My guess is that most people will dismiss this as bad science—as they do with most evidence that challenges their beliefs. I’m agnostic on the whole matter. I don’t know what to believe, so you don’t see me worshipping at the Holy Church of Saint Al every Sunday (twice on holidays). My opinions on the topic of global warming, and the environment generally, are defined based on the following assumptions and observations:
- Human action has an impact on the environment.
- Efforts to reduce human environmental impact are virtuous.
- Reducing environmental impact is costly.
- Human progress in the past several centuries has significantly reduced human suffering and improved the welfare and wellbeing of humans everywhere.
- Efforts to continue improving the human condition are virtuous.
- Science and society does not have a great track record for predicting catastrophe.
Popular media and the propensity of our culture toward self-despondency and consumer guilt perpetuates (6). Sometimes the results are innocent enough. Sometimes they are just embarrassing. And sometimes they are costly. An obvious response would be to say that not taking any action is just way too risky. I agree that some cautious measures are a safe bet. But, on the whole, I don’t buy the argument because I can’t think of a single case where society has acted collectively, effectively, or intelligently to rein in either human progress or mother nature. If you can think of one, let me know.
What is most surprising is that these views are considered extreme. Voicing them usually leads people to label you as either ignorant or an asshole*. To me, these views just seem level-headed and honest. Some others would rather hide behind rhetoric and then do nothing (or nothing productive, anyway). In practice, the policy that I would prescribe is only slightly different than that of [mainstream] global warming drumbeaters. It’s motivation, however, is less reactionary. I guess I prefer being peripheral over being careless.
Comments welcome.
*By “asshole”, I mean uncaring about the environment and overly sympathetic to business interests. In reality, business is the main beneficiary of overly enthusiastic environmental policy.
Update: My roommate offers up elimination of CFCs as an example of effective public action on the environment.
1 comment:
1. I find in slightly ironic that one of the main sources for this article is from scienceandpublicpolicy.org, which is conveniently funded by Exxon Mobil. Hidden agenda?
2. In terms of collective action, what about abolishing slavery, child labor laws, women's suffrage, the endangered species act...to name a few.
3. If we assume that society can act collectively and effectively, even if we are dead wrong about global warming, (which real Science shows to be unlikely) the cost of not acting is too great not to act. Check out this video...cheesy, but thorough. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oi8651Acu4
4. Have we really improved the welfare of humans everywhere? That is a bold statement and regrettably untrue if you look at numerous cases in developing countries (examples available on request). Also, even within the developed world, I question the values of what progress has brought. Less leisure time and declining reports of human happiness. If we value long life and low infant mortality rates, woo hoo. Life is grand. But how about the quality of the extra long life?
5. Yes, many actions to reduce environmental impact are lacking incentives and seem rather pointless overall. Approaches by groups, such as Greenpeace, to make consumers feel guilty will not work. Good point. We need a different/better approach.
6. Society and Science is evolving. So as technology becomes better, we improve at predicting catastrophe. Recently the track record isn't so bad, hurricane Katrina, forest fires, floods, etc. If only policy makers listen...
7. In regards to the facts of the article,
-the link about CO2 and temp is not accurate. With the exception of two instances, CO2 has increased before temp. Also, in those two cases, it was possibly caused by volcanic ash/sulfur, which deflect sunlight, thus lowering temp.
-he assumes that warming will occur generally. It doesn't. Not sure how he's measuring how spots in the tropic, but he can measure the difference in temps in the arctic. This is due to albedo affect making the arctic more susceptible to temp changes. Missing hot spots over the tropics can be due to many reasons.
-30 years is not accurate enough to say temps are waning when temps have increased in the past 100 years
-In regards to the clouds, he's right. Clouds and convection heat is a wild card. Clouds can either trap or reflect sunlight, depending on the type and no one can accurately predict the types of clouds that will occur in the next 100 years. Yet this has little relevance to human induced global warming.
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