. I appreciate that he has great skills in applying computer technology to the analysis of camera performance and image processing. However, from my experience in general, people who are immersed in computer technology and programming will naturally tend to have a biased confidence in the processes they are specialized in.
My impression is that predictions of increases in frequency, and/or intensity of extreme floods, droughts and hurricanes, due to CO2 rises, are not based upon direct evidence of past and recent events, but are based upon computer modelling.
One reads many references to the unprecedented rainfall in the Houston area recently, from Hurricane Harvey. Over 50 inches of rain might be the heaviest downpour since records of rainfall began in the area, but not necessarily the heaviest if we could include the period before rainfall was recorded with relatively modern gauges.
Likewise, the record of 50 or more inches of rain at Houston, is not a record in the wider area. There are other places, such as Cuba and Hawaii that have received over 60 inches of rain during the past century, during a hurricane or storm.
It's very easy to emotionally respond to such extreme weather events, and in the absence of the historical evidence of previous events be conned into assuming that such events are linked to CO2 rises. It sort of gives people hope for the future. If we succeed in reducing CO2 levels, such disasters are less likely to occur again.
Finally, in order not to make the post too long, let's consider Robert's comment,
It's such an odd thing that people have latched onto it to be skeptical about, given all the other "magical" aspects of science that could be difficult to believe for the non-professional. I am thinking of things like relativity (special or general) or evolution. Do people view those as the far-out ideas of elites that should be fought against? Why not?
Eric Myrvaagnes, on this forum, has also made similar arguments. Why should people doubt science when scientists can predict solar eclipses?
The answer is obvious.
People do not doubt the science that provides accurate predictions. Skepticism about the predictions of climate change is not an attack on science. It's a confirmation of the sound principles of science, which have to include skepticism in the absence of repeatable experimentation which can replicate the results, and which can provide an accuracy of predictions based upon a particular theory, and which can provide the opportunity or circumstances to simulate conditions with models, and conduct experiments to either falsify or confirm a particular theory. This is Science 101.
The reliable technological devices we use, such as cars, planes, TVs, guns, rockets, computers, X-ray equipment, telescopes, digital cameras and so on, (not to mention nuclear bombs), are not designed by climatologists. They are designed and based upon scientific theories which can be tested in real time in laboratories. The so-called science of climatology cannot meets these high standards because of the great complexity of the circumstances, the elements of chaos involved, the impossibility of creating an accurate model of the entire planet, the unreliability or scarcity of accurate data from the past and even the present, and the large time-scales involved in the process of climate change.
To phrase it as simply as possible, 'No CO2 equates to no life'. 'No skepticism equates to no scientific progress'.
Let's consider Robert's analogy of Einstein's theory of relativity. Did people view that as a far-out idea that should be fought? Absolutely! Many physicists of the time did not accept the theory. It needed to be proved through the usual process of experimentation, and falsification, over many years. As a result of this process Einstein's theory of General Relativity initially proved to be at least partially flawed, because he had assumed the universe was static, and therefore had included an unnecessary 'cosmological constant' in his equations.
"When Einstein developed his theory of gravity in the General Theory of Relativity, he thought he ran into the same problem that Newton did: his equations said that the universe should be either expanding or collapsing, yet he assumed that the universe was static. His original solution contained a constant term, called the cosmological constant, which cancelled the effects of gravity on very large scales, and led to a static universe. After Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding, Einstein called the cosmological constant his "greatest blunder."Relativity is a falsifiable theory. It makes predictions that can be tested by experiment. However, even today, a hundred years after Einstein published his theories, their ultimate accuracy is again in doubt, as a result of recent observations from advanced telescopes in outer space.
Apparently, Dark Energy and Dark Matter are theoretical inventions that attempt to explain these observations that cannot otherwise be understood with existing theories.
There are suggestions that Einstein's theory needs another cosmological constant, or perhaps a completely new theory is required.
Thus endeth the lesson.
