Climate Change Skepticism - Why It's Healthy and Necessary

If climates around the globe are changing as a result of human-caused carbon emissions it has to be some of the worst news ever. I mean depressing news. I mean every time we are reminded of it we should all cringe and wish for a time when human activity was not so harmful to the environment.

In the past, humans have adjusted their behavior to mitigate pollution. We learned that reducing sulfur emissions from coal-fired power plants would stop acid rain. We learned that pouring petroleum products into the ground would harm wildlife and public water supplies so we started recycling it. We saw whole communities develop birth defects from the dumping of toxic chemicals so we created standards for proper disposal. Never before have we faced a foe like global warming. It is a problem that trumps all others because it means dramatically scaling back the consumption of fossil fuels - our primary energy resource. It also means we must radically change our behavior.

Unlike previous environmental challenges that were isolated and more manageable, decreasing carbon emissions is a much more daunting task because we cannot simply make our smokestacks cleaner, have higher fuel efficiency standards, or switch from coal to natural gas. Addressing climate change will involve huge American sacrifices, a change of lifestyle, bigger government intervention in business and private life, cooperation with other nations, and at least a temporary economic recession. If we do not act a warmer climate will disrupt entire ecosystems, change ocean currents, melt ice caps, raise sea levels, increase temperatures further away from the equator (rendering more areas on Earth uninhabitable for humans), and much else.

A global problem with such dire consequences should prompt every individual to wonder what they can do to make the planet sustainable in the long term, for themselves and their children. Curiously, consensus among the US population is difficult to find. The very existence of climate change is doubted by many. But how can there be deniers when 97% of scientific papers agree that global warming is happening and that humans are responsible(1)? The human population in the 20th century grew from 1 billion to 6 billion and a cursory glance at the data shows a direct relationship between explosive population growth in the industrial age with an increase in carbon emissions. With mountains of empirical evidence affirming the existence of human caused warming, why is there still such a divide among the population regarding these facts?

When the United States Supreme Court denied candidate Al Gore the presidency in the 2000 presidential election he decided to use his free time to write a book on competitive eating, which required copious amounts of first person research. He also continued his lifelong investigation into the impending doom ushered in by global warming. A speaking series about the subject was made into a documentary film in 2004 titled An Inconvenient Truth.

An Inconvenient Truth cannot be credited with discovering the next big environmental problem. Climate change had been investigated by scientists for decades so Gore's observations were nothing new. His notoriety and extensive research did draw the world's attention to the issue and environmental groups latched on.

Gore's Democrat party tends to favor environmentalism more than Republicans. While Democrats are known for regulating industries to reduce pollution with the end goal of sustainability, Republicans are known for deregulating industries in the name of economic growth. Climate change was no different. The more Democrats called for action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the US, the more Republicans dismissed the need for action, claiming Gore's cause was backed by phony science, hyperbole, and scare tactics.

Since the documentary's release in 2004 the world has been barraged with meteorologists, scientists, Democrat politicians, professors, and the news media with stories about the impending doom the world faces from the growth in human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change deniers are outcast as backward and living under a rock. I call the deniers a healthy part of our democracy.

It is unfortunate that climate change should be announced to the world through a boring liberal politician through a documentary riddled with exaggerations. This method of delivery caused the issue to be more politicized than it would have otherwise been if presented by a well known scientist like Stephen Hawking. Politicization clouds the field of debate by causing each side to argue with a mix of genuine and false motives. Rather than hear a liberal and a conservative position on how to tackle the agreed upon problem, Democrats have to both defend the issue as legitimate while providing solutions as Republicans spend their efforts denying the issue while scrambling to defend why.

So why do I call climate change deniers a healthy part of our democracy?

Reason number one: Climate change is not easy to understand. Anything that is not easy to understand should not be accepted purely on the authority of experts. One should form one's own conclusions about a difficult problem after an investigation of the facts.

Reason number two: There are too many people in positions of influence who benefit from climate change being a big problem. These people in the order of those who stand to gain the most are politicians, the news media, climate scientists, and meteorologists.

I will not elaborate on reason number one because it is self-explanatory. I am more concerned with reason number two - the kind of people who stand to gain from it being true. I am not a conspiracy theorist. There is no way Democrats are colluding with the UN who is colluding with the Academy who is colluding with weather stations who are colluding with the news media to feed the world a message they agree on. It is purely coincidental that these groups benefit. I would argue that they are not doing enough to challenge each other and that is where I applaud the climate change skeptics.

The ones who stand to benefit the most from climate change being real and man-made:

1. Politicians. The government is only as powerful as the amount of power we yield to it. We appoint politicians to represent us in matters of law, defense, public policy, diplomacy, etc., but the power can be taken too far. Every day we see evidence of the government creeping itself further into our private lives through NSA wiretapping, healthcare mandates, illegal immigrant amnesty, nation building abroad, corporate welfare, among many other issues. If man made global warming is happening the United States is one of the biggest culprits because of our per-capita consumption. This means that the US with the encouragement of other nations would have to lead the way in taking large-scale, non market-based initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions. This would make the EPA essentially one of the most powerful institutions in the world. Taken to an extreme the government could use technology to track each person's consumption and fine people for forgetting to turn out a light. Politicians want this power. And once they have it, taking it back will be nearly impossible.

2. News Media. The media loves tragedy because it boosts ratings. CNN made millions from the disappearance of the Malaysian airline this year. The more climate change can be reported, and the higher the number of political actions that must follow, the higher the ratings will be for these news outlets.

3. Meteorologists. Hand-in-hand with the news media are meteorologists. What is more interesting, a weather reporter standing in the middle of a field on a calm day saying the temperature is exactly average for that time of year and nothing unusual is occurring? or a meteorologist pointing extreme weather that is tied to a global problem of climate change?

4. Scientists. Scientists exist to discover why the natural world works the way it does. They are in the business of discovering facts and disproving the theories of everyone around them to come up with better explanations for what is happening in our world. How many scientists have concluded in their mind that climate change is man-made before doing any investigating? How likely is their paper to be peer reviewed and published if it makes a case against the findings of the majority? I am not saying they will just fake data to reach pre-determined conclusions. I am saying the mentality impacts which experiments get conducted, how papers are written, and what papers get the most attention.

The problem is that we are relying on these groups to give us unbiased, accurate information yet there are too many incentives for them to look the other way when presented with any evidence that is contrary to the generally accepted viewpoint. Let me repeat that I do not believe in a climate change conspiracy; nor do I think that climate change is not happening. In fact, I think it is happening and humans are partly responsible.

First, let us assume that climate change is not occurring, that the planet is not getting warmer. Those who believe this must believe that all of the aforementioned groups are conspiring to fake the problem. These are the crazy deniers whose help I appreciate in their skepticism, but since their skepticism is probably based solely on the opinions of Rush and Hannity, I dismiss their conclusions out of hand.

It is much more plausible that climate change is occurring based on the findings of scientists and the rigorous process they must face to have their findings published. The part where I encourage skepticism is exactly when we hear the argument extend beyond the mere existence of climate change to a full fledged conclusion about its man-made cause. Even worse is when I hear alarms sounding for the need to act immediately or else face sudden destruction.

Politicization has made this skepticism nearly impossible because so many conservatives deny the very existence of climate change. So once a person says they are skeptical about some aspects of climate change they are immediately lumped into the conservative political camp as another crazy, unscientific climate change denier.

These are the kinds of questions we need to be asking to make real progress on the issue:

- How much of our human activity is directly responsible for the problem?
- How did humans handle major climate changes throughout our history?
- Given the answer to the last question is it reasonable to assume humans can act to reverse the current process?
- If we can act to reverse the process are we willing to sacrifice what is necessary to bring us to greenhouse levels we had in the past? or is it worth it to lose the coastal cities, move north and accept different climates everywhere for the long term?

These are the questions we should be asking. This is the way the discussion should be taking place. Instead, we have politicians arguing with each other over how much power they want to exert over us while news outlets are making fortunes reporting the findings of catastrophic events in the weather.

(1) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/05/17/97-percent-of-scientific-studies-agree-on-manmade-global-warming-so-what-now/

Bird Problems at Casa Del Blingo

Spiders, mice, and birds were the big three pests at Casa Del Blingo.  Brian's fear of spiders caused him to lash out at random times, slapping the floor with his sandal yelling "gaaaahhhh!"  The mouse problem led me to set traps next to the stove where I caught quite a few before they stopped bothering us.  Birds never gave us too many problems except this one crazy guy who wouldn't stop slamming into our windows!  Even though it was a challenge to deal with pests (and with each other sometimes) it was a wonderful place to live.

I Know Most Scientists Agree, But . . .

"Why do members of the public disagree - sharply and persistently - about facts on which expert scientists largely agree?"  This a question Professor Dan Kahan attempts to answer in his recently published research paper titled "Cultural Cognition of Scientific Consensus."  Dan Kahan is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law at Yale University whose primary interest concerns cultural cognition, or the "tendency of individuals to conform their beliefs about disputed matters of fact (e.g., whether global warming is a serious threat; whether the death penalty deters murder; whether gun control makes society more safe or less) to values that define their cultural identities." (1)

Kahan obtained a sample of 1,500 people that represented the United States population as a whole.  He asked them a series of questions to determine their cultural orientations, which include the following categories:

Hierarchical - strong faith in established institutions, class stratification, and social roles
Individualists - self-made. wary of outside intervention into private matters. people fend for themselves
Egalitarian - desire for equal rights, opportunities, and making things more fair
Communitarian - working together is the best solution for all. strong trust and commitment to one another

Having established what categories the subjects fit into, he was able to conduct an experiment that had two parts.  The first part of the experiment was to ask the subjects their opinions on whether they agreed with the following statements:

1. Global temperatures are increasing.
2. Human activity is causing global warming.
3. Radioactive wastes from nuclear pwer can be safely disposed of in deep underground storage facilities.
4. Permitting adults without criminal records or histories of mental illness to carry concealed handguns in public decreases violent crime.

The answers were compared with the findings in a U.S. National Academy of Sciences expert consensus report.

The second part of the experiment was to present the subjects with fake articles written by scientists with fake bios to see which groups considered which authors to be experts in their fields based on the authors' conclusions on the issues of global warming, nuclear waste disposal, and hand gun laws.

RESULTS

Kahan discovered that hierarchical-individualists disagreed that global warming was occurring that that humans were causing it, while the egalitarian-communitarians thought it was happening.  The egalitarian-communitarians disagreed that nuclear waste can be stored safely and that the use of handguns decrease violent crime.

It turns out that according to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences report, most scientists believe global temperatures are rising, and that humans are to blame.  They also agree that nuclear waste can be safely stored underground.  But their findings are inconclusive regarding handguns.  This data has been around for a long time.  So why is the public still divided over these issues?  Are people ignoring the research?  Kahan believes that almost nobody is anti-science.  Even the most mystical among us uses the scientific method to investigate problems, and subsequently uses the results to reinforce arguments.  But when faced with facts that can threaten a person's understanding of the world, they would rather shy away and retreat to their established values than deal with the cognitive dissonance.  Hierarchical-individualists are threatened by global warming because it means changing the roles of established institutions.  If humans are causing higher CO2 emissions which contribute to the warming, individualists are threatened in their freedom to use as much carbon as they can afford.

With regard to the subjects' opinions about the list of experts, people tended to label an author an expert if their opinions matched their own.  This makes sense for the following reasons:

1. People remember experts with whom they agree.
2. People seek out expert opinion that reinforces their beliefs.
3. People differ in opinion on who is an expert.

It is impossible for people to sift through data the same way scientists do.  The public relies on information from research studies to be accurately compiled and presented to them from reliable media outlets.  If the findings become distorted through the media, then opinions will not accurately reflect a well reasoned investigation on an issue.  When faced with facts that threaten their world view, people will avoid the findings and stick with what they already know.

This study was eye-opening for me because I have become so accustomed to labeling groups as liberal or conservative.  Kahan does not use these labels because he thinks that they do not predict behavior as accurately as the ones he uses.  His conclusion also gave me hope for the future of our democracy.  If people are divided based on their cultural values, what is playing out is not a culture war where one side wins and another loses, but rather a difference of opinion due to a lack of deliberation.  People are using mental shortcuts to determine their opinions on issues.  Lastly, it made me see some of the areas where I could fall into the trap of judging issues not based on deliberate inquiry, but on a bias I have developed from my cultural identity.

To read the full research paper:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1549444

To listen to an interview from Point of Inquiry:

http://www.pointofinquiry.org/dan_kahan_the_american_culture_war_of_fact/

(1.) http://www.culturalcognition.net/

Headlines from "Here and Now" Radio Program

On my way into work I will usually listen to NPR to get caught up on the most recent news.  I do not read the newspaper, and do not check the news before I leave the house on my computer or TV.  One of the programs I listen to is called "Here and Now" and it's on from 12:00 Noon to 1:00PM on WBUR 90.9FM.  The show follows up on developments in the morning news stories and mixes in some other current events.  Today the four headlines were:

Investigation Begins Into Connecticut Gas Explosion

Sifting Through New Credit Card Rules

Alaskan Village Sues Oil Companies Over Climate Change

Do Calories Count?

The first story reported on developments in yesterday's power plant explosion in Connecticut.  At the end of the interview, the host asked the guest what rules would be put in place to prevent this in the future.  The guest said there had been new codes that were ready to go into effect but had not yet been made law.  This is after the guest had gone in depth explaining the tragedy of the incident, how the community had been devastated by the loss of life.  Of course the business will suffer as a result of this incident.  Why the automatic assumption that proper codes will prevent these kinds of accidents?

For the Credit Card story, a Chicago Tribune personal finance columnist, Gail MarksJarvis, was interviewed.  MarksJarvis had poured over new rules that would change the way credit card companies would do business.  Among the things changing were consent from cardholders to have overdraft protection, new rules about how overpayment would apply to current balances, and how fees would increase on many transactions to make up for the loss of business after the financial crisis.  Part of the rules will be helpful to consumers because there will be more communication to the cardholder prior to account changes.  However, many of the rules now allow the companies to make changes to your account unless you respond.  Part of me wants to say, let the companies do what they want.  If someone is stupid enough to get a credit card they can't pay off, they should suffer the consequences.  But I can't say that because as someone who has had to deal with unscrupulous credit card practices, I know how harmful the companies can be.  In my view, consumers need more protection in this area, not so much to protect people who do not pay, but to protect the people who do from becoming locked into a spiked rate because their neighborhood demographic changed, or they get hit with a fee because instead of declining a purchase when the cardholder reached their limit, they let it go through and charge a balance overage fee.

The story about the Alaskan village suing Exxon-Mobil, Shell, and other big energy companies who, in their view, contribute to greenhouse gas emissions which cause climate change which causes weather which erodes the shores of their island from rising sea levels.  Matt Pawa, the prosecuting attorney, said that the energy companies defense that everyone who uses energy in this world is responsible in some way to climate change is a myth, and that the companies themselves need to pay for the damage they do.  I couldn't believe what I was hearing.  Singling out few energy producers, who are producing goods people want, are being punished for something that may not be happening because climate change anyway!

Lastly was another story about putting labels on food.  A report that by listing the caloric content of food, people's consumption of foods that contribute most to obesity drops 6%.  The guest said that even though it's a small number, anything that can help reduce diabetes is positive and the cost to the companies is very low compared to the benefit it has to society.  Easy for him to say I suppose.  He's not the one paying for the labels and his is not the business that will lose as a result.  What I have always said about rules banning food or making demands on restaurants to label foods in certain ways is to just let people make their own choices.  People who were interviewed after they found out how many calories were in Panera food were shocked that a the cookies there have 500 calories.  I thought to myself, "Hmm, a cookie that is twice or three times as large as a regular homemade cookie has a lot of calories.  Wow I never would have guessed!"  And aren't cookies generally not a healthy choice?  These food police need something else to do.

Global Boring

Have you ever thought how BORING climate change would be if only reports about it NOT occurring were released?  It seems to only make news and be interesting if people say it IS happening and something MUST be done.  What's the incentive for reporters, news networks, politicians, and scientists to say anything that doesn't scare the living hell out of people?

ANCHORMAN ALEX:  We turn now to our Midwest climate correspondent, Peter Plains...
PETER PLAINS:  Thanks Alex.  Well you can see today there is nothing going on here in Iowa.  The temperature is normal and there is a light breeze heading South and West.  If you look at this soil, it looks brown and has had absolutely no impact from climate change.  In fact the landscape here is very much as it has always been.  Temperatures and weather has been the same here with some minor natural fluctuation for the last 100 years.  Back to you Alex.
ANCHORMAN ALEX:  Uh... Do you have any news about climate change there Peter?
PETER PLAINS:  No Alex, there doesn't seem to be much going on outside of the ordinary.
ANCHORMAN ALEX:  Um.. Ok thank you Peter.
PETER PLAINS:  Thanks Alex.
ANCHORMAN ALEX:  That's Peter Plains, our Midwest climate correspondent.
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ANCHORMAN ALEX:  Cushy Sanford, Democrat Congressman from Virginia, had a press conference today about his Climate Committee's conclusion about recent global warming studies.  Here is the clip:
CUSHY SANFORD IN CLIP:  After months of investigation our congressional committee has concluded that climate change, while it may be occurring, is the result of natural causes.  Therefore we have decided to take no action and proceed with allowing the private sector to develop alternative energies with no public funds so they can produce them according to the natural evolution of energy development.  This means my job will be less important, I will demand fewer taxes from the public, and I won't be asked time and again by my voters and other countries to do something they believe only we politicians can do.  The fact is there is no problem so we can all focus on other issues, about which I have even less influence.
ANCHORMAN ALEX:  Cushy Sanford, Democrat from Virginia, giving a speech today on Climate Change.
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ANCHORMAN ALEX:  For our last segment I will be interviewing Professor Climate McChange, a research fellow at the Liberal Foundation.  He has just released a book titled "Humans Cause the Climate To Change, And You Need To Do Something About It."  Thank you for coming on the show, Professor McChange.
MCCHANGE:  Happy to be here.
ANCHORMAN ALEX:  You say we need to do something about climate change.  Why?
MCCHANGE:  Well see my job is very boring and I don't make much money unless I publish books.  I am also a big fan of Al Gore's politics.  My foundation relies on contributions from alternative energy companies and from individuals who have liberal political persuasions.
ANCHORMAN ALEX:  That is some compelling evidence!
MCCHANGE: Indeed it is!  And that's why I'm here Alex because I care about our world.
ANCHORMAN ALEX:  Well, Professor I'm afraid we're out of time.  Thank you for being on our show.  Good day everyone.
 

Global Warming Skeptics

For those of us who are less inclined to jump on the global warming bandwagon, feast your eyes on this bit of news from the BBC. The highest global temps in recent years occurred in 1998. Could any warming of the earth have to do with natural ocean cycles, solar particles, or other natural causes?

I am extremely skeptical of how real man-made global warming is because I don't want a huge taxpayer funded initiative to combat something that is occurring naturally, or something that cannot be reversed by any program.

The politicians would love to make their job more important, especially if they can do it with other people's money.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm