The following is a typical moderate denialist claim of the kind so abundant on blog-powered instant pundits around the world:
Whether or not you believe in the theory of man-made global warming, if you do any research into our current understanding of climate behaviour, it's quite evident that things are a lot more complex than you might think from the simplistic notions of climate change currently popular in the media.
So, it's quite refreshing to hear that Northern Ireland's environment minister is not afraid to voice an opinion that differs from the popular notions.
Hopefully, he'll get support for having the courage to argue that the economically expensive proposals that are being proposed by one side should be considered carefully. I feel that issues that involve as much money as this, should be properly debated, especially considering the current state of the global economy.
And to properly debate something like this, you need to encourage a non-partisan approach.
Unfortunately, his view seems to be highly un-PC at the moment, so probably the partisan approach will continue. :( (thank you Ronan!)
To which I reply:
We can’t but applaud small state initiatives challenging establishment’s paradigms. Another great example is the Kansas School Board (http://tinyurl.com/8w87z). Whether or not you believe in the theory of evolution, if you do any research into our current understanding of Darwinian theories, it's quite evident that things are a lot more complex than you might think from the simplistic notions of primate ancestry currently popular in the media. So, it was quite refreshing to hear that the Kansas School Board was not afraid to voice an opinion that differed from the popular notions.
Unfortunately, this view seems to be highly un-PC at the moment, so probably the partisan approach will continue. :(
I love conspiracy theories as much as the next guy (actually probably more) but the Global Warming conspiracy is as hard to swallow as Capricorn One. As in similar cases, screams of conspiracy are accompanied by dubious science (Erik Von Daniken for evolution, a Crichton novel for global warming, and who could forget the "smoking is good for you cigarette-shaped package) purporting the claims of unexplainable accord among intellectuals that would have more to gain from the celebrity granted by successful dissent.
A probably a stronger case could be made that dissent is fueled by media "debunking" stories, and it plays very well in the direction of the business elites and government officials who merely care about short term returns: they have A LOT to gain, while these cruel politically correct scientists have very little.
A probably a stronger case could be made that dissent is fueled by media "debunking" stories, and it plays very well in the direction of the business elites and government officials who merely care about short term returns: they have A LOT to gain, while these cruel politically correct scientists have very little.
If they wanted to make money they'd probably be better off enrolling in enemy's camp, appear on TV or write a novel where other bad scientists are causing tsnunamis, it seems to work better than NSF these days, at least on these shores.
The belief in a counterconspiracy is widely supported, by the way, and smart people like Bush espoused the denialist camp until it did not matter anymore for his administration.
BUT EVEN IF the scientists were all inexplicably wrong, the changes required to reduce our carbon footprint are inevitable. Our resources are limited, our standards of living unsustainable, our economy broken and on the brink of collapse. All this vis-a-vis the continuing growth of world population and access of larger slices of them to mass-consumption.
Change is inevitable: if it won't be by... intelligent design, it will happen by the brute force of the numbers.
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8 comments:
Ok, if we're moving the debate to hear, I suppose I'll put up my replies to your earlier comments first: :)
In response to "We can't help but..." I wrote:
For standard scientific theories, the usual approach within the scientific community is to see how the theory fits all the experimental data. If it's a good match, then scientists try to either carry out more
experiments to see if the theory still holds, or (preferably) try and predict experimental results on the basis of the theory & then do the experiments to see if the predictions are valid.
This is an ongoing basis, and scientists are supposed to constantly test the boundaries of these theories.
It may sound like a tedious (or even pessimistic!) approach, but it is one of the main bases of the scientific method. And it can be very useful. Much of the exciting research comes from finding discrepencies
in the theoretical predictions and experimental data.
If a theory is found to break down under some conditions, this doesn't necessarily stop the theory being useful.
e.g., Newton's theories have been tested pretty much constantly since he published them & they're pretty good!!!
But, at the end of the 19th century, scientists began to notice discrepencies in the theories at the extremes.
This led to the development of both quantum theory AND theory of relativity and huge chunks of modern physics!!!
Scientists & engineers still use Newton's theories, but a lot of modern technology & advances actually were developed using these other theories that were developed to explain the discrepencies!
Unfortunately, this critical analysis is been strongly discouraged when it comes to the theory of man-made global warming.
And that worries me, especially when there are quite a few problems with the assumptions involved in the
theory, and there is quite a lot of experimental data which doesn't fit neatly into the current theory.
***This doesn't necessarily mean that the theory is wrong!!!
But, it means that it currently doesn't meet the standards of a proper "scientific theory". Surely, if the theory is basically correct, then it should be able to withstand the scrutinies of the scientific community, in which case scientists should be ACTIVELY encouraged to test its
boundaries, in order to properly understand the situation.
Indeed, this is the main flaw in the creationalist & "intelligent design" theories that you mention, from a scientific view. Followers of these theories don't apply the above method!!!
Also, the problem is that the Kansas School Board's opinion IS popular!!! ;)
Then you wrote:
"Definitely not more popular than car driving. But you miss my point: it's not important that one of the alternatives to evolution do not fit scientific method criteria. Kansas people are not that dumb: they merely asked for opening up to the possibility of alternative theories "such as," but certainly not limited to, intelligent design. Now, what you should tell me is how and why the case for evolution is more conclusive than the one for man made global warming."
To which I replied:
Scientists are encouraged to probe the limits of the theory of evolution by the scientific community, and to constantly re-evaluate the assumptions the theory uses. Current theories of evolution are actually subtly different from the initial proposals of Darwin and his contemperaries in quite a few aspects (it is evolving!!!). The basic ideas are still reasonably valid, but experimental data does occasionally throw up results that help refine the theory.
Scientists are prepared to accept that Darwin (& his peers) may not have had 100% of the picture, and so it is considered ok to probe the boundaries!!!
For the theory of man-made global warming, it is apparently not ok to probe the boundaries and assumptions made. If data doesn't fit, rather than bringing it to the attention of the scientific community (so they can modify the theory) it tends to be glossed over.
Again, this doesn't mean the theory is wrong, but it's not scientifically rigourous.
Then you replied with the text above.
To which I replied:
Paolo, I think you miss my point.
I will again repeat that I am not saying here that the theory of manmade global warming is necessarily wrong.
But, the theory is currently very incomplete.
If you were currently to compare it to Newton's theories, you'd get laws along the lines of:
"Emm... Every action has... some kind of... reaction. Yeah, and force is an important thing... and there's
something else, but it's a bit confusing, so let's ignore it for now - it's probably not that important..." ;)
It could well all be true, but there is too much uncertainty and confusion to properly and accurately calculate or determine anything meaningful or reliable.
If the theory is to be actually of any real predictive use (other than for generating shocking newspaper headlines), it needs to be subjected to the harsh, but rigourous scientific method. To effectively do this, scientists should be encouraged to poke holes in the theory, to help generate a more reliable and useful theory.
"BUT EVEN IF the scientists were all inexplicably wrong"???
Sorry, but you'll have to elaborate on this.
I'm a scientist, but I would be very reluctant to claim that ANY theory is perfect, and not to be tested! Sure, even Newton's theories aren't able to accurately describe the extremes (as I mentioned earlier).
I mustn't have got the memo, explaining the infallibility of the man-made global warming theory! ;)
Who exactly are these people you refer to as "the scientists"? Are you referring to specific people, or is it an elusive group like the "They" that are common in those conspiracy theories you're so fond of? ;)
To which you replied:
"I really don't see all this difficulty to challenge the status quo on climate change theories. Data are available, any grad student can use what has been collected, disprove it and become a world celebrity. Yet this is not happening, for some reason. The scientific process is sound. There is just not a good case against "man-made" climate change.
My "even if" point is much simpler: even if the theory was wrong, it changes little. The direction we need to move is in any case the reduction of our impact on the planet. Unlike evolution, which has little impact on our lives, the danger of us sticking to the null-hypothesis for climate change are very high."
You then recommended we move the discussion to here, which is a good idea! :)
Anyway, I'll repost my reply to that here, to get the ball rolling:
Paolo, out of curiosity, are you interested in discussing the actual data?
I'm not sure of your scientific background, but I could give you some useful links if you would like to learn
about our current understanding of the behaviour of the climate.
If you're too busy, or not interested, that's ok. As a scientist (& an environmentalist to boot!), I am quite passionate about understanding how the climate behaves, but scientific research is my job!
So, I don't expect other people to be as interested in it as I am, just like I might not be as passionate about their jobs! :) But if you are, say the word!
Back to your point,
Ok, if the theory is wrong, but we've encouraged our scientists to probe the theory from all sides, then hopefully, we will have developed a much better understanding of climate science!
"Even if" the theory is right :p, and we've encouraged them to probe it, we will hopefully have developed a much better understanding of how man's activities interact with the climate of our planet.
Either way, we need to actively encourage scientists to openly debate this theory from all sides to get the real picture.
If man is influencing the planet's climate, there are many possibilities:
e.g., we may be increasing/decreasing the temperature by
1) a few % of the planet's natural tendencies.
2) a similar order of magnitude to nature or
3) a larger order of magnitude than nature's
Perhaps we are doing this by the emission of particular greenhouse gases.
e.g., governments are considering severe economic policies to reduce CO2 emissions.
CO2 is a very important GHG (about 2-5% of the greenhouse effect), so I agree it is worth studying.
But, we need to have a reliable theory, so we can decide what to do.
Hi Paolo,
Now that we've a bit more space, I thought I might digress a bit here, and try & explain a bit about the typical mentality of scientists, because a couple of your comments suggest you haven't properly considered this. Hope this is helpful:
Do you know the way that people who are fortunate enough to figure out what it is they want to do as a career, generally have figured out a type of work that satisfies them and that they find incredibly rewarding?
For instance, people who go into medicine generally want to help sick people get better, people who go into construction enjoy getting things built, etc.
Well, for scientists, it is generally because they have a desire to understand how things work. I imagine for writers like yourself, this is comparable to the joy of actually writing!
Scientists also hope that when they've figured things out, they can explain it to the rest of the scientific community. I suppose this would be like you hoping that people will actually read your stuff!!!
Note that most scientists are quite satisfied with just explaining things to the scientific community. While a lot of scientists would be quite chuffed if they could also explain things to the general public, they don't really expect to do that, because generally they will have figured out some details that are only really relevant if you have studied the appropriate field.
I suppose continuing the analogy, it would be like how a lot of writers would be chuffed if their stuff was made into a film. But, they don't really expect it, and it would probably be radically altered when adapted into a film anyway!
Now, for the issue of who pays them! I'm guessing that you write, even if you don't get any money for it. Many scientists similarly try & figure out how things work because they enjoy it! But obviously, they need to pay the rent, etc! :( Also, most useful research involves carrying out experiments that often can be quite expensive (researcher's annual budgets are often several times the researcher's actual salary!).
Large organisations, like universities, can often optimise this by buying apparatus that can be used by many different researchers. For instance, when I was in university, the chemistry department (where I was studying & later researching) had several huge machines, e.g., NMR machines, mass spectrometers, etc, that cost millions of euros. These machines were/are usually constantly in operation (generally 24h a day). Each sample only takes a few minutes to analyse, but you would usually have to put your sample into a long queue of other samples, because there would be hundreds to be processed in a given day!
In addition, there can also be huge additional budgets for individual research groups, who are carrying out experiments using apparatus that nobody else in the department is using.
This can be optimised by collaborating with other groups around the world that are working in your field.
But, the bottom line is, that if experiments are to be carried out, somebody has to pay for them!
I would say that the majority of research is funded by the following:
1. Public funding. Ultimately, this comes from the taxpayer, and this is what is usually meant when governments announce they're putting more/less of the budget into scientific research. Obviously, since the taxpayer is paying for it, researchers generally have to make detailed grant proposals to explain & justify why their experiments are important, and if they're lucky enough to be given approval, they then make the results of their research public, usually by publishing in one of the 1000s of recognised scientific journals.
These journals are "peer-reviewed", i.e., other researchers in the field are asked to critique the work, and judge if it is worth publishing. Often, they will recommend that certain changes should be made beforehand.
2. Commercial research. This is funded by e.g., pharmaceutical and technological companies, who are trying to develop some commercial product that they can make money out of! Obviously, the results are usually kept in the company itself, unless they can obtain a patent on it, or some other protection.
3. In the US, a lot of research is funded by the US military. The results are usually considered "military secrets" in a similar manner to 2, unless they can get a patent or something.
4a. Again in the US, there are a few charity-based organisations, that will fund research into a particular field or topic (perhaps trying to develop a cure or treatment for some disease or sickness). These don't seem to be quite as popular outside the US.
4b. Some of these organisations will allow people to carry out research to promote a particular viewpoint, like the one promoting "intelligent design".
I wouldn't be surprised if the "results" of these studies are often heavily censored!
If so, while there presumably are some greedy scientists who are willing to take their money, I doubt that there are actually as many as you might think. Remember, most of these scientists got into the field because they want to understand & to explain to others.
How would you feel if some publisher agreed to pay you to write whatever you like, provided that throughout it you constantly imply... I don't know, maybe... "that Bush was a great US president"? ;)
They might be offering you a nice sum and presumably they would provide a lot of advertising that would get your books sold throughout the world.
You would definitely consider it! But, would you really be willing to do it?
Could you imagine people saying across dinner tables "Well, I don't know, that Paolo fellow seems to reckon Bush did a great job..."? ;)
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3 & 4 seem to be more popular in the US, than the rest of the world, for some reason. I'm not actually sure why this is.
There are some scientists that are able to fund their own research. Along the lines of you getting a job, so that you can write in the evenings. Unfortunately, considering the huge budgets (that I mentioned above) involved, this is very rare. It is also apparently surprisingly difficult to get your work published in peer-reviewed journals, unless you are associated with a large organisation.
Even if you used to work with a well-regarded organisation, and had a great reputation, but have maybe retired or something, freelance scientists find it very difficult (often impossible) to publish in peer-reviewed journals.
You can imagine that when scientists retire, or maybe win the lottery or something(!), a lot of them will still have the desire (& often ability!) to understand and let others know about their discoveries, so that can lead to a lot of frustration! :(
A lot of univeristies will let some retired professors become e.g., emeritus professors, meaning they can continue publishing in association with the university (& even keep an office there!), but most scientists don't have this priviledge. Perhaps, they still have contacts in active research groups, who might be agree to include the results/ coauthor the work, but it is a tricky thing.
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Ok, I'll get back to the issue of the current problems of researchers in climate science later, when I have a bit more time, but I just thought I'd give you a bit of a background to "the scientists" you refer to, so that you can understand them a bit better.
I know I made a lot of generalisations, but does it give you a better idea of how the typical scientist works?
Hi Paolo,
Getting back to the climate science issue, I think it's worth considering this notion that scientists have reached a "consensus" VERY carefully.
You're not the only one to say something along the lines of "BUT EVEN IF the scientists were all inexplicably wrong," with respect to the theory of man-made global warming. But, I hope that you will try and look anew at the validity of such notions...
I guess Al Gore has a lot to do with this belief, given the popularity of his film, An Inconvenient Truth. In it, he alleges something like the idea that the scientific community haven't worked out the exact details, but that they have reached a "consensus" that humans are causing global warming. He explains how the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up to evaluate our current knowledge of why the climate changes. He then alleges that the 2500 experts on climate science who authored their extensive reports agree that humans are causing global warming. I haven't seen the film for a while, but as far as I remember that's the rough gist of it, right?
The IPCC was indeed set up with the goal of collating all of our current knowledge of climate change. An extensive study of all the research available was carried out, and experts in the fields were asked to review all the relevant results. Over 2500 of these experts indeed submitted reviews to the IPCC. Several detailed reports have been published in the last years since they were set up.
However, these reports are quite technical and hard to read for the lay person. So, the IPCC also commissioned a "summary for policy makers" with each of their reports, so that politicians, the media, and others can understand the contents of the reports.
The "summary"'s conclusions ARE indeed quite similar to what Al Gore claims in his film!
But, this does not mean that the 2500 expert reviewers agree with those claims!
In fact, the conclusions of the technical reports are actually a lot more ambiguous than the "summary" would imply. Quite a few of these reviewers have in fact reached the conclusion that humans are not affecting the climate.
You may be interested to read up on the recent "Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change". This is a declaration, signed by over 600 experts in climate science and related fields who are of the opinion that man is NOT causing global warming, especially not from CO2 emissions.
Perhaps you may feel that all the "experts" are in the pay of some evil company out to make money by making people doubt the "consensus", or something like that! Fair enough, we're all entitled to our opinions - and I suppose you have admitted a fondness of conspiracy theories! :p
But, you may find it interesting to note that several of the endorsers are actually included in the 2500 experts that Al Gore refers to!!!
Some of the people who signed that declaration were interviewed in this interesting documentary in the UK a while back. It is admittedly a fairly sensationalist documentary, and there were quite a few mistakes in it, but a lot of it is quite informative.
I will repeat again, that I am not saying that the theory of man-made climate change is necessarily wrong! But, there are a lot of problems with the theory, and these need to be addressed. To do that, scientists should be encouraged to look at the problems from all angles and viewpoints. That is the only way that we can ever learn how and why the climate changes as it does, and if humans are currently contributing to it, and then how much are we contributing, and how exactly are we doing that...
- Ronan
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