The Daily Express has printed a shockingly awful front page today, claiming that the current weather conditions prove that Anthropogenic Global Warming is a conspiracy. You wonder whether it's ever worth responding to these things, but on the grounds that a drip will eventually bore a hole in granite, I sent the following :
The Express 'prides itself on strong views and opinions' (unquote). Not truthful or balanced opinions, just strong ones. Unfortunately, when it comes to global warming/climate change, opinions without evidence, knowledge and understanding are just noise.
Unfortunately, the science involves collecting vast amounts of data from many different fields of study and identifying very faint patterns. Like it or not, we and our politicians are in the hands of the scientists who have access to that data and the means to interpret it. Whilst it's possible that 5% of scientists have a political agenda and perverse motivation, it seems a bit unlikely that 95% (in countries across the world with completely different political systems) share in some global conspiracy. I don't understand what they're supposed to be gaining from it if it is a conspiracy. Short term research grants? Is that worth prostituting your reputation for? And why would any politician want to believe the scientists' predictions, given that it creates enormous additional political challenges - on top of all the others? I just don't understand why it's in anybody's interest to spin such a conspiracy.
95% of scientists directly involved in climate studies seem to agree that we are faced with climate change as a result of human-generated carbon emissions. Of the other 5%, from the limited information I've seen, about half are funded by the oil and coal industry. If there is any actual evidence of conspiracy it's in the right-wing 'free market' think tanks and oil industry links to prominent 'deniers'.
I'm not hearing much dispute about the likely consequences if long range climate change is a reality (however it may be caused) - the consequences are extremely severe, not just for the physical environment but for the political chaos it might unleash. Your editorial comment asserts "if global warming is still occurring it is by no means disastrous for this country". So Africa and Latin America can go hang! Brazil and India are rapidly becoming world superpowers - what kind of strategy is that? What might be the implications of 20 million refugees from Bangladesh alone?
Even if only 10% of climate scientists were expressing alarm about AGW we ought to be seriously concerned and taking immediate steps to reduce carbon emissions in case that 10% were right. One thing's for certain, if a warming trend has been established there will be no quick fix.
A 'balanced opinion' would then report that 1 in 10 scientists believed in man-made global warming - but those odds would be more than compensated for by the extreme consequences of their being right. If I play Russian Roulette there's only a one in six chance of blowing my head off . . . but "on balance", I'd rather not play Russian roulette, thanks.
But in fact more than 9 out of 10 are warning of extremely severe consequences of inaction.
There's nothing clever or 'balanced' about playing Russian Roulette with all but one of the revolver's chambers loaded - and pointing the gun at your baby granddaughter, not your own head. And there is nothing balanced or clever about printing the irresponsible article you have done today.
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2 comments:
further contribution to the Express blog :
What's with this "righteous brigade" taunt? The world scientific community isn't a 'brigade' - it's hundreds of scientists in many countries employed by a host of governments, private companies, charitable trusts etc etc. Nobody can be 'in charge' of it because it isn't a single thing.
So 'it' can't be 'righteous'; and anyway it's nothing to do with moral superiority. It's to do with science - churning through vast amounts of data and trying to find patterns. It's actually very boring, painstaking work - far harder than sitting in an armchair pontificating, like many of the contributors to this blog.
I have a science-based degree and it's taught me (a) how much I don't know, and (b) something about scientific method. Scientific method is about sticking to the data and trying to pick holes in any theory that other scientists come up with. That's how a scientist makes their name. That process has been going on for thirty years with regard to human-induced global warming, and the data collecting for a couple of hundred before that, and a clear consensus has emerged.
The only ones left trying to challenge the basic conclusion (that we are causing global warming) are the 'also-rans' - the ones left behind - and the ones who think they can make money selling 'shocking exposé' books full of pseudo-technical jargon to gullible people who for whatever reason don't want to believe it's happening, or who enjoy a good conspiracy theory. They're the scientific equivalent of Mills & Boone, and they know how to market themselves (and where to find the financial backers).
What I find astounding is the arrogance of people, including the editors and columnists at the Daily Express, who think it's funny to print self-righteous articles like this. These media types have no feeling for science at all : they think the truth is found by finding two extremes and splitting the difference. They call it 'balance'. That may work in the arts, and it may sell papers, but in science it's just stupidity.
What worries me is the possibility that they know perfectly well it's stupidity and they don't care as long as it sells papers - they publish the stuff anyway.
further further contribution (the exchanges were getting progressively engaged with the issues, and the previous post was an open letter from 120-odd scientists challenging human-induced global warming) :
Glad to see the discussion's getting into some more serious discussion of the science instead of armchair pontificating.
The trouble I have is : because theories of human-induced climate change depend on analysis of vast amounts of data across a whole range of disciplines, which also have to account for enormous global variations over a geological time scale it's more or less impossible for a single scientist - or even scientific institution - to 'win the argument'. That's why the conspiracy theory stuff can't be taken seriously. The only scientists with proven lobbying power over governments are the oil-industry backed ones.
It also means there's virtually no point you and I arguing over the science. We've all got our hunches of course. For me, it would seem very surprising if the releasing of huge amounts of solar energy which was locked up as fossil fuels over a period of more than a million years into an atmosphere that's little more than a thin skin over the surface of the planet, all in the space of 150 years, didn't have a destabilising effect.
It seems so kind of obvious that I think the onus should be on the "deniers" to prove their case rather than the other way round (as the letter from the group of scientists below wants).
I really hope they're right. But if there's even an 80% chance they are, that would still not be enough to convince me that urgent action doesn't need taking. I wouldn't be remotely comforted if three out of four doctors told me I probably didn't have cancer.
Underlying all this there seems to be a political agenda : "they" (the politicians) "are looking for an excuse to undermine our freedom and extract more taxes from us". Even if they are (and the UK government's use of the fear of terrorism as an excuse to undermine civil rights in this country doesn't rule it out) I can't see that becoming less dependent on fossil fuels has to undermine our freedom. If you want an image of real independence try to imagine not needing money because you're self-sufficient in shelter, heat and food!
The Green political agenda is very much about getting out from under the boot of an oil-fuelled consumerist money-obsessed economy dominated by huge unaccountable corporations - which as we see is doing us no good at all. And although the Green movement has its extremists, at least in the UK the Green Party long ago rejected the autocratic route and chose the opposite : stronger local democracy and greater individual freedom - but not the freedom to treat the planet as a mere resource to turn into money.
So rather than looking for ways of proving humanity as a species isn't getting it wrong (when all around us is evidence that we are, and I don't mean global warming) we should be glad if the planet is kind of forcing us to find a better way.
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