"We will restore science to its rightful place..."
When President Obama spoke those words in his Inaugural Address, he must have been hoping to get Dr. Peter Venkman to serve as his Science Czar. Venkman is a scientist's scientist: he can not only intimidate the small-minded, he also faces down total protonic reversal and usually gets the girl—all the while cracking up his research associates with a steady patter of wicked-funny commentary. And he was great in Ghostbusters. Seriously though, why not? Stephen Colbert testified—in character—to the 111th Congress.
If you have ever debated Global Warm—er, Climate Change with a friend, you know how quickly things end up pointing to one's favorite scientist or study (or maybe a book or movie). My own current faves are author Dr. Roy Spencer Ph.D, Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama and astrophysicist/mathematician Piers Corbyn, founder of publicly-traded Weather Action Network in London, England (who famously predicted this winter's snow in London). Both my guys are skeptical of man-made global warming.
You, however, may rely on the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, who are believers in MMGW. Or you may even favor Bjorn Lomborg, of Copenhagen's Environmental Assessment Institute who claims to be in the middle. Really.
Regardless, here's my point: this particular debate is only one of many where Americans are being told to shut up and follow orders. In 2005 a Federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled that "science had shown, proved, that all life, including human life, is the result of chance, that it is meaningless...", and thus disallowed schools from informing students of a theory proposing that humans were Intelligently Designed. Better that the kids learn to draw Piltdown Man and the Hockey Stick Graph.
It used to be that science was subject to experimental verification. A hypothesis had to be tested and shown repeatable before its premise could be deemed true. Somehow I don't think that's the scientific restoration President Obama was talking about. Unfortunately for him, neither the origin of human life on earth nor man-made global warming can be tested experimentally. They are of a scale and time-frame beyond the capability of the most ambitious longitudinal study. Anybody willing to accept government policies based on supposedly scientific proofs in these two areas may think they're following science, but in fact they're following Dr. Peter Venkman.
My modified Venkman Gambit: "Back off man, I'm a citizen. The debate is not over."
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For a more scholarly discussion of
this topic, read Professor Angelo M.
Codevilla's American Spectator piece:
Wait, you would agree the earth appears to be getting warmer, over, say, the last 100 years, right? (And that 2010 may be the warmest yet? http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/2010-on-pace-to-be-warmest-on-record-nasa-says/?ref=global warming.)
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree that warming has recently occurred. I also recognize we had a "Little Ice Age" starting in the 13th century.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with two things: 1) that the warming is man-caused; 2) that humans can do anything to ameliorate or reverse it.
But even though you agree warming has recently occurred, there’s nothing about measuring global temperature that is “tested experimentally,” say, in a lab, right? Just as there’s no “experimental verification” to tectonic plate movement? Or the expansion of the universe? Wouldn’t you agree that a good deal of science is merely observation and measurement?
ReplyDeleteI should probably qualify my "agreement" by saying instead that I have no reason to disagree that temperatures have risen or fallen—given the variability of temps thru history (ie: Greenland used to be green).
ReplyDeleteI have no problem with measuring things. Is anybody measuring the rising sea levels worldwide? Seems that would be an important thing to know about. Measuring of polar bear populations has only recently gotten serious—and shows a significantly increased number of bears. It just seems that so many cherry-picked measurements are used to justify a huge increase in government power...not surprising when you consider government FUNDS much of this measuring. (Sorta like George Soros' Tides Foundation funding U.Maryland to measure how stupid Fox News viewers are.)
So I get nervous when a Progressive President starts talking about "restoring science to its proper place". It reminds me of eugenics and abortion and all manner of anti-life schemes lurking in the wings.
But you can read the readily available data, right? (For example NCDC’s: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/images/temp-anom-larg.jpg. And because you asked, here’s a chart of sea levels in Portland, Maine: http://www.maine.gov/doc/nrimc/mgs/explore/marine/facts/sea-07.htm.) Over the last century, those global temperature numbers do go up? In fact in the second half of the last century, they’ve gone up at roughly twice the speed of the first half, yes?
ReplyDeleteSir Jeff:
ReplyDeleteI've lived long enough now to hear freaked out scientists warning that an ice-age was coming (in the 60s) and an ex-Vice President hollering that the planet has a fever, but I was not buyin' what either was sellin'.
Historically it's better to live during a warming period than a cooling period. A 4-inch sea-level rise over 62 years in Portland, ME might be interesting if I owned beach-front property there. But how much of our food is grown within a hundred yards of a beach? So a few golf courses might lose a bit of fairway (like Pebble Beach).
I'm just not worried about the warming, partly because I'm not convinced CO2 is causing it, but mainly because I believe God "established all the boundaries of the earth; and made summer and winter." I do not believe humans are capable of creating a global cataclysm...certainly not by accident.
No question, science has a rich history of error. It turns out the leaches really weren’t helping you get better. But trial-and-error is one of the methods science employs. In fact one of the beautiful things about science is that when more data is available, science freely follows it, questions it, tests it and continues to examine it every time a newer piece of data arrives. Hence, we aren’t using as many leaches in medicine anymore.
ReplyDeleteYou say that “a 4-inch sea-level rise over 62 years in Portland, ME might be interesting if I owned beach-front property there,” but you of course get that Portland, Maine can’t have a four-inch rise in sea level unless there is a four-inch rise in sea level everywhere, right? Portland, Maine didn’t get extra gravity over the last sixty-two years that I didn’t hear about, did they?
My question isn’t whether you’re buying what anyone is selling or whether or not you’re worried. We haven’t even gotten to CO₂yet and certainly you must believe that if a nuclear bomb accidentally went off, humans would have indeed created a global cataclysm, yes? You can’t be saying you believe that if God created something man is incapable of destroying it, can you? I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but surely you could construct a long list of things you would say God created that man has already destroyed, right?
So my question remains, and I’m literally just trying to explore where we agree and where we diverge: can you read the readily available data, do the numbers ascend over the last century, and has that ascent roughly doubled in speed over the last fifty years?
Mister Jeff, I must respectfully disagree that a global rise of sea levels is indicated by measurements taken at one place. Tidal effects are notoriously erratic and nearby changes like sea walls and beach erosion can play havoc with numbers. But even if there had been a 4-inch rise in sea levels across the world... 1) how marvelously adaptable we humans have been, 2) it would be much more likely a result of orbital wobble or tectonic movement than a 2-degree rise in temps.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what to make of the repeated question if I "can read the readily available data". I assume it's not a suggestion that I can't read, so it must be asking that we debate using only your data. I did read those two links, and consider them alongside many other data. Surely there would be no end of debating and debunking each other's data sources.
The point of my column was to highlight the danger of being supine in the face of government using "science" to bamboozle us and advance a radical Progressive agenda. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"
There is such a profusion of data, with government data often being the most biased—I mean who is more susceptible to political pressure than a government agency? (OK, maybe a university seeking government funding.) My instinctive spiritual reaction to confusion is that there is a lie buried somewhere beneath any steaming pile of data. Assuming I'm no dumber than a sack of hammers, I tend to step back and try to see as big a picture as possible...to avoid getting lost in the weeds.
I've tried to be clear and as broad as possible: never saying humans can't destroy "anything" God created—only that they cannot destroy the world. There have been many nuclear detonations in the past 50 years— two in anger and dozens in testing—with no significant global environmental impact.
On CO2, I'm inclined to include water vapor as a greenhouse gas because it is responsible for 95% of sun-blockage. CO2 makes up just 3.6% of greenhouse gas, but 97% of CO2 occurs naturally. I reckon that astronomic and tectonic effects contribute as much or more to warm/cool cycles than do atmospheric effects.
My position on climate change is that it is real and natural. I am much more concerned with government's destructive power over our lives than the environment's. My bottom line is that God made a great big world as His footstool. We are to be good, responsible stewards of it, but our impact on its essential operation is minimal. I do not believe He granted us the power to permanently ruin or destroy it.
NOTE: IN THE INTEREST OF NOT BORING FOLLOWERS OF THIS BLOG, IF YOU'RE INCLINED TO REPLY TO MY RAMBLINGS ABOVE, I WILL THEN ANSWER YOU PRIVATELY—SINCE YOU AND I ARE EVIDENTLY THE ONLY ONES INTERESTED IN THIS THREAD. :-)
- It’s true, were there a change like a sea wall we might have a level change in just one area. Of course, we would have likely heard about that, right? We’re pretty good at measuring beach erosion, so distinguishing that from water level doesn’t seem that difficult. Fortunately global measurements are available: http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sealevel.html. It appears global sea levels have risen about eight inches over the last century, with very real effects on places like the Maldives: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34115298. We can also measure orbital wobble and tectonic movement. It actually turns out that temperatures in the stratosphere have been *cooling* since 1979, when satellite measurements became available. Solar variation or orbital wobble that would warm the earth would also cause stratospheric temperatures to rise, right? Weather balloon data from the pre-satellite era show stratospheric cooling since 1958.
ReplyDelete- I’m not saying we debate using my data, that would be silly. If you think there’s been a hundred year conspiracy at NCDC or CRU to errantly record temperature data or some such thing, let’s take a step back and debate data sources. Surely we can find sources we both agree on. (Here is the background on how NOAA arrives at its data: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleodata.html. It’s surprisingly interesting reading.)
- I got that your point and the point of the Angelo M. Codevilla piece was to highlight the danger of government using science to bamboozle us. I would argue that if you’re even vaguely paying attention, that’s nearly impossible to do in the Internet age. We have access to all sorts of data, raw, real-time and otherwise. Scientific papers of all kinds are available for your very own eyes and evaluation. By and large, there’s not much in science a person of even moderate intelligence can’t readily understand if he’s willing to do a little reading. Indeed, science invites all to watch the man behind the curtain very closely, regardless of degrees or accolades.
- The verse you quote says only that God created those things. It doesn’t say that therefore man cannot destroy them. And just because man hasn’t done something yet is no reason to believe he can’t or won’t in the future, right?
- I totally agree water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas and I don’t think you’ll find any serious scientist who disagrees with that. But there’s not much point in moving on to CO₂ until we can even agree on what thermometers say, so maybe we can stick with that until we find common ground? I’m not saying we won’t eventually get to CO₂, methane, ozone (O3), etc., I’m just asking if we can move one step at a time.
- If the followers of your blog are bored, they can always stop reading. Certainly no one is forcing them to read on. But if they are interested, you wouldn’t want to deny them the opportunity to continue following your very carefully reasoned, thoroughly thought through, unbiased views, would you? You’re a smart, informed guy. I think all of us who follow this blog are fortunate to get your perspective. So let’s take a step back: do you think the NCDC or CRU temperature data is bogus? If so, why?