Climate Change

By D.T. Holt

Ah yes, the question of the age: is Global Warming real and if so, have human activities contributed to it? Well, before we start talking about it, we should probably call it Climate Change, which is the term preferred by the National Academy of Sciences. Also, let me say that I am not a scientist and my knowledge of this subject falls in the range of a very casually interested observer, which is a polite way of saying that I know next to nothing about Climate Change or Global Warming. You’ve probably already guessed it but, full disclosure, my fellow blogger John Bertosa is also not a scientist. Although I do know that he is ridiculously smart, I won’t speculate about his expertise in this specific subject. Because my knowledge in this area is limited, I think my best approach to rebutting John’s argument is to look into some of the claims he makes in his post.

The first point that caught my eye was the assertion that scientists have been pressured to sign on to the prevailing theories of man’s culpability for Global Warming. Interestingly, when I searched for information relating to this claim, I found a lot of accusations that scientists were pressured to skew their findings on Climate Change to support the Bush Administration’s skepticism on the subject. According to a Reuters news article dated January 31, 2007, a survey by Union of Concerned Citizens “found that 150 climate scientists personally experienced political interference in the past five years, for a total of at least 435 incidents.” I did not find a reference to the Congressional testimony that John refers to in his piece, which only proves that I was unable to find the reference, and is not indicative of whether or not it exists. It is, however, important to note that accusations of political pressure can be found on both sides of the issue and the mere existence of these accusations does not, in and of itself, give them credence.

I also had difficulty finding a source for the idea that global temperatures have been cooling since 1998. What I did find was a report by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies which states that “the highest global surface temperature in more than a century of instrumental data was recorded in the 2005 calendar year.” It also points out that the margin for error makes it a virtual tie with 1998, which was the previous warmest year. This doesn’t seem to support the idea that the earth has been getting cooler since 1998. Even if the global surface temperature had lowered in every year of the last decade, my understanding of Global Warming in particular and Climate Change in general is that scientists are looking at trends over much longer periods of time than ten years. While the temperature could easily have fluctuated up or down in recent years, that does change the fact that over significant time, the global surface temperature is trending up.

Finally, I would like to look at John’s opinion that the liberal position on Climate Change is similar to our supposed religious stance that “humans are in control, not some superior being.” As I’ve said before, I don’t believe that there is such a thing as an all encompassing liberal position, but I can say that those of us who do not believe in a superior being most certainly do not believe that “humans are in control.” The Theory of Evolution revolves around the idea of natural selection. To put it simply no one is in charge of the earth, nature takes its own random path. In his comparison, John misrepresents the liberal viewpoint on Climate Change, stating “global warming follows the same argument -- the belief that humanity is in control of nature, that we can constantly have mild weather if we only tried.” I don’t believe that anyone, liberal or conservative, is seriously saying that Climate Change is an entirely man made phenomenon. The prevailing theory is that man has contributed to and possibly hastened Climate Change, not that he is entirely responsible for it.

I agree with John’s viewpoint that there are natural cycles to the earth and it only makes sense that at least some of the Climate Change we are seeing is a natural occurrence. Human beings have only occupied the earth for a fraction of the planet’s existence and it is arrogant to think that we could be entirely responsible for its survival or demise. Joe Biden’s comment that Global Warming is “man made” is a ridiculous oversimplification of an extremely complex subject. Sadly, this sort of thing has become the standard level of political debate for both major parties during an election year. However, the wealth of evidence that man has contributed to Climate Change coupled with a myriad of other negative consequences of pollution makes the lowering of Green House Gas emissions and an overall heightened concern for the preservation of our natural resources our responsibility as citizens of this planet that we neither control nor own.