The global warming debate has been going for a long time, and both sides have become deeply entrenched. Unfortunately, this polarization is beginning to impede the achievement of any reasonable solution. Further, the proponents of steps to fight global warming deride the other side's motives while denying that theirs are in any way tainted. This is not a fair or acceptable behavior, particularly when it is behavior by scientists.
Cathy Young -- a contributing editor at Reason -- had this to say about it:
There is a growing number of voices in the scientific community that reject both denialism and alarmism on global warming. Roger Pielke, an environmental science professor at the University of Colorado, calls such people "nonskeptical heretics" -- those who believe that human-caused global warming is a real problem, but one that can be met in part with technological management and adaptation. [Chris] Mooney has come to embrace such a viewpoint as well.
Pielke has pointed out an unfortunate tendency toward political polarization within the scientific community. Last year, Tech Central Station, a website that supports the free-market system, promoted a statement by several scientists who dismissed any connection between hurricanes and global warming -- while environmental activists promoted the views of other scientists who argued that such a connection exists.Most journalists and pundits have limited knowledge of science; as a result, they tend to pick whichever science best suits their political prejudices. Both science and journalism deserve better. Perhaps we can start by remembering that an ideological crusade can be as strong an inducement to bend the truth as the profit motive.
This is the line that Roger Pielke at Prometheus has been pushing a long time, and I think that it is the right one. We can't let the debate start to exist for its own sake. It needs to exist to find some solution. Read the whole thing.
Hat-tip: Prometheus.
UPDATE: In light of Chris's comment, I think I need to also make something clear. I have read Chris's book. Having read it, I do not believe that he unfairly places all the blame on one side of the debate while ignoring the abuses of the other. He argues that the Right and the Bush administration have a better organized and more entrenched anti-science agenda and that they have been more effective at bringing that agenda to fruition. I think that characterization is accurate.
On the other hand, I also think that just because the Right is winning the dubious honor of being more anti-science it does not free anyone else from being called to account when they distort the truth.
As second point. Unfortunately, Chris has also become somewhat of a figurehead or a monolith in this debate. To many pundits, he represents the worst parts of a pro-science agenda. This is simplification for rhetoric, and it ignores what he actually says in favor of what people think he represents. I do not believe that representation of him is accurate, but the fact that we constantly need to label each other as part of a camp also strikes me as part of the problem. We need to listen to what people actually say, as opposed to what we think they would say.
Chris has attempted to put the record straight here, and I think he deserves a fair hearing.
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As I'm drawn upon extensively in this Cathy Young piece, I need to clarify my views. I don't think both sides are equally guilty of misusing science with respect to climate change:
http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/2007/01/dangers_of_the_middle.php
This seems so very civilized and reasonable, but I suspect that AGW deniers are in the process of redefining the debate by intentionally confusing scientific uncertainy with policy issues. Science has things to say about global climate. Policy has things to say about what should be done with regard to global climate. There is no middle ground on science; the data and the models say what they say within the limits of their uncertainties. There may well be middle ground on what to do about what science says.
Quite frankly, the piece is less than impressive. While not as explicit articluated as usually by the neo-classical 'libertarians', the implied argument that environmentalists are a monolthic group of ideologues bent on the expansion of govt powers to topple capitalism is a pathetic strawman.
Is "alarmism" and simply asserting that 1) global warming is a real phenomenon and 2) it's primary cause is human-caused release of fossil carbon (and a few other things)? Hopefully this is not considered alarmism, just realism.
Thanks, Jake, for drawing attention to my clarification.
Simply asserting" anything is clearly not alarmism.
On the other, predicting that the sea levels are going to rise 40 ft (13 meters, for those of you in the metric system) when - not if - the polar caps have completely melted as a result of a 6 deg Celsius temperature rise in the next 93 years - it's not clear to me that this is invoking realism in any sense of the word with which I'm familiar and I'm especially reluctant to attach that phrase to relatively unvalidated models such as those used in meteorology. At lunch today, the Channel 13 News predicts a high of 47 deg F for this Sat while Channel 11 calls for a high of 38. You have to wonder if they're even looking at the same data. The weatherpeople can't agree on the high temperature in 4 days and, yet, we as a society are supposed to be confident in their ability to predict temps a century out that we just buy into GW scenarios? Is that realistic?
Scientists are human, too. While they're supposed to be objective and interpret their data as truthfully as is possible, egos, as Ms. Young is attempting to point out, are playing a big role on both sides of this debate. Predicting doom and gloom - right or wrong - gets headlines, speaking engagements, book deals, and spots on cable news shows. Plus, if you throw in ".. and, of course, it's for the children!" a couple of times, you can get the support of the majority - you know, the ones who wouldn't know Navier unless he Stokes them in the @$$. (Note: By attempting to invoke the fear of the people who really don't understand the science - hardly anybody does! - with statements such as "Nebraska will be a barren wasteland..." or the like that this debate is reduced to something emotional akin to the Evo/ID debate. This isn't a battle for the peoples' hearts unless I'm wrong and this is actually about politics. Am I wrong?)
Perhaps sketicism is merely another form of realism...
Pi Guy, you are confusing multiple things. First, meteorology is not climatology. Meterology , as commonly understood, has to do with short-term forecasts for small regions (plus research into a variety of areas but those are usually specifically indicated as areas of atmospheric science rather than meteorology). Climatology has to do with analyzing and predicting trends over large (as in "global") areas and long periods of time. Forecasts for small regions are much harder than forecasts for averages over large areas. It's like trying to predict the behavior of a single molecule of gas versus predicting the behavior of a very large aggregation of gas molecules. We can't do one but we can do the other very well.
Climate models are, indeed, validated by forecasting current climates using old data, among other things. Climate scientists are aware of the limits of their models, but TV and print journalists perhaps not so much.
Your comparison to the evolution "debate" is a good one. Global warming deniers are using the same tactics that evolution deniers use by trying to claim that there is much, much more debate over the science than there really is. The real debate in climate modeling is what to do about global warming, and that, as I said, is a policy matter, not a scientific matter, although scientists can certainly assess what effect if any a given policy might have.
By the way, very few TV weatherpeople are climate scientists.
Cathy Young excells at such shadow "boxing":
"There is a growing number of voices in the scientific community that reject both denialism and alarmism on global warming."
The number may be growing, but it was very big to begin with. Most scientists have rejected "alarmism" and "denialism" from the getgo.
I'd say if they really want to know who is reassessing their position vis a vis global warming, hjournalists should take a good look atr themselves. After all, they fabricated the myth that their are only two camps -- alarmists and denialists -- with their focus on balance at the expense of reality).
It appears that the journalists are the lqast ones to realize that the joke is on them. When it comes to science, no one is buying their "balance" BS.
I recently saw the following quote, but with no attribution. However, I pass it on for your consideration as I believe it applies to Cathy's article...
"Science should be open-minded. Good science thrives on debate and discussion and not the reverse. What's happening today is the reverse - you claim consensus and marginalize anyone who disagrees with the mainstream. That's very unscientific"
"you claim consensus and marginalize anyone who disagrees with the mainstream. That's very unscientific"
If the consensus among scientists is that the earth is round, is marginalizing the kooks who think otherwise "unscientific"?
"Scientific" is not a word for which people are free to make up their own definitions. It means something very specific -- and it does not mean "putting all ideas on equal footing", as many (particularly journalists and libertarians) seem to think.