Why Skepticism about Global Warming?
April 5, 2008
I’ve been engaged in the Sisyphean task this afternoon of trying to correct the internet. (If you follow that link, scroll down to the cartoon.) I know it’s silly, but I could not help myself in the face of the question, Is Global Warming a Hoax? on BlogCatalog. Problem is, the question was meant seriously. And there were people who answered in the affirmative, as many do on every related thread on the BlogCatalog forums. So why even take the bait?
Seems to me that while I will convince none of these people, a few sane voices need to say what is what, so at least that point of view is on the thread. That’s why I argued. But then I realized I was running up against some powerful cultural forces for which logic was no match. I asked three questions:
First, I do not understand the fear or reasoning or whatever-you-want-to-call-it behind claims that global warming isn’t real. Why the resistance? Fear that someone is trying to take something away from you? If so, what?
Second, if you think it’s a hoax, in whose interest would such a hoax be?
Third, since when has science become “merely” a matter of opinion because it involves theory? And because it involves theory, why is it therefore ipso facto suspect? Sure seems like there’s a strong element of that in some of the arguments here and elsewhere on [BlogCatalog]. What gives?
I owe this last insight to a chat with Ender on twitter. Anyway, one blogger, Kay responded that she did not think it was a hoax, but that it was necessary to hold more debate. That got me to doing some more head-scratching. Hasn’t this debate been going on for well over a decade? But Kay is no fool, so I had to take her remarks seriously. Something else was wrong. Rather than withdraw from the discussion as I had planned, I had one more idea to share. After mentioning the minimum consensus at which a majority of scientists have arrived, I speculated that
part of the problem [might lie] in the failure of the scientific community to communicate its debates to the general public in terms it can understand. But there is also a problem with our education system, which fails to impart an adequate understanding and appreciation of the scientific method.
So that’s where I am right now in trying to understand resistance to the real problem of climate change. What do you think? Have you got any other ideas?
Entry Filed under: environment, forums. Tags: BlogCatalog, climage change, environment, global warming, internet, science, skepticism about science.
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1. timethief | April 5, 2008 at 7:17 pm
I’m astonished at the level of ignorance exhibited in that BC forum thread. Have you seen these videos? http://wonderingmind42.com/
2. Mark Stoneman | April 5, 2008 at 7:52 pm
I hadn’t seen them, but I was glad to hear about them. In fact, I had done an update on this post because of your link on BC, but then I saw this comment. So far I’ve just seen the “Why is there still debate?” videos, which help me understand a little better. I think the guy does a good job of explaining just who is still debating global warming and why.
3. timethief | April 5, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Yes, I agree that he explains the situation very well. The videos are worth circulating but I guess I’ve been so self absorbed of late that I didn’t pass the link on or even put it up in my blog.
4. ender | April 6, 2008 at 9:43 am
great post, mark. and TT, nice and exhaustive video find!
what concerns me is also that many of the knee-jerk proponents of the hoax theory will not do the research necessary to show– actually, let me call it like it is. most of them will not do the work necessary to sift through the evidence and theories and facts. they will mostly avoid verifying what organizations sound good, and which are respected “authorities.” they will mostly avoid watching more than a 3 minute video which does not conflict with their theory. and, as wonderingmind points out, getting to the bottom of this set of conflicting views means we have to delve beyond our “sabre tooth tiger” reflexes and look for a bigger picture.
“So that’s where I am right now in trying to understand resistance to the real problem of climate change. What do you think? Have you got any other ideas?”
i’ll maintain that it’s a laziness to do the work and find out. and i make that claim including a lot of people who may agree with that climate change is an issue, but many of them are not doing the work to discover that either. they are simply trusting what they hear as well. it comes down to this: as individuals, we have X amount of energy. We put a certain amount of that into work, into home, into family, into friends, into hobbies. How much is left for intellectual query into something which is NOT a sabre tooth tiger at our door? That might seem like a short sighted mistake – but when you have five sabre tooths prowling around you already, you have to deal with those short-term problems before you can tackle the long-term. (even if the reason the tigers are there is because of a “big picture” issue such as loss of original habitat.)
of course, the laziness answer or the “there are already too many sabre tooths at my door” answer does not encompass many of the folks on the other side of the debate who do take the time to do some research and then dismiss things out of hand. for those, i think it’s a combination of many things that we’ve discussed, including a misunderstanding (sometimes deliberately so) of the scientific process.
meh, this answer is too long already. but great post!
5. Mark Stoneman | April 6, 2008 at 9:52 am
Wow, Ender. Thanks for taking the time to share so many of your thoughts. :-) By the way, I don’t like to consider myself closed minded, but I just had to drop someone I was following on twitter, because a post implying global warming was a conspiracy involving corporations and billions of dollars made me want to scream. I have to put up with it in some places, but I don’t have to waste my time following such thoughts on twitter.
6. Ian Thal | April 6, 2008 at 10:01 am
I think that it is this level of ignorance on BC that has contributed to my having become relatively inactive as of late. How much longer could I participate in the same fight over and over again?
However, I think that you are correct that part of the reason is that a basic understanding of scientific method is not taught– even people who think they are being “rational” end up articulating completely unsubstantiated beliefs for the simple reason that they have no understanding of reason. However, we’re not just talking about the “hard” sciences– but also what we in the Anglophone world call “the social sciences” and “the humanities.” Look how often writers attempt to replace the painstaking research of historians into areas that elicit emotional responses from non-experts as battles of “competing narratives”: i.e. It doesn’t matter if trained historians have verified that a set of events occurred in a given sequence and that certain causal explanations have been ruled out– the competing (ideologically-based) narrative is given an airing even if the quality of the .
So often though, these “competing narratives”, due to their ideological nature, are promoted by specific institutions or the short term interests of people who are threatened by the consequences of the truth. The inhabitants and developers of suburban sprawl, the automobile and petroleum industries all have interests that are threatened by the facts of global warming. The idea that evolutionary theory is an attack of religious faith is one openly promoted in the pulpits of certain fundamentalist churches.
7. Mark Stoneman | April 6, 2008 at 10:19 am
Yep, Ian, ideologically driven narratives do seem to be the order of the day. The comments of wonderingmind42 about ideology informing perception of the physical world around us hit home. Didn’t ideology used to be about the social world? Of course, the separation between the physical and social worlds can’t be that neat, but I nonetheless enjoyed his image of a Republican and a Democrat seeing two completely different kinds of weather when they looked out of the same window.
You make a good point when you expand this problem outside of the physical sciences to include other areas of knowledge as well, including history.
8. Ian Thal | April 6, 2008 at 10:29 am
Very strange that the end of the second paragraph of my comment was clipped. It should read:
It doesn’t matter if trained historians have verified that a set of events occurred in a given sequence and that certain causal explanations have been ruled out– the competing (ideologically-based) narrative is given an airing even if the quality of the narrative is suspect.
9. Mark Stoneman | April 6, 2008 at 10:39 am
I just tried to integrate this correction into your original comments, but it seems WordPress has now removed my ability to edit. Oh well.
Yes, the idea that all narratives deserve equal media attention drives me nuts, although the notion that global warming is a fabrication is prevalent enough among even educated folk to deserve critical analysis. Sometimes I think the stories “On the Media” does deserve attention in NPR’s more mainstream shows, like “Morning Edition” or “All Things Considered.”
10. Tamera Daun | April 7, 2008 at 12:46 am
I believe that I am at a loss for words. Again. I did not catch that thread over at the forum. A good thing as I saved myself a bit of personal frustration. Kudos to your three questions Mark, for they are as clear as the light of day.
11. timethief | April 9, 2008 at 12:06 am
@stoneman
Clicking the username on a comment allows you to edit it -> Manage -> Comments
I limped in here again because I could not believe it – the denial machine is cranked up again and the conspiracy theorists have yet to inject their paranoia into the thread again. Deny – deny – deny. I’m astonished that there are those who are so easily deluded and deceived. What I need is the strength to ignore such threads. Thanks for the listening ear. ;-)
12. Mark Stoneman | April 9, 2008 at 12:39 am
I need similar strength. One person’s comments on it were good though: the bit about certain strange viewpoints sounding louder in particular parts of the internet than they are in reality.
13. timethief | April 9, 2008 at 1:07 pm
mantra: I must not post to that thread again … I must not post to that thread again … I must not post to that thread again …
14. Garg the Unzola | April 9, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Rather than pointing fingers at the scientific community, I would rather say it’s the public’s inability to understand the scientific community that is at fault.
Scientists are not normal people. They form an elite distinguished by their brain power. They have better things to do than try and convince people who have not made the sacrifice to earn their level of knowledge of something that they have seen proved in a lab yonks ago.
It is definitely true that more debate is needed. The tendency is for a prominent, often politcal figure to spearhead a large following of people after a boogeyman, similar to the peasants with pitchforks and hay chasing after Frankenstein. Point out a witch, and the witch gets burnt. No need to prove any witchcraft to Joe Public, as long as an important person says it’s a witch, it is good enough. But don’t trust a scientist when it comes to science?
There is not consensus that global warming is a real threat. There is not enough evidence to suggest that global warming is a threat, I suspect it is propaganda to try and get oil hungry nations to look systematically to other energy sources. The same people who killed the electric car are now trying to save it, because their plundering of the oil rich countries is becoming a dangerous game to play.
15. this time ~ this space &r&hellip | April 9, 2008 at 9:26 pm
[...] pertinent videos to my attention. Please watch at least the first one. And here’s a link for Mark who has shared his opinion on his [...]
16. timethief | April 9, 2008 at 9:31 pm
@Gar the Unzola
Here is a partial list of organizations that accept anthropogenic global warming as real and scientifically well-supported:
* NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS): http://www.giss.nasa.gov/edu/gwdebate/
* National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
* Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm
* National Academy of Sciences (NAS): http://books.nap.edu/collections/global_warming/index.html
* State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC) – http://www.socc.ca/permafrost/permafrost_future_e.cfm
* Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): http://epa.gov/climatechange/index.html
* The Royal Society of the UK (RS) – http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=3135
* American Geophysical Union (AGU): http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/climate_change_position.html
* American Meteorological Society (AMS): http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/climatechangeresearch_2003.html
* American Institute of Physics (AIP): http://www.aip.org/gov/policy12.html
* National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR): http://eo.ucar.edu/basics/cc_1.html
* American Meteorological Society (AMS): http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/jointacademies.html
* Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS): http://www.cmos.ca/climatechangepole.html
Every major scientific institution dealing with climate, ocean, and/or atmosphere agrees that the climate is warming rapidly and the primary cause is human CO2 emissions. In addition to that list, see also this joint statement (PDF) that specifically and unequivocally endorses the work and conclusions of the IPCC Third Assessment report. The statement was issued by:
* Academia Brasiliera de Ciencias (Brazil)
* Royal Society of Canada
* Chinese Academy of Sciences
* Academie des Sciences (France)
* Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Germany)
* Indian National Science Academy
* Accademia dei Lincei (Italy)
* Science Council of Japan
* Russian Academy of Sciences
* Royal Society (United Kingdom)
* National Academy of Sciences (United States of America)
You can also read this statement [PDF], which includes all the above signatories plus the following:
* Australian Academy of Sciences
* Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts
* Caribbean Academy of Sciences
* Indonesian Academy of Sciences
* Royal Irish Academy
* Academy of Sciences Malaysia
* Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand
* Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
But if scientists are too liberal and politicians too unreliable, perhaps you find the opinion of key industry representatives more convincing:
* BP, the largest oil company in the UK and one of the largest in the world, has this opinion:
There is an increasing consensus that climate change is linked to the consumption of carbon based fuels and that action is required now to avoid further increases in carbon emissions as the global demand for energy increases.
* Shell Oil (yes, as in oil, the fossil fuel) says:
Shell shares the widespread concern that the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities is leading to changes in the global climate.
* Eighteen CEOs of Canada’s largest corporations had this to say in an open letter to the Prime Minister of Canada:
Our organizations accept that a strong response is required to the strengthening evidence in the scientific assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We accept the IPCC consensus that climate change raises the risk of severe consequences for human health and security and the environment. We note that Canada is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
Have the environazis seized the reigns of industrial power, in addition to infiltrating the U.N., the science academies of every developed nation, and the top research institutes of North America? That just doesn’t seem very likely.
17. Mark Stoneman | April 9, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Thanks for all that, TimeThief. I was hesitant to let Gar the Unzola’s post go through, but his words about believing experts seemed worthwhile, though the suggestion that there was no consensus confused me.
18. timethief | April 11, 2008 at 12:59 pm
You’re welcome. I sincerely hope that Gar the Unzola and the others who claim there is no consensus among scientists on global warming will read and acknowledge that “it just ain’t so”.
19. The Case Against Sarah Pa&hellip | September 4, 2008 at 2:10 pm
[...] on this earth and climate change. This topic is too big to argue here in detail, though I have written about it in another context. Here I would simply like to note that some evangelical Christians do not [...]
20. Mark Stoneman | September 18, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Here’s an article that shows how opposition by some scientists to an oversimplified CO2 narrative is being misrepresented as skepticism about climate change: Senator Inhofe: Please define “Prominent Scientist”.