OPINION & EDITORIAL
Global warming claims crippling
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by Jim Allard
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
From politicians who exaggerate and misrepresent the state of climate science to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s consensus building to the media’s ridicule of scientists who disagree, the attacks on science are everywhere. The global warming movement poses as being scientific, but is actually a profoundly anti-scientific movement.
Al Gore and others declare the debate over and smear those who disagree as “deniers” and stooges of industry, placing them in the same category with those who believe the earth is flat and the moon landing was staged in a movie theater.
Mr. Gore has demonstrated his willingness to disregard science — for example, by inserting biblical phases into his presentations — if he thinks it will help his cause. And when asked about some of his alleged scientific statements, he claimed his scientist confidants told him these things privately and hadn’t published such views because they couldn’t prove them.
By appealing to faith, using ad hominem attacks and claiming privileged knowledge with which only he can be trusted, Mr. Gore demonstrates a profound disregard for science. These tactics represent a desire not to engage in scientific debate, but to shield one’s views from scrutiny.
A similar attack on science comes from the IPCC. The IPCC subverts the scientific process by declaring itself the sole arbiter of climate science. It claims to represent the authoritative view on the subject, not because it has earned it, but because it’s the only game in town. When someone challenges the IPCC’s conclusions, they’re simply dismissed as outsiders lacking the right forum, funding, peers or consensus.
Take Dr. Frederick Seitz, for example. In a Wall Street Journal article, he criticized the IPCC for removing from a report passages that cited a lack of evidence linking anthropogenic greenhouse gases to warming. He argued the effect of these edits “is to deceive policy makers and the public into believing that the scientific evidence shows human activities are causing global warming.” A number of other scientists supported his view, claiming, in a co-signed letter to The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, “In our view, the alterations to the text were both substantial and substantive. In one stroke they eliminated clauses that have been discussed over many months and agreed to by the four lead authors, 30-odd contributors and numerous reviewers.”
Still other scientists like professor Paul Reiter say their research has been ignored or misrepresented by the IPCC, causing them to resign as IPCC contributors.
Rather than addressing the substance of these criticisms, the IPCC and other organizations declare such criticism of the panel off-limits. The American Meteorological Society and University Corporation for Atmospheric Research responded to Dr. Seitz’s article by saying “attacks on the IPCC process … such as occurred in the editorial-page piece in The Wall Street Journal … have no place in the scientific debate about issues related to global change. … Letters and opinion pieces can be written by any individual, and one opinion piece can carry as much or more weight in the public’s mind as a letter signed by 40 scientists who have passed scientific muster over many years by publishing on the topic in the peer-reviewed literature.”
According to this view, science becomes a popularity contest where only views that can garner enough signatures and published materials are suitable for public consumption. Who will be the arbiter of “legitimate debate?” Presumably the IPCC. This is profoundly anti-scientific.
Science cannot be decided by committee. Scientific truth must be judged on the merits of individual arguments and data and must stand or fall based on that merit regardless of the support a particular view garners.
The purpose of peer-review — the alleged basis of the IPCC — is to allow scientists’ work to be scrutinized and competing claims to be aired. Such sifting and winnowing can only occur by allowing all arguments and criticisms to be heard. An organization like the IPCC that seeks a “balancing of evidence” or of competing claims, thereby selecting which scientists and evidence are fit to be heard, necessarily reaches a political conclusion, not a scientific one. It is not consensus that science seeks to achieve, but truth.
As the drumbeat to “do something” about climate change intensifies and proponents claim that the science is settled, one question should be at the forefront of one’s mind: Does this movement really care about science? My answer is a resounding “no.”
Jim Allard (jeallard@wisc.edu) is a senior majoring in biology.
Anonymous (April 30, 2008 @ 8:18am):
Even if this is your FOURTH! year of studying BIOLOGY! you don't beat forty scientists. I wish you could have swallowed all this disgusting bile back up, but instead you got excited and wanted it published. Screw you. Stop stoking peoples' uncertainty. There was no point your article.
Anonymous (April 30, 2008 @ 9:14am):
Global cooling would be a much greater problem for Wisconsin, as a state with its very own named glaciation. The next ice age (overdue but possibly being delayed by human activities) will be the end of civilization.
***
Wisconsin glaciation, in North America
The Wisconsin Glacial Episode was the last major advance of continental glaciers in the North American Laurentide ice sheet. This glaciation is made of three glacial maxima (commonly called ice ages) separated by interglacial periods (such as the one we are living in). These ice ages are called, from oldest to youngest, Tahoe, Tenaya and Tioga. The Tahoe reached its maximum extent perhaps about 70,000 years ago. Little is known about the Tenaya. The Tioga was the least severe and last of the Wisconsin Episode. It began about 30,000 years ago, reached its greatest advance 20,000 years ago, and ended about 10,000 years ago. At the height of glaciation the Bering land bridge permitted migration of mammals and humans to North America from Siberia.
It radically altered the geography of North America north of the Ohio River. At the height of the Wisconsin Episode glaciation, ice covered most of Canada, the Upper Midwest, and New England, as well as parts of Montana and Washington. On Kelleys Island in Lake Erie or in New York's Central Park, the grooves left by these glaciers can be easily observed. In southwestern Saskatchewan and southeastern Alberta a suture zone between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets formed the Cypress Hills, which is the northernmost point in North America that remained south of the continental ice sheets.
The Great Lakes are the result of glacial scour and pooling of meltwater at the rim of the receding ice. When the enormous mass of the continental ice sheet retreated, the Great Lakes began gradually moving south due to isostatic rebound of the north shore. Niagara Falls is also a product of the glaciation, as is the course of the Ohio River, which largely supplanted the prior Teays River.
With the assistance of several very large glacial lakes, it carved the gorge now known as the Upper Mississippi River, creating the Upper Mississippi River, filling into the Driftless Area and probably creating an annual ice-dam-burst.
In its retreat, the Wisconsin Episode glaciation left terminal moraines that form Long Island, Nantucket and Cape Cod, and the Oak Ridges Moraine in south central Ontario, Canada. In Wisconsin itself, it left the Kettle Moraine. The drumlins and eskers formed at its melting edge are landmarks of the Lower Connecticut River Valley.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_glaciation
Anonymous (April 30, 2008 @ 9:14am):
Take Frederick Seitz. I Wikipedia'd him, and found this after another 10 seconds:
"Shortly before his retirement from Rockefeller University in 1979, Seitz began working as a paid permanent consultant for the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, advising their research program."
So he obviously has no more qualms about protecting the health and safety of the general public. Let me remind you, that research programs of tobacco companies generally have the sole purpose of making their product more addictive and less deadly. That sounds a little more manipulative than anything the IPCC ever did.
Why would the IPCC censor anything this man wrote? Well...
"In 1994, Seitz authored a report published by the George C. Marshall Institute, of which he was a founder and chairman of the board, titled "Global warming and ozone hole controversies. A challenge to scientific judgment." In a broader discussion of environmental toxins, he concluded "there is no good scientific evidence that passive inhalation is truly dangerous under normal circumstances.""
Wow, so you think an individual who doesn't think CFC's can damage the ozone layer (a tested theory that holds widespread acceptance), that doesn't believe toxins harm people (another widely accepted, proven theory), should be listened to on the global warming debate? When you want to learn about math, you don't go to a man who thinks 2+2=5.
I have a fun game for you: just search "Global Warming Skeptics" and read some biographies. How many of these individuals are either:
1) not qualified
2) not reasonable
3) not impartial
Yeah, then check the percentage of those who accept the theory. I'm going to have to trust the latter.
Anonymous (April 30, 2008 @ 9:22am):
"According to this view, science becomes a popularity contest where only views that can garner enough signatures and published materials are suitable for public consumption. Who will be the arbiter of âlegitimate debate?â Presumably the IPCC. This is profoundly anti-scientific."
NO! This is exactly what science is! The views that can receive the most support, get published and cited most, are doing so for a reason! This is how the scientific process works. Someone comes up with a good idea, does good research, or creates a dynamic model, and others pick it up and run with it.
If you write papers, can't get published in peer-reviewed journals, can't get cited by other authors, or can't influence the conversation, it's because your contribution is worthless. Seriously. The IPCC isn't censoring thought, it's refusing to ruin its credibility by supporting people who don't use good scientific methods.
I doubt you'll ever have any need to submit a scientific paper for approval, but maybe you should attempt to understand the process before you critique it.
Anonymous (April 30, 2008 @ 9:23am):
What the heck? Everyone's talking about how the Earth is round! Why can't I get my flat-Earth theory published anywhere? Discrimination!!
Anonymous (April 30, 2008 @ 9:36am):
Jim,
Thank you for a most pointed and excellent article. The deceits and out right frauds perpetrated by Al Gore and the UN-IPCC have willfully misled many across the nation and around the world. It is driving counterproductive political directives such as mandated and subsidized ethanol fuel production from corn and grain sources, in a useless attempt to control naturally occuring climate changes. These federal mandates waste every citizens tax money through nonproductive subsidies. They are driving up food prices by reducing the grain available for human and animal consumption. Producing the ethanol from corn consumes nearly as much energy as it produces. It is not economic and, without subsidies, is not viable.
Energy prices are high because of supply and demand, as we learned in Econ 101. The supply has been constrained by misguided politics, policy, and people. Available oil reserves within the US and adjacent continental shelves remains untapped due to political obstruction. Clean energy from nuclear reactors was deemed politcally unacceptable and not new reactors were built for 30 years. Our huge coal reserves remain underutilised because of political perception rather than fact.
The climate naturally changes on this planet. If the planet had not started naturally 'warming' approximately 10,000 years ago, much of North America would still be covered by glaciers. Our understanding of what factors influence global climate change, the science of climate change, is in its infancy. We do not now have the knowledge and understanding to predict the weather 'with 90 percent certainty' 2 weeks from today, let alone 50 or 100 years from know. And yet, this is exactly the claim made by the UN-IPCC report.
Keep speaking out. Reason, honesty, and scientific integrity will prevail in the end.
Anonymous (April 30, 2008 @ 1:23pm):
Scientific Integrity Is Resurfacing
I encourage every Badger to access the web site link below. The link takes you to an article written by Dr. Vincent Gray, a member of the Expert Reviewers Panel for the UN-IPCC report on "Man-made Global Warming". He has renounced his participation in the report and summarizes the host of ways that the UN-IPCC report commits fraud. Keep this one real handy, for every person that believes Global Warming is 'real' or the 'debate is over'.
http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=155&Itemid=1
Heidi Voss (April 30, 2008 @ 5:16pm):
Thank you so much for writing this article! Censorship in the scientific world is growing, most particularly over global warming. Just reading the comments to your article, people want to block you out, even as they are claiming there is no censorship. Nowadays, its "popular" to be "green" and if you aren't, you are shunned. Kids are coming home and complaining to their parents that they need to drive a hybrid, they need to install energy saving appliances. Al Gore's "An Inconvient Truth" has been shown to be full of false "facts" and even a computer-generated image from "Day After Tomorrow" was used to advance his cause. Thanks again for writing about the other side!
Anonymous (April 30, 2008 @ 6:01pm):
9:22am writes: "The views that can receive the most support, get published and cited most, are doing so for a reason! This is how the scientific process works."
It depends on why the views are getting support. If they're getting support based on the merits of the arguments presented then this is science. However, I cited a number of cases in the article where alternative views were rejected, not by refuting the arguments, but by personal attacks.
These views were rejected BECAUSE they didn't agree with consensus, BECAUSE they were published in the wrong forum, BECAUSE they didn't have the right peer-reviews, BECAUSE Al Gore calls them "flat-earthers". This is what makes it non-scientific.
There are numerous good arguments from respected scientists (Richard Lindzen, for example) that run counter to the current views of the IPCC and Al Gore. Claiming that these people are "flat-earthers" or are funded by industry, is not a valid way to deal with these arguments.
Anonymous (April 30, 2008 @ 6:34pm):
It's been getting cooler since 1998, now THAT'S an inconvenient truth - at least for the Goracle and other gulfstream greenies.
Anonymous (April 30, 2008 @ 7:06pm):
Sure, global warming is all science - not religion, except when it's not.
***
Noted hurricane forecaster William Gray says that Colorado State University cut its support for the publicity of Gray's forecasts because of his famous skepticism about anthropogenic global warming dogma.
***
They pointedly quoted Gray's forecasts to explain the pricing of property insurance for hurricane damage. So, unlike most climate models, Gray's is tested in the market by people with actual money to lose this year. That gives Gray's AGW skepticism a credibility that must be extremely irritating to activists and pundits who believe that denying AGW is akin to denying the Holocaust.
http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2008/04/quieting-william-gray.html
Anonymous (April 30, 2008 @ 7:14pm):
We have to rediscover the middle ground, where we can have a sensible conversation. We shouldn't ignore climate change or the policies that could attack it. But we should be honest about the shortcomings and costs of those policies, as well as the benefits.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/05/AR2007100501676.html
According to the first complete peer-reviewed survey of climate change's health effects, global warming will actually save lives. It's estimated that by 2050, global warming will cause almost 400,000 more heat-related deaths each year. But at the same time, 1.8 million fewer people will die from cold.
Anonymous (April 30, 2008 @ 11:34pm):
For all the activists that call global warming deniers, "flat-earthers", remember that it used to be the scientific consensus that the earth was flat and the universe revolved around the earth. Funny how science changes over time.
Anonymous (May 5, 2008 @ 11:46am):
Actually, the point of scientific theory is not to come up with the best model that proves your hypothesis. The basis is to then poke holes in said hypothesis to see if it stands up to testing. You can't prove global warming by claiming that eveything that contradicts your statement is a corollary of the process. Denial of all contrary points of view is pure fascism. Consensus does not make science
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