It’s been a long blogging hiatus! But that’s ok because no one reads this anyway, except maybe a few through facebook.
There is something I don’t believe most climate change activists understand about those of us who are stubbornly unconcerned about it, and (like me)insist on ridiculing the idea. I had a back and forth with @ClimateBrad on twitter today which highlighted this for me.
The ridicule:
rickyteachey: Smug climate scientists increasingly less smug, part 56874136: dubious claims of sea level rising.http://bit.ly/cXdtb3
The “well, actually…”:
climatebrad @rickyteachey Read the story. Scientists retracted claim of *limit* to sea level rise.
I remain unconvinced of the prediction of sea level rise:
rickyteachey: @climatebrad Think you’re hearing what you want to hear. The upshot of the story is they don’t know anything.
climatebrad @rickyteachey The “scientists don’t know anything” hypothesis is one way to interpret that story, yes. A bit bizarre, though.
rickyteachey: @climatebrad Not at all bizarre if you’re a scientist or engineer and have 1st hand experience with computer modeling. They don’t know, bro.
Finally, I’m presented with incontrovertible evidence that I am wrong:
climatebrad @rickyteachey Even if you don’t believe in expert modeling, you need to explain away the evidencehttp://bit.ly/aiC8Qg http://bit.ly/b7K4FT
All snark aside, I appreciate ClimateBrad’s desire to set the record straight here. After all, the title of the Guardian piece (Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels) is certainly misleading.
The reason I linked the piece, however, was simply because it exemplifies a situation where the claim “the science is settled” is obviously a dubious one. The science is constantly in flux. The reason climate science is constantly in flux is because it is based on inadequate computer models and very little data.
Now here’s the interesting part (yeah I knew you were wondering when that was coming). Here I thought we’re having a little exchange of opinion about the reliability of predictions about the negative effects of climate change, and then I get thrown some links about Antarctic ice shelf decrease over the past 3 years, and how I “need to explain away the evidence”? But the prediction of future climate catastrophe is a separate (and admittedly related) issue from what has been going on today. In fact, there are actually 5 separate issues at stake in this, not just 1, and you can’t go jumping around hitting them with links links links. They have to be taken one at a time.
Now I could try pointing out that temperatures worldwide are actually LOWER over the past several years and have continued to fall during the same time that ice has decreased (according to those links). But I’m not a climate scientist and don’t really know all the ins and outs of that stuff.
Here’s what I do know. Climate change characterized by global warming isn’t even 1/4 of the issue here. There are actually five things I would have to be convinced of in order for me to stop rolling my eyes over this.
- That climate change- characterized by long term global warming- is happening.
- That it will be bad for the world if it does happen.
- That it is man-caused.
- That man is able to stop it (this is a separate issue from #3).
- That it is worth making the effort to stop it (in economic and moral terms).
As you can see, the original article relates to point 2. However, data about what is happening today, while related to point 2, doesn’t really convince me that the science as it stands is capable of making anything approaching a reliable prediction about climate.
As a matter of fact, the evidence tells us they don’t know what the hell they are doing. As far as I am aware, the models have yet to accurately predict much of anything. And this isn’t meant as a knock against scientists- their job is hard! I’m an engineer (kinda- still working on that masters degree!), and from what I know about computer modeling and data interpretation for climate science (which is to say, more than most people, but not enough to make me an expert), it’s very difficult to make a good model, and (especially for global climate) perhaps impossible with the amount of knowledge we have about how the climate works and all the different mechanisms affecting it.
As for the 5 points themselves, I’m not convinced any of those things are true. However, even if I concede that, yes, it is happening, you’re only 20% of the way there in convincing me it’s even worth talking about.
I tend to believe that the opposites of #2-#5 are true.
5. Stopping global warming wouldn’t be worth the cost:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtbn9zBfJSs
4. We couldn’t stop it anyway. The political will isn’t there, and we don’t have the technology to replace our energy resources. Don’t talk to me about renewable energy. It’s mostly bunk.
3. Lots of scientists DO NOT THINK that it is caused by man or at least believe that the cause is unknown:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming#Global_warming_is_primarily_caused_by_natural_processes
2. Overall, global warming would actually be a net benefit to the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming#Global_warming_will_not_be_significantly_negative
To be honest, I am agnostic about point #1, which is to say I don’t care. However, even if I believed 100% that climate change characterized by global warming was occurring, it wouldn’t change my attitude toward it one iota. And that is what climate change alarmists need to understand about us: we don’t care if it’s happening. YOU have to convince us to care. YOU have to convince me that ALL FIVE of those things are likely to be true.
And you haven’t done it.
February 22, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Science is always in flux, but that doesn’t mean that there’s debate now over the three-dimensional nature of the earth, the photoelectric effect, or the power of natural selection in speciation.
That the earth’s atmosphere has warmed in the last hundred years is incontrovertible, unless you believe in a massive conspiracy.
That the warming trend is gradual but is accelerating is also incontrovertible.
The 2000s were warmer than the 1990s which were warmer than the 1980s which were warmer than the 1970s. The warming trend has increased each decade such that natural variability and manmade cooling effects, which swamped the warming trend before the 1980s, now only has an effect on annual trends.
These are just facts.
The only explanation that scientists have managed to offer consistent with this trend (and other observations, such as how and where the warming occurs, changes in the oceans, ice and glacial retreat, etc.) is increased radiative forcing from greenhouse gases.
People have tried other hypotheses — solar variance, cosmic rays, volcanoes — but none have been found to be consistent with observations and our understanding of physical laws.
Practically the only way that the scientific predictions of increases in greenhouse gas pollution and its effects — global warming, sea level rise, Arctic ice melt, glacial retreat, ecosystem changes — have been inaccurate is that they have been too optimistic. Arctic summer sea ice retreat is way below levels predicted only five years ago; sea level rise in the last 20 years has been at the very high end of estimates; etc.
It’s certainly true that it’s a moral and value judgment whether or not to play Russian roulette with the only planet our species inhabits.
February 22, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Also a value judgment: whether it’s a good thing to spend 10 trillion dollars, doom billions of people to poverty, and to drastically and irreversibly increase the role of the government in the daily lives of everyone on the planet.
Good points, though, on whether it is happening at all. But like I said, that’s only 20% of the issue.