A recent study reported on an interesting and “intuitively compelling” theory for the Earth’s history of ice ages and interglacial warm periods. The particulars of the study, which connect low CO2 levels to plant die-off that leads to increased atmospheric dust and a reduction in albedo (i.e. how much sunlight is reflected instead of being absorbed), which then increases the amount of heat absorbed by ice sheets, which then melt, and so forth, is secondary for our purposes to the fact that it introduces new information into our understanding of climate.
Such is the way of science. As we study whatever it is we are studying, we find things that either support or undermine our existing theories. In the case of climate science, we keep finding more evidence that we don’t know everything, that the science isn’t “settled.” We’re experiencing an unpredicted “pause” in warming that has lasted 20+ years, and scientists have come up with dozens of theories to explain it. This comes on top of the failure of predictions made 30 years ago.
Some have declared the entire global warming theory and the resultant industry a giant hoax. I don’t number myself among those, preferring instead to conclude what my eyes tell me: that the theories are not robust enough to be relied on when the cost of acting to counter that which they predicted is so horribly high. The temperature trends suggest a far milder “warming” than the alarmists predicted and continue to predict, a warming that is more likely to be benign or even beneficial. And, the alleged causative link between human emissions and warming has yet to be proven to a high degree of confidence. In current parlance, I am a lukewarmist.
This means, in practice, that I oppose the brutally destructive and expensive carbon caps and taxes that alarmists insist must be imposed in order to save the planet. I also oppose these “solutions” because they won’t work. Developing nations may promise to abide by certain limits decades from now, but only a naive fool will think they’ll honor those promises if doing so will harm their people and their economies.
While this means I’m not a “denier,” in the eyes of the true believers in the Tabernacle of Anthropogenic Global Warming, I might as well be. Their certainty in the magnitude of AGW, in its deleterious effects, and in the singular solution that must be embraced brooks no dissent and accepts no skeptical inquiry.
In a recent editorial, Wall Street Journal writer Holman Jenkins points out how so many people diminish the enormous complexity of climate science and the difficulty in showing causation between human activity and climate change. In other words, they make it a binary ‘it’s happening, it’s bad, something must be done, carbon caps must be done – and if you disagree, you’re wrong, a liar, a denier, and an asshole.’ I can’t help but be reminded here of the Dunning-Kruger effect. There is no humility any more. People who want to move cautiously, cognizant of their own limitations and lack of omniscience, are swept away by in a growing tide of self-righteous, dogmatic certainty.
Those of us who see global warming alarmism crashing against the rocks of science and empirical evidence are still being drowned out by the argumentum ad populum that is the “consensus.” Despite both the failure of the predictive models, and despite the dismantling of the 97% assertion itself, we still get flooded by a wide range of attacks by those who are certain they are right and who will accept no challenge to that certainty. Yet, as Galileo observed:
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
I don’t claim to be that individual, and I don’t claim to have the answers regarding global warming. I do know, though, that with each passing day there’s more reason to doubt and less reason to blindly accept the fear-mongering assertions of the alarmists. That may change in the future, and new science may validate the high-range predictions that are currently so far deviated from the measured data that no one in his right mind can logically assert they should be relied upon. But, until that day, I will continue to swim against the tide of climate change dogmatists. Hopefully, the tide will turn before the damage it does becomes too severe.
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