By Warren Meyer
Likely you have heard the sound bite that “97% of climate scientists” accept the global warming “consensus”. Which is what gives global warming advocates the confidence to call climate skeptics “deniers,” hoping to evoke a parallel with “Holocaust Deniers,” a case where most of us would agree that a small group are denying a well-accepted reality. So why do these “deniers” stand athwart of the 97%? Is it just politics? Oil money? Perversity? Ignorance?
We are going to cover a lot of ground, but let me start with a hint.
In the early 1980′s I saw Ayn Rand speak at Northeastern University. In the Q&A period afterwards, a woman asked Ms. Rand, “Why don’t you believe in housewives?” And Ms. Rand responded, “I did not know housewives were a matter of belief.” In this snarky way, Ms. Rand was telling the questioner that she had not been given a valid proposition to which she could agree or disagree. What the questioner likely should have asked was, “Do you believe that being a housewife is a morally valid pursuit for a woman.” That would have been an interesting question (and one that Rand wrote about a number of times).
In a similar way, we need to ask ourselves what actual proposition do the 97% of climate scientists agree with. And, we need to understand what it is, exactly, that the deniers are denying.
It turns out that the propositions that are “settled” and the propositions to which some like me are skeptical are NOT the same propositions. Understanding that mismatch will help explain a lot of the climate debate.
The Core Theory
Let’s begin by putting a careful name to what we are talking about. We are discussing the hypothesis of “catastrophic man-made global warming theory.” We are not just talking about warming but warming that is somehow man-made. And we are not talking about a little bit of warming, but enough that the effects are catastrophic and thus justify immediate and likely expensive government action.
In discussing this theory, we’ll use the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as our main source. After reading through most of the IPCC’s last two reports, I think it is fair to boil the logic behind the theory to this picture:
As you can see, the theory is actually a chain of at least three steps:
- CO2, via the greenhouse effect, causes some warming.
- A series of processes in the climate multiply this warming by several times, such that most of the projected warming in various IPCC and other forecasts come from this feedback, rather than directly from the greenhouse gas effect of CO2.
- Warming only matters if it is harmful, so there are a variety of theories about how warming might increase hazardous weather (e.g. hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts), raise sea levels, or affect biological processes.
In parallel with this theoretical work, scientists are looking for confirmation of the theory in observations. They have a variety of ways to measure the temperature of the Earth, all of which have shown warming over the past century. With this warming in hand, they then attempt to demonstrate how much of this warming is from CO2. The IPCC believes that much of past warming was from CO2, and recent work by IPCC authors argues that only exogenous effects prevented CO2-driven warming from being even higher.
This is just a summary. We will walk through each step in turn.
Read the rest here.
your title should read “Understanding the Global Warming Debate according to the intellect-deluded, rationality-deluded and consciousness-deluded”
no one gives a fuck about this debate … continual obsessive battering another over the head with ones opinion and fact distortion, true facts, etc – no matter what side one is on, only makes for division & war
Juice, perhaps you’ll eventually learn to read something before commenting on it. One can only hope.
By the way, how are those Alien prophecies doing? You know its kinda weird taking criticism from a guy who would post what he believes to be translations left from a previous alien visit.
I’m wondering if someone who actively posts to this site Alien Prophecies is dis-allowed from using terms such as “rationality-deluded, intellect-deluded” etc. when commenting on the posts of others?
Arguably some contents of the old testament in the bible could be considered translations left from a previous alien visit, just sayin’. In any case it’s clear now that there is no compelling evidence for meaningful levels of AGW. Unfortunately some folks have developed a ferocious and unhealthy addiction to the idea, so we get unpleasant reactions like Juice’s when truth is put before them. Isn’t there a 12 step program or something?
Arguably? Yeah, it could be argued as such by a moron. But so could anything.
The Bible has many references extraordinary beings who came from the sky, at one point even mating with humans to create a sort of hybrid. Those are well known facts. The question is whether there is any truth to those stories. Would it be your thesis that the millions of Christians and Jews who do believe them are all morons?
“The common enemy of humanity is man.
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
– Club of Rome, premier environmental think-tank, consultants to the United Nations
(Spoken like a true Malthusian Fabian socialist,)
Juice, you asshole paid-for sock puppet. Tell your boss he’s an even bigger asshole than you are, you fucking communist, treasonous anti-human Lucifer-humping diseased-DNA ridden rodent. Get a real fucking job, please. Something that doesn’t promote the bullshit conniving plans of idiotic central bankers with a mentally dysfunctional power complex.
Juice can be irritating at times, but there is little evidence to suggest he is a paid for sock puppet. I say this because I know his real name and some general information about the man. He used to use his real name here, years ago. Anyway, Juice and I often disagree, but I don’t think he is working for Sunstein.