In a previous post of mine titled “Climate
Change- Faith or Doubt?” I did a little comparative analysis of the positions
of believers and doubters. I followed with another post focusing and dilating
on the position of believers. When I say believers in climate change, I mean
those who believe in UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change championed
position of anthropogenic climate change. The ideation of this position is that
the activities of man here on Earth which is generating so much carbon dioxide,
a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere is the main cause of the current climate
change man is experiencing. The methodology being used to determine that
thinking is climate modeling.
In this post I am going to focus and dilate on
the position of doubters, as I did with that of the believers.
TERMINOLOGY
Before I deal with the position of doubters
proper, I should define the realm of the term doubt. The term is derived from
terms commonly occurring in climate science. These climate science terms are
climate change skepticism or global warming skepticism and climate change denialism
or global warming denialism.
Let us take a listen to what
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial
has to say:
"Climate change
skepticism" and "climate change denial" refer to denial,
dismissal or unwarranted doubt of the scientific consensus on the rate and
extent of global warming, its significance, or its connection to human
behavior, in whole or in part.[29][30] Though there is a distinction
between skepticism which indicates doubting the truth
of an assertion and outright denial of the truth of an assertion, in
the public debate phrases such as "climate skepticism" have
frequently been used with the same meaning as climate denialism or contrarianism.[31][32]
From the foregoing it can be deduced that there appears to be a distinction
between the terms climate skepticism and climate denialism, however in the
public debate the terms are being used interchangeably!
A further clarification of skepticism is provided by https://futurism.com/astronomers-detect-atomic-hydrogen-emission-galaxies-record-breaking-distances as follows: One of the
looming, dark spots in the sciences was recently brought to light by
the Committee for
Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), an organization that was founded
in 1976 by Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov (among others). The goals of this
organization are quite simple. The CSI asserts, “The mission of the
Committee for Skeptical Inquiry is to promote scientific inquiry, critical
investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and
extraordinary claims.” In essence, they aim to promote healthy skepticism.
The problem? Too many people aren’t
skeptical; they are biased and wrong, and they claim that they are “just being
skeptical.” Even worse, a number of news sites and science organizations (for
one reason or another) refers to science deniers as “skeptics.”
Skepticism is essentially a quest for
evidence and proof. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word
“skeptic” comes from the Latin “scepticus,” which meant “inquiring” and
“reflective.” Its original application, by the Greek
philosopher Pyrrho, basically encouraged individuals to question their own
assumptions because (obviously) our perspectives and assumptions are often
biased and one-sided. It’s not that we can’t ever be certain about anything;
it’s that this certainty needs to be based on research and evidence; it needs
to have its foundation in a conversation that extends beyond our own inner
thoughts.
From the foregoing quotation, futurism.com
is saying CSI aims “to promote healthy skepticism”. This, to my mind, implies
that there is unhealthy skepticism too! It has been indicated that in the
public debate climate skepticism and climate denialism are used
interchangeably. Again future.com indicates that some “news sites” and “science
organizations” refer to science deniers as skeptics. This shows that even
within the media and science organizations climate skepticism and climate
denialism are used interchangeably!
For the sake of this post I have given
terminologies under the umbrella of doubt, I think it behooves me to give a
definition of doubt as exoskeleton of the terminologies. And this definition
comes from The Free Dictionary by Farlex (Wikipedia) thus: “Doubt characterises
a status in which the mind remains suspended between two contradictory
propositions and unable to assent to either of them.[1] Doubt on an emotional level is indecision between belief and disbelief. Doubt involves uncertainty, distrust or lack of sureness of an alleged fact, an action, a motive, or a decision. Doubt questions a notion of a perceived "reality", and may involve delaying or rejecting relevant action
out of concerns for mistakes or faults or appropriateness.”
DIVERSITY IN DOUBT
Using the preceding section as context, and
also as backdrop, I am going to use this section to look at some of the various
ways in which doubters doubt anthropogenic climate change/global warming. The
various ways are:
Methodology
Manmade
Carbon
dioxide
Solar
radiation
METHODOLOGY
One of the ways doubters doubt
anthropogenic (manmade) climate change as posited by climate scientists, and
spearheaded by the International Panel on Climate Change, under the aegis of
United Nations Organization is the method by which it is determined. Climate
scientists determine manmade climate change by climate modeling. Portions of
the climate, so to speak, is extracted from real time climate and subjected to computer
observations and mathematical projections in climate modeling. The beef of
doubters is that real time climate is too complex and huge to be subjected to
climate modeling for a meaningful determination of the state of the world’s
climate. Their point is that climate modeling is inadequate for the job.
What follows is a position of a
notable doubter on the matter, Richard Lindzen: ‘In a 2009 editorial in
the Wall Street Journal, Lindzen said that the earth
was just emerging from the "Little Ice Age" in the 19th century and
says that it is "not surprising" to see warming after that. He goes
on to state that the IPCC claims were[69]
Based
on the weak argument that the current models used by the IPCC couldn't
reproduce the warming from about 1978 to 1998 without some forcing, and that
the only forcing that they could think of was man. Even this argument assumes
that these models adequately deal with natural internal variability—that is,
such naturally occurring cycles as El Niño, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation,
the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, etc.
Yet
articles from major modeling centers acknowledged that the failure of these models
to anticipate the absence of warming for the past dozen years was due to the
failure of these models to account for this natural internal variability. Thus
even the basis for the weak IPCC argument for anthropogenic climate change was
shown to be false.’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen)
CARBON
DIOXIDE
It is a consensus of climate scientists that
carbon dioxide (manmade), a greenhouse gas, is the main driver of global
warming, for that matter climate change. And this is as a result of the unsustainable
burning of fossil fuel by man.
Harrison Schmitt, an American geologist, retired NASA
astronaut, university professor and former US senator from New Mexico thinks
otherwise: He wrote a May 8,
2013 Wall Street Journal opinion column with William Happer, contending that increasing levels of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere are not significantly correlated with
global warming, attributing the "single-minded demonization of this
natural and essential atmospheric gas" to advocates of government control
of energy production. Noting a positive relationship between crop resistance to
drought and increasing carbon dioxide levels, the authors argued,
"Contrary to what some would have us believe, increased carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere will benefit the increasing population on the planet by
increasing agricultural productivity."[37]’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Schmitt)
SOLAR
RADIATION
While climate change believers think it is manmade
carbon dioxide that is the main driver of climate change, and solar radiation a
minor one, climate change doubters asserts that it is solar radiation that is
the main determinant of the temperature of the atmosphere (cold or warm).
A notable doubter, Nicola Scafetta in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicola_Scafetta
relates solar activities to the Earth’s climate as a bias for solar activities
being the driver of global warming rather than manmade carbon dioxide: "At
least 60% of the warming of the Earth observed since 1970 appears to be induced
by natural cycles which are present in the solar system." According to
Scafetta, the only reasonable explanation is that the climate system is modulated
by astronomical oscillations. Natural cycles known with certainty are the 11 (Schwabe) and 22 (Hale) year
solar cycles, the cycles of the planets and luni-solar nodal cycles.
CONCLUSION
I have used this post to throw the searchlight on
the position of doubters in juxtaposition to the position of believers couched
in a previous post of mine as indicated in the opening of this post. I have
tried to make plain what doubt is by focusing on the terminologies of climate
change denialism or global warming denialism and climate change skepticism or
global warming skepticism. Both set of terms are sometimes used
interchangeably, and at other times used as terms with different meanings. Within
those contexts I have stated some ways and reasons why die hard doubters
unflinchingly stick to what they believe in. There is even another group who
think the cause of climate change cannot be known. A convergence of
understanding ought to be clinched, in the midst of divergence in approach, if
the trajectory of the current world climate do not continue to catch earthlings
wrong footed. As it is the issues of climate change is controlling earthlings,
rather than earthlings controlling the issues of climate change! This does not
augur well for a clean and balanced natural environment!
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