CALLING IT SCIENCE DOESN'T MAKE IT SO

A regular correspondent of mine at the Local Area Watch website, Steve Goulet, had a comment about this article in which I criticized the media's coverage of the recent announcement by the National Academy of Sciences that appeared to support the notion that global warming is threat to humanity.  He disagreed with my contemptuous dismissal of the herd's consensus on this issue by stating, "While I don't claim any expertise in this domain of science, I do put my trust in the global consensus that has grown out of peer reviewed scientific due process."  He thought I would do well to do the same.  I demurred ...

Steve,

It is a matter of thinking for yourself. No one disagrees that the Earth has been in a warming trend since the last ice age. No one disagrees that this trend has occurred in the form of warming and cooling cycles, lasting about six or seven centuries. No one disagrees that the last warming peak was in the Middle Ages (the Medieval Climate Optimum) and that the last cold spell (the Little Ice Age) bottomed out around 1700. No one disagrees that there has been a less than one degree Celsius increase in average temperature over the past one hundred years, and most of that increase occurred before 1940.

So, the fact that we are presently in the upswing of an established climate cycle is unremarkable. We may even be near the peak if the cycle holds. Furthermore, the increase in temperature that has actually been measured is mild to say the least -- less than one degree Celsius over the past century.

Moreover, people overlook that the average RANGE of temperatures over the same period is huge in comparison. Heck, the difference between night and day alone is usually ten degrees or more. In other words, the normal variation in temperature from year to year has not produced disaster. So even if the scaremongering models of global warming are correct (and they're not, because they cannot even replicate what has historically happened within a factor of ten), we have no reason to believe that the results will be adverse to us.

And you don't have to take my word for it. Read all of the peer-reviewed works of scientists receiving grants or salaries from governments and organizations who have, a priori, determined global warming is a threat. Note how their conclusions are hedged. There is a reason why so few make firm statements about this phenomenon as a threat. They really don't know.

And this brings me to my final point. Scientists may practice science, but they are also human beings. There is no valid reason why I should not apply my knowledge of human nature to what they do to evaluate the reliability of their work. Calling it science doesn't make it so. It is the responsibility of the layman to consider such things critically and not just take the word of the authorities.

Regards, Bill

Comments

[Steve Goulet]

Bill,

I learn from science, collaboration, peer review, and discussion but I don't allow myself to be effected by bias or ideology. I keep an open mind and I've followed this issue for twenty years with a mix of skepticism and concern. Insinuating that I don't think for myself is just not accurate.

Your ideology surrounding environmental issues appears to be so strong that you would never consider evidence that compromises your point of view. Instead, you question the source of the information, like you did with my link to Wikipedia, or the scientists who are warning of the dangers. Even worse -- you pretend that your knowledge of human nature explains the dichotomy between the facts and your ideology.

Have you seen "An Inconvenient Truth"? I just went and saw it over the weekend. Given your ideological orientation I'm sure you'd reflexively reject the message and the messenger. I can only imagine the anger you must feel as you think about all the people who are watching that movie and spreading the message it includes.

What do you suppose would cause thousands of climate scientists across the world to unite together in a ruse so great as this one? Are they lying about the correlation between carbon dioxide and temperature, and the fact that human caused increases in carbon dioxide have pushed us far above levels seen in the last 60,000 years?

Do you believe the world could be only 4,000 years old? After all, there are doubters (http://www.creationresearch.org/vacrc.html) and calling carbon dating "science" doesn't make it so.

--Steve

[Bill]

Hi, Steve.

My counsel is to think for yourself. I do not claim expertise in climatology. I do claim the commonsense to evaluate the soundness of a climatologist's statements.

For example, Steve, what does "average world temperature" mean? This is the figure people glom onto to prophesize gloom and doom, but have you thought about the methodologies and proxies used to create this figure over the past several centuries? More basic, is this figure even meaningful for world in which the daily variations in temperatures exceed by a magnitude whatever increase the doomsters' computer models forecast?

No expert knowledge is needed to consider these questions that go to the heart of whether there even is "global warming". But let's say there is. Why is that a problem? With what level of certainty is there that warming will be catastrophic and not beneficial? Why doesn't a mild climate over the huge expanses of Canada and Siberia mitigate adverse consequences elsewhere, assuming that more heat would, let's say, expand the Sahara rather than shrink it with more rain -- after all, heat tends to create more precipitation?

But let's say it will be catastrophic. What can we do about it? Is this catastrophic warming truly anthropogenic? The correlations between temperature and carbon emission data over the period for which we actually have decent records (the past century and a half) don't make that case. And why do those who make the claim that this warming is anthropogenic seldom account for the 800-pound gorilla in this whole story: The sun?

The variations in the sun's output swamp anything we mere humans add to the atmosphere. If the sun is the culprit and not humans, then there is nothing we can about "global warming", whether it is good or bad.

So, we have three questions which commonsense can address:

[1] Is there in fact "global warming" because the average world temperature has increased?

[2] Would "global warming" be beneficial or disastrous?

[3] Is there anything we can do to effectively mitigate "global warming"?

None of these questions are the exclusive province of the experts (who are, in fact, contentiously divided on the issue despite the media's failure to report this). So, as I say, we must think for ourselves. I have, and I have found wanting the case that anthropogenic global warming will be disastrous. Indeed, starting with Mann's "hockey stick" chart, there appears to me to be some fraud and not a little mendacity supporting that case.

Regards, Bill

[John]

Among other things these two related references argue that we human beings are having a profoundly negative effect on global weather patterns and that we have brought the entire planet to the brink of both cultural & ecological meltdown!

1. www.dabase.net/spacetim.htm
2. www.coteda.com/fundamentals/index.html

Plus 2 related essays/references on science and its limitations.

3. www.dabase.net/broken.htm
4. www.dabase.net/ilchurst.htm