Climate change — or global warming, if you’re antiquated — is a dead duck. It always has been. The Great Electrifier explains why:
Climate Change, National Geographic, and the War on Science
Don’t be fooled by the latest cover of National Geographic and their absurd conflation of climate change (so-called) with the other items they’ve listed on that same cover.
No serious person, skeptic or believer, denies that climate changes.
In fact, that’s precisely what skeptics have been saying for years: climate by definition is constantly changing, and so how is it, many of us ask, that anyone can say the optimal earth temperatures occurred (roughly) between 1850 and 1980?
Dr. Richard Lindzen, climatologist and professor emeritus at MIT, recently addressed this very point in the following exchange:
(Dr. Lindzen’s takedown of Bill Nye, who isn’t a climate scientist but an engineer, is also quite edifying.)
All of which, however, is slightly beside the point — and one is more than a little disheartened to see that a venerable magazine like National Geographic doesn’t have even the most rudimentary grasp of the issue at hand.
Politically, global warming and climate change have little if anything to do with climate science, and the fact that this subject has become such an overwhelming political issue is a fine testament to how poorly the world understands the legitimate functions of government, and why those functions are legitimate.
Indeed, it turns out that the whole anthropogenic global warming (AGW) position can be easily defused without any reference to science at all, because the error, at root, is epistemological.
The truth about global warming which many don’t want to hear is that it’s become so polarized only because it’s turned political. The essentials of the subject have thereby been swallowed up in an ocean of misinformation, equivocation, and propaganda.
Let us start by defining terms:
Statism is concentrated state authority. The word refers to a government that believes it has legitimate power to any extent over individual rights and freedom of trade.
Statism is also called Authoritarianism.
Opposition to laissez faire derives in part from ethics, but even more fundamentally from the science of epistemology.
Ethically the fundamental political question is this: are humans free by nature?
The answer to that depends upon the answer to an even deeper question: why (if at all) are humans free by nature?
And the answer to that is epistemologic.
The human brain — to address the latter query first — is individuated and rational by nature, and because of this, humans by nature possesses the faculty of choice.
Rationality is choice.
And choice presupposes the freedom to choose. This is the locus of the inseparable, indivisible link between reason and rights. Ultimately it is only the individual who can exercise the power of volition, or not. Government bureaus cannot. The state cannot. The collective cannot. Only the individuals who make up these entities.
If humans did not possess the faculty of choice, humans would be neither moral nor immoral but amoral, just as animals for this very reason are amoral.
But human action is chosen.
This, then, is what finally gives rise to the fact of human freedom as an epistemological necessity.
It’s also what it means to say that humans are free by nature: we are born with a cognitive faculty that gives us the power of choice: since this faculty is the primary method by which we thrive and keep ourselves alive, we must (therefore) be left free to exercise that faculty — and leave others likewise free.
Please note that this is not just some cryptic theory on how human freedom could conceivably be defended: the rights of each individual are demonstrably rooted in our cognitive quiddity – and for this precise reason, human freedom without an accurate and thorough understanding of our epistemologic nature can never be fully understood. Or defended.
In the words of Samuel Adams:
“Rights are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature.”
And Claude Fredrich Bastiat:
“For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? … Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor, and by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources.”
It is precisely the lack of epistemological grounding that has made rights and therefore human freedom vulnerable throughout all of history.
The evolution of the human brain created rights; it happened at the exact moment when this same evolution created a rational animal called a human being – which is to say, when nature created the capacity of free will.
Philosophy, then, being the most general science, unifies facts from all disciplines into an indivisible whole.
Thus, without proper philosophical underpinnings, scientific facts, no matter how airtight they are, remain unincorporated.
It is this point that provides us with the real and final connection between global warming and individual rights: the provenance of rights, including private property rights and the freedom to trade that property, is found ultimately the human being’s freedom of will, and it is only statist politics – also known as coercive government – that can with impunity negate the individual’s natural rights.
It does so through force, either directly (as in physical expropriation or imprisonment), or indirectly (as in compulsory taxation or fines).
The statist politics that the AGW position explicitly calls for are in this way antithetical to the methods by which the human brain and the human species properly functions and flourishes.
That is the fundamental argument against Authoritarianism, in any of its multifarious guises. It is a foolproof argument, and it is the first and strongest line of defense: because each and every individual is free by nature, we are free to, in Adam Smith’s words, “truck, barter, and exchange.”
But there’s much more to it than this.
It must first of all never be forgotten that the philosophy of science is only a species of philosophy proper.
This has crucial ramifications.
Science is the systematic gathering of data through observation and reason.
Science is built upon knowledge, and knowledge is built upon reason.
Reason derives from the nature of the human mind — which is to say that humans are the rational animal.
Epistemology – one of the two main branches of philosophy – is the science of knowledge.
Epistemology, therefore, studies the nature of reason.
In this way, all science is hierarchically dependent upon epistemology.
In the realm of human conviction, there exists at any given time only three primary alternatives: possible, probable, and certain.
Possible is when some evidence exists, but not much.
Probable is when a lot of evidence exists, but not all.
Certain is when the evidence is so overwhelming that no other conclusion is possible.
Obviously, then, what constitutes possible, probable, or certain is the amount of evidence and the context of knowledge within which that evidence is found.
To conclude certain, or even “over 99 percent certain,” to quote James Hansen of NASA, requires a sufficient knowledge of all relevant data and all potentially relevant data.
This is as true in a scientific laboratory as it is in a court of law.
It means that nothing – the complexity of clouds, for instance, or aerosols, deep ocean currents, cosmic rays, sun spots, et cetera – nothing is poorly understood, or insufficiently understood.
It means that the science has culminated to such a degree that our knowledge of it is complete or near-complete – so much so, at any rate, that there is essentially very little left to learn.
It means that because the evidence is so great, the conclusion admits no doubt.
It means, moreover, that the data-gathering process is not biased or influenced in any way by anything extracurricular, like activism.
Such is the nature of certainty.
From an epistemological standpoint, certainty means absolute.
And yet it’s many of these same AGW scientists who, today, under the insidious influence of postmodernism, assure us that there are no absolutes in science – “science doesn’t deal in truth, but only likelihood,” to quote another NASA scientist, Gavin Schmidt.
Truth is only relative, you see.
Quantum physics and thermodynamics have “proven” that the only certainty is that nothing is certain; definitions are purely a question of semantics; a unified philosophy is “circular reasoning” (or, at best, “system-building”); all moral law and all social law is subjective and unprovable.
The mind, in short, cannot know anything for certain. Yet AGW is virtually certain.
These are all epistemological assertions.
Syllogistically, the entire anthropogenic global warming position can be recapitulated in this way:
Global warming is human-made. Humans are ruled by governments. Therefore, government bureaus, centralized planning committees, and more laws are the only solution.
In philosophy, this is called a non-sequitur.
The AGW argument is a total non-sequitur.
Al Gore And The Snow-Job Of Kilimanjaro
In 2006, a movie director named Davis Guggenheim made a documentary about former Vice President Albert Gore and his global warming propaganda campaign. That movie is entitled An Inconvenient Truth, and since its release, the term “global warming” has, as you may have heard, fallen completely out of fashion — ostensibly because the earth has not warmed as predicted. “Climate change” and “climate chaos” have thus become the preferred nomenclature.
In An Inconvenient Truth, Gore — who, incidentally, told Grist Magazine that “Nobody is interested in solutions if they don’t think there’s a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are” — spat out a pile of doomsday scenarios, which his millions of minions indiscriminately swallowed hook, line, and sinker.
Among those scenarios, none, perhaps, was more frequently regurgitated than Gore’s claim that “Within a decade, there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro.”
Of course, the (inconvenient) truth about Kilimanjaro has been known for some time: as George Kaser (et al) published in the International Journal of Climatology, the snows of Kilimanjaro began receding around 1890 — which is to say, long before the advent of mass CO2 output. But we’ve written about that before, as have many others, like Dutch scientist Jaap Sinninghe Damste, winner of the prestigious Spinoza Prize, and please see also the following recent article in New Scientist: Kilimanjaro’s Vanishing Ice Due To Tree-Felling.
Now, however, there’s this:
And this:
If there is a poster child for global warming, it may be the vanishing snows of Kilimanjaro, which were predicted to disappear as early as 2015 in a widely-publicized report a decade ago.
However, the famed snowcap is stubbornly persisting on the African peak and may not fully vanish for another 50 years, according to a University of Massachusetts scientist who had a hand in the prediction.
The 2001 forecast was indirectly part of key evidence for global warming offered during the 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” which warned of the threats of rising global temperatures. In it, former vice president Al Gore stated, “Within a decade, there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro” due to warming temperatures.
“Unfortunately, we made the prediction. I wish we hadn’t,” says Douglas R. Hardy, a UMass geoscientist who was among 11 co-authors of the paper in the journal Science that sparked the pessimistic Kilimanjaro forecast. “None of us had much history working on that mountain, and we didn’t understand a lot of the complicated processes on the peak like we do now” (source).
And this:
Al Gore and his representatives have declined to comment.
(Hat tip Climate Depot)
About a decade ago, Doctor R.J. Braithwaite wrote an article that appeared in Progress in Physical Geography.
In that article, which was peer-reviewed, Doctor Braithwaite tells us how he analyzed 246 glaciers, sampled from both hemispheres and latitudes, between the years 1946 and 1995. This “mass balance analysis” he conducted found that “some glaciers were melting, while a nearly equal number were growing in size, and still others remained stable.” Doctor Braithwaite’s unequivocal conclusion:
“There is no obvious common or global trend of increasing glacier melt in recent years.”
“By some estimates, 160,000 glaciers exist on Earth. Only 63,000 have been inventoried, and only a few hundred have been studied in the detail described by Braithwaite” (“It Would Be Nice to Know More about Ice,” Jay Lehr).
On the basis of that logical fallacy known as the fallacy of insufficient evidence, all glacier fears are stopped cold right there.
But in fact that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
Keith Echelmeyer, a glaciologist at the University of Alaska’s Geophysical Institute, says this:
“To make a case that glaciers are retreating, and that the problem is global warming, is very hard to do… The physics are very complex. There is much more involved than just the climate response.”
Mr. Echelmeyer goes on to tell us that in Alaska there are large glaciers advancing in the very same areas where others are retreating.
Quoting Doctor Martin Beniston of the Institute of Geography at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland:
Numerous climatological details of mountains are overlooked by the climate models, which thus makes it difficult to estimate the exact response of glaciers to global warming, because glacier dynamics are influenced by numerous factors other than climate, even though temperature and cloudiness may be the dominant controlling factors. According to the size, exposure and altitude of glaciers, different response times can be expected for the same climatic forcing.
Of course, as Doctor Beniston intimates, the paramount thing to consider in any discussion of glacial melt is the sheer size of these suckers, which because of their size do not respond to heat and cold like the snow in your backyard. According to the excellent glacier program at Rice University, those response times run something like this:
Ice sheet: 100,000 to 10,000 years
Large valley glacier: 10,000 to 1,000 years
Small valley glacier: 1,000 to 100 years
Glaciers are influenced by a variety of local and regional natural phenomena that scientists do not fully comprehend. Besides temperature changes, glaciers also respond to changes in the amount and type of precipitation, changes in sea level and changes in ocean circulation patterns. As a result, glaciers do not necessarily advance during colder weather and retreat during warmer weather (John Carlisle, National Center for Public Policy).
Glaciers Are In World-Wide Retreat — read one New York Times headline recently.
Well, they were anyway, starting decades before industrialization (i.e. increased CO2 output). As IPCC AR4 reports:
Most mountain glaciers and ice caps have been shrinking, with the retreat probably having started about 1850 [NB: the end of the ‘little ice age’]. Although many Northern Hemisphere glaciers had a few years of near balance around 1970, this was followed by increased shrinkage.
Research published by the National Academy of Sciences indicates that the much-touted Peruvian glacier (on p. 53-53) disappeared a few thousand years ago.
There are, moreover, glaciers forming across the globe, in both hemispheres. Here’s a very partial list:
In Norway: Alfotbreen Glacier, Briksdalsbreen Glacier, Nigardsbreen Glacier, Hardangerjøkulen Glacier, Hansebreen Glacier, Jostefonn Glacier, Engabreen Glacier, Helm Glacier, Place Glacier. Indeed, a great number of Scandinavia’s glaciers are exploding.
In France, the Mount Blanc Glacier.
In Ecuador, Antizana 15 Alpha Glacier.
In Argentine, Perito Moreno Glacier, the largest in all of Patagonia, was recently observed to be advancing at about 6 feet per day.
Chile’s Pio XI Glacier, the largest in the southern hemisphere, is also growing.
In Switzerland, Silvretta Glacier.
In Kirghiztan, Abramov Glacier.
In Russian, Malli Glacier is growing and surging.
In New Zealand, as of 2003, all 48 glaciers in the Southern Alps were observed to have grown.
In the United States: Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier, Mount Shuksan, Mount Shasta, Mount McKinley, Mount Hubbard, and Rocky Mountain National Park have all shown recent glacier growth.
“There is evidence that the McGinnis Glacier, a little-known tongue of ice in the central Alaska Range, has surged,” said assistant Professor of Physics Martin Truffer. He recently noticed the lower portion of the glacier was covered in cracks, crevasses, and pinnacles of ice – all telltale signs that the glacier has recently slid forward at higher than normal rates.
There’s also this article from the Associated Press, which I quote only in part:
Geologists exploring Colorado’s Rocky Mountain Park say that they discovered more than 100 additional glaciers here in a single summer, said Mark Verrengia.
Officials previously believed the park, which is 60 miles northwest of Denver, included 20 permanent ice and snow features, including six named glaciers. The new survey, conducted by geologist Jonathan Achuff, shows there are as many as 120 features.
“Comparisons with historical photos suggest that at least some of the glaciers are expanding,” say park officials. “Subtle climate changes may be helping the formation of glaciers or at least reducing their retreat.”
“We’re not running quite in sync with global warming here,” park spokeswoman Judy Visty said.
Not, of course, that it really matters much either way, since the entire climate change issue is predicated upon a stupendously fraudulent premise: a corrupt epistemology.
To say nothing of the fact that, as has been demonstrated repeatedly, the free market is far better equipped to deal with environmental issues than proposed socialist policies — for the simple reason that free markets generate astronomically more capital with which to deal with such issues.
The wealthier the country, the healthier the country.
A Complete List Of Things Caused By Global Warming
The following site is called the Warmlist, and it has rather painstakingly tracked all the effects actually attributed to global warming climate change “climate chaos.” It will either make you laugh or cry, one or the other:
For all you folks still on the climate chaos bandwagon, please tell us what you’re thinking, and why you’re thinking it.
Global Warming Causes Everything
Here’s an elucidating pair of actual headlines, which should tell you everything you need to know about the (non)issue of “climate change.”
Most recently (December 26th, 2010), from none other than Time Magazine:
(Link)
And then from this beauty of a “global warming” story, which appeared in the March 2000 issue of The Independent:
Natural Resource and Goods Theory
The two essential claims of the environmentalists, which I take for granted are already well known to everyone, are (1) that continued economic progress is impossible, because of the impending exhaustion of natural resources (it is from this notion that the slogan “reduce, reuse, recycle” comes), and (2) that continued economic progress, indeed, much of the economic progress that we have had up to now, is destructive of the environment and is therefore dangerous.
The essential policy prescription of the environmentalists is the prohibition of self-interested individual action insofar as the byproduct of such action when performed on a mass basis is alleged damage to the environment. The leading concrete example of this policy prescription is the attempt now underway to force individuals to give up such things as their automobiles and air conditioners on the grounds that the byproduct of hundreds of millions or billions of people operating such devices is to cause global warming. And this same example, of course, is presently the leading example of the alleged dangers of economic progress (source).
In his groundbreaking Principles of Economics, Carl Menger (1840-1921), the founder of the Austrian School of Economics, developed what he came to call the Theory of Goods.
This theory has direct and immediate relevance regarding, for example, global warming, ozone depletion, resource scarcity, and so on. Indeed, its relevance cannot be overstated.
Menger’s Goods Theory begins by pointing out that there is a crucial distinction between objects in and of themselves and “goods” proper.
The object alone — for example, any resource before it actually becomes a resource — does not possess value intrinsically. Rather, it is in relation to human use that the thing becomes valuable. It is precisely this, then, that makes it a good.
Or put another way: a thing becomes a good when it is able to satisfy some human need or want.
Menger lists the following four criteria that need to be simultaneously met to reach what he calls the “goods-character.”
* A human need.
* Such properties as render the thing capable of being brought into a causal connection with the satisfaction of this need.
* Human knowledge of this causal connection.
* Command of the thing sufficient to direct it to the satisfaction of the need (Principles of Economics, page 52).
It is important to note that these last two things are man-made.
It is equally important to realize that the last one is for the most part achieved by means of labor and the capital that that labor produces.
This implies – to quote Dr. Reisman – that the resources provided by nature, such as iron, aluminum, coal, petroleum and so on, are by no means automatically goods. Their goods-character must be created by man, by discovering knowledge of their respective properties that enable them to satisfy human needs and then by establishing command over them sufficient to direct them to the satisfaction of human needs.
For example, iron, which has been present in the earth since the formation of the planet and throughout the entire presence of man on earth, did not become a good until well after the Stone Age had ended. Petroleum, which has been present in the ground for millions of years, did not become a good until the middle of the nineteenth century, when uses for it were discovered. Aluminum, radium, and uranium also became goods only within the last century or century and a half.
The upshot of all this is that nature — or, if you prefer, the environment — is not some relatively limited pool of resources that man merely plucks, exploits, depletes, and then moves on from. On the contrary, as Menger makes incontrovertibly clear, mother nature gives us only the barest material — “the physical properties of the deposits in mines and wells” — but she does not provide the goods-character. We provide that.
“Indeed, there was a time when none of them were goods” (Ibid).
Nature, contrary to what the environmental philosophy would have you believe, does not possess intrinsic value.
That — and nothing else — is the fundamental argument against all of environmentalism.
The earth is a plenum: it’s a solid sphere packed full of chemicals. Those chemical elements are indestructible. They can change properties and forms, but they cannot cease to exist.
That mass of teeming chemicals are all potential resources.
As humans evolve — as we make new discoveries and develop newer and ever newer technologies — we find new resources; we find things we cannot conceive of even months before. We find new uses for things that were once useless, like oil, which is barely 100 years old as a resource (a “goods character”); and we find new ways of using old. We move on from whale oil and wood, to kerosene, to coal, to hydro, to nuclear….
Most of what people think they know about energy is so very wrong that their convictions, heartfelt though they may be, lie beyond logical contradiction or refutation….What most of us think about energy supply is wrong. Energy supplies are unlimited; it is energetic order that’s scarce, and the order in energy that’s expensive….Supplies do not ultimately depend on the addition of reserves, the development of new fuels, or the husbanding of known resources. Energy begets more energy; tomorrow’s supply is determined by today’s consumption. The more energy we seize and use, the more adept we become at finding and seizing still more. What most of us think about energy demand is even more wrong. Our main use of energy isn’t lighting, locomotion, or cooling; what we use energy for, mainly, is to extract, refine, process, and purify energy itself. And the more efficient we become at refining energy in this way, the more we want to use the final product. Thus, more efficient engines, motors, lights, and cars lead to more energy consumption, not less (Peter Huber and Mark Mills, The Bottomless Well).
The earth, far from being “raped and nearly depleted,” has barely been touched.
This mass hysteria regarding CO2 and chlorofluorocarbons and so on is a waste of time and energy.
Human freedom breeds human progress. And progress by definition is not static. The economist Joseph Schumpeter called it creative destruction.
Today’s consumption determines tomorrow’s technology. The more we use, the more we innovate — provided, that is, we are left free to innovate.
Politically and economically free.
The profit motive, as its very name implies, motivates and incentives; for humans have a limitless desire to better their lives.
Wealth not only builds progress; wealth is progress.
If there is a demand for something to replace, for instance, freon, the untrammeled freedom to innovate will meet that demand by far the fastest.
Thus, if it is the environment you’re concerned about, then it is pure, unadulterated laissez-faire capitalism you should be fighting for tooth and nail. It is this, and not centralized power, or the establishment of worldwide central-planning committees to regulate CFCs and CO2 — this is what brings cleaner environments.
To think anything less is to commit a grave logical fallacy.
Real, positive knowledge of the profit motive and the price system, of saving and capital accumulation, of money, economic competition, and economic inequality, and of the harmony of interests among men that results from the joint operation of these leading features of capitalism — all this knowledge is almost entirely lacking on the part of the great majority of today’s intellectuals. To obtain such knowledge, it would be necessary for them to read and study von Mises, who is far and away the most important source of such knowledge. But they have not done this.
Ignorance of the ideas of von Mises — the willful evasion of his ideas — has enabled the last three generations of intellectuals to go on with the delusion that capitalism is an “anarchy of production,” a system of rampant evil, utter madness, and continuous strife and conflict, while socialism is a system of rational planning and order, of morality and justice, and the ultimate universal harmony of all mankind. For perhaps a century and a half, the intellectuals have seen socialism as the system of reason and science and as the ultimate goal of all social progress. On the basis of all that they believe, and think that they know, the great majority of intellectuals even now cannot help but believe that socialism should succeed and capitalism fail (George Reisman, “Environmentalism Refuted”).
Dr. William Gray and Dr. Kevin Trenberth Debate Global Warming — Part 2
Editor’s Note: this is Part 2 of a two-part debate. Read Part 1 here.
Part 2 — The Debate Rages On:
Dr. Gray’s rebuttal to Dr. Trenberth:
Kevin Trenberth has given the standard response that human-induced global warming advocates always give to their critics. He cites the large number of people and the broad effort involved in the last 15 years of IPCC reports, which have shown little variation in their expectations of large amounts of human-induced temperature rise during the rest of the 21st century. He also cites the recognition of the IPCC warming advocates’ views through their award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Peace Prize Award is a political judgment award and is thus different from the traditional Nobel scientific awards. The Peace Award is not based on the usual verifiable scientific standards of the Nobel awards for chemistry, physics, medicine, etc.
I will respond to 10 statements which Trenberth has made in his rebuttal to my initial comments.His statements are given in quotations and my response.
1. “The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to show that specific global and regional changes resulting from global warming are already upon us. The future projections are for much more warming, but with rates of change perhaps a hundred times as fast as those experienced in nature over the past 10,000 years.” It is by no means clear that the global warming we have experienced over the last 30 and last 100 years is due primarily to human-induced CO2 rises. The globe experienced many natural temperature changes before the Industrial Revolution. How do we know the recent warming is not due to one or a combination of many natural changes that were experienced in the past? There is no way Dr. Trenberth or anybody else can, with any degree of confidence, say that future global warming may be a hundred times faster than anything we have seen in the past. This is pure conjecture.
2. “I don’t know anyone who has so profited” (from the warming scare) Millions of dollars in federal grants and private money have been spent on the study of global warming. It is in the interest of thousands of committed warming advocates that the global warming threat be made credible and be continued.
3. “Open discussion based on sound science is widely encouraged.” Discussion with global warming skeptics has not at all been encouraged. Most skeptics have been ignored and/or denigrated as tools of the fossil-fuel industry. Dr. Trenberth himself has said that I myself am no longer a credible scientist because I doubt the human-induced warming hypothesis. I know of no conferences that have encouraged an open and honest debate between warming advocates and warming skeptics. It has been difficult for warming skeptics to obtain federal research grant support. The warming advocates define “sound science” as science that agrees with them, and they restrict it to only this.
4. “But they (GCMs) are by far the best tool we have for examining the enormously complex weather and climate system, and to replace model results by someone’s belief that has no physical basis does not cut it.” Being the best tool we have does not mean we should necessarily believe the GCMs. I and many of my warming skeptic colleagues do not put much stock in the GCMs. These models have a number of basic flaws. To wit: important sub-grid scale processes such as individual thunderstorm activity are parameterized. I have previously noted that the GCMs don’t issue public forecasts of global temperature one or two-five years in the future because they know they do not have skill at these shorter range time scales. They would lose credibility if they publicly made forecasts that could be verified. Yet the models want us all to believe their forecasts 50-100 years in the future!
5. “I have found that the only scientists who disagree with the IPCC report are those who have not read it and are poorly informed.” This is simply untrue. Thousands of scientists from around the globe who have closely followed the IPCC statements believe that they have grossly exaggerated the influence of CO2 rises on global warming. The IPCC has largely ignored the potential natural processes of global-temperature change, such as the deep ocean current changes. The IPCC continues to assume a positive rain-enhanced water vapor feedback loop when the observations indicate it is slightly negative. There has recently been a coming together of 400 prominent climate scientists from around the globe who have written an open letter to the Secretary General of the UN which voices strong disagreement with the IPCC’s warming conclusions.
6. “The IPCC process is very open.” Not true. The IPCC has not been open. Known warming skeptics have not been invited to participate. Despite my 50-plus years of meteorology experience and 25 years of making seasonal hurricane forecasts I was never approached by the IPCC. This also applies to many of my older experienced meteorology colleagues who tell me they have never been contacted by the IPCC. In general, any climate or meteorological colleague who had previously tipped his hand concerning skepticism about human-induced global warming was not invited to participate in the IPCC process.
7. “The strength of the IPCC report is that it is a consensus report. Far from being a ‘gross exaggeration’ as claimed by Gray, the IPCC report is really solid and conservative.” Kevin Trenberth has been a long-term major player in the IPCC process, and it is to be expected that he views his and his many IPCC colleagues efforts in this way. But there are thousands of experienced climate and meteorology experts who, for very solid reasons, see it otherwise. In science, the majority or the consensus can be and is often wrong. In addition to which, much of the uncertainty included in the actual IPCC report is removed in the Summary for Policymakers (SPMs). Very few individuals (and especially politicians) ever read material beyond the SPM.
8. “As Americans, we should be outraged that the Chinese are dumping huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.” Why should we Americans, with our elevated standard of living, be outraged at the Chinese for trying to elevate their standard of living from the poverty they have had to endure for so long?
9. “And we should be outraged that our politicians have not represented us well in that way. By the same token, the Chinese ought to be just as outraged that Americans are putting about as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.” This statement shows how Trenberth (and the warming advocates in general) have isolated themselves from the economic reality of the global economy. Being “outraged” in Dr. Trenberth’s context means that you believe rising levels of CO2 have been the primary cause of global temperature rise, and that this will continue in the future. I and many of my colleagues do not believe this to be true. We owe our industrial society and elevated standard of living to fossil fuels. Fossil fuels have won out over other energy sources because they are the most economic and the most efficient form of energy. We need to maintain a vibrant growing economy so that we can afford a large commitment to research alternate energy sources. This will entail emitting higher amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. To cut fossil-fuel use so drastically would cause a global upheaval beyond anything Dr. Trenberth imagines. It would also create extreme economic hardship and, at the same time, do virtually nothing to alter global temperatures, as no less than global-warming alarmist Dr. Jim Hansen recently admitted in a court of law. It would keep the non-developed and developing world in a state of grinding poverty. In addition, studies have shown that full adoption of, for example, the proposed Kyoto Protocol would reduce warming only six percent by 2100 compared to “business-as-usual.”
10. “If done in the right way, benefits to the climate through reduced emissions save energy and promote the\ economy, while increasing sustainability.” This is a pie-in-the-sky pipedream. “Done the right way”? How so, precisely? By subverting the most fundamental economic laws, like cost effectiveness, and supply and demand? If the globe were to reduce current CO2 amounts by 20 percent by 2020, and by 80 percent by 2050, as has been proposed, we would see a massive slowdown in global economic development, and the condition of humanity would immediately be made worse. Additionally, there would no longer be the capital – i.e. venture capital – in the economy with which to explore and develop new forms of energy. Technology and progress require money. If something is economically viable, government doesn’t need to subsidize it, or make its use compulsory: the market will naturally provide for it because it is cost-effective. The idea that society would prosper from cutting fossil fuel emissions is an utter illusion. Alternate energy sources are more costly right now, and their compulsory use will only lead to a lower standard of human living – to say nothing of the fact that this sort of governmental coercion is Constitutionally prohibited.
[End]
Global Warming: Coming Ready Or Not
I will let the Nobel Peace Prize to the IPCC stand on its own merits. Responses to Bill Gray’s other comments follow by number.
1. Natural variability does not happen by magic. The energy for warming has to come from somewhere. Ice Ages come and go but have causes associated with changes in the Earth’s orbit around the sun, proving that such natural variability has a cause. El Niño is an example of natural variability associated with rearranging heat by ocean currents and we can track where the heat in the warm regions has come from. Similarly, surface ocean warming might occur if the deep ocean cools as currents redistribute heat. Instead we know that the whole ocean is warming and sea level is rising at unprecedented rates. The pattern of observed warming is unlike any natural variation and the rates of change are faster. Hence we can prove that the observed warming is not natural and we can point to the cause: observed increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that trap infrared radiation from escaping to space.
2. Grants to scientists to understand climate are not synonymous with studying global warming. Moreover studying how and why our planet is warming is actually important – or we could not answer silly beliefs that claim otherwise. A grant is to carry out prescribed work and is very different than a gift to an individual to do what one likes with.
3. Conferences and discussions about warming, climate models, and what, if anything, to do about it occur all the time. However, a scientific approach takes evidence into account. Beliefs that are not consistent with evidence discredit the person who continues with them, and such a person is less likely to be invited to participate in the events.
4. It has been said that “all models are wrong, some are useful.” We think it is better to use models demonstrated to have skill. Today’s best climate models are now able to reproduce the observed major climate changes of the past century. When the models are run without human changes in the atmosphere, the natural forcings and intrinsic natural variability fail to capture the increase in global surface temperature over the past 35 years or so. But when the anthropogenic effects are included, the models simulate the observed global temperature record with impressive fidelity. Observed changes in storms and precipitation are also replicated only by models with human changes in atmospheric composition.
5. I stand by my comment. It is not correct that IPCC assumes anything of the sort claimed. Whether the 400 scientists have any climate credentials or are prominent I leave to others. I wonder if they have collectively published as many climate papers as I have?
6. Open invitations to review the IPCC drafts are widely broadcast. I am sorry Bill was not personally invited. He would obviously be very surprised if I named all the skeptics who have participated in IPCC.
7. Language in the Summary for Policy Makers is not technical by design but calibrated language expressing confidence and likelihoods is included. The IPCC reports are widely used as reference works and have thousands of citations.
8. I agree that an increased standard of living is a fine goal. However, acceptable ways to achieve that goal do not include short-term gains at the expense of long-term disaster.
9. Fossil fuels have won out in part because much of their true cost is not borne by the user, but rather the air pollution and environmental damage is borne by all. We need a sustainable economy that serves the people, not one that continues to grow for its own sake and which damages the environment. The right way refers especially to the timetable over which changes are implemented along with appropriate incentives and penalties. The average life of a car is 12 years in the United States and so a fleet of cars can be changed on that timeframe. Changing coal-fired power stations takes the order of their typical lifetime: 35 to 40 years. How is it that, unlike other states, California since 1973 has continued to grow without increasing energy use per capita? Conservation and reducing waste through very practical measures works, as is demonstrated by differences among states and countries with similar standards of living but very different per capita energy use.
[End]
Dr. Gray’s Closing Comments:
I greatly commend Kevin Trenberth for agreeing to debate me on this global warming issue. Many global warming advocates will not engage is such open and opposite dialogs. I think it is in the public’s interest that such back and forth debates continue and expand with other scientists of opposite persuasions on the warming topic. I also commend Ray Harvey for suggesting and moderating this exchange between myself and Kevin Trenberth.
This was Part 2 of a 2-part debate. Read Part 1 here.
Dr. William Gray and Dr. Kevin Trenberth Debate Global Warming — Part 1
The following, which took place before ClimateGate, is a written debate between Dr. Kevin Trenberth — head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder — and Dr. William Gray, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. This debate originally appeared in the Fort Collins Forum and was later reposted on my quondam website:
Editor’s note: While the issue of anthropogenic global warming is much more than a local issue, we are fortunate to have two leading authorities on climate science in Northern Colorado. Each has a different view of the issue and agreed to this in-paper debate. The Forum believes this type of direct debate is all too rare on this topic and thank doctors Gray and Trenberth for their efforts. The Forum also wants to thank author Ray Harvey for bringing them together for this debate — John Kirsch, Publisher of the Fort Collins Forum:
by Dr. Bill Gray
Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University
Ask ten people on the street if mankind’s activities are causing global warming, and at least eight will say yes. This is because nearly 20 years of gross exaggeration on the part of scientists, environmentalists, politicians, and media; most of whom wish to profit in some way from the public’s lack of knowledge on the topic-have distorted the subject of human-induced global warming out of all sensible proportion. Many have been lead to believe that Al Gore’s movie and book An Inconvenient Truth provides incontrovertible evidence that human-induced global warming is a real threat. Yet, contrary to what is heard from warming advocates, there is considerable evidence that the global warming we have experienced over the last 30 years and over the last 100 years is largely natural. It is impossible to objectively determine the small amount of human-induced warming in comparison to the large natural changes which are occurring.
Many thousands of scientists from the US and around the globe do not accept the human-induced global warming hypothesis as it has been presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports over the last 15 years. The media has, in general, uncritically accepted the results of the IPCC and over-hyped the human aspects of the warming threat. This makes for better press than saying that the climate changes we have experienced are mostly natural. The contrary views of the many warming skeptics have been largely ignored and their motives denigrated. The alleged “scientific consensus” on this topic is bogus. As more research on the human impact on global temperature change comes forth, more flaws are being found in the hypothesis.
It must be pointed out that most climate research is supported by the federal government. All federally sponsored researchers need positive peer-reviews on their published papers and grant proposals. This can be difficult for many of the “closet” warming skeptics who receive federal grant support. Many are reluctant to give full expression of their views, primarily because of worries over continuing grant support. It is difficult to receive federal grant support if one’s views differ from the majority of their peers who receive support to find evidence of the warming threat. The normal scientific process of objectively studying both sides of the question has not yet occurred. Such open discussion has been largely discouraged by warming advocates.
Implementation of the proposed international treaties restricting future greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 20 to 80 percent of current emissions would lead to a large slowdown in the world’s economic development and, at the same time, have no significant impact on the globe’s future temperature.
Many of the Global Climate Model (GCMs) simulations by large US and foreign government laboratories and universities, on which so much of these warming scenarios are based, have some very basic flaws. These global models are not able to correctly model the globe’s small-scale precipitation processes. They have incorrectly parameterized the rain processes in their models to give an unrealistically enhanced warming influence to CO2. This is the so-called positive water-vapor feedback. The observations I have been analyzing for many years show that the globe’s net upper-level water vapor does not increase but slightly decreases with warming. These GCMs also do not yet accurately model the globe’s deep ocean circulation which appears to be the primary driving mechanism for most of the global temperature increases that have occurred over the last 30 and last 100 years. GCMs should not be relied upon to give global temperature information 50 to 100 years into the future. GCM modelers do not dare make public short-period global temperature forecasts for next season, next year, or a few years hence. This is because they know they do not have shorter range climate forecasting skill. They would lose credibility if they issued shorter-range yearly forecasts that could be objectively verified. Climate modelers live mostly in a “virtual world” of their own making. This virtual world is isolated from the real world of weather and climate. Few of the GCM modelers have any substantial weather or short-range climate forecasting experience. It is impossible to make skillful initial-value numerical predictions beyond a few weeks. Although numerical weather prediction has shown steady and impressive improvement since its inception in 1955, these forecast improvements have been primarily made through advancements in the measurement (i.e. satellite) of the wind and pressure fields and the advection/extrapolation of these fields forward in time 10-15 days. For skillful numerical prediction beyond a few weeks, it is necessary to forecast changes in the globe’s complicated energy and moisture fields. This entails forecasting processes such as amounts of cloudiness, condensation heating, evaporation cooling, cloud-free radiation, air-sea moisture- temperature flux, etc. It is impossible to accurately code all these complicated energy moisture processes, and integrate these processes forward for hundreds of thousands of time-steps and expect to obtain anything close to meaningful results. Realistic climate forecasting by numerical processes is not possible now, and, because of the complex nature of the earth’s climate system, they may never be possible.
Global temperatures have always fluctuated and will continue to do so regardless of how much anthropogenic greenhouse gases are put into the atmosphere.
The globe has many serious environmental problems. Most of these problems are regional or local in nature, not global. Forced global reductions in human-produced greenhouse gases will not offer much benefit for the globe’s serious regional and local environmental problems. We should, of course, make all reasonable reductions in greenhouse gases to the extent that we do not pay too high an economic price. We need a prosperous economy to have sufficient resources to further adapt and expand energy production.
Even if CO2 is causing very small global temperature increases there is hardly anything we can do about it. China, India, and Third World countries will not limit their growing greenhouse gas emissions. Many experts believe that there may be net positive benefits to humankind through a small amount of global warming. It is known that vegetation and crops tend to benefit from higher amounts of atmospheric CO2, particularly vegetation which is under temperature or moisture stress.
I believe that in the next few years the globe is going to enter a modest cooling period similar to what was experienced in the 30 years between the mid-1940s and the mid-1970s. This will be primarily a result of changes in the globe’s deep-ocean circulation. I am convinced that in 15-20 years we will look back on this period of global warming hysteria as we now look back on other popular and trendy scientific ideas that have not stood the test of time.
[End]
Global Warming: Coming Ready Or Not
by Kevin E Trenberth
Head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research
Bill Gray suggests that we are not in a climate crisis. He should speak for himself. Maybe there is not a crisis in the sense that the world’s weather is falling apart now. But there is a major crisis in the failure to act to prevent potentially catastrophic changes in the future, in the times of our grandchildren, and their children. Changes in the climate are already evident. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has spoken:
“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal” and it is “very likely” due to human activities. Those were the key conclusions approved by 113 nations in Working Group I, which studies the science of climate change and the role of humans in affecting climate. The full report that is the basis for the summary was drafted by 154 lead authors and more than 450 contributing authors and runs to over 1,000 pages. Two other IPCC working groups deal with impacts of climate change, vulnerability, and options for adaptation to such changes, and options for mitigating and slowing the climate change, including possible policy options. In recognition of the stalwart work over 20 years, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the IPCC and Al Gore.
Global mean temperatures have increased since the 19th century, and especially since the mid-1970s. Temperatures have increased nearly everywhere over land, and sea temperatures have also increased, reinforcing the evidence from land. However, global warming does not mean that temperatures increase steadily or uniformly because the atmospheric circulation also changes. As Gray suggests, natural variability has always been around and will continue. But we can now clearly demonstrate with climate models (and replicate this in many different countries and groups) that since about 1970 observed climate change is well outside the realm of natural variability. Some changes arising from global warming may be benign or even beneficial, such as a longer growing season.
But warming means increased heat waves and drying that increases risk of drought and reduces snowpack and water resources, a major concern in the West. It also increases water vapor in the atmosphere leading to more intense storms, heavier rains and greater risk of flooding, something observed to be happening in the US and elsewhere. Moreover, as noted by IPCC, there is clear evidence that upper level water vapor is increasing. The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to show that specific global and regional changes resulting from global warming are already upon us. The future projections are for much more warming, but with rates of change perhaps a hundred times as fast as those experienced in nature over the past 10,000 years. Just how fast depends on how humans as a whole respond to these warnings. There are uncertainties (although these cut both ways). However, the inertia of the climate system and the long life of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere mean that we are already committed to a significant level of climate change.
Bill Gray suggests that there has been a gross exaggeration and major distortion on climate change. IPCC scientists come from all parts of the political spectrum and dozens of countries; climate “skeptics” can and do participate, some as authors, and their goal is to produce the best scientific statements possible. Yet Gray implies that these scientists somehow no longer act independently, as scientists are wont to do, but instead conspire to mislead the public on climate change for their own selfish reasons. I don’t know anyone who has so profited. Gray’s comments about peer review fail to recognize that scientists are naturally very skeptical. However, it is not “views” that matter but rather evidence and reasoning, the very basis of science. Open discussion based on sound science is widely encouraged.
Gray is correct that global climate models are flawed and are just that, a model of the real world. By design, the resolution of the models can not deal with small-scale (less than about 100 miles) phenomena well. But they are by far the best tool we have for examining the enormously complex weather and climate system, and to replace model results by someone’s belief that has no physical basis does not cut it. The models continue to improve, especially as computers get faster and enable finer structure to be resolved, and many of the observed changes are simulated in climate models run for the past 100 years, adding confidence to understanding of the relationship with the agents that alter the climate and human-induced changes in atmospheric composition, and adding confidence to future projections. It may be impossible to model climate, as Gray suggests, but we are doing it anyway.
I have found that the only scientists who disagree with the IPCC report are those who have not read it and are poorly informed. The IPCC is a body of scientists from around the world convened by the United Nations jointly under the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and initiated in 1988. Its mandate is to provide policy makers with an objective assessment of the scientific and technical information available about climate change, its environmental and socio-economic impacts, and possible response options. The IPCC reports on the science of global climate and the effects of human activities on climate in particular. Major assessments were made in 1990, 1995, 2001, and now 2007. Each new IPCC report reviews and assesses the state of knowledge, while trying to reconcile disparate claims and resolve discrepancies, and document uncertainties. The IPCC process is very open.
Two major reviews were carried out in producing each IPCC report. Every one of the thousands of comments submitted, including those by skeptics, are answered and the action taken is documented (in a huge Excel spread sheet that is publicly available), in a process overseen by independent review editors. Of course, many comments received are in conflict and many are demonstrably wrong. To get the IPCC authors to make changes, there has to be documented evidence and a reason. Opinion alone, such as Gray’s, does not make the grade. Many of the skeptics accept the IPCC report, and their arguments have changed from it is not happening to it is happening but it will be good for us!
The strength of the IPCC report is that it is a consensus report. Far from being a “gross exaggeration” as claimed by Gray, the IPCC report is really solid and conservative. It is not the latest “trendy scientific idea,” Rather it has been widely criticized for underestimating the recent observed changes in the Arctic (record low Arctic sea ice in 2007), and many scientists believe that sea level rise (from melting glaciers) will be much greater than projected by IPCC.
Since 1992 when a new satellite was launched that can provide true global measurements, sea level has risen at a rate of one foot per century, confirming the reality of global warming.
Gray goes on to claim, out of the blue, “restricting future greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 20 to 80 percent of current emissions would lead to a large slowdown in the world’s economic development …” On the contrary, saving energy and doing things more efficiently helps the economy substantially while reducing future climate change. It also helps preserve a non-renewable resource, and improves security by cutting dependence on foreign oil.
Gray then goes on to suggest that even if global warming is happening, there is nothing we can do about it because developing countries will continue growth and increase carbon dioxide emissions. Indeed this is a major concern and our government over the past eight years has failed us badly by not negotiating with these countries to protect our global atmosphere through international treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol.
The atmosphere is a global commons. The “Tragedy of the Commons” occurs when it is in everyone’s interest to use and exploit the commons but at the expense of the commons itself. Unfortunately, this is what is happening. In 2007 it is estimated that China will be the largest emitter of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As Americans, we should be outraged that the Chinese are dumping huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, sharing their emissions with everyone else and changing every one else’s climate! And we should be outraged that our politicians have not represented us well in that way. By the same token, the Chinese ought to be just as outraged that Americans are putting about as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Since it is the accumulated amount that matters most, the United States more than any other nation, is responsible for the climate change underway. The United States emissions per capita are two and a half times those in Europe, and emissions per capita in Texas are three times what they are in California, highlighting the scope for major progress. Sixteen US states are keen to follow California into reducing carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles but are [and were] prevented from doing so by the EPA and the Bush Administration.
There is much that can be done, and America should lead. If done in the right way, benefits to the climate through reduced emissions save energy and promote the economy, while increasing sustainability.
[End of Part 1]
Global Warming
Politically, global warming and climate change have little if anything to do with climate science, and the fact that this subject has become such an overwhelming political issue is a fine testament to how poorly the world understands the legitimate functions of government, and why those functions are legitimate.
Indeed, it turns out that the whole anthropogenic global warming (AGW) position can be easily defused without any reference to science at all, because the error, at root, is epistemological.
The truth about global warming which many don’t want to hear is that it’s become so polarized only because it’s turned political. The essentials of the subject have thereby been swallowed up in a murky ocean of misinformation, equivocation, and propaganda.
Let us start by defining terms:
Statism is concentrated state authority; it refers to a government that believes it has legitimate power to any extent over individual rights and freedom of trade.
Opposition to laissez-faire capitalism derives in part from ethics, but even more fundamentally from the science of epistemology.
Ethically the fundamental political question is this: are humans free by nature?
The answer to that depends upon the answer to an even deeper question: why (if at all) are humans free by nature?
And the answer to that is epistemologic.
The human brain – to address the latter query first – is individuated and rational by nature; because of this, man by nature possesses the faculty of choice.
Rationality is choice.
And choice presupposes the freedom to choose. This is the locus of the inseparable, indivisible link between reason and rights. Ultimately it is only the individual who can exercise the power of volition, or not. Government bureaus cannot. The state cannot. The collective cannot. Only the individuals who make up these entities.
If humans did not possess the faculty of choice, humans would be neither moral nor immoral but amoral, just as animals for this very reason are amoral.
But human action is chosen.
This, then, is what finally gives rise to the fact of human freedom as an epistemological necessity.
It’s also what it means to say that humans are free by nature: we are born with a cognitive faculty that gives us the power of choice; since this faculty is the primary method by which we thrive and keep ourselves alive, we must (therefore) be left free to exercise that faculty — and leave others likewise free.
This is a form of contractarianism.
Please note that this is not just some esoteric theory on how human freedom could conceivably be defended: the rights of each individual are demonstrably rooted in man’s cognitive quiddity – and for this precise reason, human freedom without an accurate and thorough understanding of man’s epistemologic nature can never be fully understood.
Or defended.
In the words of Samuel Adams:
“Rights are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature.”
And Claude Fredrich Bastiat:
“For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? … Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor, and by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources.”
It is precisely the lack of epistemological grounding that has made rights and therefore human freedom vulnerable throughout all of history.
The evolution of the human brain created rights; it happened at the exact moment when this same evolution created a rational animal called a human being – which is to say, when nature created the capacity of free will.
Philosophy, then, being the most general science, unifies facts from all disciplines into an indivisible whole.
Thus, without proper philosophical underpinnings, scientific facts, no matter how airtight they are, remain unincorporated.
It is this point that provides us with the real and final connection between global warming and individual rights; for the provenance of rights, including private property rights and the freedom to trade that property, is found ultimately in man’s freedom of will, and it is only statist politics – also known as coercive government – that can with impunity negate the individual’s natural rights.
It does so through force, either directly (as in physical expropriation or imprisonment), or indirectly (as in compulsory taxation or fines).
The statist politics that the AGW position explicitly calls for are in this way antithetical to the methods by which the human brain and the human species properly functions and flourishes.
That is the fundamental argument against statism, in any of its multifarious guises. It is a foolproof argument, and it is the first and strongest line of defense: because each and every individual is free by nature, we are free to, in Adam Smith’s words, “truck, barter, and exchange.”
But there’s much more to it than this.
It must first of all never be forgotten that the philosophy of science is only a species of philosophy proper.
This has crucial ramifications.
Science is the systematic gathering of data through observation and reason.
Science is built upon knowledge, and knowledge is built upon reason.
Reason derives from the nature of the human mind, for man is the rational animal.
Epistemology – one of the two main branches of philosophy – is the science of knowledge.
Epistemology, therefore, studies the nature of reason.
In this way, all science is hierarchically dependent upon epistemology.
In the realm of human conviction, there exists at any given time only three primary alternatives: possible, probable, and certain.
Possible is when some evidence exists, but not much.
Probable is when a lot of evidence exists, but not all.
Certain is when the evidence is so overwhelming that no other conclusion is possible.
Obviously, then, what constitutes possible, probable, or certain is the amount of evidence and the context of knowledge within which that evidence is found.
To conclude certain, or even “over 99 percent certain,” to quote James Hansen of NASA, requires a sufficient knowledge of all relevant data and all potentially relevant data.
This is as true in a scientific laboratory as it is in a court of law.
It means that nothing – the complexity of clouds, for instance, or aerosols, deep ocean currents, cosmic rays, sun spots, et cetera – nothing is poorly understood, or insufficiently understood.
It means that the science has culminated to such a degree that our knowledge of it is complete or near-complete – so much so, at any rate, that there is essentially very little left to learn.
It means that because the evidence is so great, the conclusion admits no doubt.
It means, moreover, that the data-gathering process is not biased or influenced in any way by anything extracurricular, like activism.
Such is the nature of certainty.
From an epistemological standpoint, certainty means absolute.
And yet it’s many of these same AGW scientists who, today, under the insidious influence of postmodernism, assure us that there are no absolutes in science – “science doesn’t deal in truth, but only likelihood,” to quote another NASA scientist, Gavin Schmidt.
Truth is only relative, you see.
Quantum physics and thermodynamics have “proven” that the only certainty is that nothing is certain; definitions are purely a question of semantics; a unified philosophy is “circular reasoning” (or, at best, “system-building”); all moral law and all social law is subjective and unprovable.
The mind, in short, cannot know anything for certain. Yet AGW is virtually certain.
These are all epistemological assertions.
Syllogistically, the entire anthropogenic global warming position can be recapitulated in this way:
Global warming is man-made. Man is ruled by governments. Therefore, government bureaus, centralized planning committees, and more laws are the only solution.
In philosophy, this is called a non-sequitur.
It does not follow.
It’s far too hasty.
Please read Chapter 15 of my book to find out why.