Tag Archives: global warming

Global Warming: Science and Rhetoric – Part 2

Save Planet Earth

Post Author: Bill Pratt

This post is a continuation from Part 1 where we introduced the recent NOAA report on global warming.  The purpose of our analysis is to try and find out what the data is actually saying by stripping out some of the non-scientific rhetoric present in the report synopsis.

After presenting the ten indicators of global warming, the report discusses where the warming has been going.  According to the NOAA, “More than 90 percent of the warming that’s happened on earth during the past 50 years has gone into the oceans.”  Why is this important?  First, it explains why sea levels are rising.  Second, the oceans will hold the heat longer, extending the warming trend.  The warming oceans set up the next section of the synopsis.

The next section begins to draw out implications of global warming, and here is where the science moves quickly into fear-mongering.  Consider this passage:

At first glance, the amount of increase each decade – about a fifth of a degree Fahrenheit – may seem small. But the temperature increase of about 1 degree Fahrenheit experienced during the past 50 years has already altered the planet. Glaciers and sea ice are melting, heavy rainfall is intensifying and heat waves are becoming more common and more intense. Continued temperature increases will threaten many aspects of our society, including coastal cities and infrastructure, water supply and agriculture. People have spent thousands of years building society for one climate and now a new one is being created – one that’s warmer and more extreme.

No mention is made of the potential positive impact of a warming planet on agriculture, water supply, etc.  The report just assumes that the climate from 1850 to 1960 is ideal for human civilization without justifying that highly dubious assumption.  Maybe warming will actually be a net positive for human civilization, but nowhere does the report even raise this as a possibility (see this recent essay on how cities will adapt to climate changes).  In addition, notice the use of these inflammatory words: “intensifying,” “intense,” “threaten,” “extreme.”  Why use these words in a dispassionate scientific report unless you are driving an agenda?  Just report the data, please.

The synopsis then anticipates those who will say that short-term temperatures may not be warmer in their location (for example, our local area was much colder than normal last winter).  The report reminds readers that these local fluctuations are to be expected, but the overall trend is toward a warmer planet.  Fair enough.

The most questionable section of the synopsis now takes the stage.  The authors present six extreme weather events from 2009, chronicling deaths and property damage from floods, heat waves, cyclones, and record winds.  Then, without comparing these 2009 weather events to weather events of previous years, the synopsis goes on to say, “Extreme weather events are unavoidable. But a warmer climate means that many of these events will be more frequent and more severe.”  (emphasis added).

The message is clear: if we don’t stop global warming, our way of life is threatened and more of us will die.  Really?  Is there no chance that warming temperatures may produce any good consequences?  Are all the consequences bad?  Surely not, but we don’t hear about any of those possibilities in this report.  It’s doom and gloom.  Why?  Because you can’t get taxpayer money without a crisis.

After analyzing the actual data in the report, there is a compelling case for global warming since 1960.  The data does seem to point in that direction.  The data also seems to indicate that the oceans are retaining the heat.

Beyond that, there is an attempt to scare people.  We are given weather anecdotes from 2009 and told that “more bad stuff like this is going to happen.”  That’s not good science and it is this kind of overblown rhetoric that makes people skeptical of global warming in the first place.  If the authors have real data showing that extreme weather events have trended up over the last 50 years, they should have presented it.

One thing the synopsis made no attempt to do was connect global warming with human causation.  The synopsis completely excludes the cause of the warming, choosing not to speculate (not sure if this is found in the detailed report).

Those are my thoughts.  What do you think about this synopsis?  What conclusions did you draw?

Global Warming: Science and Rhetoric – Part 1

Contoured sea surface temperature map of the S...

Post Author: Bill Pratt

The NOAA has released a new report on global temperatures which indicates that there is a warming trend.  Since few people will read the full report, NOAA prepared a synopsis of the findings that is only 10 pages long.

I want to do two things in this post.  First, I want to review the contents of the synopsis to see what researchers have found.  Second, I want to analyze some of the statements in the synopsis that are not objective statements of data, but political spin.

Here is an opening paragraph:

A comprehensive review of key climate indicators confirms the world is warming and the past decade was the warmest on record. More than 300 scientists from 48 countries analyzed data on 37 climate indicators, including sea ice, glaciers and air temperatures. A more detailed review of 10 of these indicators, selected because they are clearly and directly related to surface temperatures, all tell the same story: global warming is undeniable.

Notice the last phrase: “global warming is undeniable.”  This kind of language is a tip-off that the authors are concerned to push an agenda forward.  A strictly scientific report would have no need for repeating that the evidence is undeniable; they would just let the facts speak for themselves.  It is also telling that many news outlets led with the “undeniable” phrase in their coverage of the report.

The synopsis goes on to highlight 10 indicators that best measure surface temperatures of the earth.  These indicators are: air temp near the surface, humidity, glaciers, snow cover, temp over oceans,  sea surface temp,  sea level, sea ice, ocean heat content, and temp over land.

Seven of the indicators are going up and three of them are going down (snow cover, glaciers, and sea ice).  Together, according to the report, they all point toward a warming trend.

One thing to note is that each of the 10 indicators contains data that covers different time periods.  For example, data on air temperature at the surface (troposphere) only goes back to about 1960, whereas data on air temperature over land goes back to 1850.  So, when the report says the past decade was the “warmest on record,” what they mean to say is that it is the warmest decade since 1960 (if you want to include all 10 indicators as part of the record).  Remember that human civilization has been around for many thousands of years; 50 years seems like a small sample size, doesn’t it?

I would ask the authors why they chose to say “warmest on record” when they could have been more precise.  Again, it seems that this language was clearly chosen for rhetorical impact.

More commentary on the NOAA synopsis in part 2….

When Should We Doubt Expert Consensus? Part 2

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Continuing from part 1, below are 5 more reasons you should doubt a scientific consensus, taken from Jay Richards’ article on the topic.

8. When the subject matter seems, by its nature, to resist consensus. An an engineer, this point has always bothered me about both evolution and climate change.  Richards explains:

It makes sense that chemists over time may come to unanimous conclusions about the results of some chemical reaction, since they can replicate the results over and over in their own labs. They can see the connection between the conditions and its effects. It’s easily testable. But many of the things under consideration in climate science are not like that. The evidence is scattered and hard to keep track of; it’s often indirect, embedded in history and requiring all sorts of assumptions. You can’t rerun past climate to test it, as you can with chemistry experiments. And the headline-grabbing conclusions of climate scientists are based on complex computer models that climate scientists themselves concede do not accurately model the underlying reality, and receive their input, not from the data, but from the scientists interpreting the data. This isn’t the sort of scientific endeavor on which a wide, well-established consensus is easily rendered. In fact, if there really were a consensus on all the various claims surrounding climate science, that would be really suspicious. A fortiori, the claim of consensus is a bit suspicious as well.

9. When “scientists say” or “science says” is a common locution. Which scientists?  The ones that agree with the theory?  Since when does science speak for itself without human beings interpreting?

10. When it is being used to justify dramatic political or economic policies. Always be suspicious when politicians and ideological activists are wielding the sword of science to further a particular agenda.  As Richards notes, that is happening in spades in the global warming debate.

11. When the “consensus” is maintained by an army of water-carrying journalists who defend it with uncritical and partisan zeal, and seem intent on helping certain scientists with their messaging rather than reporting on the field as objectively as possible. In the last few years, I can recall weeks where our local newspaper was running story after story about global warming, and none of them critical of it.  When the supposedly unbiased media line up and promote one viewpoint with little dissent, be suspicious.

12. When we keep being told that there’s a scientific consensus. Richards captures the essence of this point:

A scientific consensus should be based on scientific evidence. But a consensus is not itself the evidence. And with really well-established scientific theories, you never hear about consensus. No one talks about the consensus that the planets orbit the sun, that the hydrogen molecule is lighter than the oxygen molecule, that salt is sodium chloride, that light travels about 186,000 miles per second in a vacuum, that bacteria sometimes cause illness, or that blood carries oxygen to our organs. The very fact that we hear so much about a consensus on catastrophic, human-induced climate change is perhaps enough by itself to justify suspicion.

Some food for thought.  I think Richards has done a wonderful job putting into words some of the intuitions we have about science and its reported results.  In fact, most of his 12 points apply to other non-scientific fields where we’re told there is a consensus.  There is nothing wrong with consensus, inherently, but we just need to be vigilant and do our homework before concurring with an alleged “consensus.”

When Should We Doubt Expert Consensus? Part 1

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Lately on the blog I’ve had some people question why I side with the majority of experts on some issues and not with others.  I had never really thought about this before, but then I ran across an article written by Jay Richards, entitled, “When to Doubt a Scientific ‘Consensus’“.

Richards gives 12 reasons why a scientific consensus should be doubted, using the global warming “consensus” as his example.

1.  When different claims get bundled together, be suspicious.  Whether the earth is warming and whether human beings are causing the earth to warm are two different claims that need to be supported by two different lines of evidence.  Advocates of global warming often conflate the two and act as if they are a package.

2.  When ad hominem attacks against dissenters predominate. When dissenters of a particular scientific view are frequently called names and personally attacked, be suspicious.

3. When scientists are pressured to toe the party line. Richards reminds us that “tenure, job promotions, government grants, media accolades, social respectability, Wikipedia entries, and vanity can do what gulags do, only more subtly.”

4. When publishing and peer review in the discipline is cliquish. How open is the peer review process in a particular field?  If the same small group of people are deciding which articles get published in the scientific literature, be suspicious.

5.  When dissenting opinions are excluded from the relevant peer-reviewed literature not because of weak evidence or bad arguments but as part of a strategy to marginalize dissent. If you’ve paid any attention to the climate change or evolution debates, there is plenty of evidence that this is occurring on a regular basis.  Watch the movie Expelled to see what is going on in the evolution/intelligent design world.

6.  When the actual peer-reviewed literature is misrepresented. I have seen this occur many times in the evolution debate.  Not only is there plenty of disagreement among scientists about the mechanisms of evolution (you will often hear there is not), but there is plenty of misrepresentation of intelligent design research.

7.  When consensus is declared hurriedly or before it even exists. True science requires time before results can be properly analyzed.  According to Richards:

Scientists around the world have to do research, publish articles, read about other research, repeat experiments (where possible), have open debates, make their data and methods available, evaluate arguments, look at the trends, and so forth, before they eventually come to agreement. When scientists rush to declare a consensus, particularly when they claim a consensus that has yet to form, this should give any reasonable person pause.

In the next post, we will cover the final 5 reasons a person should doubt a scientific consensus.

Are You Skeptical of Global Warming and Evolution?

Post Author: Bill Pratt

A recent NY Times article linked people who are skeptical about evolution with people who are skeptical about global warming.  The author noted that there seems to be a correlation, that if you doubt one, then you likely doubt the other.

This really has me thinking about why that is, as there is no obvious connection between them.  I am a skeptic of both, but for different reasons.

My initial skepticism about evolution came from my religious views, because I was taught that only a young earth (which does not accommodate evolution) could align with the creation accounts in the Bible.  As I researched both biblical interpretation and the science behind evolution, I eventually moved to a new position.

I now believe that the earth is probably old and that this fits with literal interpretations of the Bible.  I also understand, though I don’t necessarily agree with, why common descent (the idea that all plants and animals are part of a gigantic family tree) is the dominant theory of the origins of species: it has a lot of explanatory power and there’s not a more developed contender out there right now.

But I think that the evolutionary community has no idea what the mechanisms are that would modify plants and animals to the massive extent we see.  Natural selection and random mutation just don’t cut it.  Other proposed mechanisms likewise remain utterly unconvincing to me.  Evolutionary theorists constantly provide micro-evolutionary mechanisms as examples of how macro-evolution works over long periods of time.  The extrapolations don’t convince me.

What about global warming?  I started out skeptical of global warming because it was being exclusively evangelized by political liberals, whom I generally distrust as people who value intentions over truth.  I moved beyond that initial skepticism and tried to think about it scientifically.  As an engineer, I understand how to analyze data and how to test models, and I fail to see how it is possible to accurately model the global climate over long periods of time, given the multitude of variables that must go into these climate models and the incredible uncertainty of predicting climate changes in the distant future.

My suspicions about the data have proved to be correct as some brave climate scientists have admitted that their models have failed to predict the flat-lining of global temperatures over the last 15 years. The truth is that models of the climate have a long way to go before we can bet the farm on them.

So, what is the common denominator for me?  I started out suspecting evolution for religious reasons, and I started out suspecting global warming for political reasons.

I am conservative politically and I am a believer in traditional Christianity, but these don’t necessarily go together.  It seems like there must be something deeper.  The author Thomas Sowell possibly offers an explanation.  In his book, A Conflict of Visions, he argues that a person’s view of the nature and capability of man drives opinions about political, moral, judicial, economic, and even scientific matters (see my post on his book).  His theory makes a lot of sense; maybe he has found the common link.

I don’t have any certain answers to this question, but I’m very curious to know what others think.  What about you?  Are you skeptical about both of these issues?  Why or why not?  Please register your vote in the poll below and leave us some comments about your choices.

Are All Sins Equal? Part 2

Post Author: Bill Pratt

So we’ve seen that the Bible does teach that some sins are more serious than others and that some virtues are greater than others.  There is a moral law hierarchy.  But what does this practically mean?

First, let’s look at debates over public policy.  When determining where to focus your efforts on a particular law, you must consider its seriousness.  A great example is abortion.  Many Christians focus on the abortion issue because it is such a serious moral failure in our country.  Abortion kills over a million lives every year.  Taking innocent human life is pretty high up the moral law measuring stick.

Some people ask why Christians aren’t more outspoken about global warming.  My answer to that question is, “The death of millions of innocent babies today is far more serious a moral issue than the possible rise in temperature of the earth over the next 100 years.”  The consequences of global warming are surely speculative and uncertain, as any future prediction of ultra-complex climate activity must be, whereas we have a definite problem, abortion, staring us in the face today.

We have to make these kinds of decisions all the time.  What are the most serious moral issues of the day for our nation?  If we just say that all moral issues are equal, we are unable to focus our efforts on what matters more.

Second, what about the Christian life in particular?  In this life, the worse we sin, the more out of touch with God we are.  As my wife likes to say, “God keeps us from sin, and sin keeps us from God.”  If you, as a Christian, are engaging in adultery, then clearly this sin will have greater effect on your walk with God than if you once neglect to call your mother to wish her “Happy Birthday.”

Paul taught that a particular kind of sexual immorality (a man having sexual relations with his father’s wife)  should cause the expulsion of the man committing this sin (1 Cor. 5), but he didn’t write a letter demanding expulsion for someone scrawling graffiti in the streets of Corinth.  Graffiti may be a sin, but it is less serious than sleeping with your father’s wife.  Different sins demand different punishments.

There are also rewards in heaven for the Christian, based on her moral behavior in this life.  In 1 Cor. 3 Paul teaches that the good works we bring to God after we die determine our rewards in heaven.  Some of our works will be so worthless that they will be “burned up.”  Those works of high quality will survive the flames.  The kinds of moral actions we pursue in this life matter for eternity.  The Bible seems to teach that the quality of our good works on earth will determine our ability to enjoy heaven.  Again, our sins and our virtues matter for eternity.

So, how can we summarize?  All sins are equal in that they condemn us before a perfect God.  This is an important point to make when we are evangelizing the lost.  But all sins are not equal when it comes to public legislation, temporal punishment and praise, sanctification (our walk with God where we become more like Christ), and eternal rewards.  When we talk about sin, let’s make sure we consider the situation and apply the correct teaching.