Global Warming Skepticism: Not Just for Wingnuts Anymore?
Yes, but where is the PROOF?
In my recent quest to discover why people feel the need to fight so hard against the idea that humanity might be causing the globe to warm, I’ve started looking at everything I can find that illuminates skeptic science. If you missed this profile of the physicist Freeman Dyson in the New York Times, check it out now. Dyson, I would say, is the most highly respected scientist to publicly come out against global warming.
His point (in a tiny and simplified nutshell)? There really isn’t a lot of proof of global warming beyond a series of simulations and models. If you don’t buy their prognosticating power, you’re left considering the fact that we don’t know, for sure, the exact ratio between temperature and human interaction.
Someone is WRONG on the INTERNET!
Allow me a momentary side note. From the Red, Green and Blue comments section on a recent post about Michael Steele and Global Warming:
The unrelenting brainwashing regarding the global warming myth could be taken smack out of Animal Farm or Orwell’s 1984. It took me no more than several hours of research on scientifically-based websites to find out that this particular Big Lie, among other Big Lies, are being perpetrated to promote the Kyoto Treaty, a preposterous piece of government intrusion, land grabbing, and politcally correct harassment straight from the One World Newspeak mindset.
First of all, let me say that I am sick and tired of people using George Orwell’s name to claim brainwashing. Re-read 1984, guys, and stop taking his name in vain. Calling Orwell on someone is getting to be like the Hitler paradox: if you are the first person to go down that road, you automatically loose the argument. I consider myself something of a huge Orwell fan, and while I don’t have a specific claim on his legacy, I doubt very much that he would have considered global warming rhetoric the equivalent of Big Brother’s control of all information.
Secondly, though, this sort of claim, that global warming can be revealed as a hoax after several hours on scientifically-based websites is something anyone who writes about global warming hears often. Dyson is clearly not saying that he thinks global warming is a hoax. He’s just saying that he thinks the scientists like James Hansen of NASA have reached the wrong conclusions, or are claiming more then they can be totally certain of. This is an important distinction: disagreement does not mean that the other side is trying to mislead us down some dark path of intentional doom.
The usual back and forth ‘twixt treehugger and wingnut doesn’t really apply here though: Dyson has done his research, and his cred is unimpeachable. At the same time, he doesn’t seem to fit into the easily quantifiable political divide: he isn’t against the science because he is against the “liberal” policy points that grow out of an acceptance that something needs to be done about the globe.
A Real Free Thinker
This is the long round-about way of getting back to this fascinating profile written by Nicholas Dawidoff.
So much of both sides of the global warming argument gets lost in trying to rip down the other side and accuse them of being motivated by money, fame or something even more nefarious. Well, none of that works with Freeman (just like I don’t think that works with Al Gore, or James Hansen from the other side) which means we have to actually listen to what he has to say. Please, don’t miss the inherent critique here of many of the global warming deniers. I still think most of you people are following this week’s conservative talking points.
The article paints a picture of Dyson as life long skeptic, someone who always wanted to ask questions of things that have become dogma. It also paints a picture of one of the truly great minds in science, someone whose career has been made on more then simply the field of science they focused on the most.
“Among Dyson’s gifts is interpretive clarity, a penetrating ability to grasp the method and significance of what many kinds of scientists do. His thoughts about how science works appear in a series of lucid, elegant books for nonspecialists that have made him a trusted arbiter of ideas ranging far beyond physics.”
For me, Dyson’s stance as a skeptic doesn’t change where I come down on the global warming issue. Just as I try not to be swayed by any one individual arguing for something, I think that it makes sense to follow the science that shows the “best” and most logical set of interpretations for data. And I think that, for my generation, this is a game of roulette we can’t afford to play. From the profile:
Sea levels, he says, are rising steadily, but why this is and what dangers it might portend “cannot be predicted until we know much more about its causes.”
Too many people have predicted problems within a certain range of catastrophe for me. Even if you do my standard with all claims (which is, divide the shocking number in half, and multiply the time range by two), my generation of twenty somethings can’t take the gamble that it might turn out that nothing is wrong. I don’t have the time to sit back until 2044, then turn to the skeptics and say “told you so” as I furiously bail the water seeping into my 4th floor Brooklyn apartment.
It reads as though Dyson is practicing good science in the face of what has become a politicized issue, mostly because it has become a politicized issue. Which leads, of course, to the concern is that he will become (if he is not already) the figurehead for a bunch of folks motivated by some very different things. But what I like about him, or the sense that I received from that profile (and then the speed read I just completed of his book “Infinite in All Directions” (1988)) is that his take on the world is based on neither knee jerk reactions nor political brainwashing.
A reformed Environmentalist? Not I.
Of course, none of this debate discredits the multitude of reasons for reducing a carbon footprint. Dyson and Hansen can go toe to toe all day on models and percentages, but even Dyson would have to admit that models would at least present a baseline to explore. Dyson points out that models are rarely the perfect prognosticators we take them as, but everyone can agree that they are better then nothing at all, right? Plus, there’s the global pollution issues, foreign policy issues, social justice issue, and personal health and welfare concerns that make a Van Jones version of Environmentalism make a lot of sense. Let Dyson keep his role as skeptic. It’s refreshing for me to find someone who is actually practicing what they preach with their own code of logic. Finally, when was the last time you heard someone on either side of this debate admit something like this?
Whatever else he is, Dyson is the good scientist; he asks the hard questions. He could also be a lonely prophet. Or, as he acknowledges, he could be dead wrong.
You aren’t going to hear that from just about anyone, mainly because the other side is all to ready to pounce on those statements and turn them into word wars all over the interwebs. Can you imagine if Al Gore ever mentioned the nuance of opinion that he knows exists in this discussion? It would be a Fox News bloodbath. Cheers to Dyson then: I might not agree with what he has to say, but I’m impressed by the rigor with which he says it. Bring on another generation of counter-quotes from the objective media.
Image: Flickr user Marvin(PA) (Creative Commons)
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About the Author
Alan Smith Alan Smith is a Freelance Producer in Brooklyn New York who’s been fortunate enough in the past to work on a Peabody award winning radio show (the Brian Lehrer show, WNYC Radio) and an Emmy nominated TV program (Brian Lehrer Live on CUNY TV). Other highlights include PhilanthroMedia, a new media company which works for social change with non-profits and foundations across the globe. In my spare time, I’m interested in the science and politics of the current green movement, and write about those things in and around whatever else crosses my grill at www.livingtheamericangreen.org
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