Scott Pruitt, the newly installed EPA administrator, shook the climate change world recently on the CNBC program “Squawk Box” by stating “I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see. ... We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis.”
Mr Pruitt is clearly in the pocket of the Big Energy interests, and Big Energy is never going to support the climate change hypothesis that these adverse changes are the result of human activities in the form of atmospheric carbon. They sell the carbon this hypothesis is targeting, but more significantly, they don't want to be culpable for all manner of loss and damage potential that could possibly be tied to this issue of sea level rising and more extreme weather. The potential liability in this regard is staggering.
Quite likely, Mr Pruitt is not as sincere and genuine about the continued review and analysis as these words would convey, but contrary to most climate change advocates, the position being advocated in this statement is reasonable. These words have been very carefully scripted from a liability defense perspective and are absolutely in line with the standard scientific process of critical third party review of findings. It is totally OK to disagree and continue debate, review, and analysis. The problem is that no one in the climate argument, advocate or denier, seems to be interested in this debate, review, and analysis process anymore. Perhaps, they never have been.
The traditional response to this type of challenge is a succinct statement from the advocates of relevant facts and data that support their climate change position. Instead, there is more of a circling of the wagons with the now well worn response that '97 percent of scientist agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities.'
In complete truth, this 97 percent who agree is calculated from the peer-reviewed scientific journal articles of actively publishing climate scientists which is likely not a large enough number to be statistically significant in the total realm of all scientists. This statistic is sometimes further bolstered by the mention of leading scientific organizations that have issued public statements endorsing this position.
In reality, this canned response only reinforces denier contention that the scientific argument is weak. If a solid scientific explanation for the climate change role of carbon existed, why not just use that. But most of the time the lead argument for the carbon role is this somewhat misleading declaration that 97 percent of scientist are in agreement.
The real fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter that 97 percent of scientist agree or that leading scientific organizations endorse the position. Take for example the story of Max Planck. As Max Planck was beginning his studies, one of his physics professor advised Planck against going into physics. This professor believed (as did most every other physicist of that time) physics was a field where almost everything was already discovered, and all that remained was to fill a few holes here and there.
Planck ignored the advice following his own intuition instead and went on to propose and formulate the entirely new and revolutionary theory of Quantum Mechanics which is one of the cornerstones of physics today. The point is that the forward progress of science is dependent on being able to question majority opinions in the hope that possibly a rational discussion will ensue and progress will be made.
The current debate on climate change has moved past the matter of is something really going to happen. The evidence that something is happening is clearly obvious to all in the form of ice melts and sea level rise. At issue here is whether the human activities of burning fossil fuels such as in automobiles and electricity generation are primary contributors to this climate change by retaining solar energy in the atmosphere via the greenhouse gas effect.
Many climate scientists are convinced this anthropomorphically generated carbon dioxide is the cause of recently observed change in global temperature affecting global climate, and they want to see it remediated. There are also many Big Energy payroll scientist who are equally convinced that these changes cannot be traced to human activities per the position stated by Pruitt.
Clearly, the extreme financial interest of the Big Energy appears to be a big potential bias in their position, but some feel the advocating scientists are interested in grants and other research funding with their claims. In fact, there are others (like me) who are not financially biased who believe the case for blaming it on human activities is not as solid as some would like us to believe.
As it turns out, the science of carbon dioxide’s role in any observed climate change has been relatively easy to call into question. In 2009, the emails of some prominent climate change proponents were hacked and released to the public. Climate skeptics immediately claimed the emails proved evidence of data manipulation and suppression of divergent scientific ideas. Claims that were immediately disputed by the climate change proponents.
In 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released an assessment report where a so-called “warming hiatus” was described in one part unleashing a feeding frenzy for skeptics and a lot of defensive posturing from the proponents in the form of articles like Rising Ocean Temperatures May Explain Climate Change Hiatus and Climate-change ‘hiatus’ disappears with new data. Additionally, new evidence seems to suggest the Antarctic Ocean has been absorbing increasing amounts of carbon dioxide over the past decade. These findings upset decade old estimates that the Antarctic Ocean was approaching a saturation point and would not be able to continue to absorb increasing amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Clearly, there is compelling evidence that considerable polar and glacial ice has been melted in the last century resulting in some measurable sea level increases, but the argument that tries to assert anthropomorphic atmospheric carbon dioxide is the primary/only contributor seems scientifically weak. The whole carbon dioxide premise seems to be based on the rather foolish notion that the average global temperature can be known to the nearest hundredth of a degree and is precisely heated to that same high precision temperature every year (see figure below). Given all the variables involved in heating the earth from the distant natural fire of the sun with its well-known natural variations (e.g. solar cycle), it seems unlikely the earth is heated that uniformly and precisely year after year.
But more significantly, this global temperature chart seems highly
questionable because it is virtually impossible to experimentally generate
sufficient surface temperature measurements that are adequately quality controlled
to the incredible level of precision and accuracy required for these
temperature measurements to be reliable to a hundredth of a degree. Even
if that could be achieved today, there is nothing that can be done to improve
the quality of the historical data which is required to understand historical
perspective. These historical data simply are what they are.
This question is actually raised in the article Climate-change ‘hiatus’ disappears with new data which cites “observational biases in global surface temperature data” as its basis for the re-evaluation of these temperature data to dispel the hiatus contention. This article was prepared in response to the IPCC report mentioning the “warming hiatus” in an attempt to refute the casually mentioned temperature hiatus contention as further evidenced by the article title. It describes a network of thousands of land based weather-observing stations and sea surface temperatures collected primarily by thousands of commercial ships and drifting surface buoys. It further describes various bias correcting ‘fudge factors’ that are used to air-brush the effect of known sources of bias in the various data sets ( a very unsettling approach). From these massaged data, global temperatures rises of 0.068°C per decade are claimed as credible when the measurements generating these data are quite likely given the various sampling methods and commercial (not research grade) measuring devices at best +/- 1°C.
The expertise of a climate scientist is not required to see the flaws in this argument. They are apparent to anyone who understands sampling and measurement errors; precision and accuracy of measurement results; and the concept of significant figures. The science in this particular argument seems weak. Just because a computer can take piles of number and crunch them into composites with many numbers to the right of the decimal, does not mean these numbers to the right of the decimal are significant. The article could also be taken to support the skeptic claims that the stolen emails suggested suppression of divergent scientific ideas and data manipulation.
In years past, these types of questions could be raised in the course of a rational scientific discussion, but the climate change debate is as much about hysteria as reasoned analysis. In this debate, calling these sacred measurement into question is considered scientific heresy for which one can be excommunicated from the community of believers in science.
In truth, I want to believe this argument and support the carbon tax. These renewable energy sources that would be encouraged by the carbon tax have a number of advantages beyond this reduction in overall carbon emissions. They would create jobs in this country that could not be exported abroad. They break the grip that fossil fuel consumption has had on our economy for decades, and that reduces the potential revenue source used by many terrorist organizations and the terrorist supporting nations. They reduce other environmental issues like acid rain and ozone pollution. But rather than building a broad front argument supporting the implementation of renewable energy sources, the argument has been focused very specifically on atmospheric carbon reduction strategies.
Clearly, there is considerable ground between the two bias inspired extreme positions of ‘anthropomorphic carbon is the only culprit’ and ‘we didn't do it’, but the climate change debate has degenerated from a reasoned, rational debate around empirical data to a simple childish argument of ‘Did too’/’Did Not’ that has lost considerable public interest. The climate change debate is a clear example of how this type of sensationalism from both of these extreme perspectives does not work and in fact, ultimately erodes public confidence in science.
Someone in this debate is ultimately going to take the high ground and abandon the hyperbole and emotional ploys. Scott Pruitt's remarks, insincere though they may be, seem to be moving in that direction not as a conciliatory move but rather to mitigate potential liability. Pruitt and the Big Energy position can afford to assume this gracious position because from their devil's advocate (aka legally defensibility) position, they only needs to present reasonable doubt. Advocates need to get their convincing and easily understandable technical argument together if they want to keep up with the deniers.
This question is actually raised in the article Climate-change ‘hiatus’ disappears with new data which cites “observational biases in global surface temperature data” as its basis for the re-evaluation of these temperature data to dispel the hiatus contention. This article was prepared in response to the IPCC report mentioning the “warming hiatus” in an attempt to refute the casually mentioned temperature hiatus contention as further evidenced by the article title. It describes a network of thousands of land based weather-observing stations and sea surface temperatures collected primarily by thousands of commercial ships and drifting surface buoys. It further describes various bias correcting ‘fudge factors’ that are used to air-brush the effect of known sources of bias in the various data sets ( a very unsettling approach). From these massaged data, global temperatures rises of 0.068°C per decade are claimed as credible when the measurements generating these data are quite likely given the various sampling methods and commercial (not research grade) measuring devices at best +/- 1°C.
The expertise of a climate scientist is not required to see the flaws in this argument. They are apparent to anyone who understands sampling and measurement errors; precision and accuracy of measurement results; and the concept of significant figures. The science in this particular argument seems weak. Just because a computer can take piles of number and crunch them into composites with many numbers to the right of the decimal, does not mean these numbers to the right of the decimal are significant. The article could also be taken to support the skeptic claims that the stolen emails suggested suppression of divergent scientific ideas and data manipulation.
In years past, these types of questions could be raised in the course of a rational scientific discussion, but the climate change debate is as much about hysteria as reasoned analysis. In this debate, calling these sacred measurement into question is considered scientific heresy for which one can be excommunicated from the community of believers in science.
In truth, I want to believe this argument and support the carbon tax. These renewable energy sources that would be encouraged by the carbon tax have a number of advantages beyond this reduction in overall carbon emissions. They would create jobs in this country that could not be exported abroad. They break the grip that fossil fuel consumption has had on our economy for decades, and that reduces the potential revenue source used by many terrorist organizations and the terrorist supporting nations. They reduce other environmental issues like acid rain and ozone pollution. But rather than building a broad front argument supporting the implementation of renewable energy sources, the argument has been focused very specifically on atmospheric carbon reduction strategies.
Clearly, there is considerable ground between the two bias inspired extreme positions of ‘anthropomorphic carbon is the only culprit’ and ‘we didn't do it’, but the climate change debate has degenerated from a reasoned, rational debate around empirical data to a simple childish argument of ‘Did too’/’Did Not’ that has lost considerable public interest. The climate change debate is a clear example of how this type of sensationalism from both of these extreme perspectives does not work and in fact, ultimately erodes public confidence in science.
Someone in this debate is ultimately going to take the high ground and abandon the hyperbole and emotional ploys. Scott Pruitt's remarks, insincere though they may be, seem to be moving in that direction not as a conciliatory move but rather to mitigate potential liability. Pruitt and the Big Energy position can afford to assume this gracious position because from their devil's advocate (aka legally defensibility) position, they only needs to present reasonable doubt. Advocates need to get their convincing and easily understandable technical argument together if they want to keep up with the deniers.
Many are saying that it is a shame that so many people are not believing in science anymore, but for me, the greater shame is that some scientists rely more on sensationalism paying careless attention to good old-fashion scientific rigor promoting arguments that publicly devolve and implode giving these people a legitimate reason to doubt science.
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