I try to be a scientific sceptic about most topics, waiting to see the scientific method work its way to a conclusion. This is why I have so much trouble with coverage of, and in some cases scientist quoted opinion about, global warming. It was refreshing to see a thoughtful piece by Holman Jenkins on this topic in the Wall Street Journal (sorry, subscription required). I’ll quote liberally so you get the point.
He starts off by stating what I have seen as the clear problem with coverage of global warming:
As used by the media, “global warming” refers to the theory not only that the earth is warming, but doing so because of human industrial activity.
This is a great place to start. The “common wisdom” wraps in two huge scientific conclusions as being answered. First, it says that the Earth is waming. This seems to be the case, but the current methods of temperature measurement are relatively new so the comparability of historical measurements is a difficult problem. Are we warming? Our numbers seem to show this, but in the 1970’s we were facing an imminent ice age. We need more data and more research.
Second, is human activity causing the warming. The most cited statistic is the rise in atmospheric CO2. Jenkins suggests that we might take this on faith.
Well, he could begin by evaluating the claim that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from 0.028% to 0.036% without necessarily taking the measurements himself. This finding is so straightforward, it’s reasonable to assume it would have been widely debunked if unreliable.
But the jump to having this cause serious global warming is a big one. Jenkins says it better than I could.
Next, the claim that this should lead to higher temperatures because of the heat-absorbing qualities of the CO2 molecule. A reasonable person might be tempted to take this finding on faith too, for a different reason: because even ardent believers in global warming accept that this fact alone wouldn’t justify belief in manmade global warming.
That’s because all things are not equal: The climate is a vast, complex and poorly understood system. Scientists must resort to elaborate computer models to address a multiplicity of variables and feedbacks before they can plausibly suggest (choice of verb is deliberate here) that the net effect of increased carbon dioxide is the observed increase in temperature.
This is the jump that is taken by faith by the media and much of the political left. It FITS with an attitude that the ills of the world, perceived or real, are our fault (or at least Western Civilization’s fault). But it is not science. In one issue of Discover magazine from late last year, they interviewed a climate researcher who retired because he could not get funding for research that did not toe the line that people were causing catastrphic global warming. Al Gore adminstered the grant program. The same issue included an article that says that few politictions question the link between human activity and global warming. (This deserves a post all its own.)
This jump is anti-science. We need to learn more. Again, Jenkins says it very well:
Next, the claim that this should lead to higher temperatures because of the heat-absorbing qualities of the CO2 molecule. A reasonable person might be tempted to take this finding on faith too, for a different reason: because even ardent believers in global warming accept that this fact alone wouldn’t justify belief in manmade global warming.
That’s because all things are not equal: The climate is a vast, complex and poorly understood system. Scientists must resort to elaborate computer models to address a multiplicity of variables and feedbacks before they can plausibly suggest (choice of verb is deliberate here) that the net effect of increased carbon dioxide is the observed increase in temperature.
We need to open to the possibility that human activity is changing the climate. Actually, I would say that there is no doubt that human activity is changing the climate, but we don’t know how. We need to keep an open mind and get more data.
And we need to resist making global warming a political topic in the face of uncertain science. Because when politics or preconception affect science, we get bad science.
I’ve got this far giving Jenkins the nod for saying it well. I’ll close that way as well.
A final thought that probably won’t please the environmentalists: Whatever the truth of climate change turns out to be, today’s vast investment in climate research will likely lead someday to technologies that really will allow us to alter local and global weather.