As If You Care: What David Thinks About Global Warming

In belated commemoration of Earth Day, I decided to sit down and assess my overall thoughts on Anthropogenic (i.e. Human-caused) Global Warming theory (AGW).  This was mostly for my own amusement, and since I’m not trying to convince you, the reader, I’m not going to into a lot of detail as to how I came to this assessment—at least, not in this post, which is going to be long enough at it is.  But here it is, for what it’s worth.

Notice I say “this assessment” rather than “this conclusion,” by the way.  I don’t believe in drawing conclusions and walking away from a subject—you have to constantly evaluating new evidence as it comes in.  So what I believe a year from now could be entirely different.

What I believe about AGW:

1. We should be looking for better, more efficient energy sources regardless of whether the Earth is warming.  Not only are there bound to be better ways to get our energy, I like minimizing the oil money we send overseas.  Short term, I favor tar sands, solar, and fission.  Long term, let’s figure fusion out.
2. Earth has been both warmer and cooler than now for reasons having nothing to do with us, and it will be again.  Climate changes.
   
   
3. It’s entirely possible the Earth is warming at the moment.  Taking measurements of past and current events is a lot easier than predicting the future, so this should be easy to determine.  I’d be more likely to be convinced if the people collecting the data hadn’t thrown their objectivity into question by adopting policy positions.  Unfortunately, because it’s become a political issue, it is hard to trust data on either side of the question.
4. Warming isn’t necessarily bad.  I don’t buy that Earth just happens to be at some objectively optimal temperature right about the time the press and the environmentalists decide to freak out about it.  Hollywood dramatization aside, warmer could be better.  But I’ll grant you that if things are getting warmer, we’re to blame, and we don’t have control of the process, that would be worrisome, because sooner or later, warm becomes too warm.
5. If the Earth is warming, we are contributing somehow.  Basic thermodynamics: we’re part of the system.  What remains in question is the size and direction of our contribution.
6. The degree to which we are contributing is more in question than AGW adherents would have us believe.  Activists are lying about the strength of their case in an effort to exert political pressure.  “The data suggests things may be getting warmer, but we’re not sure.” isn’t as compelling a story as, “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!”
7. AGW is, in essence, a secular religon for many of the people who believe in it, regardless of whether the theory is, in fact, correct.  Many believe in global warming not because they’ve seen and soberly assessed the evidence, but as an act of faith, because it has been handed down as revealed truth by figures of authority.  The evidence may (or might eventually) prove the theory, but that will be a happy coincidence for the people in question.
8. I suspect the case for AGW relies too little on evidence and too much on guesswork, and I’m absolutely certain that the discussion of AGW does.  I blame scientific illiteracy.  Scientists on both sides can debate the issue as professionals, but once politicos and the general public get involved, any scientific basis for the conversation tends to quickly evaporate.
9. Consensus, on any topic, tells us nothing by itself.  Consensus can result from sober and skeptical expert assessment of available data, or it can result from ignorance, group-think and political pressure.  It’s best to avoid relying on consensus for your information, and do your own evaluation, but that’s not always possible.  When you have to rely on consensus, though, you had better know where it came from, who was involved, why you should trust their judgement.  Consensus is not evidence.
10. The consensus on AGW is weaker than is popularly claimed.  See also #6.
11. What consensus exists is influenced to some unknown degree by the financial incentives to AGW advocates.  There’s money in climate research if AGW is a problem than if it’s not.  Maybe climate change scientists are, as a group, less impeachable than the general population, in which case the influence on their research could be minimal, and not affect the outcome of their work.  But the incentives are there, and human beings do tend to respond to incentives.
12. AGW theory is viewed by some as a way to rob from the rich and give to the poor.  World socialism loves AGW theory, as does the developing world.
13. What consensus exists does so in part because of a deliberate attempt to suppress contrary view points.  This isn’t surprising:  if you believe that AGW is going to destroy the planet, some people will be inclined to do whatever it takes to shut up those who would slow down action.
14. Implementing Kyoto would have been worse than doing nothing.  It would have done essentially nothing about AGW, and would have burned up money and attention that could be spent on something else.  If you believe that AGW is a real problem, it demands a real solution, and Kyoto just wasn’t one.  It was what we see in public policy all too often: a politically-driven placebo intended to show the voters that “something is being done!”
15. Even if they work as advertised, carbon offsets are nonsense.  If you believe AGW theory, assuming a zero carbon footprint is a cop-out.  Until net human contribution to warming is zero or negative, you should be assuming as large a negative footprint as possible.  That means if you're a big Hollywood AGW activist, you still have to buy as much as you can afford in offsets, but you ALSO have to give up the private jets, the big houses, the limos, and you have to start using public transportation.  Or shut the hell up.
16. If AGW theory is accurate, it may be impossible to halt global warming.  That doesn’t means we shouldn’t try, but we should get used to the idea that we might have to plan to live with it, instead, and think about what Plan B—when it happens—looks like.
17. If AGW exists and we can stop it, the effort may be far greater than even most AGW believers realize (or admit, anyway).  Not only would the developed world have to give up much of its development, China and India might very well have to turn off what they’ve already built.  And because economic development leads to long and healthy lives, fixing AGW will probably help kill people, maybe a lot of people, and spread suffering to many more.  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it, any more then death and suffering means we should never go to war.  Sometimes you have to choose the lesser of evils.  But we should be sure that AGW is going to cause more death and suffering than the cure.
18. Because of #17, I don’t think there’s any chance at all we’re going to do fix AGW if it does exist.  Not any time soon, anyway.  China, India, and the rest of the developing world simply aren’t going to give up their future economies without a gun pointed at their heads, nobody is going to go to war to force them into it.
19. If AGW theory is accurate, doing some things will definitely be worse than doing nothing.  Just because an alternate energy source has better PR than oil doesn’t mean it’s better than oil.  The benefits of any alternative energy source—indeed, any proposed response to AGW—must be weight against its costs, economic and otherwise.