Discussions here led me to a general criticism of Cardinal Pell’s views on climate change, briefly documented here. I was critical Monday of Pell’s suggestion that the furor over climate change constitutes some kind of new religion. I made my point that church folk have other, more ingrained idols to worry about, not the least of which is the sporting culture which may be stronger, if anything, in Australia than in the US.
As for Cardinal Pell’s particular views on climate change, we have some holes:
I am certainly skeptical about extravagant claims of impending man-made climatic catastrophes. Scientific debate is not decided by any changing consensus, even if it is endorsed by political parties and public opinion. Climate change both up and down has been occurring, probably since earth first had a climate.
He parses his words well. Most people, including scientists, would handle “extravagant” claims carefully. Science generally takes a long time to embrace big ideas. The clues for continental drift were recognized decades before it became the acceptable model. It was twenty years after the Apollo landings before astronomers concluded a Mars-sized planet hit the Earth and formed the moon. Pell seems to leave himself open to non-extravagant claims. Good for him.
And Pell’s right that the degree of human causation is an open question. It’s somewhere between 1 and 99%. Is the human footprint on Planet Earth enough to cause change and wreak havoc? We know it is.
One of Pell’s errors is to misread the place and definition of scientific consensus. He seems to assume it’s a political thing. well, it is, but not in the same way. Scientists are a rather conservative lot. New theories get probed, tested, slammed, discounted, and trounced in all sorts of ways until the mounting evidence in favor is too much to deny.
But he’s right to be a skeptic about politicians and non-scientists carrying the day in public debate. He needs to go to the sources, the scientists themselves, and not media outlets.
Pell and other wonder if those predicting an ice age in the last century were just crying wolf, and perhaps this generation’s environmentalists are in the same boat? The thing is, most climate change advocates will still tell you an ice age is the most disastrous possible result of global warming. Why? Because the Earth has a fairly well-balanced climate system. Big changes tend to get pushed back hard and fast.
I don’t see a problem with non-scientists weighing in publicly on science. But when the cardinal offers this up:
Uncertainties on climate change abound. Temperatures in Greenland were higher in the 1940s than they are today, and the Kangerlussuaq glacier there is not shrinking but growing in size. While the ice may be melting in the Arctic, apparently it is increasing in extent in the Antarctic.
Yes, pick a glacier, and wonder if ice isn’t building up in the Antarctic. If Greenland was indeed warmer in the 1940′s, why wasn’t it until much more recently than that that farmers there enjoyed success with crops and herd animals?
This leaves me with skepticism about Cardinal Pell. Is he being duped on an issue because he doesn’t want to stand too close to liberals? That’s my take on the conservative reticence: they just don’t want to hang with Al Gore.
My advice is forget Gore. Read books by scientists. Read both sides if you can find them. But don’t be deceived: we have a problem.
10 January 2008 at 8:25 am
Many scientists say the same thing that Pell is saying. So which scientists should we believe? What about the international group of scientists who a few months ago told the UN bluntly that global warming was a “non-problem”? Are we to dismiss them because Gore and some government funded climatologists say otherwise?
How about the results of this recent study saying there is no data to support man made global warming?
Or the statement from John Coleman (founder of the Weather channel) recently calling global warming the “greatest scam in history”?
Ok, I’ll take your advice and not listen to Gore but rather the scientists and go back to not caring whatsoever about global warming.
10 January 2008 at 8:42 am
Tim, thanks for commenting. Most climatologists would say that the human effect is significant and human action might slow climate change.
As far as I’m concerned, Gore, cable-channel executives, and the government-funded climate change doubters are the sideshow. And while there’s no doubt that politicians and business interests are trying to position themselves for maximum personal gain, the truth is that most scientists who have no particular connections with politics or business are lining up with the evidence they see: human industry has accelerated a natural warming trend.
If there’s really nothing human beings can do to stave off another ice age (the most likely result of a warmer Northern hemisphere) then we might as well conserve all the fossil fuel we can. The climb up from the Dark Ages will take a lot longer if emerging human re-civilization in 15000AD doesn’t have to jump from firewood directly to solar panels.
11 January 2008 at 8:26 am
I’ll continue believing the studies (like the one I linked) instead of the hysteria.
11 January 2008 at 8:50 am
Tim, you actually linked a news summary, not the study itself. But this quote is telling, “all of these efforts to find substitutes for fossil fuels are pointless, useless and very, very expensive.”
Within a few centuries, the world will run out of fossil fuels. That’s not hysteria, but a fact that human beings have burned through a resource that took tens of millions of years to accumulate in the Paleozoic Era.
While true that locating practical and economical alternatives to oil will be expensive, there really is no choice. It will need to be done by the middle of the millennium by any calm and reasonable assessment.
I find it curious that scientists, often stereotyped as anything but hysterical, are getting the cold shoulder from you, Tim. Getting out of the mainstream media and into actual scientific work will guarantee you’re receding from hysteria.