Bill McKibbon’s recent tongue in cheek Op-Ed in the Washington Post has been combined with gripping images by Stephen Thomson of Plonomedia.com to create a little piece of badly needed genius. When used well, a little sarcasm can go a long way towards creating a powerful message.
If 9 out of 10 of the world’s best medical doctors said you had cancer and needed immediate treatment, what would you do?
Now take a look at this July 2010 abstract from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America:
“Although preliminary estimates from published literature and expert surveys suggest striking agreement among climate scientists on the tenets of anthropogenic climate change (ACC), the American public expresses substantial doubt about both the anthropogenic cause and the level of scientific agreement underpinning ACC…Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98%of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field surveyed here support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.”
Shocking? Yes. News? Well, not really.
Anybody who has been closely following this issue already knows that there is enormous agreement among the experts about the causes of climate change (It’s even greater than 9 out of 10. It is 97 to 98%). They also know that there is remarkably faint public acceptance of the strong body of scientific evidence that supports their views.
The question is why?
Scientists are trained to be annoyingly skeptical, relentlessly critical, unwilling to accept new ideas without evidence, perpetually questioning. They ceaselessly look for flaws in each others’ work. Yet, amongst the best scientists in the field of climate science (and therefore the most scrupulous), there is an astonishing level of agreement that climate change is human caused and is a big problem. But it appears we don’t care.
This is fascinating to me. It also scares me.
In fact, the real “Climate Gate” might be that in light of what is possibly the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced, the media and others have confused the public to the point of complacency. People who are confused do not take action; they do not pressure their elected leaders to take meaningful steps towards mitigating emissions and adapting to climate change. People who are confused are more willing to accept the status quo.
I think it is important to be careful about who I accept advice from. If a dog trainer told me I needed a root canal, I would seek a second opinion from somebody who is trained and respected in dentistry – before I let anybody stick a drill in my mouth.
So why do journalists often quote non-experts when reporting on climate change? And why are we so willing to accept the dogma of non-experts on this issue?
To answer these questions, I will have to know more about the challenges of journalism, and a lot more about human psychology.
There may still be a small number of scientists who are not convinced of the causes and implications of climate change. But they are a distinct minority, as shown in the abstract I cited above. Moreover, would you put your personal fate into the hands of the one doctor out of ten who said you do not need cancer treatment?
Follow this link to explore the full length article quoted above.
Follow this link if you are legitimately confused about some of the mechanisms of climate change and want to get straight on what the best science is telling us.
In May of this year, the journal Science published this short must read article by a collection of preeminent scientists. With all the turmoil that has been spun recently about climate change and scientific integrity, this article cuts to the bone of how science works, what it is telling us about the Earth’s changing climate and why climate action is needed. Now.
It only takes about three minutes to read this article. I think that is three minutes well spent.
I decided to use this blog, in part, to keep a record of my natural history observations and ideas. This intention has made me more attentive to my natural surroundings and piqued my already vibrant curiosity. This is especially timely now because I am house-sitting in Gatineau Park where I am surrounded by hardwood forests.
Nonetheless, I have done a poor job recording my observations. As spring bursts forth, things are changing so quickly that it is hard to keep track of it all. Until recently, I was still x-country skiing out my back door three or four times a week and now, suddenly, spring flowers are coming up.
On that note, and for the record, I was out hiking last weekend (April 10th) and was amazed to see the flowers of Blood Root, Trout Lilies, Red Trilliums and Dutchman’s Breeches in full bloom on the south facing forested slopes of the Eardley escarpment. The whiteTrilliums and other species were not far behind.
I cannot say exactly, but my guess is that this is at least three or four weeks early for these species. Also of note, I heard spring peepers singing during the first week of April and heard about a Yellow-rumped warbler that was spotted at Mud Lake in Ottawa sometime during the week of April 5th. In my own backyard I saw a Hermit thrush April 13th. This is unusually early for all of these events.
Recently, I heard a meteoroligist on CBC radio explaining that all across Canada it had been the warmest winter in more than 60 years. Yet, despite the warm winter, sea ice cover increased over recent years in one part of the arctic.
These facts quickly became fodder for more climate change debate. For example, the Globe and Mail published this article explaining that climate change skeptics are pointing to this year’s arctic ice cover as evidence that climate change is a hoax.
Is this true?
No.
I am not a climate scientist, but I know enough not to confuse weather with climate. Climate is a reflection of certain meteorological statistics measured over long periods of time, whereas weather is largely what is happening in our atmosphere now. One spring season of warm or cold weather is not evidence for or against any massive change in Earth’s climate.
In the case of arctic sea ice, what matters is its decline over the long term, not what happens in any particular year. Small seasonal changes in the ice cover are insignificant when compared to the overall long-term trends. Likewise, any rational person would not describe their child as “sickly” if they got the flu once a year, but were otherwise healthy. Calling that kid sickly is a gross misrepresentation of the overall trend of good health, just as pointing to one year of data relating to sea ice is a gross misrepresentation of the overall trend in arctic sea ice cover.
I do not want to become part of the increasingly dull and prolific climate rhetoric on the internet. Heck, I started out to write a blog about flowers and birds. But I’ve seen folks on both sides of the climate debate using short term data, like weather or bird sightings, as evidence to support their points of view on climate change. That is frustrating. Absurd even.