Climate Change Deniers

April 13, 2014 by Jeff Bary 2 Comments

Last Saturday night I was invited to give a talk to the local amateur astronomy club.  I really enjoy speaking to amateur groups because they are completely engaged and so happy to have the opportunity to speak with professional astronomers.  The banquet was held at the Club Monarch in Yorkville.  The outside of the building was not much to look at, but the inside was well-preserved and felt like stepping back into time 30 or 40 years ago during a slightly more prosperous era when semi-formal working/middle-class social gatherings must have occurred with more frequency.

At the beginning of dinner, one of the gentleman sitting at my table claimed that he doesn’t “believe” in global warming or climate change.  He initially said that there are too many natural explanations for warming such a sunspots or variations in the radiation coming from the Sun.  Both plausible suggestions that have been studied and deemed highly unlikely to explain the recent warming trend.  He then mentioned that the globe has been cooling over the last sixteen years and global warming has effectively stopped, which is why people call it climate change instead of global warming.  The truth is that the warming of the globe has slowed considerably over the last sixteen years.  And yes, it was a bit of a surprise to most climate scientists.  However, there is a known effect called the pacific decadal oscillation, which appears to explain the recent pause (not cooling) in the warming trend.  The scary thing about this and the lack of recognition from the denial community is that it is an oscillation.  This means that if the waters in the Pacific absorb more energy than expected during one half of the period then it may absorb less or release more energy during the other half of its cycle.  So, when the pattern shifts back to heating, it may be at a greater rate than previously predicted.  Of course, this will be observable over the coming years.

The gentleman also claimed that the government was behind the science of global warming.  This is a highly problematic viewpoint that I am sure is shared by many climate change deniers.  However, it represents a fundamental lack of understanding of how we conduct basic science research in the US and across the world.  This viewpoint is the result of the constant barrage of misinformation and propaganda that constantly flows across the airwaves and in print media thanks to political pundits, elected officials, and news outlets that must receive generous support from those with a vested interest in seeing climate scientists discredited.  The willingness to blame the government obviously shows a conservative ideology that seeks to blame government for all our problems.  This statement by the gentleman along with a belief that equal numbers of scientists (he didn’t specify whether they were climate scientists or scientists like myself) don’t “believe” in global warming were the most troubling and problematic for me.  It reflects how successful the campaign being waged by the fossil fuel industry and the Republican party has been in reaching people in the general public.  It also demonstrates the lack of clarity with which the science is presented in the popular media.  For instance, I recall seeing a “scientist” on CNN being interviewed by Piers Morgan who didn’t “believe” in global warming along side a science journalist as if both of their views carried equal weight, the journalist representing the consensus of the scientific community and the scientist representing the fringe opinion that the globe is not warming as if there is a legitimate debate to be had between the two communities.  The interview ended with the science journalist telling Piers that this was irresponsible to place the fringe opinion on “equal footing” with the consensus view.  However, this happens all of the time when issues of science are debated in the public sphere and it contributes to the general public’s assertion that there really is a debate going on in the scientific community.  So, I understand why the gentleman may have this idea that there are equal numbers of scientists that do not believe in global warming.  However, this is far from the truth.  We wouldn’t be calling this consensus science if that were the case.

This leads me to the use of the word “believe,” when people talk about scientific knowledge.  I find this term problematic when someone uses it in regards to scientific knowledge such as the theory of evolution, the big bang theory, or gravity.  In science, the data and the uncertainties attached to it tell you exactly how strongly you should “believe” it.  It is not a gut reaction or choice.  The scientific community universally accepts evolution based on the theory’s ability to explain so much of what we find in nature.  The data that this theory is built on leaves no room for you choose to “believe it or not.”  As we say, “It is what it is.”  With regards to global warming, the data demonstrating the rise in global temperatures and its correlation with increases in CO2 is solid.  The globe is obviously warming!!!  There is no room for interpretation.  It is an OBSERVATIONAL fact.  And, the nature of the warming, how severely it has spiked over such a short time period has no precedent (as best we can tell) in the last few hundred thousand years.  Climatologists have spent a great deal of effort searching for explanations to the warming and find the strongest anthropogenic (human-made) cause for the warming to be radiative forcing by the introduction of CO2 into the atmosphere.  Check out the most recent IPCC Summary for Policymakers here and here.

You do not get to believe in things such as gravity or the conservation of energy or the theory of evolution.  If there are no observations that disprove the theory (in its entirety) then you are left having to accept it as a scientific theory.  I’m afraid a lot of people still think that they have a choice.  I imagine that if a climate change denier were on trial for murder and there was clear forensic evidence exonerating them of the crime, they wouldn’t want the jury to question the scientific evidence on the basis that they simply don’t “believe” it.

This brings me to my final point, because this post is getting a little too long.  What does it mean that something is statistically likely.  In the case of climate change, scientists are using statistical significances to highlight the certainty of their findings and predictions for the future.  I seem to recall that the statistical likelihood that the burning of CO2 is causing the warming is over 90%.  As is common in cases like this, the industry folks like to focus on the uncertainty as a way of calling into question the scientific results, as if scientists have to be 100% certain (which by the tentative nature of scientific knowledge, they are not).  Let’s think of it in these terms.  As far as global warming is concerned, it threatens the livelihoods and lives of future generations.  By exacerbating the uncertainty and refusing to do things to mitigate the threat and effects of global warming, climate change deniers and industry types are in essence playing Russian roulette with the planet and the future of civilization.  Let’s assume that scientists are only 95% certain that we are to blame for global warming.  Assuming that the climate change deniers have a revolver that holds 100 bullets, this game of roulette would require them to put bullets in 95 of the 100 chambers.  Are these folks certain this is the game they want to play?  Perhaps, it’s an easy decision for them to make since the dire consequences of their current actions will not be felt until several generations to come.  So, it’s not their own head that they are putting a loaded gun to.  It’s heads of their grandchildren that they are putting the gun to.  Now, I would never suggest that grandparents do not care for their grandchildren.  In fact, I think most grandparents love their grandchildren more than anything in the world, which is why I think this analogy is so powerful.  Are they really so certain that the scientists are wrong that they do not want to err on the side of caution and choose not to play roulette in the first place?

As for my friend at the amateur astronomy group, he eventually admitted that he was a proud skeptic.  So I left him with this thought.  “As a scientist, I can only say that I appreciate skepticism.  However, a true skeptic has to be skeptical of their own position.”  Deniers are not “real” skeptics.