All in a good cause

Yesterday Meridian Magazine came out with an excellent article by Orson Scott Card that tears global warming to shreds. Everyone needs to read this. Everyone. Card really hits the nail on the head:

When Al Gore goes on and on about what we must do to save the Earth, he knows — and everybody involved with the Global Warming alarmist movement knows — that none of their drastic proposals would have the slightest effect on Global Warming even if it worked they way their fantasies say it does.

So why do they propose it? There are many personal motives, of course, but when you look at the non-solution “solutions” they propose, the pattern is clear: They are not trying to stop global warming. They are trying to punish the Western democracies for being richer than the rest of the world.

There are delicious nuggets scattered throughout the article, like these:

What matters right here and now is that it is time for the world’s scientists to apostatize from the Church of Global Warming. It is a false religion. It is based on lies, and its leading prophets know that it is because they’re the ones faking the data or stretching it to ridiculous lengths to pretend that the real world hasn’t already ruled against their claims….

The Global Warming alarmists are the anti-science religion that is trying to forcibly indoctrinate and convert everyone while suppressing dissent. And the news media are their patsies, their stooges, their puppets.

Great stuff. :)

I’ll admit that I don’t know enough about global warming to yea or nay it, primarily because I don’t really care, but Card’s argument seems sound. And I can’t help but wonder if one of the reasons I’ve felt so blah towards climate change has been a gut feeling that it’s all a charade, just a masterful form of advertisement and deception, bloated up out of all proportion. Maybe not — I’m sure I’m still more gullible than I’d like to be — but either way, down with global warming. May it rot forever. :)

I like how Bjohn Lomborg put it:

Global warming is an important issue and one which we should address. But there is no sense of proportion either in environmental terms, or indeed in terms of the other issues facing the world.

This is a good read on the subject, or if you’re looking for a good laugh, read this one.

Amen.

I don’t know, I’m really having a hard time believing so many countries would agree to so much voluntary reduction in energy usage and restrictions if they “knew”–as Card suggests–that they would have no effect on global warming. I read Card’s article and what I found notably lacking was a scientific explanation of how global warming works and how he knows that global warming isn’t at least partly a result of human energy use and air pollution. Of course there are debates on the issue–but the majority of the scientific community (including almost all the science professors at BYU)–seem to accept that human activity contributes to global warming, and that human restraint can reduce it.

Perhaps what we should care about is not the political statements being made by people on all parts of the spectrum, whether it’s left, right, or somewhere in between. I personally believe that many of the claims made by global warming activists are overblown and have developed into a kind of religion that places the rights of individuals and nations at the lowest point in the legal and moral hierarchy.

However, I also believe that it is foolish, misguided, and also immoral to simply ignore discussion of global warming and dismiss it as nothing but propagandizing. It is nigh impossible for any conscientious human to deny that the earth is suffering, that natural resources are being depleted, and that there are very few pristine areas left on this planet. If we are going to mine the earth–literally and figuratively–for resources, which I’m not denying that we should do, we should also take responsibility for caring for the same earth that provides us with the material to continue and to improve our way of life. Surely we have a moral responsibility, particularly if we belong to a religion or a belief system that situates some type of primeval life source and spirit in the earth itself. Global warming, whether overblown or misguided or not, can at the very least redirect our attention back to the responsibility which we have to care for the earth and to more carefully examine our own behaviors in terms of the way that we use resources and what we take for granted.

Oh, certainly we should take care of the earth. Few on the anti-global warming front (myself included) would deny that. The problem is exactly what you state in your last sentence: that we’ve subjugated science to the importance of the environmental cause. If anyone were to find evidence that the earth was doing better in any area, or even not as bad as suspected, the knowledge would be suppressed because the most important thing is the cause. It’s more important to make people do the right thing than to find out how the earth is really doing. It’s killing science with dogmas just as badly as religious dogmas suppressed Galileo. How can that be right?

Incidentally, I read this article when it was originally published. It was the thing that led me to question global warming in particular, and scientific dogma in general. A lot of what you were taught in school is completely bogus, but we keep teaching it “because it’s good for us.”

And don’t doubt that real scientists do what Card describes at the beginning of the article–there’s some really bad number cooking going on. It’s the same thing you did in your science labs, picking the data that gives you the best answer, only on a larger and more sinister scale.

Ben, methinks my comment got lost in moderation somewhere. :)

Connor, it’s now up. (WordPress’s spam filter will catch anything with three or more links in it.) Sorry about that. :)

As a professional scientist, I have to say that my experience is that most scientists are generally people of enormous integrity, calling the facts exactly as they see it. Many of them say that the data conclusively linking global warming to human behavior has only in the past few years become important. It is important not to mistake New York Times reporters for climatologists.

The reason to act, even in the absense of a perfect case is that the consequences of not acting if we are destroying the climate could be so drastic. In other words, it is just like a game of Russian roulette, only a 1 in six chance of dying. Still not worth it, not even for a million dollars. So, we try to act, even when we aren’t totally sure about the facts, because all we really can say is that if the fact is that we are heating up the planet, then the costs our children will bear will be enormous.

One final note: Many people of Card’s view seem to believe that since global warming doesn’t actually seem to be raising the temperature of the earth very much, that it must not be very dangerous. This is, in science, called an “assumption of linear response.” That assumption is known to be false in all but very special cases. A small change in global average temperatures could have a very large effect on the weather you and I see every day. That is one of only a few very general facts we understand about weather. It doesn’t take much change in input to dramatically change output.

While giving due attention to other equally pressing environmental and political concerns, we should respect our children by not playing Russian roulette with the climate. Card says we are rich. We can do many good things. Let’s spend our wealth wisely.

Tc: I’m not by any means saying that all scientists are corrupt. But I’m saying some few are, plus some few practice “wishful thinking”–think the cold fusion fiasco at the University of Utah. We can convince ourselves of a truth so much that we are willing to bend data to fit it. And there seems (to me) to be so little duplication of analysis that a few wishful or corrupt scientists can make a big difference.

And again, neither Card nor anyone mentioned in the article said that because of the data we don’t have to worry about the environment. Why does everyone assume that if global warming is unfactual, then the people promoting it must want to cut down the rainforest and kill the bunnies? We just want to find out what is true! Let the attempts to keep the world safe go on.

The problem with your argument about global temperatures and non-linearity is that the temps aren’t even going up! It’s in fact cooler than in other times. Yet no one bothers to explain this.

I’ve been highly interested in this topic for a long time, and I still have yet to read any article explaining why “Mann” manipulated his data and why “Steve’s” analysis is incorrect. As Card says, we just keep getting “true believer” responses–”You must be trying to deny what’s really happening,” “stop it with the wishful thinking,” “this can’t possibly be significant,” “you just hate the environment, ya crazy wacko.” I mean, even look at the comments in this thread. Yet we have to see anyone give a good reason to doubt Steve, except that they believe global warming to be true.

If there is evidence refuting this apparent breach in science, please, let me know. I’m a scientist; I love being proven wrong. But I only accept actual proof.

Liz,

Thanks for a curteous response. Unfortunately, I don’t have time for as detailed response as I’d like. I can’t agree more about the “true believer” statements. Scan my post for any “true believer” statements. You’ll recall that the argument I made is constructed on an assessment of probability, not certainty.

Next, the nonlinearity. I presume you are arguing that global temperatures are not rising because of indications that the last couple years have not been above the recent mean. The problem with that argument against global warming is that year to year fluctuations are too large for information over a period of a couple years to be meaningful. That is, over period of a couple of years, the signal to noise ratio is less than 1/10. You need to look at a long period of time to assess trends. Then the signal to noise ratio is small enough to extract information. This is a generic feature of noisy data. The shorter the time scale of your data, the more fluctuations dominate. This is also why day trading is a bad idea. To get trend information about the stock market, or the climate, you have to look at much larger time intervals.

Some long time scale information is available on the NASA website from 1880 at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/ This data has been corraborated using other methods, and the general trends have been studied using geological and biological methods much farther back, as noted by Card.

The information is not a “slam dunk,” since the data since 1880 may again, be on too short a timescale. That seems to be Card’s view. Many things contribute to climate change, over many different timescales. The issue is to see what factors are responsible for this new shift, and which dominate on timescales of decades or more. It is clear that nature has precipitated larger climate changes in the past. It does not follow that natural events are entirely responsible for the climate change we seem to be involved in. All that is being claimed (by me at least) is that we may be participating in driving this change.

Now, why don’t scientist explain this reasoning about the last couple years temperature drops in their articles? I assume you are a student, so don’t take the following as condescending: The reason scientists don’t discuss this is that the explanation is assumed to be clear to the reader. The signal to noise reasoning above is a standard component of any course in statistical analysis of data, and not reasoning that belongs in a publication for the professional community.

Still, I think scientists should try to explain things like this better when they talk to the general public. I think sometimes we forget what is part of our scientific background, and what we would have known anyway, had we majored in something nonscientific, or were not finished with our core scientific training.

Another issue I am confused about with Card’s article is why he is so hung up on Mann. He is one voice among many. It is very easy to find papers with similar conclusions to his that don’t use his data or methods, and are in fact coming from radically different approches. Many don’t even cite him. If you have access to a University library, take a little time with Nature or Science. You’ll see that this is the case.

One final note. I did look over Mann’s paper, and I will admit that he takes his data more seriously than I would. If I am looking at the right paper, there are places where he seems again, to mistake fluctuations for signal, like you did above. It is entirely possible that Mann’s analysis is wrong even more broadly. But he is one voice, one trend of analysis among many.

So, in the final analysis, I can’t prove you wrong. No data could make it absolutely conclusive. I can just say that probablity suggests great caution when dismissing human factors in global warming.

OSC (a Mormon sci-fi/biblical fiction writer and known conservative) is criticizing Al Gore for using the global warming issue towards politcal ends? Pot, meet kettle. LOL

I don’t pretend to know a lot about the scientific arguments for or against global warming, but I can cite Professor Steve Turley of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. During our discussion on Geology, someone brought up the subject of global warming and Professor Turley said it was ridiculous. According to geological records, the Earth at the present time is cooler than it has been in hundreds of thousands of years. According to Professor Turley, we should be watching out for the next ice age, not the ice caps melting.
Just thought you all should know.

I hope you have seen Al Gore’s documentary … if not, please do … this article seems more like one to remove the guilt that the Americans SHOULD have for their part in the so called global warming. Are you all Blind???

State of Fear by Michael Crichton is a good read about the politics of environmentalism. It’s fiction, but, as always, Crichton did a lot of research (I think there is an appendix of footnotes/references).
Also, I have to agree with the gist of what James got from Dr. Turley. From a scientific point of view (I’m graduating in Physics this year), we simply don’t have enough information to conclude that mankind is causing global warming. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that polluting the environment is OK, but 100 years of data is just not conclusive–a century is absolutely nothing on a geological time scale. Yes, we should do what we can to cut back on pollution, but the attempt to back up environmental morality with pseudo-science just seems like a fear tactic.

I think Orson Scott Card would be more convincing if he supported his claims with evidence. Maybe he does and I just don’t know that because I haven’t read the whole article, but how does he know that none of the solutions would work? How does he know they are lying and faking their data? It’s easy for him to say if he doesn’t have to support his own wild assertions. So even if he is right, those inherent flaws in his argument niggle at the back of my mind and make me not want to trust him. Or maybe I’m just not a fan of Orson Scott Card :)

I find it rather amusing to read the theories that nay sayers have concerning global warming activists (or whatever people call them). If the argument is on hidden agendas as Orsen is suggesting, just think about it. Who has more to lose/gain on each side of the argument. The energy, automotive, and other linked industries or those within/out western democracies who are trying to punish the west at the benefit of everyone else. Come on . . . if that were the real issue this whole thing would have been glossed over like the harsh realities of iraqi war has been on news outlets like Fox News and even CNN. I for one in Alberta can testify as to the realities of global warming as our “Canadian winters” are becoming softer every year while oil exploration and production increases at unprecedented rates and costs.

I don’t really like gore and really didn’t like An Inconvenient Truth from a film perspective and I hope that wouldn’t be the only perspective that naysayers compare themselves too. There are hundreds of academic articles supporting the global warming theory. People should read some of those (on both sides) instead of basing their opinions on novelists/commentators who have more expertise in dissecting politics rather than science, understanding that the two can become convoluted.

Those are my thoughts. But hey, maybe I’m just a socialist tree hugger from Canada.

Goodness, I had no idea this was such a hot topic. :) Thanks for your comments, everyone.

I do agree that we need to take care of the earth. No question about that. If global warming can be conclusively linked to human behavior, then yes, we should do something about it. But if it’s something utterly beyond our control — as seems to be the case — then why on earth should we fret? And even if it is our own doing, I don’t think that it trumps our current concerns about people. Yes, what we do with the planet will affect our posterity, but our top priority should — in my mind — be the people here and now (Africa, for instance). My fear is that global warming seems to be hyped up to the point that it overshadows other, more pressing concerns. Granted, we are able to focus on more than one thing at once, but it seems like we’re funneling too many resources in the wrong direction.

Since James Meyer quoted me as saying global warming is ridiculous, I thought I had better set the record straight. I’m not a climatologist, but I have spent some time studying the evidence for global warming lately. Our best current scientific models are pretty definite about the fact that the earth is consistently warming, particularly over the last 50 years. Man-made causes are a significant contributor to this warming. A recent technical summary released in 2007 by a prestigious international team can be found at http://www.ipcc.ch. An accessible summary for policy makers can be found at at this link.

There are important technical, economic, sociological, and political questions relating to what can or should be done in light of this data, some of which are mentioned here. However, these questions should be addressed in light of solid science, not a hope that the data would be different than what it is.