I just returned from delivering an hour-long presentation on climate change to the local chapter of American Association of University Women. It was one of the most intelligent and educated audiences I've had the pleasure to appear before. Followup questions were poignant and well-considered. But then someone piped up with:
"This is all makes a lot of sense. But last weekend I was reading a column by George Will...."
Sigh. The gentleman who had come across Will's error-laden Feb. 15 column, "Dark Green Doomsayers," was sincerely puzzled, I think. He seemed like a reasonable fellow who just had a hard time getting to where his brain seemed to be taking him. If I was right, then one of the most respected columnists for one of the most respected newspapers in the country was either grossly mistaken or lying (and here, among many other sources). How could that be?
My response went something along the lines of "Well, I think if you're interested in climate science, a conservative columnist with no training in climatology probably isn't the best source of information."
I was trying to be polite, but the conversation quickly slid into the frustration so many in the room, not just me, have with climate science denialism. Here's the thing: If Will is right, and there is no global warming, then much of what we think we know about chemistry and biology and ecology and thermodynamics and geology and physics is wrong. If Will is right, then thousands of climatologists are not only wrong, but participating in a global conspiracy to conceal the truth about the state of the planet's ecosystem. The climatologists have nothing to gain from perpetuating the "lie" of anthropogenic global warming, but they're doing it anyway, just to be mean.
And if that isn't the silliest idea since the 8-track tape, I don't know what is.
I'd like to believe that what George F. Will thinks he knows about climate change is irrelevant. But it looks like his reputation is going to pose a bit of a problem for those of us who beg to differ with the conclusions of his amateurish and pseudoskeptical analysis. This is not just about the liberal blogosphere getting its nose out of joint. This is about how ordinary Americans think about a very serious issue.
I began my talk today with a reference to the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, a satellite due to be launched this week that will help fill in a lot of the blanks in our understanding of the global carbon cycle. But if Will is right, then he could save NASA a lot of our money by writing climatology reports himself.
Go ahead, Will. Put your money where your mouth is. Those 600-word columns are just a tease. You could start by answering key elements of the OCO mission, such as:
... why the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by Earth's natural ocean and land "sinks" varies dramatically from year to year. These sinks help limit global warming. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory will help scientists better understand what causes this variability and whether natural absorption will continue, stop or even reverse.
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Wow, James, you sure seem to have attracted a special class of wingnut commenters. You should consider it a badge of honour, like Tara's HIV denialists, Orac's anti-vaxxers, and PZ's creationists.
-mark.
Sounds like what we have here is unfortunately a truly Western phenomenon. The Australian version of G Will (Andrew Bolt) is a conservative commentator who often blogs on climate change using the exact same denialist logic. Although his opinions are usually ignored by Australia's mainstream media consumers, he has coalesced a small yet vociferous army of previously dispersed online followers who (for many reasons) take his word as gospel.
IMHO the persistence of folks who monotonously wheel out such such easily refutable 'facts' is due to the lack of a coherent and easily digestible platform from which to base any sensible climate change discussions.
Invariably, genuinely concerned people 'lost' in the necessary complexity of a scientific debate turn to journalists; who's bread and butter is to reduce the complexity of any issue into 500 easily accessible words. A reporter who so desires is able to abuse the implicit trust provided to them by their readers in a way which furthers their own agenda.
It takes time to refute one simplistic fallacy - repeated often enough for it to be considered likely - time better spent in the pursuit of solutions. How do we combat that?
Great, now it's gone! Now people will wonder what my comment is referring to! (Some idjit had posted a comment something along the lines of "Hi, I'm James Hrynyshyn, an unemployed biologist hack who drinks his own pee to combat global warming" or some such drivel - don't worry, James, we knew it wasn't really you!)
-mark.
rfguy - I saw it, too. There was a very similar comment posted on Greg Laden's blog recently. Just like here, it looked like someone had hacked their way in an posted as the blog author.
My 80 year old father assures me that it is for the money... all those fat government appropriations for the bloated science budget. (sigh)
Hey! Lay off 8-track tape! It was a perfectly reasonable technology in its day.
Try not to look at things as "right" and "wrong". After reading George's article, I can fully understand his position, and partially agree with it. I also understand a lot about physics, so saying that climatologists are "wrong" is also incorrect. To state that they are lying is misleading, because I do not think that climatologist are being deceptive. They are, however, limited in their knowledge and understanding of climate, and therefore will have difficulty in making accurate climate predictions very far into the future. Based on what they "know" right now, it appears that global warming is caused by man, but as their knowledge base grows (as it always does over time), it may become clear that man isn't causing global warming at all. There are no mathematical proofs of correctness for climate predictions, so only time will tell whether or not the climate models are correct. Time also shows very clearly that what the experts know to be true ultimately turns out to be false. When a 'truth' falls, it is usually because of what you "didn't know" versus what you "did know". I believe the things that we do not know about the climate will be the ultimate explanation of global climate change, and it wouldn't surprise me to see that climatologists are wildly wrong -- they could be way undershooting or overshooting the predictions, but only because they are not modeling something correctly, not because they are deceptive or misleading.
Thanks again James for a fascinating program.One more theory
about doubters came up in conversation at the AAUW meeting
yesterday. Some of our husbands who are die hard Republican
corporate guys, see the conspiracy as being against big business and big profits. That climate change is a way of
preventing business from thriving. The old us VS them.
Weak sauce from Tony:
> There are no mathematical proofs of correctness for climate predictions...
There are no mathematical proofs of correctness for anything... except mathematical statements about abstract properties of abstract objects. That is why they call it... mathematics.
> Try not to look at things as "right" and "wrong".
Science is hard - let's go shopping!
All that can be done is collect the symptoms of denialism. Show that the pattern repeats itself again and again. But it most certainly won't prevent denialism; people just enjoy it too much.
thanks. by Brooklyn
Thanks You.
thanks admin