Human-Caused Global Warming -- What we can and should do with a science that is still not settled

What is it about humanity that has an insatiable need to dwell on world-ending disasters?  Is it really a need, or is it just a way for some individuals to exploit the “less-educated” masses?  Or is it some of both… otherwise how would the masses be so easily persuaded? 

I remember as a young boy in the late 1960s, lying away at night because that day at school – as happened many days at school – the topic of discussion was overpopulation.  The theme was that unless drastic measures were taken, it wouldn’t be long (by sometime in the 80s, I recall) that life as we knew it would come to a miserable end.  This would happen as a result of humankind’s inability to curb exponential population growth and deal with the ever-decreasing supply of clean water, air, food and other resources.

What happened to all of that?  Here we are, nearly fifty years later, and when I drive from city to city in the US or travel abroad in the word, I still pass through large expanses of desert, forest, plains and farm fields.  Sure, I realize that many places in the world are very crowded, but that is because people choose or are forced to concentrate in those areas -- not because there is nowhere else to go.

I sort of resent being deprived of my sleep and carefreeness in those days -- deprived and with no ability to do anything about it -- by mostly well-meaning scientists and social-scientists that were caught up in the overpopulation obsession.  I suppose it gave an “I’m making a difference” meaning to their lives, even though it resulted in my permanent scarring… and skepticism.  Sure, there was some basis to it -- but it was not what they made it out to be. 

Modern Engineering Thought and Practice

As a Chemical Engineering student in the late 1970s, it was ingrained – both personally and academically -- to give high consideration to designing safe, efficient, and environmentally friendly manufacturing processes.  This was driven partly by governmental regulations, but as much or more by a natural sense of professional ethics and sensitivity to our fellow humans.  It seems that most non-technical people are not aware of this modern culture of engineering conscience.  Instead, they assume that engineering is in lock step with greedy corporations whose aim is to make the most money they can no matter the cost to the environment, people, and society.  But why would engineers have this mindset, knowing that their actions impact their own families and neighborhoods?  Why would they have this mindset knowing that the abuse of natural resources will ultimately stunt their own profession?  Again, this stereotype – which unfortunately is still pervasive -- is not based on clear and modern thinking.  Engineers are typically hands-on professionals who live where they work.  This and they don’t make the kind of salaries that allow them to live in opulence, far away from the environments they help to create. 

Since the 1970s and even before, there has been an ever-increasing emphasis on clean air, clean water, and recycling.  This creates healthier and happier environments, helps preserve our natural resources and helps ensure a positive future for our children.  It just makes good common sense.  It’s the sort of common sense that doesn’t require a lot of explanation or convincing, because most people just get it.  And the amazing part is this:  If everyone takes care of their local environments, then the global environment takes care of itself.  People, flora, and fauna benefit immediately and directly.  We know how to do this, since we have already been doing it for decades. 

Observation versus Interpretation

While conscientiously managing our local environments is common sense to just about everyone, the topic of human-caused or anthropogenic Global Warming is not.  Global Warming is a complex mixture of geology, chemistry, physics, climatology, oceanology -- and simulative modeling involving complex mathematics and computer algorithms.  Hundreds of assumptions are made in order to “properly” interpret the data.  It requires that scientists and technologists from many different fields come together and unify their findings in such a way that a single and inarguable Global Warming mechanism emerges.  Good luck with that!

A discussion of the contribution of humans to Global Warming is really separate from the data that has been acquired over the years in the study Climate Change.  The former involves almost entirely the interpretation of the data (why the temperature is increasing); the latter involves observing the data (the temperature appears to be increasing).  You may be able to convince me that the earth is warming, since the data either supports this or it does not.  But this is much different than saying people are the primary cause of Global Warming, since this is not simply observing the data, but it is interpreting the data.  In fact, it is almost entirely interpretation, which in the scientific world is like an opinion.  A thorough interpretation of large scale, complex data usually requires disagreement, discussion, acquiring more data (to test hypotheses), and sometimes going against accepted or conventional thought -- which is why some choose to not do it, or to not do it properly.

Hollywood, Politics, and the Media… oh, and Science too

A fundamental truth that many scientists and engineers overlook during interpretation (especially if they have a pet theory they want to “prove”) is that correlation does not establish cause-and-effect.  Correlation is merely observation.  Establishing true cause-and-effect requires skilled interpretation. A classic hypothetical example of this is concluding that increased sales of umbrellas cause accidents (followed of course by the forming of government commissions and university programs to determine why umbrellas are dangerous).  That is, until someone stands up and says “Do you think that the poor weather is actually causing the accidents, and that umbrella sales are just incidental?”

It is astounding how the pressure from one’s peers, employer, or even one’s government can steer the interpretation of data without a full investigation of true cause.  How can this happen on a grand scale?  Well, it can’t – at least not quickly – without the help of politicians, media, celebrities, and pop-scientists.

Politicians are driven by many things, most often the least of which is objective truth and scientific integrity.  Going against the Global Warming mainstream is not likely to get you re-elected.  The media loves controversy, tragedy, and supporting popular ideas.  All of these things get better ratings, and like the politicians, those in the media are focused on keeping their jobs.  Anthropogenic Global Warming and Climate Change are two different concepts, but the media blurs the difference between the two -- partly because they themselves are unclear of the difference, and partly because they are predisposed to steering the masses towards the human-caused interpretation (i.e., imminent disaster = good ratings).

Hollywood celebrities are intertwined with the media and unfortunately politics as well.  Most celebrities, like most politicians, have a non-analytical or non-technical background.  Their power is their ability to influence, not to understand complex topics like Global Warming.  If a scientist or pseudo-scientist tells them something and it sounds good to them, they are immediately on-board.  If they become activists in it -- since they are part of the media -- it improves their notoriety.  Since they already have high opinions of themselves, they consider themselves experts even though their depth of scientific knowledge or experience limits their ability to ask the appropriate basic questions.

Finally, there are the pop-scientists who are celebrities in their own rite.  I won’t mention names – since their followers are zealous -- even to the point of being scary (read the comments they leave on the internet).  But we all know who they are.  They are competent, smart, credentialed, and have a flair for presentation – which lands them frequently on TV talk shows or even their own programs.  The problem with these celebrities is they consistently blur the line between facts and theories.  This is a problem because the typical viewer accepts everything they say without questions or skepticism.  And why shouldn’t they? These pop-scientists speak with canonical authority, and they look authoritative in their bow ties, lab coats and professorial tweed blazers.  Anyone who took Psych 101 knows that when you use cool visual aids to get your point across it is much easier to convince and persuade.  Documentary film makers know this.  All propagandists know this.  Get these folks together with Hollywood celebrities and/or politicians and the masses are like putty in the sculptor’s hands.

The Often Overlooked Sanity Check

Having practiced science and engineering in industry for over 30 years – where your mistakes will be discovered more likely sooner than later -- I have learned to use sanity checks as an indispensable tool for saving time and reputation.  If the data shows you something that seems very unlikely or counter-intuitive, we say “It doesn’t pass the sanity check.”  This should trigger a deeper investigation, such as acquiring more data – while questioning the integrity of the original data – and looking for true causes rather than apparent causes (recall the umbrellas).  It may mean looking for a more viable explanation – perhaps asking a “devil’s advocate” to supply them -- and then re-considering the assumptions that were made in the original study.  It may turn out that the original data and interpretation was correct, which means that our “sanity” needs to be adjusted.  But usually our skepticism is warranted and this is not the case.

The proper questioning of results is hard to do with agenda-driven science, since the agenda is inflexible with regard to outcome.  The insistence on a particular outcome will sway the data interpretation or subtly influence the study plan in such a way that the data is biased towards that particular outcome.  Again, the reasons for this may be political or career-based.  Or it could be as simple as wanting to be liked and accepted by your peers.  As much as scientists insist they are objective and open-minded by the nature of their profession and personality, they are still human beings with the desire to be positively recognized.  The “good-old boys club” is every bit as prevalent in the scientific community as it is in other communities.

Applying a Sanity Check to Human-Caused Global Warming

Most people know that we had an ice age thousands of years ago.  Millions of years before that were the dinosaur ages when the climate was more tropical in nature.  These are just two examples in earth history with radically different climates, both during which there were very few if any humans in existence.  In fact, ice core data for the last 800,000 years indicates a multiplicity of ice age and warming periods -- which implies a natural cycle that is un-impacted by humans.  Obviously, we warmed out of the last ice age, at least in part.  What was responsible for the accompanying large temperature changes?  Why is it a “settled science” that humans are now significantly contributing to the current warming period? 

According to the earth’s characteristic cycles, we still appear to be warming out of the last ice age.  But the global “warmists” say we are doing so at a faster rate than in all our history, and this is (or should be) a cause for high alarm.  How can we come to such a conclusion?

Figure 1 is a plot of the raw data taken from the EPICA Dome C ice core, the oldest ice core so far extracted1, 2.  The Temperature Anomaly is the difference in temperature from the average of the most recent 1000 years (i.e., the last data point corresponding to 2000 AD).  These are not direct measures of temperature, but temperature derived from a proxy6.  In this case, the temperature anomalies, or deltas, are estimated from a proxy known as deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen that is contained in the ice core7.


Figure 1:  EPICA Ice Core data, raw data prepared for BBC Online by Dr. Robert Mulvaney of the British Antarctic Survey1, 2, 5

This dataset, comprised of one data point per thousand years, shows fairly regular swings in the global temperature for the last 800,000 years.  It is concluded that during this timeframe eight ice ages have occurred7.  We still appear to be warming out of the latest ice age which began to reverse 10,000 to 15,000 years ago.

Figure 2 shows the 1850-to-present Law Dome data plotted over just one increment of the 800,000 years of EPICA data1, 3.  The Law Dome temperatures are not derived, but were directly measured.  This chart clearly illustrates the problem associated with comparing a short span of recent data to an 800,000 year history:


Figure 2: Temperature data since 1850. The raw data is sourced to the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (HadCRU UEA)3

Is it legitimate to conclude – based on data – that during the last 150 years we have seen an unprecedented rise of temperature?  What about the remaining 850 years during this time period?  What about the 799,000 years before that?  Certainly it would be possible – in fact probable -- that sometime during the last 800,000 years the earth has seen similar fluctuations.  In fact – without any data to indicate otherwise -- it would be reasonable to assume that these sorts of fluctuations occurred frequently if not continually during the earth’s entire history.

Obviously, the calculated temperature rise or temperature rate of change depends directly on the time period increment over which the temperature is evaluated (either directly or by proxy).  For example, if we calculate the rate of rise using the last two EPICA data points, we observe a rate of 0.00057 degrees Centigrade per year.  We can imagine that if we chose any of the two Law Dome data points (the data since 1850) and calculated a rate of change, it would be widely variable depending on the two data points (or increment) that we chose.

In Conclusion…

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that it is more than 90% probable that the warming seen in the second half of the 20th century is driven primarily by human emissions of greenhouse gases4.  But a 90% probability does not make a fact.  Perhaps it makes a “good” theory.  I expect that for the general scientific and engineering community, this confidence/probability is much lower when you consider this probability has been set forth by the IPCC elites who (assumably) are 100% believers in anthropogenic Global Warming.  This disparity begs the question of why anyone who questions the conclusions of the anthropogenic global warmists is ridiculed as being backward and/or non-scientific.  I have an answer:  because that is the nature of elites – i.e., the politicians, celebrities, and pop-scientists as discussed earlier.  The best way to silence descent is through bullying and humiliation.

So what is a reasonable and practical approach to alleged anthropogenic Global Warming?  What is an approach that makes sense to most people and that we know gives the desired results – if it were true?  It is better to take a successful known approach – one that has already been honed and will continue to be honed – rather than to come up with an untested, grandiose new approach.  This isn’t agenda-serving and headline-grabbing, I know.  But it leaves us more resources to deal with the impending disasters that we don’t have a working solution for yet – like asteroid strikes, shift in the earth’s tilt, sun flares, massive volcanic activity – and so on.  These non-human-caused and known-to-occur natural phenomena would undoubtedly swamp any impact that humans may have.

We need to start by replacing the distracting discussion of impending Global Warming doom and its accompanying dubious solutions (e.g., carbon credits) with things that will really help -- help now.  These are things that we should do anyway, regardless if anthropogenic Global Warming is fact or fiction.  Everything cannot be done at once, but the beauty is we can proceed in prioritized steps that have an immediate and direct impact, versus pursuing complex and ambiguous strategies that are prone to disagreement and non-success.  This reasonable approach may still lead to some ideas that seem financially or logistically impractical, but aren’t the current ideas for combating Global Warming the same or worse?  We should spend our efforts and resources on something that is known and agreed to be real, using solutions that we know will work and can be easily observed as working.  Let’s list a few:

  1. Continue to improve in cleaning up our local environments.  People will buy into this much easier than a “Save the planet NOW before it’s too late!” approach.
  2. Continue to improve the technology to keep our local environments clean.  We know how to do this, and it is what engineers love to do!
  3. Continue to improve recycling technology, along with the packaging and product technology to make recycling easier.
  4. Facilitate the moving of populations in chronic drought or famine-stricken areas to areas of better sustainability, or…
  5. Move water from areas of flooding to areas of drought.
  6. Assist polluting countries with implementing the technology or systems for accomplishing all of the above.

Does (5) sound ridiculous?  Think about it… we already have reservoirs, pipelines and aqueducts that do this, many of which were built with old technology.  Why not use modern construction techniques, along with historic and real-time data bases (for subterranean geology, rainfall, snowfall, land use, animal habitats, etc.) to do it more efficiently, effectively, and safely?  Let’s learn how to capture a deluge and then redistribute it rather than continuing to pay the high costs of flooding on cities, farms, and businesses.  Does it sound too expensive? Too impractical?  Think about the billions of dollars spent already on the effects of flooding and drought.  When this cost gets high enough, it won’t seem so ridiculous anymore.  Again, if the global warmists get their way, we will be spending trillions of dollars anyway to implement their questionable methods of warming reversal.  So why not spend a fraction of that to achieve already proven and observable results?  The same can be said of (4).  If moving entire populations sounds impractical, then consider the billions that are already being regularly spent to try and save those in famine-stricken parts of the world.

We already know that our planet can adapt to tremendous climate changes as it has done many times in the past.  But instead of thinking – in arrogant defiance of our history – that we can prevent these inevitable changes, let’s instead focus our efforts on learning how to adapt to these changes.

References

  1. A journey through the Earth’s climate history, BBC News Online, 3 Dec 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2009/copenhagen/8393855.stm (Contains data links to (2) and (3))
  2. Data prepared for BBC Online by Dr. Robert Mulvaney, British Antarctic Survey, from EPICA dataset – EPICA Dome C ice core, plus other cores.
  3. Data prepared for BBC Online by Dr. Robert Mulvaney, British Antarctic Survey, from original source: Law Dome – MacFarling Meure et al, 2006, Mauna Loa – NOAA, Temperature – CRU-UEA
  4. 2007 IPCC Report, http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter6.pdf
  5. British Antarctic Survey, http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/
  6. Proxy (climate), (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_(climate)), which includes the link to (7)
  7. Chemical climate proxies (http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/01/climate-proxies) at Royal Society of Chemistry, January 23,2013