NPR:
GOP Victory May Be Defeat For Climate Change Policy
Gee, it almost sounds like they think that's a bad thing.
Oh. Right. Well, it won't be a defeat for climate change policy. It will be a defeat for "a" climate change policy. One that is blinkered in its focus on CO2, viciously reactive to reasonable criticisms, and propped up by a dedication to the narrative that is nothing less than a religious fervor.
Well, let's see what they have to say anyway.
The more carbon that gets released into the atmosphere, the higher the average temperature rises.
That's a scientific fact.
You, I'm sure, being the educated and astute reader that you are, noticed what they just did there. They actually took two scientific facts, rising CO2levels and a slight rise in worldwide temps(more on that in a bit), slapped them together, and presto magico, my 9th grade science teacher is wrong: Correlation does prove causation! Take that Mr. Anderson!
Or not...ahem.
Let's see what comes next:
Human activities, such as driving, flying, building and even turning on the lights, are the biggest contributor to the release of carbon.
That too, is a fact.
Oh my. Well, this is rather awkward, but there's nothing to do but point out just how embarrassingly wrong that is and move on. I'll even use the text of the Holy ScriptureIPCC Fourth Assessment Report and not some hereticskeptic as a source. According to the clergy(rats, I keep doing that) scientists at the IPCC, humans are responsible for around 29 gigatons of CO2being released into the environment each year. Yeah, you read that right, gigatons. That's a big number.
But when it comes to the carbon cycle, we humans have nothing on Mother Nature herself. That number the IPCC estimates at around 770 gigatons. Yeah, you read that right, 770 gigatons. All of the oil, coal, and natural gas burned, all of the trees cut down or land burned for agricultural use, all of that human activity adds up to about 3.5% of what nature itself releases in the course of natural events. That, my friends, is a far cry from, "Human activities, such as driving, flying, building and even turning on the lights, are the biggest contributor to the release of carbon." The argument is made that the human caused contribution is too much for the environment to handle, a conclusion that I think is far from proved, but the claim that humans are the biggest contributor in the carbon cycle is ludicrous.
Oops.
There are also people on the other side who play loosely with the word "fact", of course. I'm not aware of any of them claiming the standing or credibility that NPR does though.
Regardless, healthy skepticism about anthropogenic global warming, or climate change, or the most laughable latest term, climate disruption, is not based on simply denying everything, it is based on many serious questions about what has been proved scientifically and what is theory and conjecture. On the other hand, a reasonable skeptic right now does not scream about it all being a hoax or that it has been proved that man does not have an impact on climate. Neither of those have been proved either.
I think of myself as a reasonable skeptic, and this is what I believe:
- CO2 level is one of many factors that can force changes to the Earth's climate. Solar activity, clouds, ocean currents, sudden and massive geological events are some of the others. We have learned a tremendous amount about each of those forces over the last few decades, but it is a drop in the bucket compared to what we need to know about each, let alone what we need to know about the enormously complicated interactions between them. I realize that I can't prove this, but all of the reading I have done on this issue tells me we still don't even know what we don't know. The focus on CO2 to the exclusion of the others, when that occurs, is dogma and not science.
- I only cautiously agree that there has been a slight rise in temperature over the last few decades, and then only because it's not a large enough number to argue about. The fact of the matter is that there are very few if any straightforward temperature records on which to simply base that conclusion. All of them, historic proxy records, actual historic temperature recordings, and current temperature recordings have been and are still subject to poor site locations, dubious data manipulations, and secrecy and stonewalling when other scientists try to examine why data was manipulated one way or the other. All of that is not to say that there is no value that can be gained from such records, just that various uncertainties demand more, not less, scrutiny of the data. It ought to be a huge red flag when scientists object to that and they have, time and time again.
- Computer models. God save us from the computer models. This is another area that I think has value, but only within reasonable levels of uncertainty. For certain narrow applications, modeling can provide insights into how forces develop and to some degree how they may interact with other forces in the environment. It does not take long though, the larger the scope of the model, for enough uncertainties to pile up in the assumptions that were made to make any particular prediction just as likely as another. In other words, garbage. We are nowhere close to understanding enough about all of the factors that influence climate to predict five years into the future let alone fifty, let alone 100.
- I still get astounded at the blatantly unscientific treatment that this topic gets in the media. Stories nearly always revolve around emotional appeals to authority, ad hominem attacks on skeptics, the highlighting of extreme skeptic views instead of mainstream criticism, and the urgent need to DO SOMETHING NOW that reeks of hysteria. Actual science almost never has anything to do with it. Then there is the strange way journalists uncritically accept the phony "consensus" in the scientific community. On this issue, among others of course, the mainstream media have utterly failed to provide good information to their readers and viewers. They have assumed the position of propogandists instead of journalists, and then they wonder why their credibility with the public is increasingly in tatters.
The earth's climate and what man may be doing to it is certainly a worthy area of study. So are alternative energy sources to fossil fuels. What we most need on this issue though, is more honesty and integrity and less demagoguery. On this issue there are facts and there are "NPR-like facts." The facts as we know them now do not support a massive and expensive disruption in our energy use. They simply don't. People can huff and puff about deniers all they want and it's not going to change that reality. I do not want the GOP to ignore this issue, I want them to fashion policies that will help us understand what the truth is, not what ideology says the truth should be. The latter being where we are at today.
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