Never A Doubt
By Mitch Berg
Don’t get me wrong – I probably verge on being one of Rod Dreher’s “crunchycons”. I generally try to leave as small an environmental footprint as I can. Not so much so I can be smug about my environmental consciousness as for basic ethics and, mainly, economics; it’s cheaper.
When I practice it myself, anyway. Spread over an entire society, it’s another matter.
Ask a global warming enthusiast (term used advisedly) about their pet topic. They chortle with glee – and will not brook any disagreement about the theory’s supposed empirical underpinning. The more ignorant the enthusiast about current events in general, the more blinkered they are about politics, the more certain they are that global warming is here to save them and their millenarian socialist worldview.
But now, some climatologists are starting to think that global warming has been “oversold”:
Climate scientists might be expected to bask in the spotlight after their decades of toil. The general public now cares about greenhouse gases, and with a new Democratic-led Congress, federal action on climate change may be at hand.
Problem is, global warming may not have caused Hurricane Katrina, and last summer’s heat waves were equaled and, in many cases, surpassed by heat in the 1930s.
In their efforts to capture the public’s attention, then, have climate scientists oversold global warming? It’s probably not a majority view, but a few climate scientists are beginning to question whether some dire predictions push the science too far.
Or indeed, whether they were science at all. Given the revelations over the past few years – that catastrophe advocates believe it acceptable to fudge science to affect policy – it’s a legit question.
“Some of us are wondering if we have created a monster,” says Kevin Vranes, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado.
Vranes, who is not considered a global warming skeptic by his peers, came to this conclusion after attending an American Geophysical Union meeting last month. Vranes says he detected “tension” among scientists, notably because projections of the future climate carry uncertainties — a point that hasn’t been fully communicated to the public.
The science of climate change often is expressed publicly in unambiguous terms.
For example, last summer, Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, told the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce: “I think we understand the mechanisms of CO2 and climate better than we do of what causes lung cancer. … In fact, it is fair to say that global warming may be the most carefully and fully studied scientific topic in human history.”
Vranes says, “When I hear things like that, I go crazy.”
As he should.
Among enthusiasts, global warming (like so many other of the millenarian left’s pet causes) has taken on all of the worst aspects of organized fundamentalist religion; unassailable dogma (enforced by ostracism or worse), paranoia about dissenters, and downright anger about probing the “faith’s” origins.
While we’re a long way from answering the questions about global warming (is it man-made, or part of a natural climate oscillation), expect global warming fans to be about as graceful about the debate as snake-handlers are about those who question their approach to blind faith.
January 22nd, 2007 at 12:56 pm
“I generally try to leave as small an environmental footprint as I can.”
Ha! Quit trying to make a virtue out of poverty. If you could afford it I bet you’d own a 4,000 sq ft McMansion with a pair of humvees taking up all the space in your 4 car garage.
I know I would.
January 22nd, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Step one on the road to your fortune and dream house, Terry: deoderant.
January 22nd, 2007 at 1:15 pm
McMansion? HELL no. But a place on Summit Avenue or Harriet Parkway, absolutely.
Hummer, maybe. 4 car garage, no.
Why do you assume “small footprint” = “poverty”? that’s not what I’m talking about.
January 22nd, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Mitch-
wealth = large consumption, so low consumption = poverty. Not the best measure by any means. I suppose greater economic security provided by collective use of resources could be substituted for greater consumption (I think that those on the left generally believe this).
We live in a fallen world. Didn’t Fitzgerald write, in the aftermath of the First World War that we longer measured men by their patriotism or piety, but by their money? And that although money is not as satisfying as patriotism or piety, at least it makes it easier to keep score?
January 22nd, 2007 at 1:49 pm
On all counts – perhaps.
And yet I’m not talking about poverty.
January 22nd, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Wealth, if you do not inherit it, is the direct result of investment, NOT large consumption. Large consumption is how you stop being wealthy, small consumption is how you start becoming wealthy.
January 22nd, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Then I need to invest in a winning lottery ticket.
Living large has always been viewed as an indicator of wealth. The guy in the thousand dollar suit driving an escalade maybe in bankruptcy and the guy living in the rundown shack may be a millionaire, but it runs counter to intuition.
Charlie Chaplin once made a film about a hobo finding a quarter and going into a restaraunt to order a meal. During the time between entering the restaraunt, dining, and receiving the bill, he loses and gains back the quarter several times. Of course at the end of the film he can’t produce the quarter to pay for his meal, the lesson being that money is a fabrication. To enjoy it you only have to make believe that you have it.
So far I’ve mentioned Fitzgerald & Chaplin in this comment thread. I think I deserve some kind of award for raising the intellectual tenor of SITD to the undergrad level.
January 22nd, 2007 at 4:04 pm
“Then I need to invest in a winning lottery ticket.”
A lottery ticket is a consumable good not an appreciable asset – you invest in assets that can appreciate (land, bonds, stocks, etc), you buy consumable goods (food, suits, lottery tickets, etc). More to the point no one who owns a winning lottery ticket is going to allow you to “invest” because it is not an appreciable asset.
Thats right,
Fitzgerald wrote to Hemingway one day “The rich are very different than you or I.”.
Hemingway replied “Yes, they have more money.”
Chaplin, unlike the character he played, held onto his money and died rich.
January 22nd, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Is your contention that global warming is merely religion?
Read the post again. I say no such thing.
Read carefully this time.
January 22nd, 2007 at 4:54 pm
“We can at least agree that fundamentalist religion is dogmatic and extreme.”
Tautology! And in the first sentence!
January 22nd, 2007 at 5:57 pm
“If their points held water, the scientific community would adapt thier theories, just like they tossed aside much of “chaos theory” and quantum mechanics after the discovery of black holes in the mid 90’s.”
This is utter nonsense. It makes as much sense as:
“If their points held water, the scientific community would adapt thier theories, just like they tossed aside much of “Plato’s theory” and atomic theory after the discovery of radium in the middle of renaissance.”
January 22nd, 2007 at 6:10 pm
You don’t have to have all the science right to know that global warming is wrong. First of all, the issue isn’t whether the earth is getting warmer, it probably is, certainly in some places, some of the time. The question is whether human activity is causing it– whether it is “anthropogenic”– and whether there is anything we can do to stop it, if it is. So here is the thought experiment:
Let us assume, as Al Gore and his disciples do, that global warming is caused by driving cars and SUVs (Nancy Pelosi proposes to restrict CO2 from autos, California is already doing it for power plants). When you burn a molecule of gasoline, you produce 8 molecules of CO2 and NINE molecules of H2O (water vapor). Now here’s the key: Water vapor is TWENTY TIMES more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2 is. If “gas guzzlers” were the problem, wouldn’t we want to regulate the 96% of greenhouse gasses coming out the tailpipe that are H2O, rather than the 4% that are CO2? It depends on your motivations, doesn’t it?
Since 99.9% or so of the H2O in the atmosphere is caused by natural evaporation, we cannot change it by forcing Americans to radically alter their lifestylet. Looking at it the other way, if you want to solve the problem, you’ll realize we can’t. That’s good, because then we can worry about living with the changes, if they are real, rather than trying the wrong solution to a problem that may not exist.
January 22nd, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Oh, Gawd, the rest of JB’s essay is just as bad as the first few sentences. My hat is off to you, sir! Your writing proves that something as ghostlike and intangible as the human mind can yet be so dense that it warps not just time and space, but reality itself.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:18 am
You don’t need to know much science to know that the whole global warming theory is not science. Sure, the earth is probably getting warmer, and almost certainly it is getting warmer (at least recently) someplace, sometime. The question is whether human activity is causing it– whether it is “anthropogenic.” I think it is the global warming alarmists who are proving it is not. Here’s why: The global warming fanatics tell us that we have to get control of CO2 to curb global warming, and that the biggest culprit in that is US automobiles and SUVs. SOTH (rhymes with Goth) Nancy Pelosi wants to regulate the US auto industry to force them to cut down on CO2 emissions. But CO2 is the byproduct of internal combustion, that’s just basic science. You can’t eliminate it. That’s the first clue, but that isn’t the worst of it.
When you burn a molecule of gasoline, you produce 8 molecules of CO2 and NINE molecules of H2O (water vapor). Now here’s the kicker: Water vapor is TWENTY TIMES more powerful as a greenhouse gas as is CO2! The problem for the Al Gore types is that 99.9% of the H2O in the atmosphere is from natural evaporation. SO, if your purpose in life is to Do Something about global warming, and in particular by forcing Americans to radically change their lifestyle, or give government more command of our economy, you are going to ignore the science and concentrate on CO2. If you actually want to solve the problem, and address the 96% of greenhouse gas (by effect) that comes out of a tailpipe, you realize that we cannot! We would have to content ourselves with adapting to it, if it is real, and that does not provide any options for socialists to tell us how to live our lives.
I can live with that, and with global warming.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:50 am
Wow, J.R. Ewing, you’ve convinced me! Now tell me again how science proves that God created the Earth 5,000 years ago.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:57 am
The “scientific counterparts” I’ve seen to date have been written by unqualified non-scientists, or make points that are then refuted.
Yeah, like the “unqualified” head of Atmospheric Sciences, at some “hack psuedo-science school” called the Massachusettes Institute of Technology (MIT).
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220
Some excerpts….
The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism.
After all, who puts money into science–whether for AIDS, or space, or climate–where there is nothing really alarming?
But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.
All of which starkly contrasts to the silence of the scientific community when anti-alarmists were in the crosshairs of then-Sen. Al Gore. In 1992, he ran two congressional hearings during which he tried to bully dissenting scientists, including myself, into changing our views and supporting his climate alarmism. Nor did the scientific community complain when Mr. Gore, as vice president, tried to enlist Ted Koppel in a witch hunt to discredit anti-alarmist scientists–a request that Mr. Koppel deemed publicly inappropriate. And they were mum when subsequent articles and books by Ross Gelbspan libelously labeled scientists who differed with Mr. Gore as stooges of the fossil-fuel industry.
January 24th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Oversold?…
Mitch brings us a story on how the whole global warming thing may have been “over-hyped”?
“Ask a global warming enthusiast (term used advisedly) about their pet topic. They chortle with glee – and will not brook any disagreement about the……
January 25th, 2007 at 1:33 am
Okay, I’ll bite, JB.
“If their points held water, the scientific community would adapt thier theories, just like they tossed aside much of “chaos theory” and quantum mechanics after the discovery of black holes in the mid 90’s.”
“Much of” “chaos theory” has not been tossed aside.
“Much of” “quantum mechanics” has not been “tossed aside”
Black holes were not discovered in the 1990’s