I've heard many excuses about global warming in these parts. I've seen otherwise intelligent Conservatives bend over backwards, using the most desperate and ridiculous tactics to win this debate. One former contributor went so far as to take the Creationist view of science, calling into question evolution and Big Bang and therefore science itself in order to make the reality of global warming go away. Others have tried to link the stable working theories of science to the flighty often wishy-washy “theories” of economics. Since economic views are a dime a doze, science works the same way – at least, that was the flawed implication.

It hasn't gone away. Conservatives just have to take their lumps, they have to acknowledge that they've been misleading themselves. Far from being bastions of utterly objective impartial connoisseurs of facts, they've been manipulated at a fundamental level by the greater puppet-masters who influence the Republican party and the Conservative movement.

Here's how the New Scientist article begins:

Our planet's climate is anything but simple. All kinds of factors influence it, from massive events on the Sun to the growth of microscopic creatures in the oceans, and there are subtle interactions between many of these factors.

Yet despite all the complexities, a firm and ever-growing body of evidence points to a clear picture: the world is warming, this warming is due to human activity increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and if emissions continue unabated the warming will too, with increasingly serious consequences.

The most common response screams, “Conspiracy!” Is the entire scientific establishment simply lying for some sort of personal gain? New Scientist, explain this:

Conspiracy (noun): a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.

If you believe that tens of thousands of scientists are colluding in a massive conspiracy, nothing anyone can say is likely to dissuade you. But there are less extreme versions of this argument.

One is that climate scientists foster alarmism about global warming to boost their funding. Another is that climate scientists' dependence on government funding ensures they toe the official line (pdf).

It has taken more than a century to reach the current scientific consensus on climate change (see Many leading scientists question the idea of human-induced climate change). It has come about through a steadily growing body of evidence from many different sources, and the process has hardly been secret.

Now that there is a consensus, those whose findings challenge the orthodoxy are always going have a tougher time convincing their peers, as in any field of science. For this reason, there will inevitably be pressure on scientists who challenge the consensus. But findings or ideas that clash with the idea of human-induced global warming have not been suppressed or ignored – far from it.

Cosmic rays

In fact, many of the better arguments seized upon by sceptics have been based on contradictory findings published in prominent journals, from the apparent cooling of the lower atmosphere (see The lower atmosphere is cooling, not warming) to the apparent cooling of the oceans (see The oceans are cooling).

Millions will be spent testing whether cosmic rays can form cloud condensation nuclei, even though some regard this as a waste of money (see Cosmic rays are causing climate change).

As for funding, the US spends billions of dollars on climate science and this increased by 55% from 1994 to 2004. However, an increasing portion of this is spent on mitigation technology rather than pure research. Climate scientists point out that if they were after a bigger chunk of that money, their best bet would be to stress the uncertainties of climate change and call for more research, rather than call for action.

Under pressure

As for the idea that scientists change their tune to keep their paymasters happy, under the current US administration many scientists claim they have been pressurised to tone down findings relating to climate change (see US fudging of climate science details revealed).

Indeed, those campaigning for action to prevent further warming have had to battle against huge vested interests, including the fossil-fuel industry and its many political allies. Many of the individuals and organisations challenging the idea of global warming have received funding from companies such as ExxonMobil.

What about that period of “global cooling” that science said was coming? Doesn't that mean global warming is unreliable? New Scientist, what say ye?

They predicted global cooling in the 1970s

Indeed they did. At least, a handful of scientific papers discussed the possibility of a new ice age at some point in the future, leading to some pretty sensational media coverage (see Histories: The ice age that never was).

One of the sources of this idea may have been a 1971 paper by Stephen Schneider, then a climate researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, US. Schneider's paper suggested that the cooling effect of dirty air could outweigh the warming effect of carbon dioxide, potentially leading to an ice age if aerosol pollution quadrupled.

This scenario was seen as plausible by many other scientists, as at the time the planet had been cooling (see Global temperatures fell between 1940 and 1980). Furthermore, it had also become clear that the interglacial period we are in was lasting an unusually long time (see Record ice core gives fair forecast).

However, Schneider soon realised he had overestimated the cooling effect of aerosol pollution and underestimated the effect of CO2, meaning warming was more likely than cooling in the long run. In his review of a 1977 book called The Weather Conspiracy: The Coming of the New Ice Age, Schneider stated: "We just don't know...at this stage whether we are in for warming or cooling – or when." A 1975 report (pdf format) by the US National Academy of Sciences merely called for more research.

The calls for action to prevent further human-induced global warming, by contrast, are based on an enormous body of research by thousands of scientists over more than a century that has been subjected to intense – and sometimes ferocious – scrutiny. According to the latest IPCC report, it is more than 90% certain that the world is already warming as a result of human activity (see Blame for global warming placed firmly on humankind).

What about the notion of prediction? The local news predicted rain today, yet, it's sunny outside! How in the heck can they predict the weather 30 or 130 years down the road? Besides, Sheboygan had lots of snow last winter! New Scientist, please, tell me that predicting chaotic systems just has to be a load of hogwash:

You cannot predict the exact path a ball will take as it bounces through a pinball machine. But you can predict that the average score will change if the entire machine is tilted.

Similarly, while we cannot predict the weather in a particular place and on a particular day in 100 years time, we can be sure that on average it will be far warmer if greenhouse gases continue to rise.

...

The unpredictable character of chaotic systems arises from their sensitivity to any change in the conditions that control their development. What we call the weather is a highly detailed mix of events that happen in a particular locality on any particular day – rainfall, temperature, humidity and so on – and its development can vary wildly with small changes in a few of these variables.

Climate, however, is the bigger picture of a region's weather: the average, over 30 years (according to the World Meteorological Association's definition), of the weather pattern in a region. While weather changes fast on human timescales, climate changes fairly slowly. Getting reasonably accurate predictions is a matter of choosing the right timescale: days in the case of weather, decades in the case of climate.

But what about that famous anti-warming guy from MIT and those other smart, credentialed people who oppose all of this? New Scientist, let me see the light:

in April 2006, 60 "leading scientists" signed a letter urging Canada's new prime minister to review his country's commitment to the Kyoto protocol.

This appears to be the biggest recent list of sceptics. Yet many, if not most, of the 60 signatories are not actively engaged in studying climate change: some are not scientists at all and at least 15 are retired.

Compare that with the dozens of statements on climate change from various scientific organisations around the world representing tens of thousands of scientists, the consensus position represented by the IPCC reports and the 11,000 signatories to a petition condemning the Bush administration's stance on climate science.

...

The fact is that there is an overwhelming consensus in the scientific community about global warming and its causes. There are some exceptions, but the number of sceptics is getting smaller rather than growing.

Even the position of perhaps the most respected sceptic, Richard Lindzen of MIT, is not that far off the mainstream: he does not deny it is happening but thinks future warming will not be nearly as great as most predict.

...

A study in 2004 looked at the abstracts of nearly 1000 scientific papers containing the term "global climate change" published in the previous decade. Not one rejected the consensus position. One critic promptly claimed this study was wrong – but later quietly withdrew the claim.

This article is like Al Gore's book and movie: a shortcut, a pleasant summary. Several Conservatives have told me that they don't have the time, or the interest, to parse all of the global warming research. These two sources do a pretty good job of compressing the issue. New Scientist also links to the actual studies and journal entries, for anyone who really wants to dive in. The text I copied above is link-free, but the actual article is loaded – nearly every phrase that indicates more information is an actual link, this for example: One critic promptly claimed this study was wrong – but later quietly withdrew the claim.

Read the article folks – that's it for this column. Like I said, it was lazy. As you prepare your study of the issue, ponder this question, keeping in mind that not a single conservative at this site that I've debated over this issue has actually seen or read Gore's take (yet never hesitated to attack him ruthlessly): You can sometimes make a Conservative think, but can you lead him to knowledge?

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