Simplifying the Climate Debate
Can we all agree on this statement from Penn State geologist Richard Alley?
I think it’s important to say that the interaction between radiation and gases in the air is not red or blue. It’s not Republican or Democrat, or libertarian or anything else. It’s physics.
That’s from an interview that Alley does with the Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media, related to his involvement with a recent PBS documentary called, Earth: The Operators’ Manuel.
Here’s a snippet from the Yale Forum exchange that I want to highlight.
YALE FORUM: It’s interesting, Dr. Alley, that you felt compelled, very early in both the TV documentary and in the book, to point out your party registration as a Republican and your somewhat “right of center” political philosophy, and to mention that you regularly attend a mainstream church. What is the background on your feeling a need to make those points?
ALLEY: We discussed this a whole lot. I don’t like to wave flags, and I don’t usually wear that on my sleeve. But this issue has become so strongly political. In my experience, if I open my mouth and say there is interaction between radiation in the atmosphere and certain gases at these wave lengths, and it has these strengths, there are a reasonable number of people who look at me and say “You’re one of those darned liberals, and you’re trying to take away my pickup truck.”
*****
Is Alley conflating two separate issues in that last part about the pickup truck owner? Because as I understand it, there are three groups of people: 1) Those who simply don’t believe the physics; 2) Those who believe the physics but are not sold on the dire projections; and 3) Those who believe the physics and are sufficiently concerned about the worst case scenarios to support policies that would restrict greenhouse gases.
Now I know that there is a splintering in that last group of people who support different policies and political approaches, but have I got the three main categories right?
I ask because wouldn’t the larger public dialogue be better defined if we could establish that the majority of opposition to climate action stemmed from either 1) rejection of the physics, or 2) rejection of the projected dire impacts?
If it’s the latter, as I suspect, then perhaps we can stop arguing so much over the science (and uncertainties) and shift the debate to a “risk management framework,” as one speaker said at this 2007 conference on climate change and national security. It may not make the politics of climate change any less toxic, but at least the terms of the debate would be better defined.
Most of the people in the second group are unaware or are ignoring risk. It’s what makes their talk of uncertainty being a reason to not mitigate and adapt so illogical.
Keith–
I think it would be useful to know which group is larger. Certainly, both groups exist. Members of both groups visit my blog comments.
Equally obviously, you can’t even create 3 utterly distinct groups. Even among those who would like to see some response, each might prefer different levels of response and different types of responses. Nevertheless, distinguishing between those who deny the physical mechanism of ghg’s inducing warming and those who accept it but prefer little or no policy response ought to be useful.
I think if you had the choice between three main groupings, you’d have defined them pretty well.
I’d also submit that as far as the USA goes – Alley is probably correct in that the main thrust of opposition or rejection to AGW is probably more a rejection based on political ideology or identity. Ie, it probably doesn’t matter whether the physics are right or wrong or whether the impacts are going to be great or small- AGW is just ‘liberal talk’. (I have no idea how you’re going to fix that, btw). I would hesitate to say that no 1 category- a rejection of the physics, is probably employed as a lazy excuse or cover for dismissing the oppositions concerns at the core.
to KK
Why do you assume that there is a direct linkage between the science and policy.That is, if one believes the consensus since then there are policies that follow directly from that.
The other assumption that you make is the the consensus sciecne is non-political. That is one can find science that is not created within a discourse that is, at least in large part, political. This , to me, is tantamount to believing in the Easter Bunny. Climate science is political and the political bias exhibited by the IPCC, its reports, its supporters and its detractors is evidence of this.
Do you really believe that the response to the Nisbet report was non-political?
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/04/analysis-of-nisbet-report-part-ii.html
From Peilke Jr – highly pertinent to this discussion
The rejection of the physics/impacts/etc. often stems from the fear of “liberals” taking away one’s vehicle or freedoms, or what Stu said in #3.
re 6
What about people who far GMOs. Is this found in people who a fear of “liberals”?
Thsi entire [post is just nonsense
What about people who have no idea about the physics but simply do not trust what certain authority figures say?
In a way, I’m in that group to a certain extent. Although I read about climate change and have a decent layman’s understanding, I have no real knowledge of the physics involved. To a large extent, I have to take it on faith that “the consensus” is correct and for the most part I do (with regard to the physics – policy is another matter).
What about people who’ve never visited a climate blog and whose knowledge of the issue is only informed by a few mentions in the media they happened to see along with their peer group influences and the “elites” they listen to? There are a lot of people like that. For them, the physics is never even on the radar – their views come from other sources, including various political authority figures. This is because, as I’ve mentioned before here in other threads, an individual’s position on a whole variety of “empirical” topics (climate change included) are based on political identity and not some structured, independent analysis. Climate change is fast becoming just another partisan issue which will reduce the influence of education regardless of what the physics says.
A genetic sector of humanity has been identified with a gene that makes them vunerable to a certain disease and is always pathological today.
It is not a recessive gene.
Now I don’t want to hear any discussions about “adapting” to this problem or “dealing” with it.
What are we to do with them?
We can’t wait for techno fixes.
I think Dr. Alley has fabricated a strawman. The number of persons involved with this debate who question the radiative physics can be counted on one hand and they are all PhD physicists or chemists. I don’t think any “laymen” question the radiative physics.
In my experience, the latter group is much larger – but that’s just among the tea party people I know.
Yes we know the radiative properties of CO2. No we don’t really know how the climate will respond to extra CO2, and we don’t know if the consequences will be large or small, positive or negative. We’re willing to wait and see. (but i’ve not conducted a poll).
BTW, uncertainty is, in fact, one very good reason not to act. One must also consider the efficacy of any action we undertook.
You’ve missed the fourth group.
4) The cure is worse then the disease.
No one has rejected physics. If you say it has been rejected then you claim you own the concept of “physics”.
The concept of rejecting physics is one of the most sinister disgusting concepts that keeps me coming back here to observe and comment on it every time it is tried on 🙂
It’s great!
—
Oh! Gee Martha! Did you vote for George Bush in 1999?
yes I did Dorothy.
Then you must reject physics like me!
Script – cue insane dance of physics rejecting republicans dancing in a way that rejects physics.
F*ck me give it to the CGI guys who actually know physics.
The concept that humanities students own black body radiation and it is a means to posture as a deep and clever and person has its own lovely body of stupidity 😉
Keep it up.
Gosh when I suggested that Alley was a great spokesperson for the AGW side (which I belong to) the brilliant commenters at MT’s place called me a concern troll. doh!
kdk33. We have no evidence whatsoever that the total response after feedbacks will be negative. Our best understanding of the paleo record, our best understanding from modeling, our best understanding from looking at the response in the observation record points toward the conclusion that More c02 is a warming effect, not a COOLING effect. The notion that after feedbacks c02 would cool the planet is not supported by any evidence whatsoever. So, you might argue for a small warming effect, but nothing warrants a belief in a cooling effect.
The rejection of climate science does not stem from either the rejection of the physics, or a rejection of the dire predictions. It stems from an opposition to environmental regulations.
Unfortunately, most of the discussions of climate change, even the overtly political discussions, such as the recent and past congressional hearings (such as the one ostensibly about whether the EPA should have the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions), end up being just another debate about physics.
Here is a physics discussion point. CO2 output is definitley going up for the next 40 years, but the whole worlds GDP is following that trend upwards as well and more humans from around the world will be brought on board with more intellect and ideas that will solve any problem….eh..thought not….
Here’s Bob with the sports…
@Steven Mosher,
I’m not sure why you are writing about cooling, but I’m guessing you are reading into “consequences” something I didn’t mean.
When I say “consequences” I mean “the cost to humanity”. We are constantly told that warming will be negative – bad, bad, bad, really bad. But it is prefectly reasonable to think modest warming would be positive, beneficial for humanity (more rain falls during a longer growing season over expanded crop ranges with free fertilizer – that kind of thing). Also, regardless of the direction (positive or negative) we don’t know the magnitude of the consequences.
I was not saying that CO2 might bring cooling (that’s actually a recent alarmists claim that I shy away from). So when I say we know the radiative properties of CO2, I imply that increasing CO2 will, in some sense, warm the planet.
As regards feedbacks, we have incredibly powerful evidence for negative feedbacks: we’re still here, we still have water in all three common phases of matter.
Best thing for now is to wait and see (IMO).
Steven Mosher –
This is certainly a question of time scale, but there has to be substantial negative feedbacks, as kdk33 points out. If there were none, how did temp/CO2 decline from the peaks in the paleo record?
The extreme partisanship of American politics makes dividing the climate debate along political lines attractive to some.
Note the terms used to describe the sceptics, “Shills for Big Oil”, “Deniers”, etc. The entire purpose of these terms is to avoid any discussion about the actual science and to smear the opponent.
Basically you don’t need to listen to what they say because they are paid shills, or mentally unstable or similar. With the American partisanship it is very attractive to couch the debate in political terms because the narrative continues that certain people can be ignored, not due to them being wrong factually, but because they are “Republicans”.
This automatic dismissal of political opponents is something that you just don’t see elsewhere. Let Al Gore make a statement and 30% of the American population will take it as Gospel and 30% will immediately think it’s bullsh*t. Not due to the statement or the facts behind it, but purely because he is a Democrat.
Consequently, if you can define the debate into Left/Right you will automatically get a number of people onside simply because you are from the “Left” and the Left is always right and the Right is always wrong. Granted that you are also defining your opposition, but that will simply allow your friends to see that “the old enemy” is “up to their same old tricks” and gain you more support.
As to people rejecting or accepting “the science”, I find it interesting that if you go out into the street and talk to the AGW believers, most haven’t read any of the science. They don’t care and don’t want to know. The usual response is along the lines of “Our organisation has people who I trust who I believe have read the science. Their word is good enough for me.”
Their priests interpret their Gospel for them and that is all they need and want to know.
If it was really “simply physics”, than the models would perform better. Weather is also physics. People trust weather predictions because they have experience with them having reliable performance most of the time.
I don’t trust climate models, and I’m not sure of anyone who does. Does anybody here trust them? I’m not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, especially given their performance so far. ClimateGate + poor prediction performance = reasonable doubt they know where the climate is going.
The foundations for policy action are based on accelerating temperature and sea level rise due to CO2. This is simply not showing up in the measured data as predicted by the models, in fact a deceleration is looking more likely at the moment.
This is not openly talked about now, and I would predict it will be effectively dismissed as trivial in AR5 (but our new models show things are worse than we thought….yawn). I’m looking for models that actually work, and some honesty about their current state.
@15 Steve Mosher. An examination of the very long term record shows quite clearly that regardless of what the Sun was doing, the arrangement of the Continents and the levels of CO2 the planetary temps swung between two states, Glacials and a bit warmer than now.
The only possible logical conclusion is that net negative forcings dominate the system, keeping it in either of these states. If you think that 500 ppm will cause some sort of accerated awarming that will lead “runaway” warming, please explain why this didn’t happen when CO2 was in the ‘000s of ppm long ago.
If the climate system was as unstable as some seem to think, we would have been a lifeless ball of fire or ice long ago.
One point that isn’t often mentioned. During the 60s and 70s an idea came about concerning the “balance of nature”. I urge readers to think back, how often have you heard that term? Or the words “delicate balance”? I’ll bet that like me you’ve heard it plenty of times.
Now if someone believes that nature is usually “in balance”, then they believe that what was always will be. The further logical conclusion from this belief is that if things change, since nature is naturally “in balance”, then whatever caused the change is “unnatural” by definition. IOW, man did it.
Those of us who believe that nature and the climate are never “in balance” therefore find change to natural and unsurprising.
Consider the mindsets displayed in common exchanges between supporters and sceptics. When a sceptic says he doesn’t agree with AGW the incredulous response is “You don’t belive in climate change?” Note how the two concepts are combined, if you don’t believe that man is massively changing the climate, then you mustn’t believe the climate is changing. This is due to the deep seated belief that if man didn’t do anything then the climate wouldn’t change.
The immediate reponse from the sceptic is “Of course I believe in climate change, the climate always changes. Always has and always will. What’s your point?” The sceptic has difficulty understanding what the fuss is about. “It’s warmer now than at any time in the last 400 years” is a nothing statement to the sceptic. Of course it’s warmer, we’re leaving the “Little Ice Age”. While true, the statement is as pointless as saying that it’s warmer in Summer than in Winter. “Well Duh.”
I think that this fundamental difference in outlook is more responsible for the divide between the camps than politics is. However if you can shape the debate so that it is political, you don’t have to examine your own underlying beliefs. Because it’s politics, and in politics you’re always right and the other side are always fools.
What JohnB said.
AGW is bad and corrupted science. So it’s no science at all.
When I speak to AGW believers, they usually know nothing about the physics. Even the basic stuff like composition of our atmosphere, combustion basics, composition of flue gas in coal power plants, fundamentals of heat transfer, thermodynamics…
I am as liberal as it gets.
The groupings are pretty broad (necessarily). That said I do think you’ve missed off a crucial section – those who are informed enough to accept both the science basis and the dire consequences, but who reject action regardless. This stems from fatalism, cynicism, apathy or even a flagrant disregard for long-term wellbeing in favour of short-term personal gain.
I wouldn’t agree with that division into 3 groups, either. I have the Physics degree, and I believe in properly-practiced Physics. My problem here is with the discipline and the verification. There has always been a tendency of many scientists to trust their hunches and theories far too uncritically. The more clever the scientist, the more plausible theories he can spin off at the drop of a hat. The question has always been whether he has the discipline to do the work to verify his precious theories, or whether he just trusts his own work without that, especially when the verification is difficult. I don’t trust the work in this area without verification, but for much of the most visible work in this area, the verification has been far too untransparent.
3) rejection of the perceived policy consequences