Like almost every other right-thinking, intelligent, liberal,
educated person I believe (a) that global warming is real, (b) that it is
largely man-made, and (c) that there is almost complete agreement in the scientific
community that both (a) and (b) are true. So clearly when someone like Donald
Trump, or some conservative Republican oil-state senator says he doesn’t
necessarily believe the climate change story, I discount them as simply
ignorant, or in the pocket of the big fossil fuel corporations
But like most right-thinking, intelligent, educated people,
I am no climate scientist, so what I am so sure of I have gleaned largely from dumbed-down
press stories, popular mass-market books, and the opinions of those around me,
which are also based almost entirely on the same dumbed-down press stories and
popular mass-market books. And even if I read the original studies, without
expertise in such arcane fields as dendroclimatology (determining past temperatures
from tree rings) or time series analysis (reliably sorting a trend line from
noise in a very noisy chronology of past temperature estimates) I wouldn’t be
qualified to critique them.
So the preparation of a couple of my recent blogs on climate
change has been an eye-opener for me. For one thing, a little online research
reveals that there is indeed dissent among serious, well-trained scientists
about both (a) and (b) above. And even
those scientists that agree with both (a) and (b) are widely split on how
serious the issue really is, and what, if any, are the appropriate policy responses.
But climate change has become a major multinational industry
providing billions in research money, a major source of new bureaucratic power
(and increased budget) for agencies like the EPA, and a liberal litmus test
issue. So of course the popular news is heavily biased, and in the scientific world
it is hard for dissenting studies to get through peer reviews (by peers who
would lose careers and funding if the dissents were proven accurate). Dissenters
tend to get dismissed out of hand by “established” climate scientists, just as
Stephen Hawking’s black hole theories were dismissed out of hand by “established”
astrophysicists, until the evidence became too much to ignore. (Actually, the
history of science is chock full of “established” theories held by the majority
of scientists that turned out in the end to be completely wrong.)
Those of us who are old enough have seen this before, of
course. The 1968 book The Population Bomb,
by Paul Ehrlich, set off a similar frenzy over several decades about overpopulation,
and became the liberal litmus test of its time.
Now, of course, we know that it was overblown, and in fact a substantial
number of nations like Japan and Russia are depopulating themselves, posing
entirely different crisis.
And then we went through several decades when everyone
(except the oil companies) was sure that in the early 1970’s we had hit the peak
oil point predicted by M. King Hubbard. It turned out the oil companies were
right and we “politically enlightened” public were wrong. New prospecting techniques and new extraction
methods (like fracking and deepwater drilling) have greatly expanded the proven
reserves (though of course we will someday run out).
It may well be that 97% of scientists believe that global warming
is real and man-made (though no one seems to be able to find the original source
of this widely-quoted number, and it may have simply been made up by some
journalist, as such simple statistics often are), but widely-held belief is not
evidence of truth, just evidence of widely-held belief.
So what is my conclusion here? I haven’t the climatology or
statistical expertise to tell if the dissenters have valid arguments, but I can
tell that there are more than a few serious dissenters, with serious studies
based on widely available public climate data and thoroughly documented analysis
methods, that disagree with the current liberal climate change beliefs.
More than that, there are critics who make a compelling case
that some of the most prominent climate change researchers may have, either wittingly
or through incorrect understanding of statistical methods, “manipulated” or “cherry
picked” the data to get the answer they want, which actually wouldn’t be that surprising,
considering the career pressures and funding at risk, nor would this by any means be the first time research
was “steered” toward a politically desirable result.
This experience has made me remember again Oliver Cromwell’s
1650 admonishing to the general assembly of the Church of Scotland: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ,
think it possible you may be mistaken.” There are certainly people out
there who reject climate change out of simple ignorance, anti-science sentiment,
or ideology, but there are also others who reject it, or parts of it, out of
well-considered thought and study.
If you are emotionally committed to believing in man-made climate
change, you can just ignore this posting.
But if you actually want to be open minded and explore the other side of
the argument, let me suggest the following sites as potential starting points:
Just Facts at http://www.justfacts.com/ Factual, evidence-based analysis of many
issues, of which global warming is just one.
Manhattan Contrarian at http://manhattancontrarian.com. Perhaps start with the posting How To Tell Who's Lying To You: Climate Science Edition. It will lead you to other relevant articles.
Roy Spencer’s site at http://www.drroyspencer.com/. Perhaps start with My Global Warming Skepticism, for Dummies, which is a good summary.
The Business Insider
article The
10 Most-Respected Global Warming Skeptics might give you some pause, since
it even includes one Nobel Prize winner.
Wikipedia also has a list of scientists who oppose the mainstream global
warming assessment. It can be found here. The list is no doubt incomplete, but it gives
a starting point for finding articles and papers relevant to the discussion.
If you want to look yourself at raw climate source data, or
examine climate model code in detail, or do some of your own analysis on the
data, go to RealClimate at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/
Unless you are trained in the right fields you may not
have the tools to critically analyze these skeptic’s arguments and data, but
you will certainly see that there are serious opposing views and arguments, and
that despite the media claims, there is not unanimity at all in the scientific
field about the extent or causes of global warming, and that would be a revelation
for some. It certainly was for me.
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