Patch Blog: The Truth About Climate Change—and the Contrarians Who Keep it From You

Although most folks in the U.S. are convinced the earth is warmer than it was a relatively short time ago, there are still many who have doubts and reservations. Some shrug off the whole “debate”—if what passes for rational argument in the court of public opinion can be called that—with an almost prehistoric reaction suitably summarized in the familiar, dialogue-stopping phrase: “So what?”

But the questions before us—and the generations to come—aren’t going to go away. They beg answers—and will continue to pop up with irritating regularity on nights when ignoramuses and naysayers alike might be heard saying to each other:

“Hey, it was really cold last night—so cold my glass of bourbon turned to ice.” Or: “Climate change? What a joke!”

Fortunately, although so many citizens remain ignorant, enough of us are concerned enough to ask such questions as: Are we the cause? How bad could it be? 

As you read this, many of the world’s corporations—even Chevron—and government agencies such as the Department of Defense, the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, are trying hard to find the best answers.

They take climate change—referred to in shorthand as “CC”—seriously. Yet, unbelievably, half of the general public seems perfectly happy to elect politicians—from either of our two major parties—who deny outright that CC exists or are likely to kick the can down the road.

It helps our understanding to go back to the basics of science, so that we can appreciate the principles involved. They are really quite simple and it helps us get a grasp on physical reality.

Once we do that, we can take a look at a few typical arguments that minimize the dangers of CC—or deny it even exists. In this blog, I will consider only a few of the more important arguments and leave out the silly ones, including conspiracy theories in which the scientists are the alleged bad guys. (Let’s leave this stuff for those who actually have the time for it.)

Climate Change 101 

Let’s say you take an empty 10-gallon aquarium and shine a sun lamp on it. After a few hours, measure the temperature inside the aquarium and fill it with carbon dioxide, which is colorless and odorless. Now measure the aquarium’s temperature, exactly as you did before. Result? The temperature will have increased. Why? While carbon dioxide allows light to pass through it, it absorbs heat better than air. In fact, carbon dioxide “traps” heat.

NASA estimates that burning fossil fuels in the U.S. alone release about 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year—based on 1990 estimates. (Further, 80 percent of all global emissions of carbon dioxide are man-made—other sources include volcanoes—and the U.S. creates 20 percent of all such emissions, given that worlwide global emissions are 30 billion tons.) So, just as we found in our experiment with the aquarium, the temperature of earth’s atmosphere rises with the increase in carbon dioxide. From basic principles, this warming should come as no surprise.

Arguments Against Climate Change

Let’s deal with three arguments that give many citizens such a “deer-in-the-headlights” reaction to climate change that they refuse to demand that their representatives do something—now. 

Argument #1: The climate has warmed and cooled many, many times over the past few million years. Ferns once grew in the Arctic. We’ll grow peaches in Greenland. What happens to our climate is beyond our control, anyhow. In any case, it’s not a big deal.

Reality check: This is a half-truth. The climate has indeed warmed and cooled over millennia. During the warm, subtropical Cretaceous period, for example there was no polar ice at all. Great for all you gardeners—and dinosaur fans—right? But did you know that sea levels rose to cover one-third of the earth’s landmass during that age? To imagine what the planet looks like in that state, take your blue marker and color in one-third of the world’s land area in blue. And consider the possibility that much of the remaining two-thirds of the landmass might have been deserts. 

A second half-truth about CC proclaims: “It’s beyond our control. Climate change is the result of ‘natural cycles.’”

A gazillion of scientific studies have diligently looked at more natural forces than a boatload of jitterbugging contrarians. Researchers have spent vast sums of money and time studying sunspots, sun intensity, volcanic action, the release of CO2 from the ocean, change in Earth’s orbits, change in the orientation of its axis—and other phenomena too numerous to mention. Only the 17-percent increase in CO2 from the time of the industrial revolution explains the warming. Everything else either points the other way—or is far less significant as a factor. This has been checked and rechecked.

So, I wonder. Do those skeptics who claim to be open-minded, curious and thoughtful ever check into these studies, other than to try to demolish them? Do they realize that two half-truths do not a full truth make? If anything, ½ Truth + ½ Truth = A lie. 

Argument #2: There is no scientific consensus regarding the causes and effects of CC. The science on this issue is not “settled.”

Reality Check: Simply not so. Consensus doesn’t—and shouldn’t—mean “everybody.” That is not how science progresses, and certainly not how knowledge is transmitted. “Consensus” means the world’s many Scientific Academies (of climate experts and others) have concluded that anthropogenic climate change is a fact.

I have heard claims that “thousands of scientists” challenge this conclusion, but all I have seen from them is sort of a petition—or a survey of anyone with a Bachelor’s degree in science.

To repeat, these are the facts: Climate Change is accepted by virtually every prestigious scientific group as real and human-caused.

One of the most prestigious, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), states:

An increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system. … There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.

There are hundreds of National Academies of science, science associations, etc. throughout the world. Yet, no scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion—the last to do so was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, which, in 2007 updated its 1999 statement, rejecting the likelihood of human influence on recent climate.  

Argument #3: If science is all about keeping an open mind, how do we know whom to listen to on the subject of climate change? After all, what about the views of those scientists who disagree with the so-called consensus?

Reality Check: In a 2007 essay titled “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How do we Know We’re not Wrong?” (see attached PDF for further details as well as watch the YouTube film) American science historian and UC San Diego Professor Naomi Oreskes exposes CC contrarians by rightly pointing out that the majority of them are not climate scientists “and therefore have little (or no) basis to claim to be experts on the subjects on which they boldly pronounce.” In fact, a number of dissenters, such as physicist Frederick Seitz, “have long since retired” and are “not producing new evidence or new arguments [but] are simply attacking the work of others and mostly doing so in the court of public opinion and in the mass media rather than in the halls of science.”

A common tactic of contrarians is to smear or question the character of those offering “inconvenient truths,” which, in this case, is our best scientific thinking. All sorts of “catty” remarks, innuendos, and outright insults are used to cloud the issues—with considerable success, thanks largely to the fact that the media, in its misguided pursuit of “pseudo balance,” pays undue attention to a small number of dissenters, almost all of whom are not climate scientists, and whose decidedly inept views are “greatly disproportionate with their representation in the scientific community,” in the words of Oreskes.

If these contrarians were accurate, that would be one thing. Unfortunately, they delay the necessary actions that would prevent further and immense suffering.

One of the most prominent contrarian smears is “Climate Gate,” the well-known hacking of emails of a climate scientist, Michael Mann, in 2009. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists:

The manufactured controversy over emails stolen from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit has generated a lot more heat than light. The email content being quoted does not indicate that climate data and research have been compromised. Most importantly, nothing in the content of these stolen emails has any impact on our overall understanding that human activities are driving dangerous levels of global warming. Media reports and contrarian claims that they do are inaccurate.

The claims of Climate Gate were examined and debunked by, among others, a Penn State investigation, the University of East Anglia, a U.K. Parliament report, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Science Foundation.

So, be skeptical of the skeptics.

Final Word

Will unconscionable politicians, such as Senator James Inhofe, be respected as they raise false issues and obstruct urgent action until they are finally “convinced” of the reality of climate change? I believe they are guilty of willful obfuscation, rising to the kind of criminal negligence that Bob Dylan once sang about when he said of our senators and Congressmen that “he who gets hurt will be he who has stalled." Of such politicians, you have to wonder: Why the delay? Who can doubt they carry water for the fossil fuel industry?

Consider this scenario: If six out of 10 experts warn of a defective infant car seat, should it be sold until 10 experts out of 10—including a few who have no expertise in car crash protection—decide on the issue? (And what should the fate of the “salesman” be?)

Or consider this: If six out of 10 experts warned of the imminent collapse of a bridge, should the traffic control officer encourage travel on the bridge until it’s condemned by all 10 experts—including a few who happen to be, say, cosmologists? (And if the traffic officer hid the warnings from the public, what should the fate of that officer be?)

Topic for my next blog: What are the dangers, as scientists have predicted, of climate change—and can we “afford” to do something about it?

Stay tuned.

Correction: In the 10th paragraph, this blog mentions that NASA estimates burning fossil fuels release about 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, based on 1990 data. An earlier version of the blog did not specify that these were U.S. annual emissions—and that they therefore do not account for 80 percent of all global emissions. Rather, they account for 20 percent, based on worldwide emissions estimates of 30 billion tons per year.