Climate Consensus ‘Busted’?

[UPDATE, 7/23: The Gristmill blog – in what it says is probably the only compliment it will ever pay to Senator James Inhofe – gave his Web site the big thumbs up for clarity and transparency compared to those of a host of senators whose policies the Web site prefers.]

[UPDATE, 4/10: Leslie Kaufman has written a piece on Marc Morano’s metamorphosis from Senate staffer to full-time purveyor of information questioning global warming. Chris Mooney posted an interesting interview with filmmaker Randy Olson about Marc Morano’s influence and flaws. Thoughts?]

IPCC reportMartin Parry, a co-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, describes a report released in April. (Credit: Virginia Mayo/Associated Press)

The perennial tug of war over what average people should think and do about human-caused global warming has just experienced another big yank, this time from those saying actions to cut greenhouse gases are a costly waste of time.

The office of Senator James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican and ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, released a report online today listing hundreds of scientists and links to peer-reviewed studies that it says challenge whether humans are dangerously influencing climate.

“This new ‘consensus busters’ report is poised to redefine the debate,” the news release said.

But when you sift through the studies, what emerges (to me at any rate) is not so much the shattering of a consensus as a portrait of one corner of the absolutely normal, and combative, arena in which scientific ideas emerge and either thrive or fade.

To many scientists and students of scientific history, there really is no such thing as a consensus. There is a preponderant view at any one point in time, but it is largely defined by disagreement, not agreement. Someone comes up with a new framing for how the world works and tests that conception (where possible) through experimentation, observation, analysis and (for complex phenomena without comparable control cases) simulation.

Peers challenge the finding like intellectual piranhas, nipping at faulty logic, flawed data or unsupported conclusions. Whatever remains is sturdy and powerful, until some new line of thinking and analysis uproots it.

The preparation of the basic scientific reports produced periodically by theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which I have reported on since the panel was created in 1988, epitomizes this process, imperfections and all. Most of the charges of spin or alarmism or excessive caution relate to summary statements produced by small committees.

In science, what is more important than any individual study or collection of papers (particularly if assembled by someone with an agenda), is the trajectory of understanding. This is particularly true with a problem like the human-amplified greenhouse effect. Not only is it multidisciplinary; it is also not testable through experiments (we’re all in the test tube undergoing a one-time experiment).

On the basics, the trajectory of understanding is clear and has been building for more than 100 years: more carbon dioxide (and other heat-trapping gases) = warmer world = less ice = higher seas (and lots of shifting climate patterns). A solid review can be found in the online hypertext edition of “The Discovery of Global Warming,” a book by Spencer Weart of the American Institute of Physics.

At the same time, there are at least two areas of persistent, and legitimate, scientific debate left — more than enough to produce lists as long as the one published today by Senator Inhofe.

First, there is still a lot of uncertainty about the extent and pace of warming from a particular rise in concentrations of greenhouse gases, and about how fast and far seas will rise as a result. (It’s important to keep in mind that uncertainty could result in outcomes being much worse than the midrange outcome, or much less severe).

Second, there is a wider debate over what to do, or not do, about climate change, with peoples’ preferences (a carbon tax, a technology push, building dikes or parasols in space) not so much a function of science as values. And values are shaped by all manner of things, including how you were raised and where you live.

If you wonder why comments on this blog, the opinions of politicians and columnists, the views of neighbors and co-workers, are so diverse on climate, there’s another reason. A lot of us live in intellectual silos, it seems. A sobering survey of more than 1,700 voters, published by the Pew Research Center for the Public and the Press in January, found that more education, for example, does not shift attitudes, and instead actually hardens them.

In the survey, Republicans with a college degree were substantially more skeptical about global warming than Republicans without one. Democrats with a college degree were significantly more convinced global warming was a problem than were Democrats who didn’t go to college.

This is bad news for anyone commenting on Dot Earth who plans to try to win over readers with starkly different attitudes. My hope is that the interactions here will be a little bit like the scientific process, whittling away at unsupported arguments, building on areas of agreement and creating a trajectory toward understanding and meaningful action.

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“Most of the charges of spin or alarmism or excessive caution relate to summary statements produced by small committees.”

this is true. should that not more accurately read, “small committees of non-scientists with political agendas.”?

unfortunately, it seems that so do most of the recommendations on actions to be taken to thwart global warming stem from these “small committees.”

“Not only is it multidisciplinary; it is also not testable through experiments (we’re all in the test tube undergoing a one-time experiment).”

now we’re getting somewhere! what other scientific “truths” are we supposed to accept — prima facia — that is UNTESTABLE!?!

(but, andy, you are quite right about one thing: i certainly don’t expect to convince anybody….)

It looks like it’s DEFINITELY time to discuss (actually, past the best time to discuss) the media’s role in all this. When can we do it? Tomorrow?

Great post. Thanks Andrew. This is a complex issue, and knowing how to deal with it even more so. I think it is important to encourage a healthy critique of the science of anthropogenic climate change and the method of mitigation.

It’s about time we look at extrernal forces that cause climate variations.

The good earth has experienced many ice ages and significant warmings in the past without human input.

The climate hand-wringers are just on the latest chicken little fad. This too shall pass.

Andrew, a very level-headed big picture breakdown. Thank you. Senator James Inhofe and likeminded skeptics of the human factor on climate change have major axes to grind. He is either being relegated to a distraction, or aiming to become a major hurdle to progress, depending on how many people are comfortable taking the the risky position that humans are not effecting climate and the natural world and therefore are not on the hook to modify their behavior. I have my reasons for believing that human activity is harming the planet to a great extent, but I couldn’t prove it to a skeptic, so I rely on the seatbelt analogy: even if I never get into an accident, it was well worth the effort to click it on -the adult thing to do. And the thoughtful thing to do. Inhofe sounds so much like an angry child arguing against any accountability and restraint, for either political or personal or financial gain, I’m not sure. But he’s got a real axe to grind, and there is no upside -none whatsoever- to his position. Only the potential for being gravely wrong and harming the planet and everyone on it in the process. I don’t like those odds. Glad he’s a dying breed.

What most scientists lose touch with is that global warming is NOT a scientific question. It sounds silly, but you are quite right that we are living in what will be for humanity as we know it a one-time experiment. We cannot get outside the total planetary system in order to get an objective read on our situation. Scientific data show both the radical warming of the planet over the past century or two AND the radical increase in CO2.

Historians and anthropologists have presented compelling evidence that humanity has radically altered the environment since the rise of civilization about 5,000-6,000 years ago. Now, physical phenomena are changing far faster and in a more widespread fashion than our ancestors have recorded. Physical data suggest that the physical world is changing as quickly as we perceive the change historically to be. The social scientific argument is that our historical perception is linked to sociological processes that are altering the environment. The scientific data are inconclusive, BUT it will be too late to change things, when the data reach a reasonable certainty by scientific standards. The question boils down to economics: what would it cost to reverse activities we believe are causing global warming vs. what do we predict global warming will cost us? How are we willing to live in the future?

Well said, Andy. It is unfortunate, but probably inevitable, that politicians will exploit the diversity of opinion in science to further their own narrow policy goals, while wilfully ignoring the overall trajectory of scientific understanding. (It should be said that journalists and other laypersons sometimes are guilty of the same). Until Sen. Inhofe and his ilk are willing to demonstrate a modicum of self-reflection by acknowledging the possibility that they might be wrong, and that humankind’s fingerprints might be on the warming climate, they will have no credibility no matter how many “reports” they issue.

the doom and gloom of one hundred years forward is an
issue. We don’t know what affects that could appear that reslove or balance things again. My thought is this. As surface water increases with melting ice will more evaporation create more overcast, and stop the warning, and even send us shivering for the igloo. Nobody really knows.

Other issues are cycles of the sun, and perhaps even minor changes in our orbit or wobble of the earth.

At any rate, shouting doom and gloom at a time like this is folly.

Actually, the concensus is a lot stronger than the article implies. Most mainstream scientists agree that we need to move a lot faster on carbon reduction than we are. What we’re seeing now is a lot of industry generated push-back, funded by the oil companies, that’s not unlike what the tobacco companies did when they spent 30 years trying to create doubt about the link between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer.

Its always easier to do nothing than to face a difficult problem, and there’s a natural human tendency to downplay risk.

The problem with the climate change problem is the time lag between when we finally take action and when it takes effect. If we wait too long, we could be in for a pretty rough time.

As a college educated Republican who previously was not convinced about global warming, I can hopefully share a little insight on how to reach across the divide.

My initial reluctance to buy into the theory was based largely in my resistance to the types of draconian measures typically proferred by some of the more ardent left-leaning adherents of the theory. Many of them seem all too eager to tax and regulate and control. And based on my perusal of the various energy/environment related blogs, many of the commenters seem eager not just to produce cleaner energy, but to constrict the economy.

There seems to be little thought to the real-world consequences of those sorts of things. And contempt for those who don’t agree.

My migration over to the theory began with my interest in energy as an issue generally. It forced me to do a granular, though admittedly layman’s, examination of different parts of the energy picture. I became mildly obsessed with trying to understand what it would take to develop a “sustainable” energy portfolio.

As a side-effect of my examination of these issues, I came across more and more material on the theory, how it applies and what the strengths and weaknesses of it were. But the shift was obvious to me when I started to examine every e-mail I got from various correspondents questioning the theory. None of them stood up to examination

That forced me to closely examine skeptical articles I read, and again, the points made didn’t stand examination. So essentially, I put the arguments of both sides “to the test”, and arrived at the conclusion the theory is real, that the models have validity, that there is a need to consider what they mean, and what the tradeoffs are for different policy choices for mitigating it.

You can’t convince someone by calling them an idiot, especially when, like many of the commenters in here, your understanding of the theory isn’t really better than those who don’t buy it.

It has occurred to me in reading comments here, that in large part Democrats buy the theory because the government is required to solve the problem. It fits their natural world view of a market in need of ever more regulation.

And while Republicans tend to discount the theory, Democrats tend to oversubscribe to it, willingly blaming each downpour or hot day (or Katrina) to the effects of rampant global warming.

So if you’re interested in bringing doubters/skeptics over to an understanding of the theory, be a little be humble, be as familiar with the limits of the theory as you are with the strengths, and try to resist making calls to ban SUVs, restrict reproductive rights, constrict the economy and other nutty ideas.

Or just be happy in your echo chamber where only people who agree with you repeatedly amplify your own thoughts back to you.

[ANDY REVKIN comments: This is why I’m ultimately optimistic (a despairing optimist, mind you, to use a phrase from Rene Dubos). The silos are not unbreakable, it seems. Information can matter. I guess this means I don’t have to quit my job as a communicator? I was beginning to wonder after 20 years writing on this issue. You made my day.]

This was a great column.

I think the point about values is particularly important. If there is one thing that I think is clear about the science of global climate change, it is that it will never be certain. So the real question is how are we going to choose to act in the face of that uncertainty? The answer depends on our values, and what risks we think are worth taking. Science can help us understand what those risks might be (both those associated with not taking any action, and those associated with proposed actions), but it cannot tell us which ones we should take. That depends on our goals and our priorities as a culture and society.

Andy:

Yours is a major insight about how science works in the brains of Homo sapiens: we humans, who evolved on the african Savanna in a world very different from the high-tech civilization we’ve created on our melting planet.

We’re cetainly in trouble, but let’s hope we’re not so far gone to think that science is ONLY a consensual reality. That EVERYTHING is a matter of opinion, ideology and politics, & that there’s no objective reality out there.

That way is the path of those who say NASA’s moonshots were a hoax, that AIDS isn’t caused by the HIV virus, and indeed, that global warming is a plot by researchers and environmentalists looking for funding. It leads to survivalism in the near-term, and in the long term to the world of our hunter-gatherer forebears skirmishing at tribal boundaries. (Think Iraq.)

Some decades ago a “climate skeptic” could make reasoned arguments against the reality of global warming from fossil fuel burning. Some did, and they were taken seriously. Satellite and paleoclimate temperature records, for example, were exhaustively analyzed for consistency with the globalk warming hyothesis (they are). But we are have gone beyond heathy scientific scepicism to outright climate change denial in the face of overwhelming evidence.

What we’re talking about is challenging the scientific method as way of understanding the universe. That’s the real danger behind the immediate one of reversing CO2 emission rates trhat will surely disrupt for the worse human and natural ecosystems. Science is what enables technology-based civilization — however painful it is to us all-to-human researchers to have to abandon our beautiful theories in the face of an ugly facts.

Our civilization runs on fossil fuel, increasingly coal, in the way the Roman empire ran on slavery. We are nowhere near ready to make the energy transformations that will enable us to persist and coexist with natural exosystems and an equitable climate, not with nine billion people aspiring to US lifestyles. We have to change something basic, but mostly we have to face reality. I love technology, and hope we can go forward without giving up those physical and mental prosthetics that have turned out world into a global village with a gind of collective consciousness based in the internet.

In the end it will be a political fight for reason and science; a fight we must win or descend to a intellectual Dark Age in which our descendants might tell will tales of days in the past men who once walked on the moon, as they cower in caves.

On that cautionary but not hopeless note I will submit separately to this blog a piece I wrote called “The Cold Equations of Global Warming.” I think it’s pretty good but I suspect The New Yorker isn’t ready to print it just yet.

[Highlight above added by Andy Revkin : – )]

when discussing inhofe and his “crowd,” it’s important to understand the motivation of these people:

unlike myself, someone who would truly like to mitigate the damaging effects of overpopulation (and air pollution, and fishery depletion, and diminution of the fresh water supply), it’s important to understand that there are powerful interests:

1. who want to sell you stuff — and more and more people provide more and more consumers for their stuff!

2. who want to collect more and more taxes to support their need for incessant growth to support their need for more and more power over your lives.

without a significant herd, the herder is powerless.

and so is the essential truth of the economy of growth — and, generally, of all those who govern us.

The evidence that global warming is occurring, and furthermore is due in large part to human influences (though perhaps other factors also play a role), is much stronger than the evidence I have personally seen that Inhofe exists.

Whether or not Inhofe is a real example of the phenomenon (and joking aside), I can only presume that human-influenced climate change will continue to be doubted for the same reasons that evolution is doubted and, indeed, for the same reason that some people still doubt the earth is round and goes around the sun. The reason in all of these cases is scale. All of these represent a scale that is too far beyond direct human experience to be easily grasped.

It does take a little hubris to believe that we, short-lived mortals that we are, can literally change the nature of the world. It’s an important realization, though, because it makes no sense to take responsibility for your actions until you understand that your actions have consequences.

Andrew said:
“A lot of us live in intellectual silos, it seems. A sobering survey of more than 1,700 voters, published by the Pew Research Center for the Public and the Press in January, found that more education, for example, does not shift attitudes, and instead actually hardens them.”

My last two blogs (see below) have addressed this issue directly. There is a serious and fundamental problem with the way we do education in this country (USA). We have completely bought into the notion that education is primarily for preparing people for the job market and that that means specialization along with professionalization. People are caught in knowledge silos as a result of educational institutions following this argument. In the rush to make people specialists we have forgone a holistic, integrated knowledge education that would emphasize critical thinking based on a broad knowledge base.

When the world doesn’t seem to be getting better when we keep thinking we’re doing the right things, it’s time to question the conventional wisdom. Education is critical to finding our way.

George Mobus,
Associate Professor, University of Washington Tacoma
htpp://www.questioneverything.typepad.com/
//faculty.washington.edu/gmobus/

I’d like to make a request so we can sort through this with an understanding of viewpoints: I suggest that, at least on this thread, it would be helpful if each person would state her/his science-oriented background in her/his signoff. For example, if you are a PhD nuclear physicist from Princeton, state that. If you are a graduated biology major from Yale, state that. If you took Chem 1 at NYU, state that. Or, if your science background ends with high-school physics, state that. I’m not suggesting, at all, that those sorts of credentials are the only defining factors. Instead, I’m coming from the standpoint of at least some degree of transparency, which will be helpful to the reading audience, which includes all of us. Of course, if someone doesn’t want to list her/his science-oriented background, that is her/his right. But, that allows readers to prioritize, if they wish, what they might choose to read, and that should be a reader’s right also.

I hope this makes sense to as many people as possible.

Jeff Huggins
U.C. Berkeley, chemical engineering, class of 1981.
Chevron Corporation, 1981-1984 (chemical engineer in R&D and process design).
Starbucks addict.

Here’s my attempt at “whittling away at unsupported arguments”: I think your conclusion about the party & education effect in the Pew Center survey is inaccurate (or at least over-stated). The reason is that the survey tested attitudes towards global warming based on only two explanatory variables (party and education level), one of which (education) is strongly correlated with another important (but omitted) explanatory variable: wealth/income. (A classic case of omitted variables bias exaggerating the perceived impact of one parameter, for all you statisticians out there.)

My theory is that Republicans with higher levels of income (and education) would be disproportionately concerned about the economic implications of any proposed global warming solution (e.g. a carbon tax) because they have more to lose from slower economic growth than less wealthy Republicans — and thus would view the entire issue much more skeptically. On the other hand, Democrats with less wealth (and education) are less likely to care one way or the other about the issue because they’re more concerned about simply making ends meet. Wealthier Democrats (“limousine liberals”) have the luxury of being able to care passionately about solving the problem, whether or not it slows economic growth rates by a fraction.

Andy –

I love your explanation of hurly-burly of genuine science at work. But how do you, as a journalist, go about getting that across given the widespread public misunderstanding of science – the notion that it’s a fixed, textbookish set of knowledge. It has always seemed to me that it is this misunderstanding of the genuine nature of science that makes things such as this Inhofe release so confusing for the non-scientific public. “But wait,” the poor reader thinks as he reads the paper while buttering his breakfast toast. “I thought last week they told me coffee was *good* for me!”

[ANDY REVKIN cheers: John, great question. First, I’ve written two book chapters on communicating science surrounding climate and other ‘slow drip’ issues, one of which (lucky for Dot Earth readers, is posted online at the Web site of the NPR radio show “On the Media” and thanks the publisher, NASW. I talk about the perils of “whiplash journalism,” where the focus on today’s study (about coffee or climate) can miss the broader context and trajectory. We need to talk about trajectory (both scientists and science writers) and not try to hard to get attention by overplaying the “front-page thought” in a particular story or paper. I also love to write about science as process, including the failures, to convey the value of some theory once tested. Three examples from my Arctic reporting are online here.]

It isn’t just Inhofe but all of his 400 cohorts who are politically driven. The science has always been simple and intuitively obvious – about the level of undergraduate classes in heat transfer and radiation. What better way to get attention than to take a contrarian view on any subject? And academically, what could be easier – just throw together non sequiturs, like “the earth has been warmer in the past”, sign your name with “,PhD” and you’re on Inhofe’s list and enjoying your 15 minutes of fame.

[ANDY REVKIN comments: I have to disagree. The basics are indeed simple (more co2 = warmer world). But beyond that it does get sticky in a hurry. And you quickly see divergent views, particularly, on optimal responses among solid scientists with different backgrounds. In a future post, I’ll weigh in more on this with examples.]

In reality, Global warming is not an issue of science now, but politics. I am not saying this the way the right wing likes to portray it, as an agenda of the ‘loony left’ who are uncomfortable with people having the wealth to live in big houses and drive gas guzzling SUV’s. It is a political issue because there are factors way behind science here.

For example, the esteemed Sen. Inhofe is from Oklahoma. Now, it isn’t coincidence that his core constituency happens to be the many energy companies based in his state, all of them based on fossil fuels and that he gets a lot of campaing contributions from them, not to mention that Oklahoma’s economy is sorely dependent upon said companies. Force restrictions on energy use, promote conservation or switch to alternative fuels and suddenly their economy is in shambles.

Likewise, those who make the claim that global warming isn’t real are those who believe quite firmly that the only way we could adress the issue would be to live in mud huts freezing to death, eating roots to stay alive or something as dire.

In other words, it is all about the politics of fear. Our dear administration, for example, only sees a world where oil is king, and we have two oil men in Bush and Cheney in power, who would rather fight wars to keep oil supplies open then look at rational energy policy.

And when I hear those who say “the earth has gone through heating cycles before” or “It could be solar radiation” I hear the same put your head in the sand thinking, basically saying “only God can make things like this happen” or substitute nature, so therefore there isn’t a problem. Besides the fact that the geological record , which does record heating and cooling cycles, doesn’t match the pattern we are seeing now, and solar radiation levels during the last 50 years have not changed enough to do much of anything (the impact of solar radiation on temperature, unlike CO2, is very well known).

And for those opposing it, the basic underlying belief I think is that they realize this is all real, but because they feel they have too much to lose if they admit it, they grasp at straws. Someone used the analogy of smoking, and that is appropo. For many years, I heard smokers say that the evidence about smoking and illness was hooey, that ‘scientists’ weren’t sure, that their grandpappy smoked until he died at 90 and so forth, I heard all kinds of claims about the granola police and the rest, and this was fed by the same crowd, by so called ‘scientists’ working for tobacco companies, and the tobacco state politicians who fought every regulation and report tooth and nail and claimed it was all liberal propoganda and the like. You see the same thing today, with skeptics fed by ‘scientists’ paid for by energy companies afraid of losing their control over the industry, of having energy that is renewable and cannot be gamed (and don’t forget the energy traders and hedgers, who make a ton of money out of this very volatile market). Add that up, and you have the skeptics.

I am glad that science does not reach a consensus and I am glad there are those questioning what we should do about this. In a world where politics demands instant solutions, having science say “no” or be skeptical is extremely valuable. Maybe the better way is to find ways to adapt to a changed world, maybe it is in conservative and sequestering and adaptation, who knows? By having the voices of science out there debating this stuff, we stop panic and also complacency.

Jeff C (#8):
If you bothered to read the science, instead of cavalierly concluding that “Nobody really knows,” you’d probably realize rather quickly that water vapor is actually an extremely important greenhouse gas, not a potential solution to the problem. It actually has something like 100x the global warming impact (radiative forcing) of CO2. So as more CO2 gets pumped into the atmosphere the temperature rises, which causes more water to evaporate (as you accurately state), increasing the concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere — which heats the atmosphere even more, causing even more water vapor to enter the atmosphere. It’s called a feedback loop.
See here: //www.aip.org/history/climate/simple.htm

I am not convinced that the question of global warming is ‘beyond’ scientific analysis. While it is true that we cannot (at present anyway) get ‘outside’ our own planetary system to ‘observe from without’ our situation, we can certainly ‘do science’ in a manner analogous to sociologists who cannot observe totally from the outside, either.

We know there have been previous ice ages and subsequent warming cycles; we know when they were, and how much time elapsed between them. We know, therefore, the rates of cooling and warming (and presumably the causes; I am not a geologist). We can, therefore, compare the present warming trends (and warming/cooling cycles; think about the ‘mini-ice age’ of the 19th Century) with the geological record and make statistical extrapolations about changing rates and develop hypotheses about causes (whichh, basically, is what current climate scientists have been doing).

It is a narrow view of science indeed that would disallow its methods to be applied to phenomenona we can not, ourselves, directly observe from the outside. Social science would be excluded as well as cosmology.

It is my understanding that present rates of warming are excessive by historical comparisons. If it is not human activity that is causing global warming (or greatly contributing to it), then why is it happening? I think I’d like to be on the safe side. And if decreasing carbon emissions turns out not to affect global temperatures, at least it will free us from petroleum dependency and clear up the air.

Anyone who has studied science, history, arts, etc. at great length knows that differing ideas will emerge which allow researchers to build on those ideas and refine their research objectives. The peer-review process weeds out faulty papers, but some journals have different standards than others.
Republicans probably presume that because a journal is refereed, everything it prints is true. I’m totally open to hearing about any and all findings on the subject, but this sounds suspiciously like the NIE that claimed there was substantial evidence that Iraq had WMD’s. Basically,

I wondering how many posts it take before the skeptics were allied with “big oil.” Now I have my answer. The real distorter is, of course, Big Government (funding, that is).

Politics and even scientific research have absolutely no effect on global warming. Thank goodness. Very soon, we will witness painful displays of change that cannot be argued with nor stopped by any biased group. This pain will yield understanding, or acceptance or reaction. And if we do not work to change our future, then the lesson will be repeated again and again with increasing pain.