An Argument for Skepticism

Given the amount of stir my opinions created, I feel the need to address them fully, especially considering that more than one person has insinuated I don’t understand the issue or have somehow come to my conclusions without reviewing the facts.

What follows is a skeptical argument against global warming advocacy. It is a lengthy response to critics, but as it is no longer than the short story I recently posted, it shouldn’t take up too much of your time. And it has graphics!

I honestly appreciate the debate, and I thank you in advance for taking the time to read this particular post. I hope you read it with an open mind.

There are three sections to this post. First, my argument. Second, what I call Afterthoughts, where I address specific questions from Nathan, Lina and Reme that I thought deserved responses but were not central to my argument. Finally, a third section of Sources which all can easily access.

Here we go.

I want to start with a quick refresher from high school, so that we’re all on the same page. Stay with me, because this will be important later.

Science is by definition the process of making observations about the natural world, posing a hypothesis (a theory) about those observations, then setting about to test this hypothesis in the real world. Testing leads to results which either corroborate (support) the hypothesis, or falsify (prove it wrong) the hypothesis.

It is the second of these which is critical to science.

I am going to give you a hypothesis: God created the world last Thursday, with everything in the world exactly as we see it right now, so that everything looks like its been here a very long time, and he gave us all of our memories so that we believe we’ve been here for some time too.

Now, we can test this hypothesis over and over, and we can find much corroborating evidence.

What we can not do is ever test it to find falsifying evidence. There is no test that can disprove my hypothesis.

In science, this is literally called a Last Thursdayism. It is a hypothesis which cannot be falsified.

For all we know, my hypothesis is correct. You can’t prove it isn’t. But for that very reason, my hypothesis does not belong to the world of science.

Science only deals with a hypothesis that can be falsified. If it cannot, then it is not scientific.

We will come back to this later, but as long as we’re all clear, we can move on.

Okay. I am going to divide everyone up into two groups here, for sake of ease. The first group I call Global Warming Advocates (GWAs). This group believes the world is currently getting warmer, that this increase in temperature is caused specifically by C02 emissions, and that the change is so severe we must act immediately or else face Armageddon (the atheistic version anyway).

The second group I call Climate Change Advocates (CCA’s). This group believes that the world is currently getting warmer, but that such warming can not be attributed wholly to man (or to any one thing else for that matter), that this increase in temperature is minimal and unlikely to bring about Armageddon, and that we would be better off concentrating our money and resources on problems we can actually fix.

Goes without saying which group I place myself in.

I make the distinction because I have no interest in debating that climate does or does not change. Of course it does. My argument is with the science behind advocating that this change is both unnatural and manmade, and that it will kill all of us.

GWAs base their argument almost entirely on measurements of global temperature which show a definitive spike from the 1940’s forward to our present time. The most shocking presentation of this data, and the bedrock of the present GWA movement, comes from a graph published in 1998 in Nature magazine by Michael Mann.

Mann’s graph looks like this:

I would have you note two important aspects of this graph. First, the data goes back only 1000 years, an infinitesimally small amount of time in the history of the earth. Second, while the spike looks enormous, the actual variation of the entire chart is between negative one degree and positive one-half degree. This too, is incredibly small.

Mann’s graph caused quite a stir when it was released and was hailed by GWAs worldwide. However, since then the graph, indeed his entire research method, has been seriously disputed, most notably by Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, who showed that the method by which Mann formulated his graph would create a similar graph nearly every time. McIntyre and McKitrick input data from persistent red noise into Mann’s model and got the same graph almost every time…a steady line and then a sharp spike.

This is the infamous “hockey-stick” controversy, where the graph looks like a hockey-stick regardless of what information you put into the model.

Also worth noting, for anyone astute enough to observe it, is that Mann’s graph somehow shows no record of the Medieval Warming Period or the Little Ice Age. We would expect both of these periods of great temperature fluctuation to record major spikes on this graph. On Mann’s chart, they don’t exist at all.

As it is in science, more scientists have disputed McIntyre and McKitrick, others continue to dispute Mann, and the debate continues. What is telling is that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which first displayed Mann’s work in 2001 as major corroboration of GWA theory, have since removed all displays of this graph since 2007. Further, almost every major GWA has rejected the entire “hockey-stick” model, because newer, more accurate methods have shown the errors in Mann’s approach.

But for arguments sake, let’s assume Mann is correct, that the data is accurate. Even if Mann made no errors in the data, his presentation leans heavily in one direction…towards the GWA view of the world. Let me show you how.

Return again to the graph itself, which shows variation within an extremely small bandwidth, negative one degree to positive one-half degree. What we are talking about here is data collected on annual surface temperature variation, plotted over the last thousand years. That total average temperature is a ballpark 16 degrees. If we graph the entire average fluctuation using Mann’s data, we get this graph, provided by Goddard Institute for Space Studies:

This is the exact same information, but seen in a wider perspective.

Not exactly a lot of fluctuation.

The point is simple. A ballpoint pen is entirely smooth to the touch, but if you put it under a microscope you’ll see ridges and craters more drastic than what you see on the moon. It does not mean that either observation is wrong, but rather that both are correct. It depends on which observation we choose to emphasize, and which one applies to how we live our lives.

Okay. But temperature variation does happen, right? We can all agree on that. So the issue isn’t if it occurs, but what is normal, what is abnormal, what is truly worrisome, and what causes it in the first place?

You will remember that Mann’s data goes back only for the last 1000 years. Obviously, that isn’t very far. Ice-cores drilled by Russian scientists in Antarctica at Vostok are dated back for 425,000 years, and the latest core sample may give us data as far back as 750,000 years. This data is obviously more complete than Mann’s.

What does the Vostock data show us? Here’s a graph based upon data available at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration website, which has published the Vostok data:

This graph shows us major fluctuations nearly evenly spaced, flowing between positive four degrees and negative twelve degrees. We can easily see the last four ice ages and the subsequent global warming which occurred after each ice age. We can also note that at this time scale, hundreds of thousands of years instead of merely hundreds of years, our current global temperature registers no dramatic, unnatural spike compared to earlier periods.

However, even this graph is misleading. For the Earth is far older than this graph can show. Current data places the age of the Earth between four and six billion years old. Even this last graph then only shows us the last itty-bitty slice of that lifespan. As in our earlier graphs, the spikes we see over the last four-hundred-thousand years may be nothing but the smallest fluctuations if plotted out over four billion years.

This presents a major problem for GWAs. GWAs ask us to believe they can diagnose our global climate and accurately predict the future of global climate based upon this incredibly limited data.

Consider for a moment you have a serious medical condition. You go to see a doctor. The doctor asks you to tell him what’s wrong. And you tell the doctor that the only information you can give him is a fully accurate description of how you’ve felt for the last five seconds. No more history than that.

Five seconds. Make a diagnosis. And it better be right.

Let me be clear. I am not accusing GWAs of not collecting enough data, as if they were lazy or biased. What I’m saying is that the information doesn’t exist. The further back we go, the less information we can compile, and eventually the data disappears entirely. Beyond the last thousand years, our understanding of global climate is full of gaping holes which we cannot fill.

The fact that we do not have a complete climate record means we can not know if current fluctuations are abnormal or completely natural.

Please read that again, because this fact is where the GWA argument really starts to crack.

We do not have a complete climate record and can not have one. What we do have is the tiniest sliver at the very end of a gargantuan scale. It is impossible for us to know for certain if the information we do have points to abnormal or natural fluctuation.

We can’t know.

But again for arguments sake, let’s ignore this hole in the data and focus on the present. We do have data that shows an increase in temperature in the 20^th century. That is clear. What is not clear is why temperature has increased.

GWA theory puts the blame on C02 emissions from the Industrial Revolution, factories and cars. The famous Greenhouse Effect.

Studies show conclusively that there is more C02 in the atmosphere than there was before the 20^th century. No one questions this. However, the question remains of whether or not C02 emissions entirely account for the temperature fluctuation.

Just how much fluctuation are we talking about? Check the graphs. The fluctuation (assuming Mann and other GWAs are correct) is roughly sixth-tenths of a degree for all of the 20^th century. Could C02 emissions account for this?

Yes, they could.

So could solar flares from the sun, which are at a 1000 year high.

So could ambient heat from major cities, as urban sprawl is at an all-time high.

The Solanki study published in Astronomy and Geophysics suggests a point-two-five degree increase from solar flares. The Kalnay and Ming study “Impact of Urbanization and Land-Use Change on Climate” pinpoints a point-three-five degree shift from ambient heat.

The math leaves little space for the effects of C02 emissions, meaning if the effects are real at all they are minimal at best.

However, the real point is not to quibble over these studies but to point out that there are numerous factors which impact global climate. GWAs argue that C02 emissions are the only option on the table. Which isn’t true. There are many options.

More importantly, the fact that there are other factors brings us to the greatest crux of the GWA argument, the foundation upon which GWA science becomes pseudoscience.

Global climate is a complex system. There are many contributing factors. We have discussed a few of them. There are millions more, from ocean water temperature to atmospheric pressure to the proximity of the moon…on and on and on. It is a massive system with input data so staggering it cannot be computed.

All of these factors also interact, and by interacting they change each other. The system evolves.

In science, we call this a non-linear chaotic system.

This is a very important distinction, because this is a very specific kind of system. If a system has only a limited number of inputs, and those inputs do not evolve, then we can make predictions about exactly what the system will do. And our predictions will be accurate.

Think about the factory machines that build our cars, can our food, process our cheese. All of these automated machines operate thanks to linear systems, systems which do not evolve, do not change, and always produce predictable results. This is why the factory line machines can operate day and night without us having to watch over them every second.

A non-linear chaotic system evolves. Its inputs alter the equations, and the alterations cannot be predicted.

A perfect example of such a system is the American economy. There are thousands of economic experts in this country, with decades of experience and unimaginable amounts of experience. And yet, as has become obvious, they cannot predict accurately what the economy will do.

The popular and most extreme example is called the Butterfly Effect. It goes like this: A butterfly flaps its wings in Japan and causes a tornado on the plains of Oklahoma.

This, my friends, is Chaos. The butterfly causes a chain reaction of interacting factors that cause the change of a weather pattern thousands of miles away. A striking metaphor, and though extreme, the point is simple and valid:

In a non-linear chaotic system, every input alters the results, but we don’t know how it will do so. We can’t predict it. Not because we’re not smart enough. Not because we don’t have enough data. Not because our computers aren’t powerful enough.

Because the system evolves.

Global climate is probably the largest, most complex non-linear system we can imagine. Everything is an input. Ocean water temperature is an input. Butterfly flapping is an input. There is so much input it shuts down our best computer models, but because the system evolves it wouldn’t matter if our computers could handle the data in the first place. We could run the models and every time we’d have a different result, because nothing evolves the same way twice.

This is exactly why the weatherman can’t predict the weather more than a week out. This is why he can’t tell you what the weather will be like in Hawaii next July. It would be cool if he could, but he can’t. Not because he’s an idiot, but because he can’t. It’s impossible.

And yet, GWAs claim to be able to accurately predict global weather over a hundred years from now. AND they claim to know exactly the effects of that climate change.

GWAs claim to be able to accurately predict a non-linear chaotic system.

This is impossible.

This is not science, boys and girls.

Ironically, this fact has been acknowledged by the IPCC in their own 2001 book Climate Change, although it is disregarded by GWAs.

I quote from the IPCC: “In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”

GWAs love to make grand predictions, which is where we get outrageous claims of massive rising tides, hellish weather patterns, incredible temperature spikes, and totally ludicrous numbers like the deaths of four billion people in the next hundred years. These claims are in the wonderful position of being un-testable, because we cannot know how the climate system will evolve.

These predictions are Last Thursdayisms. They cannot be disproved.

But, also, they are not science.

Afterthoughts

The Danger of Consensus and Pseudoscience

Lina and Reme both voiced their concern for my disregard of credentials and hard work in a field of research. They also both put forth the idea that consensus is not to be overlooked, that it obviously indicates some kind of truth.

Also, more than one person expressed the idea that if we can do something now that might save the future, what’s the harm? Why not make an effort now to ward off all the bad that may happen later?

The following is, I think, an apt example illustrating the dangers of this way of thinking. It is taken from an appendix written by Michael Crichton.

“Imagine that there is a new scientific theory that warns of an impending crisis, and points to a way out.

This theory quickly draws support from leading scientists, politicians, and celebrities around the world. Research is funded by distinguished philanthropies, and carried out at prestigious universities. The crisis is reported frequently in the media. The science is taught in college and high school classrooms.

I don’t mean global warming. I’m talking about another theory, which rose to prominence a century ago.

Its supporters included Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill. It was approved by the Supreme Court justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis, who ruled in its favor. The famous names who supported it included Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone; activist Margaret Sanger; botanist Luther Burbank; Leland Stanford, founder of Stanford University; the novelist HG Wells; the playwright George Bernard Shaw; and hundreds of others. Nobel Prize winners gave support. Research was backed by the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations. The Cold Springs Harbor Institute was built to carryout this research, but important work was also done at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Johns Hopkins. Legislation to address the crisis was passed in states from New York to California.

These efforts had the support of the National Academy of the Sciences, the American Medical Association, and the National Research Council. It was said that if Jesus were alive, he would have supported this effort.

Today, we know that this famous theory that gained so much support was actually pseudoscience. The crisis it claimed was non-existent. And the actions taken in the name of this theory were morally and criminally wrong. Ultimately, they led to the deaths of millions of people.

The theory was eugenics.”

Eugenics, my friends, was the belief and pursuit of genetic and racial supremacy.

We all know where that one led.

Is global warming the same as eugenics? No. But the similarities between these two stories is far from merely superficial.

The point is that pseudoscience parading as science is dangerous. And consensus, no matter how esteemed, is worthless.

If GWAs are right, then they should be able to present their argument scientifically. And we, as a public, should be clear thinking enough to demand they do so.

What To Do With Our Resources and Money

Nathan raised the question of Why shouldn’t we do something if we have an outline of a possible outcome? We have a prediction, and it seems to be a good one, so why not act?

It should be obvious by now that the GWA outline is, at best, shaky. It is not scientific, nor is it based on a complete set of data. Which means that, even if GWAs are right, we are shooting blindly in the dark.

This is the case of any outline. We don’t know what will happen, what we do know is full of holes.

The sad truth is that all of our predictions are only guesses. And an informed guess, my friends, is still just a guess.

But there are things we do know about besides the future climate.

We know how to feed the starving. We know how to clothe and house the poor. We know how to eradicate disease. We know how to educate our children.

GWAs are asking for a massive marshalling of money and resources based entirely on guesswork.

I would rather we spent our energy and our money on what we can accurately predict, what we know we can fix.

Why We Can’t Fix The Future

More than one person indicated that I seem to think we should sit back and do nothing and let the climate issue take care of itself. Lina went as far to say this was my own mental laziness.

Aside from all the better things we could spend our money on, and how we can’t predict the future anyway, I will offer an example of why jumping into action now to fix problems we will encounter 100 years from now is…well, stupid.

Take Theodore Roosevelt, one of the most progressive environmental figures at the turn of the last century. Roosevelt created the first National Bird Preserve (the beginning of the Wildlife Refuge system), co-founded the American Bison Society, created 42 million acres of national forest, 53 wildlife refuges, 18 places of “special interest” such as the Grand Canyon. He was a great, positive force for the environment.

Here is a list of words and concepts Teddy Roosevelt did not know the meaning of:

Airport

Antibiotic

Antenna

Computer

Continental drift

Tectonic plates

Zipper

Nylon

Radio

Television

Robot

Video

Virus

Gene

Proton

Neutron

Atomic structure

Nuclear energy

Ecosystem

Jumpsuit

Fingerprints

12-step

Shell shock

Shock wave

Microwave

Tidal wave

Tsunami

IUD

DVD

HIV

VHS

Carpal tunnel

Fiber optics

Gorilla

Heart transplant

Penicillin

Internet

Interferon

Lap dancing

Bipolar

Gene therapy

I imagine by now you get the idea. I could go on. I won’t.

Teddy Roosevelt, for all he might have cared, could realistically do almost nothing to have an impact on our present problems. The world changed so much that he knew nothing about the world we live in now.

We’re in the same position in regards to what will happen one hundred years from now. We can’t conceive of that world in the slightest, and all of our opinions of what its problems might be will radically alter in the years to come as the world continues to change.

I’m not advocating doing nothing because I’m lazy. I’m advocating that we realize our limitations and stop being so arrogant as to believe we can change a future world we can’t understand.

You Can Bash GWAs and Still Love the Environment

More than one person insinuated that because I don’t believe GWA theory, I therefore don’t support the efforts of other environmental advocates. I explicitly made clear in my earlier posts that this is not true.

I am a big supporter of everyone making an effort to make our world a better place, people doing their part to save our environment. I support solar panels and recycling and all the like.

What I don’t support is GWA methodology and the use of pseudoscience.

The Psychology of Guilt

I have long pondered why so many otherwise intelligent people so readily accept that man is responsible for global warming. Why is it so easy for people to believe that it’s their fault? Why do people seem so damn eager to bash mankind?

If you think I’m off-base, go back over the responses to Reme’s post. What is the constant theme?

Yes, we’re to blame. We’re all bad because we’ve plundered the world. We did this and we deserve the consequences.

We accept this even though almost none of us have actually seen much evidence for this theory.

I propose part of the coup is directly related to the default human position of guilt. We feel guilty like its going out of style. Our kids screw up…we should have raised them better. Our kid falls down the stairs…we should have been watching. Our grandmother is miserable…we should have visited her more. We lost money in the stock market…we should have watched the portfolio more closely. A plane lands on our house…we should have bought property in another district.

You think I’m being outrageous, but I’m actually talking about a real psychological phenomenon. And it is not limited to individual guilt.

A new study coming out of the Australian National University researches Group-based Guilt, specifically the causes and consequences of collective guilt felt by Australians over the historical treatment of indigenous peoples in Australia. I imagine the results will be particularly salient to white Americans.

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here. I’m not saying global warming is caused by guilt. I’m saying our ease in accepting the global warming theory is likely due in part to a natural psychological phenomenon, namely that we feel guilty even when we have no reason to.

While this is definitely an aside, I think it is worth discussing why more of us don’t stand up and say, Hey, buddy, prove it to me that it’s my fault the world is going to hell.

But we don’t say that. We immediately believe we’re to blame.

Sources

I chose to list only the most relevant sources and tried to limit myself to mostly sources easily accessed on the Internet. However, certain magazine and book excerpts were too important to leave off.

Every site can be found with less than ten minutes of searching on this topic on Google.

In spite of what you might believe, the scientific data is out there for those who want to find it. It doesn’t take years of study or an advanced degree. It takes an open mind.

Global Temperature Changes from Seed, a volunteer-based non-profit education organization: http://www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/watch/climate_change/change.htm

Vostok Ice Core Data: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/vostok_data.html

“Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries” by Michael Mann published in Nature April 1998

The hockey-stick controversy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy

Steve McIntyre’s daily blog: http://www.climateaudit.org/

and: http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-94621.html

(this forum also lists literally dozens of other resources, articles, and weblinks discussing Mann’s research, his detractors and supporters, and the issues of this data)

“Solar variability and climate change: is there a link?” by Sami Solanki published in Astronomy and Geophysics 2002 Issue 43

“Impact of Urbanization and Land-Use Change on Climate” by Eugenia Kalnay and Ming Cai published in Nature 2003

Chaos theory: http://www.imho.com/grae/chaos/chaos.html

and: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

2001 IPCC Report on Climate Change: http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/vol4/english/index.htm

Excerpt on eugenics comes from Appendix 1 of Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear”