This semester, the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impact is holding a nine-part seminar series on climate change called “Bracing for Impact.” Lecturers thus far included a number of scientists from the Center for Climatic Research and the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences. Needless to say, they should be fairly knowledgeable of current research in the field.
Yet in recent lectures, only Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change conclusions have been presented. The opening slide read, “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” and each presenter offered graphs and photos showing the planet is warming due to increased levels of CO2. There was no mention of any counterargument or disagreement of any kind.
There was no mention of the fact that the earth has been cooling for almost a decade. There was no mention of scientists like astrophysicist Willie Soon, who argues the IPCC misrepresented science and “the role of CO2 in the climate is just miniscule,” or Richard Lindzen, an atmospheric physicist at MIT who argues the CO2 explanation is flawed and politics has distorted this area of science.
There was no mention of John Christy, an atmospheric scientist at the
All of these scientists have fundamental criticisms of the IPCC and its conclusions, including the accepted theory of CO2 warming. They all have the requisite credentials to contribute to this area of science and have published scientific papers, written books and attend conferences on climate change (like the International Conference on Climate Change held this month in
Surely professors at this university must have heard of their colleagues and even read some of their research. Even if they don’t agree with their fellow scientists, honesty and professionalism would demand at least acknowledging the existence of their work.
It appears not.
When asked about those who disagree, one lecturer said there would always be “naysayers,” and he doesn’t really care what’s causing the climate to change. Another lecturer responded similarly, saying he intentionally skirted the issue because in his opinion, it doesn’t matter why the climate is changing; he’s only concerned with adapting to it.
Of course this is disingenuous. One does not “brace for impact” while claiming to be ambivalent about the causes of climate change. Adaptation requires knowledge of how the climate will change, and each lecturer presented definite predictions based on a theory of CO2 driving runaway temperature increases. Without a causal theory, there’s no reason to believe one thing over another regarding future climates.
The truth is there’s a lot of scientific debate and a lot of people determined to ignore it.
Similar disregard for science can be found in the classroom.
Last semester, my biology professor cited two sources of information on global warming: the IPCC and Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” saying Gore’s science was correct. Citing a political organization and a politician as good sources of scientific information is very strange given the standard practice of only accepting peer-reviewed sources and original research and frowning on citing popular press and political sources.
In almost every field of science, there are ongoing debates and opposing theories. Even the most basic issues of biology and physics are hotly debated for decades before the science is understood. Yet we are supposed to believe that in the nascent field of climatology, scientific understanding regarding one of the most complicated and multifaceted problems in science — predicting global temperature changes over hundreds of years — is settled. And we’re supposed to believe that in the course of just 25 years this science has been so fully understood that anyone who dares to claim otherwise should be dismissed, out of hand, as a politically motivated crackpot, a “flat-earther” or denier.
This is absurd on the face of it. When you see a spectacle where scientists are actively discouraging debate and ignoring counterviews one has to think perhaps global warming is not about science.
Jim Allard ([email protected]) is a graduate student majoring in the biological sciences.
