Global Warming: A Dialogue (Part 2)

The Temperature Record, Surface Temperatures

THE DENIER: If you look at the science, you’ll see that, since 1998, global land and marine surface temperatures are actually on the decline.  Even the lamestream media has been forced to admit this.  From a 2009 BBC article: “For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.”  The article proceeds to point out what real scientists have been saying all along, that the Earth is cyclical, that global temperatures have historically ebbed and flowed for naturally reasons and that humans can have very little impact on nature.[11] 

THE PHILOSOPHER: It’s true that 1998 was the warmest year in Climatic Research Unit’s data set, which goes back to 1850.  Although NASA, it should be pointed out, claims that 2005 was slightly hotter.  Whatever the case, there’s no reason to believe we’ve entered into a period of global cooling.  For the fact is that any number of factors can cause global temperatures to temporarily rise or fall.  For instance, many believe that 1998 was so hot because an especially strong El Nino hit that year. In order to determine whether or not global warming exists, we can’t cherry pick the data but must instead look at the big picture, at long-term trend.[12] 

And when we look at long-term trend, it becomes clear that the planet is warming.  According to the Climatic Research Unit, temperatures have been steadily rising since around 1910 with the first decade of this century being the hottest century on record.  After 1998, the next nine warmest years on record all occurred between 2001-2010.  Although 2008 has thus far been the coldest year of the century, it’s still the 12th hottest year on record.[13]

THE DENIER: Your whole argument presupposes that the temperature data we have is accurate.  But it’s not.  Temperature stations are unevenly distributed; “the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas (‘heat islands’), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas (‘land use effects’).”[14]

THE PHILOSOPHER: Have you ever heard of Richard Muller?  Richard Muller is a physics professor who for years claimed that the urban heat island effect had rendered the data coming from temperature stations unreliable.  Along with ten other scientists, Muller recently started the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project in the hopes of “resolv[ing] current criticism of the former temperature analyses.”[15]  The project’s biggest funder, I should point out, is none other than the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.  “Oil billionaires Charles and David Koch,” the LA Times reminds us, “are the nation’s most prominent funders of efforts to prevent curbs on the burning of fossil fuels, the largest contributor to planet-warming greenhouse gases.”[16]

And what did Muller’s team find?  Let me allow Muller to speak for himself: “Our biggest surprise was that the new results agreed so closely with the warming values published previously by other teams in the US and the UK. This confirms that these studies were done carefully and that potential biases identified by climate change sceptics did not seriously affect their conclusions.”[17]

The Temperature Record, Ocean Temperatures

THE DENIER: Surface temperatures don’t even matter that much anyway.  Ocean temperatures are a far more accurate measure of overall global temperatures.  And ocean temperatures are undoubtedly falling.  For example, in 2006 NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) reported that its 3,000 Argo floats had found that oceanic temperatures were cooling.  Given that even environmentalists have claimed that “80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters,” I think this is a pretty resounding deathblowm.[18]  Or as you philosophers are fond of saying, QED.

THE PHILOSOPHER: It’s true that in 2006, Josh Willis and another scientist at the JPL reported that oceanic temperatures had fallen between 2003 and 2005.  But this data contradicted other scientific data.  For example, researchers at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia had long studied the amount of solar energy entering and leaving the Earth and had found that more energy was entering than leaving.  This and other contradictory data caused Willis to scrutinize his data.[19]  When he did so, he found that a software glitch existed in some of the floats, causing “the temperature and salinity data to be associated with the wrong depths.  When the problem data [was] excluded from the analysis, the cooling trend [dropped] below the level of statistical significance.”[20]

THE DENIER: Funny how you word that: “the cooling trend dropped below the level of statistical significance.”  So in other words, the oceans are still cooling, they’re just not cooling as much as previously claimed.  But still, the fact remains that they’re cooling.  Which obviously contradicts the claims of global warming.

THE PHILOSOPHER: First, it’s not at all clear that ocean temperatures are falling, even slightly.  The Argo float data has been interpreted differently by different scientists.  Willis’ analysis shows that temperatures have slightly fallen, while other analyses have shown temperature increases.[21]  Second, even if ocean temperatures have fallen, this in no way disproves global warming.  As I argued earlier, we need to look at long-term trends, not cherry pick the data to suit our needs.  If you look at ocean temperatures over the past half century, you’ll see periods, sometimes consisting of a couple years or more, in which temperatures fell.  If you look at the entire data set, however, you’ll see that ocean temperatures have been trending upwards.  Numerous factors can cause ocean temperatures to temporarily fall; Josh Willis believes that the recent fall in ocean temperatures (if they have in fact fallen) is largely attributable to ice melt.  What matters is the long-term trend, which unmistakably shows ocean temperatures rising.[22]  

* * * * * 

Notes

[11] “What happened to global warming?” Paul Hudson, BBC, 9 October 2009.  See also “Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998-2008,” Robert K. Kaufmann, et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, 2 June 2011.

[12] “Warming Stopped in 1998,” A Few Things Illconsidered, 2006 April 25.

[13] “Global Temperature Record,” Climatic Research Unit, accessed 22 November 2011.

  

[14] “Myths and Facts,” Climate Change 101.

[15] Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature.

[16] “Critics’ review unexpectedly supports scientific consensus on global warming,” Margot Roosevelt, Los Angeles Times, 4 April 2011.

[17] “Global warming ‘confirmed’ by independent study,” Richard Black, BBC, 20 October 2011.

[18] “The Mystery of Global Warming’s Missing Heat,” Richard Harris, NPR, 19 March 2008.

[19] “Correcting Ocean Cooling,” Rebecca Lindsey, NASA Earth Observatory, 5 November 2008.  See also “Is It Me, or Did the Oceans Cool?” Josh Willis, U.S. Clivar, Vol. 6, No. 2, September 2008.

[20] “Artefacts in ocean data hide rising temperatures” [.pdf], Nature, Volume 447.3, May 2007.

[21] “How we know global warming is still happening,” John Cook, Skeptical Science, 28 September 2009.

[22] “Does ocean cooling prove global warming has ended?” Skeptical Science, 6 September 2010.

Global Warming: A Dialogue (Part 1)

The Scientific Consensus

THE DENIER: First of all, I object that you’re being referred to as “The Philosopher,” while I’m simply called “The Denier.”  That’s not just offensive, but entirely inaccurate—for the fact is that most thinking people, specifically most scientists, don’t believe in global warming.  For instance, a recent study found over 31,000 scientists, including over 9,000 Ph.D.s, who dispute that human-caused greenhouse gases have or will in the foreseeable future cause “catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”[1]

THE PHILOSOPHER: The study you’re referencing isn’t actually a study at all.  It has never been proven that those 31,000 people are scientists or that they’re even people.  Anybody can get their name added to the above-cited petition.  All you have to do is print a copy of the petition, sign your name (or anyone’s name, for that matter), claim you’re a scientist, and then mail the petition to a place called the Petition Project, which is based in La Jolla, California.  And that’s it, that’s all you have to do.[2]  The Petition Project—whoever they are—never does anything to confirm that you are who you say you are. 

So if I wanted to increase the number of petition signers, all I’d have to do would be print out the petition, sign my name (for kicks, I might call myself something like I.P. Freeley), state my field of science (let’s go with oceanography), and send it in.  A few years ago, environmental activists “successfully added the names of several fictional characters and celebrities to the list, including John Grisham, Michael J. Fox, Drs. Frank Burns, B. J. Honeycutt, and Benjamin Pierce (from the TV show M*A*S*H), an individual by the name of ‘Dr. Red Wine,’ and Geraldine Halliwell, formerly known as pop singer Ginger Spice of the Spice Girls.”[3]

THE DENIER: Many of our best scientists have come out against global warming.  Given your obvious reliance on the mainstream media, you probably haven’t heard about such dissenting scientists as Richard Lindzen, Sallie Baliunas, and Roger Pielke, but they’re there, and their mere presence debunks the so-called “scientific consensus.”[4]

THE PHILOSOPHER: Two points here.  First of all, these and other dissenting scientists have far more nuanced positions than you imply.  None of the three individuals you cited, for instance, denies that global temperatures have increased over the past several decades, although they claim that the human contribution to global warming is less than the mainstream of scientists has claimed.  Second, it’s simply irrefragable that the majority of scientists, especially earth scientist, believe in anthropogenic global warming.  For instance, a 2008 study conducted by the University of Illinois found that 90% of geoscientists agreed the global temperatures have increased since 1800 and that 82% of them agreed that this increase has been largely anthropogenic.  According to the study, the more research scientists had conducted in climate science, the more likely they were to believe in anthropogenic warming; for instance, while only 47% of petroleum geologists believed in such warming, a full 97% of climatologists did.[5]  A 2010 study conducted at Stanford University found that over 97% of surveyed climate researchers believed in anthropogenic global warming.[6]

 

Moreover, only one reputable scientific body—the American Association of Petroleum Geologists—has come out against anthropogenic warming.  By contrast, as I’ve listed in the following footnote, a large number of reputable scientific organizations have issued statements affirming their belief in global warming.[7]

THE DENIER: Yeah, well science isn’t done by consensus.  The majority of scientists once believed that the sun revolved around the earth, but that didn’t make it so.

THE PHILOSOPHER: True enough.

 

Conspiracy Theories, Climategate

THE DENIER: Besides, most of these “scientists” aren’t really scientists at all, not in the true sense of the term.  They’re propagandists and shills, most of whom undoubtedly stand to profit if they can convince people to surrender more rights to the government in the name of “saving the planet.”  That this whole thing is a hoax, a conspiracy, was proven by the Climategate controversy.  For the first time, the public was able to see what climatologists were saying to one another when they didn’t think that anyone else was listening.  We now have proven that even they know it’s a hoax.[8]

THE PHILOSOPHER: It’s certainly true that many people—for instance, those who’ve invested in certain green technologies—stand to profit if governments tighten environmental regulations.  Of course, it’s also true that many business leaders stand to profit if such regulations are loosened.[9]  That’s why this debate cannot be ultimately decided by consensus.  What matters are the facts, the temperature records, etc.  So let’s talk about the facts.  I’d like to hear why you doubt global warming. 

Before we do that, though, I feel the need to point out that your take on Climategate is off.  If you read these emails in their entirety, you’ll see that they’re really not so game-changing after all.  If you pull a line or two of the emails out of context, you might be able to convince others that these scientists knowingly falsified evidence, but a proper exegesis reveals that such was not the case.  In 2009, the Associated Press conducted an extensive review of the emails, involving five reporters, as well as experts in research ethics, climate science, and science policy.  The AP found that the scientists were “keenly aware of how their work would be viewed and used, and, just like politicians, went to great pains to shape their message” and that they often refused to share their data with global warming skeptics.  Despite this, the AP concluded that the emails “don’t support claims that the science of global warming was faked.”[10]

* * * * * 

Notes

[1] Global Warming Petition Project.

[2] “Instructions for Signing Petition,” Petition Project

[3] “Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine,” SourceWatch.  See also “Guest post: scrutinising the 31,000 scientists in the OISM Petition Project,” 11 March 2010, Skeptical Science.

[4] “List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming,” Wikipedia; “Roger A. Pielke,” Wikipedia.

[5] University of Illinois researchers approached geoscientists listed in the 2007 edition of the American Geological Institute’s Directory of Geoscience Departments (“Surveyed scientists agree global warming is real,” CNN, 19 January 2009; “Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” EOS, Transactions American Geophysical Union, Vol. 90, No. 3, Page 22, 2009.”

[6] The Stanford researchers “compiled a database of 1,372 climate researchers. They then focused on scientists who had published at least 20 papers on climate, as a way to concentrate on those most active in the field. That produced a list of 908 researchers whose work was subjected to close scrutiny” (“Study Affirms Consensus on Climate Change,” NY Times Blogs, 22 January 2010).

[7] Scientific organizations that have affirmed their belief in anthropogenic global warming: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, the American Institute of Physics, the American Physical Society, the Australian Institute of Physics, the European Physical Society, the European Science Foundation, the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies, the American Geophysical Union, the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, the Soil Science Society of America, the European Federation of Geologists, the European Geosciences Union, the Geological Society of America, the Geological Society of London, the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, the American Meteorological Society, the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, the Royal Meteorological Society, the World Meteorological Organization, the American Quaternary Association, the International Union for Quaternary Research, the American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the American Society for Microbiology, the Australian Coral Reef Society, the Institute of Biology (UK), the Society of American Foresters, the Wildlife Society (international), the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Preventative Medicine, the American Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, the Australian Medical Association, the World Federation of Public Health Associations, the World Health Organization, the American Astronomical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Institution of Engineers Australia, the International Association for Great Lakes Research, the Institute of Professional Engineers New Zealand, the InterAcademy Council, the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, the International Council of Academics of Engineering and Technological Sciences, the Royal Society of New Zealand, the Royal Society of the United Kingdom, the Polish Academy of Sciences, the National Research Council (US), and the national science academies of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, the Caribbean, China, France, Ghana, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, India, Japan, Kenya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, New Zealand, Russia, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Sweden, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, the United Kingdom, the United States, Zambia, and Zimbabwe (“Scientific opinion on climate change,” Wikipedia).

[8] “The Global Warming Conspiracy,” 4 February 2011, Conspiracy Watch; “Global Warming Conspiracy Theory,” Wikipedia; “Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’?” James Delingpole, The Telegraph, 20 November 2009;

[9] For more on those profiting from global warming denial, see, “The Truth About Denial,” Newsweek, 12 August 2007.  See also “Climate change denial,” Wikipedia.

[10] “Climategate: Science Not Faked, But Not Pretty,” Seth Borenstein, Malcolm Ritter, Raphael Satter, Associated Press, 12 December 2009.

My Problems with Libertarians

#1) They offer no realistic way of safeguarding the environment.  In other words, the tragedy of the commons.  If the government isn’t there to protect the environment, then I see no way to prevent the environment from being trashed.  Although it’s become a conservative-libertarian talking point to endlessly bash the EPA, I’m grateful for the EPA, as will be future generations.  I only wish it had more power.

#2) They have no sense of priority.  Most libertarians believe that we should cut back government wherever and however we can.  Whatever we can get on the chopping block—military spending or social spending, it makes no difference—we need to hack.  But this seems utterly cruel to me. 

If we cut corporate welfare, especially the military industrial complex (which soaks up nearly half of all discretionary spending) and then go about cutting social programs, I wouldn’t be so worried.  For cutting corporate welfare would free up an enormous amount of money that those in the private sector could use to help those in need.  But if we cut social welfare first, as most libertarians would gladly do, then society’s most vulnerable citizens will be devastated, for millions of Americans depending upon government programs for their very survival.

Of the Corporations, By the Corporations, For the Corporations

This pretty much describes modern-day America.  We are a democracy in name only.  Although we the people have the right to vote in free elections every other year, our “representatives” habitually act against us and in favor of corporations.  Examples of this abound: 

• The 2008 Bank Bailout.  Big banks favored the bailout.  Most Americans opposed it.  Washington sided with the banks.
• The Public Option.  Insurance and pharmaceutical companies have long opposed the public option.  Most Americans have long demanded it.  Last year, Congress sided with the insurance and pharmaceutical companies and excluded the public option from its Healthcare Reform Bill.
• The War on Afghanistan.  Defense firms like Lockheed Martin and Boeing love the war.  Most Americans oppose it.  Washington continues siding with the defense firms.
• Military spending.  Defense firms want more military spending.  Most Americans want less military spending.  Washington continues siding with the defense firms.
• Corporate Tax Loopholes.  Big corporations oppose closing corporate tax loopholes.  Most Americans favor closing such loopholes.  Washington continues siding with big corporations. 

The reason that the will of corporations always trumps the will of the American people should be obvious enough.  It’s about money.  It’s all about money.  Corporations dump massive amounts of money into political campaigns and in so doing manage to essentially buy the loyalties of politicians.  Political scientist Thomas Ferguson has shown that “[o]ver a long period…you can pretty well predict policies by just looking at concentration of campaign funding.”  To see who’s funding your congressperson and senators, just go to OpenSecrets.org.

Although corporations have been buying politicians for some time, it’s now easier than ever, thanks to a January 2010 Supreme Court decision.  In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court ruled that corporations can “spend unlimited amounts of their treasuries’ money on political advertisements.”  Moreover, the ruling allows such giving “to take place without complete or immediate disclosure of who funds such communications, preventing voters from understanding who is truly behind many political messages.”  It should have come as no surprise then that, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, “outside spending during the 2010 midterms was more than four times the amount recorded during the 2006 midterm election.” Forty-two percent of this spending came from undisclosed donors.  

These facts should outrage all of us, not just leftists and libertarians but also Tea Party activists.  Democracy has been subverted before our very eyes and both parties are to blame.  (See The vindication of Dick Cheney,NYT confirms Obama made deal to kill Public Option, Obama’s $3.7 Trillion Budget Calls for Military Spending Increases and Deep Cuts to Social Service Programs, The Great Tea Party Sell Out.)  For this reason we need to follow the lead of Ralph Nader and Ron Paul and start working together.  No more bickering about the things that divide us.  Instead we need to join forces against corporatism, which is by and far the most pressing issue of our time.  Lefties need to swallow their pride and start promoting the likes of Ron Paul and Chuck Baldwin, and conservatives and libertarians need to start promoting people like Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich.  We can hash out our differences later.  For now we need to stand as one. 

Time to Get Together

The problem with the Republican Party has nothing to do with it being too conservative, and the problem with the Democratic Party is not that it’s too liberal. 

If you got a group of sincere conservatives and sincere liberals in a room together, I guarantee you they’d come up with some sensible solutions to many of our nation’s problem.  There wouldn’t be total agreement, but I’m convinced there’d be enough agreement to get things moving in the right direction.  For both conservatives and liberals agree on numerous important issues:  for example—

• that we should uphold the Bill of Rights
• that we should end corporate welfare
• that we should audit the Federal Reserve
• that we should use our military for defensive purposes, not for nation-building, not for perpetuating the American Empire.

Obviously many disagreements would remain.  But imagine what a better world this would be if just these four values were implemented.  Just imagine what would happen if we brought our troops home from Iraq, Afghanistan, Europe, Japan, etc., etc.  Imagine all the money we’d save, all the money Americans would have to spend and invest.  You want to fix the economy, that seems like a pretty effective way to do it. 

But Republican leaders really aren’t conservative, and Democratic leaders really aren’t liberal.  They’re opportunists, unprincipled opportunists who might sound different from one another but govern pretty much the same way. 

I can’t tell you how sick I’ve grown over the past few weeks listening to the likes of Mitt Romney and Rick Perry tout the virtues of the free market system.  If they really believed their talking points, I might be encouraged, for genuine advocates of free market capitalism reject the current faux capitalist—better described as crony-capitalist—system.  But I just can’t believe that these guys would do what they promise.  Remember the last time we had a “free market” guy in the oval office and “free market” guys and gals running Congress?  Remember their legacy?

[S]choolchildren struggling under No Child Left Behind, which federalized K-12 education to an unprecedented degree with nothing to show for it other than greater spending tabs…[T]he bizarrely structured Medicare prescription-drug benefit, the largest entitlement program created since LBJ…[T]he simple reality that taxpayers now guarantee some $8 trillion in inscrutable loans to a financial sector that collapsed from inscrutable loans...

The most basic Bush numbers are damning. If increases in government spending matter, then Bush is worse than any president in recent history. During his first four years in office—a period during which his party controlled Congress—he added a whopping $345 billion (in constant dollars) to the federal budget. The only other presidential term that comes close? Bush’s second term. As of November 2008, he had added at least an additional $287 billion on top of that (and the months since then will add significantly to the bill). To put that in perspective, consider that the spendthrift LBJ added a mere $223 billion in total additional outlays in his one full term.

If spending under Bush was a disaster, regulation was even worse. The number of pages in the Federal Registry is a rough proxy for the swollen expanse of the regulatory state. In 2001, some 64,438 pages of regulations were added to it. In 2007, more than 78,000 new pages were added. Worse still, argues the Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy, Bush is the unparalleled master of “economically significant regulations” that cost the economy more than $100 million a year. Since 2001, he jacked that number by more than 70 percent. Since June 2008 alone, he introduced more than 100 economically significant regulations.  (Nick Gillespie, “Bush Was a Big-Government Disaster,” 26 January 2009)

And the Democrats—let me just say this about the Democrats.  From 2009-2010, we had a Democrat in the White House and Democrats controlling both houses of Congress, and we got no real change.  It’s as though Bush and the Republicans never left.  With regard to issues like war, civil liberties, and corporate welfare, the policies remained almost exactly the same, as David Bromwich has so cogently articulated (“Symptoms of the Bush-Obama Presidency,” 18 August 2011) (See also Glenn Greenwald’s “”The ACLU on Obama and core liberties,” 7 September 2011 and “Can OWS be turned into a Democratic Party movement?” 11 October 2011.)

All of which means that we need to stop supporting these jokers, these Republocrats and Democans. Conservatives need to stop wasting their votes on these anti-conservative Republicans, and liberals need to stop wasting their votes on these anti-liberal Democrats.  We need to stop searching for the Lesser of Two Evils Candidate.  For even if we’re actually able to determine the Lesser Evil (and I’m not sure that’s possible), we’re still throwing our votes away.  Yes, one candidate might lead us to hell at a slightly slower pace than the other, but we’re still going to end up in hell. 

It’s time for coalition building.  It’s time for all of us—conservatives, liberals, everyone—to stand together against the corporate-state monster and all its appendages (in other words, pretty much all mainstream politicians).  It’s time to follow the lead of people like Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, Chuck Baldwin, and Cynthia McKinney and recognize that we agree about the most important issues—war, civil liberties, corporate welfare—and worry about hashing out our differences another day.