Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Are global warming advocates playing with loaded dice?

National Review's Johah Goldberg takes note of several recent studies that throw some doubts on the standard The End is Near interpretation of weather data, and asks why it seems that any confirming evidence for human-induced global warming is taken as prima facie evidence of confirmation of the theory while disconfirming evidence is never counted against it:
... such humility and skepticism seem to manifest themselves only when the data point to something other than the mainstream narrative about global warming. For instance, when we have terribly hot weather, or bad hurricanes, the media see portentous proof of climate change. When we don’t, it’s a moment to teach the masses how weather and climate are very different things.

No, I’m not denying that man-made pollution and other activity have played a role in planetary warming since the Industrial Revolution.

But we live in a moment when we are told, nay lectured and harangued, that if we use the wrong toilet paper or eat the wrong cereal, we are frying the planet. But the sun? Well, that’s a distraction. Don’t you dare forget your reusable shopping bags, but pay no attention to that burning ball of gas in the sky -- it’s just the only thing that prevents the planet from being a lifeless ball of ice engulfed in darkness. Never mind that sunspot activity doubled during the 20th century, when the bulk of global warming has taken place.

What does it say that the modeling that guaranteed disastrous increases in global temperatures never predicted the halt in planetary warming since the late 1990s? (MIT’s Richard Lindzen says that “there has been no warming since 1997 and no statistically significant warming since 1995.”) What does it say that the modelers have only just now discovered how sunspots make the Earth warmer?

I don’t know what it tells you, but it tells me that maybe we should study a bit more before we spend billions to “solve” a problem we don’t understand so well.
Read the rest here.

5 comments:

Lee said...

I don't think we should spend a dime on "solutions" for global warming until somebody determines the Earth's ideal temperature.

Anonymous said...

Martin,

It's hard to understand how the views of an scientifically unlettered person like Jonah can count for anything on a technical subject like earth science. But then again it takes just a day to master Latin, and maybe an evening to conquer Sanskrit. Right?

-Truti

Martin Cothran said...

If scientific laymen are going to be asked to foot the bill for programs to prevent Global Warming, then the pronouncements of those who are pushing for such policies should make sense, and right now they don't.

And besides, Goldberg is questioning the logic of the Global Warming alarmists' predictions, not the science of it. And Goldberg has no less expertise in that area than those he is criticizing.

Anonymous said...

Martin,

Scientific questions are not a matter of opinion, but have a correct answer. Laymen have a choice - learn the subject in detail, read up on the current literature; or go by the conclusions of experts. If it doesn't make sense read up some more. If it still doesn't make sense abandon commonsense, it serves no purpose. Goldberg has no expertise in the earth sciences. Without that nothing else matters.

-Truti

Lee said...

Truti,

Should you be arguing this issue if you are not an expert in philosophy?