Editor’s Note: This column is in response to Tarrant Carter’s Friday column, “Skepticism right approach to climate change.” To read that column, visit OUDaily.com.
Let’s take a moment and get some things straight about this whole climate change argument, shall we?
The debate has been given a lot of attention lately, both in the national press and in The Daily.
Tarrant Carter’s column just last week proclaims the virtues of skepticism in science.
Skepticism may indeed be a virtue, but ignorance is not, and too many global warming arguments are laden with ignorance of a few basic facts.
Fact 1: Not everyone involved in this debate is an expert.
Former Vice President Al Gore is not a scientist. Neither, for that matter, is Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe. We would do well to stop treating them as such.
The former vice president makes connections between anthropogenic (man-made) global warming and natural disasters (i.e. Hurricane Katrina) that are shaky at best.
The senator is well known for his inane rants about “the greatest hoax to be perpetrated on the American public.”
Carter scoffs at “appeals to authority” in his column, but he displays as limited an understanding of the climate system as our dear senator.
Sure, anyone can talk about climate change, but shouldn’t the words of scientists who have devoted their lives’ work to climatology mean more than those who have casually read a few climate articles?
I wouldn’t have the audacity to assume I knew more about health than a medical doctor, and I think the same respect should be afforded to climatologists.
Fact 2: Climatology is not a faith-based science.
One cannot choose to “believe” or “disbelieve” in anthropogenic climate change any easier than one chooses to believe in gravity. Gravity, after all, is just a theory (look up “theory of universal gravitation” for more details).
Humans are either warming the climate, or we aren’t, regardless of individual beliefs.
Carter supports his beliefs by pointing out that correlation does not imply causation. True, but in the case of CO2 and temperature, basic physics supplies the causation. The effect that greenhouse gases play in warming the atmosphere has been well understood for over a century and is not debated in any scientific circles.
More CO2 means a warmer climate, plain and simple. The “belief” that 6.5 billion power-consuming humans can’t possibly affect the climate system is unforgivably naïve.
Fact 3: We can’t just blame the sun!
Tucker Cross, another climate change skeptic, was published in The Daily’s “Letter to the Editor” section a few weeks ago. He points out that “about 99 percent” of Earth’s energy comes from the sun, so we should look to it for a global warming explanation.
I’m curious to know where Cross believes the other 1 percent of our energy comes from, but I digress.
We blame the sun’s presence for our nauseatingly hot summer doldrums and its absence for frigid winter nights. Why not just point to that big flaming ball in the sky and accuse it of heating our climate?
If only it were that easy.
The output of energy from the sun does indeed change; it oscillates on an 11-year cycle.
However, this oscillation accounts for a 0.1 percent change in solar output, which is the equivalent of a 0.03 degree Celsius change in temperature here on Earth.
In other words, the sun does everything to keep our climate going, but nothing to change it.
Fact 4: It’s speed, not size, that really matters.
So what if humans are changing the climate? The Earth has been much warmer in the past!
True, but in the late Cretaceous Period, when dinosaurs roamed as far north as Alaska and polar ice caps were nonexistent, climate change occurred on timescales of millions of years.
Life had plenty of time to adapt to the pleasantly warm temperatures of the greenhouse.
Humans, masters of efficiency that we are, have managed to speed up this process immensely. Change that once took millennia is now occurring in decades, and the pressure that we’re putting on life around us is immense.
The Earth will be just fine long after the climate has changed. The question is, will we be around to enjoy it?
Fact 5: There’s a lot we don’t know yet.
There is a great deal of debate about climate change among scientists today! However, contrary to what the public may like to believe, this debate has shifted from if we’re causing the climate to change to what the change means for us.
Our projections of future climate are based primarily on numerical models, which are inherently limited. Unfortunately, the work we’ve done modeling our past suggests that our models are far more likely to underestimate future change than overestimate it.
Whether or not this is true, scientists have generally come to the consensus that the people most affected by climate change will be those least equipped to deal with it.
Carter suggests that “maybe” the Third World will be negatively impacted by climate change legislation. This statement is without basis and completely ignores the negative impacts of doing nothing to curb climate change.
Here in the U.S. we have the resources to adapt to whatever Mother Nature throws our way. In drought-stricken Ethiopia or flood-prone Bangladesh, people do not.
As far as how we should best deal with climate change, well, there are no easy answers.
A lot of industries and interest groups have a stake in any legislation about this issue, and as always there will be winners and losers.
However, it’s important to get a few things straight in this debate: Climate change is real, we’re causing it and we must choose to stop it or deal with the consequences.
David Sherman is a meteorology graduate student.
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"Fact 2: Climatology is not a faith-based science."
The problem with this fact, are Facts 1 and 5. While there is certainly evidence of some sort of climate change, we don't know everything. Yet, we revere Al Gore or Inhofe, and start to claim even the slightest possibilities as fact.
When you become fixated on one, tiny, piece of the puzzle (Carbon Dioxide for example) you marginalize the greater picture. People do treat "carbon footprints" and the like as a matter of faith, not science.
Chris Matthews may like to make fun of "tea baggers" and say they've got an outlandish understanding of things to come, but have you turned on the discovery channel or history channel lately? Been to a National Park? That we are all going to die in 5 years along with the giant sequoias is every bit as outrageous.
As well, many scientists are susceptible to treating their opinions as a matter of faith, whether regarding climate change or when and where humans migrated to the Americas. It cannot be denied that the attitude of many climatologists is little different than that of creationists.
Perhaps if the climatologists and those who cared about the environment made a more reasoned approach to the public, it wouldn't be so polarizing. No body is going to argue that pollution is wonderful. We like clean air to breath, water to drink. You're only going to drive a wedge and make things worse with an "us vs them" absolutist mentality that fixates on peripheral issues.
No, sir, WE do not revere anyone. And by we, I mean actual scientists. I assure you that when we sit down to write our scientific articles, the first thing we think is not "Now what would Al Gore have to say about this?"
Carbon Dioxide is not a "tiny piece" of this puzzle. It is a very large piece of it. Many things contribute to the climate (solar energy, circulation patterns, etc), but CO2 is the one that we have control over. It is the one that is changing.
The Discovery Channel and National Parks are not run by climatologists. They are run by television producers and environmentalists, respectively. I do not agree with the alarmist, doomsday scenarios that are put out there. I don't think they do much for the cause except drive a wedge, as you say.
I take great issue with your statement that scientists treat our work as faith-based. Contrary to what people may like to claim, we have no agenda in the things we do. We get just as much grant money for determining that there is no global warming as we do if there is. Probably more, actually.
How much more of a reasoned approach can there be? We can simply come out, explain what we know in terms that everyone can understand, and then wait for someone to twist it around.
What you just said doesn't make any sense. You're basically turning extremists' interpretation of the science of climate change and saying that's what climatologists are saying.
I like what you've written, but I would point out that reference to the impact of climate change on the third world probably means economic damage. To my knowledge every industrialized nation went through a period of massive emission of greenhouse gases (and pollution) before it got those emissions under control. One could argue that rapid expansion necessitates these emissions for the process of rapid industrialization to occur. The regulation of emissions could hinder growth. It's a subject of some debate in climate change economics, actually. I wish I knew more about it.
Climate change legislation must account for the trade-off, then, between economic growth and the avoidance of the damages of climate change. Or maybe we should forget about growth for the time being, especially if climate change is really an emergency. Which it seems like, according to fact 5, is where the debate focuses.
This is a very small point. I found the rest of the piece educational and a refreshing rebuttal to the ignorant opinion articles I've seen in the past few weeks.
About time someone with a bit of sense contributed to this discussion. Amazing what a bit of honest information can do to the debate.
Personally, in reading the part about the third world, I took it as more of a health and quality of life issue. Hotter weather will make already hard living conditions harder in a lot of third world countries. This could be problems growing food, water evaporation, heat stroke, or any number of problems this could create, possibly even expanding desertification in some areas.
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