The Corpus Callosum

James Robbins, contributing editor at the National Review Online, thinks global warming is a good idea.  This is proclaimed in his article, Hooray for Global Warming.

This is another version of the "CO₂ is life" meme.  And like "CO₂ is life," it is utter nonsense.  Anyone who would say that fails to grasp a critical point about climate science.  I've never actually done a fisking, and I do not particularly care for it as a literary form, but this one begs for it...

Hooray for Global Warming
Surf’s up!

By James S. Robbins

Every time we have a summer heatwave invariably the media go crazy with talk of global warming. You would think they would be used to the phenomenon of seasons by now. But it is great fodder for the features producers, and since the weather is on everybody’s mind you might as well go with a segment on climate change. It’s a nice respite from the real problems in the world.

Personally, I don’t know what all the shouting is about. Global warming is great. Granted, maybe it isn’t really happening, and if it is there are strong reasons to doubt that humans have anything to do with it. But if the world is warming, I say “bravo.” ...

...If the aliens were watching they’d conclude we were making our planet more habitable on purpose...

Any alien race that was sufficiently advanced to be watching us surely would know that it is not just the amount of change that is important, but the RATE of change is important as well.

And imagine the land boom up the coastlines as people rushed on up for beachfront property. If global warming is real it is creating the investment opportunity of a lifetime.

Sure, if the climate changes slowly enough, we could adapt.  But changes occurring on a decade-by-decade basis would present intractable problems.  In the case of beachfront property, who would buy such property, if it is going to be underwater in a few more decades?

True, there might be some dislocations as crops shifted northward, but so what?

So what?  It takes farmers years to learn  how to maximize the yields in a given area.  Especially given the increase climate variability, agriculture will become much more unpredictable.  

A warmer wetter world could very well mean more rain forests — hence more biodiversity!

More biodiversity would be great.  But for that to happen, the climate in a given area has to be stable long enough for organisms to adapt and undergo speciation.  It is a rate-of-change issue again.  

He seems to have a glimmer of insight, for a moment, but then screws it up:

Granted, there will be some negative impacts in marginal areas. Some rare plant and animal species, hyper-adapted to highly specific climate conditions or micobiotic zones, are already unable to cope with the change. Many may go extinct; some already have. That’s tough, but chalk it up to bad evolutionary choices.

"That's tough" is a value statement.  It is as though there is some some of natural good that occurs, if a species makes a "bad choice," and becomes extinct.  But this is not about what is right or wrong for a given species; it is about what is good or bad for humans.  And if we loose -- forever -- valuable antibiotics or cardiac medications, then we are all worse off -- forever.  So what if some sort of cosmic justice prevails over a species that made a bad choice?  We still loose.

Basically I am questioning the premise of the global-warming alarmists, namely that this is a problem rather than an opportunity. And besides, I distrust their motives. Many are simply panicky people in need of some form of approaching eschatology. These sad folk afflicted with the “true believer” psychology require something large and threatening to worry about in order to give meaning to their lives.

I do not personally know any climate scientists.  Would someone who does, please find me one example of a climate scientist for whom the above description applies?  

Another motive, sometimes open sometimes not, is to end the free-market system as we know it. By linking the cause of global warming to the activities of the most productive economies in human history, they can take down capitalism by other means.

In point of fact, when global warming first became a concern, there were economists -- many of whom were ardently pro-business -- who tried to apply their newly-developed complex-systems theories to the problem of climate change prediction.  As I understand it, that is where the idea of "tipping points" came from.  They were alarmed at what they saw.  They certainly were not trying to "take down capitalism."  

It is fine to sit around and engage in armchair musing regarding the supposed motivations of others, except for one thing: it is almost impossible to know what motivates someone else.  Plus, it is irrelevant what motivation people have.  The question is: are they right about the  science?

But change is natural. Gaia is all about change. 

Arsenic is natural too.  But that does not mean it is good for you.  Again, he gets into a moralistic type of argument that is entirely beside the point.

There is no challenge posed by a slow-rolling phenomenon like global warming that cannot be overcome...

Rate of change, again.  There is nothing slow about this.  And where does he get the idea that there are challenges that cannot be overcome?  

And if this threatens our cities one would think some form of sea wall would be in order. The Dutch have been doing this for years, there is no reason why we can’t copy them.

He might want to review his geography.  The coastline of the USA is a bit longer that anything the dutch ever had to deal with.  

As with most fiskings, I could go on and on, but surely the point has been made.