The Flipping Point (global warming conversion of skeptic Michael Shermer)

How the evidence for anthropogenic global warming has converged to cause this environmental skeptic to make a cognitive flip

In 2001 Cambridge University Press published Bjørn Lomborg's book The Skeptical Environmentalist, which I thought was a perfect debate topic for the Skeptics Society public lecture series at the California Institute of Technology. The problem was that all the top environmental organizations refused to participate. "There is no debate," one spokesperson told me. "We don't want to dignify that book," another said. One leading environmentalist warned me that my reputation would be irreparably harmed if I went through with it. So of course I did.

My experience is symptomatic of deep problems that have long plagued the environmental movement. Activists who vandalize Hummer dealerships and destroy logging equipment are criminal ecoterrorists. Environmental groups who cry doom and gloom to keep donations flowing only hurt their credibility. As an undergraduate in the 1970s, I learned (and believed) that by the 1990s overpopulation would lead to worldwide starvation and the exhaustion of key minerals, metals and oil, predictions that failed utterly. Politics polluted the science and made me an environmental skeptic.

Nevertheless, data trump politics, and a convergence of evidence from numerous sources has led me to make a cognitive switch on the subject of anthropogenic global warming. My attention was piqued on February 8 when 86 leading evangelical Christians--the last cohort I expected to get on the environmental bandwagon--issued the Evangelical Climate Initiative calling for "national legislation requiring sufficient economy-wide reductions" in carbon emissions.

Then I attended the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference in Monterey, Calif., where former vice president Al Gore delivered the single finest summation of the evidence for global warming I have ever heard, based on the recent documentary film about his work in this area, An Inconvenient Truth. The striking before-and-after photographs showing the disappearance of glaciers around the world shocked me out of my doubting stance.

Four books eventually brought me to the flipping point. Archaeologist Brian Fagan's The Long Summer (Basic, 2004) explicates how civilization is the gift of a temporary period of mild climate. Geographer Jared Diamond's Collapse (Penguin Group, 2005) demonstrates how natural and human-caused environmental catastrophes led to the collapse of civilizations. Journalist Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006) is a page-turning account of her journeys around the world with environmental scientists who are documenting species extinction and climate change unmistakably linked to human action. And biologist Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006) reveals how he went from being a skeptical environmentalist to a believing activist as incontrovertible data linking the increase of carbon dioxide to global warming accumulated in the past decade.

It is a matter of the Goldilocks phenomenon. In the last ice age, CO2 levels were 180 parts per million (ppm)--too cold. Between the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution, levels rose to 280 ppm--just right. Today levels are at 380 ppm and are projected to reach 450 to 550 by the end of the century--too warm. Like a kettle of water that transforms from liquid to steam when it changes from 99 to 100 degrees Celsius, the environment itself is about to make a CO2-driven flip.

According to Flannery, even if we reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by 70 percent by 2050, average global temperatures will increase between two and nine degrees by 2100. This rise could lead to the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, which the March 24 issue of Science reports is already shrinking at a rate of 224 ±41 cubic kilometers a year, double the rate measured in 1996 (Los Angeles uses one cubic kilometer of water a year). If it and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet melt, sea levels will rise five to 10 meters, displacing half a billion inhabitants.

Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism.

It's not about evidence or not. It's about trust or distrust. And don't be a lawyer and ask for hard evidence, since this is not a court.
But it hurts you that it I believe that researchers who repeatedly participate in studies funded by companies that would be affected by curbs on greenhouse emmissions are up to no good.
When it is said that scientists from the IPCC have a political motivation evidence is not presented either, but opinions have to be heard. Many here believe Saddam had WMD because "he can't prove he didn't". And I respect their opinion, because that's what it is: An opinion.

By the way: I don't see how private schools would feel motivated to expect a teacher to say that 2 plus 2 is 5.

Or maybe the profit comes not from Math but from Social Sciences, who knows.

He tried to smear Zhou. He implied that Zhou is a liar. He believed what an external website concluded about Zhou's data (C02science.org), but disbelieved what Zhou said about his own study:

"The UHI effect is responsible for real climatic change in urban areas, but it may not be representative of large areas” he explains. "Although significant in magnitude, our estimated UHI is still relatively small compared to the background temperature trends documented in the Chinese long-term climate record.

He is obviously referring to the study you cited, in which he came up with urbanization estimates.

Many here believe Saddam had WMD because "he can't prove he didn't". And I respect their opinion, because that's what it is: An opinion.

Really? I don't think I would respect an opinion based upon such flimsy reasoning. There are many good reasons to think Saddam had WMD (such as his behavior toward the WMD investigaters, the testimony of one of his top generals,one of his top scientists) but that is NOT one of them.

And you're right, private schools actually tend to be better than public schools. That's my point. Those in the government have at least as questionable motivation as in government http://www.hillsdale.edu/imprimis/2003/march/march03printable.htm

But, arguments can't be settled by impugning the motives of government IPCC scientists any more than they can be won by impugning privately employed scientists. And yes, if want to convince others they should share your trust or distrust, you need to provide evidence as to why that should be shown. Again, working for Cato is a plus, not a negative in this area, but why go there in the first place?As I said, you're to knowledgable to have to resort to ad hominems.

We disagree as to the evidence required to convince people about who is a serious scientist and who is not. To you, it would not suffice to tell the public that an oil company is behind a study. To me it would more than suffice. And this will remain subjective until perhaps a poll is made asking the question "would you trust a study made on global warming that is funded by an oil company"?

I also think that skeptics need to do more convincing than believers at this point in the global warming issue.

Not quite. First, Micheals and Mckitrick are not making arguments from authority. Therefore, their authority is not in question. Rather, they are making arguments on the science as to the science of climatology, etc. that can be dealt with based on their substance, so their origin or history is irrelevant. Look, Einstein said his theory was inspired by the epistemology of Ernst Mach. He later discounted Mach's epistemology as nonsense. In both cases, his motives changed while his theory did not. In other words, the motive for postiting a theory has NO bearing on the truth or falsehood.

The Ad hominem argument-- attacking the man or his motives rather than his argument--- is a logical fallacy, and ad hominem shall remain a logical fallacy regardless of how many people are convinced that it is not.

As far as fighting hysteria over Global Warming, you're right, "skeptics" need to do a lot of convincing. Mostly, conservatives need to do a lot of convincing. We need to show the public why economic cost-benefit analyses are salient, why government intervention in economies almost always hurts more than it helps, especially when done by global rather than local institutions. We need to have more free trade with countries like Brazil that have developed alternative fuels and to stop subsidizing out corn farmers (and I say that as someone who was born in Iowa City, Iowa).

One last point. Cato has a very long record of scholarship. To engage in genetic fallacy argumentation is unwarranted. However, doing so with class warfare style rhetoric--- implying that any endeavor funded by "Big Oil" cannot be on the up and up--- is especially so. Cato has in fact long railed against corporate welfare in all its forms.

Nice talking to you... Oh yeah, and seeing as how you're almost as new as I am, I don't know if you've seen this page, but I've found it helpful http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3ad4b3116432.htm

Find a climate model. Assess its assumptions. Show why the assumptions are inaccurate and why the predictions of the model must therefore be ignored.

I did that in post 398. The difference between the weather models and the climate models that parameterize weather is night and day. The weakness of the parameterization is obvious (gross oversimplifications) along with it's susceptibility to manipulation.

You misunderstood. The observed trend now is about 0.2 C per decade. If that continues (as Pat Michaels expects it will), at the end of the century the average global temperature will be about 2.0 higher. +/- 0.2 C, depending on the year.

The current trend is a culmination of historical cycles, non-cyclical changes and CO2-induced warming. Your contentions are that the current increases are all or mostly due to CO2 (unknowable), that any deviations from the trend are anthropogenic (a marriage of convenience), and that CO2 increases combined with modeled increases in water vapor will continue the trend linearly (ridiculous).

It is not good enough to quote a skeptic who you otherwise criticize, so at least get one of your own ilk to quote on the linear increase. (I personally could care less what Michaels thinks, he has been wrong about a lot of stuff). Second, you need to show why the assumptions in a climate model can adequately model the weather to show that (a) water vapor can increase and (b) those increases can be distributed evenly enough to allow warming (e.g. stratospheric water vapor increases). I would be happy to review your results, but that burden is on you since you have made the laughable linear increase claim.

The last 25 years of the 20th century had a warming trend of 0.4 C -- more than double the "full century" rate.

But it has fluctuated even during that time frame. For instance, the decade of the 80s had a general cooling trend (not much, mind you) which was captured by U.S. satellites even after corrected for error.

Also, a lot of trends are localized, so to extrapolate them in a global sense is not fair (e.g. Al Gore indicates that a lot of glaciers are melting. This is true, but out of context, as we know from the small subset of glaciers studied that about half are melting and half are expanding).

One of the big bugaboos of global warming theorists is that it would cause the oceans to rise significantly. It is well known that all of the free floating ocean ice could melt tomorrow without measurably increasing the ocean depth. What we have to worry about is the landlocked ice - most especially the West Antartica Ice Sheet. But this is not even close to melting, so this rising oceans scare a bunch of bunk.

I've noticed that CO2 has replaced CFCs as the new scare tactic. If you recall, it was absolutely "proven" that CFCs would cause dramatic climate change. The problem with that premise was that this was being touted well after CFCs were generally banned and Mt. Pinatubo (which put more CFCs into the atmosphere than all human industry has) proved otherwise.

It seems to me that CO2 is that latest scare de jour. You might keep in mind that an honest assessment of any climate model predicting the future is to see how well it predicts the past. So far, no climate model has a very good track record in this regard.

One last set of things. So far, we don't know if climate change is caused by human activities or not. Increased sun activity (of which, coincidentally, there has been a great amount in the last century) would be far more plausible. But even given that, is global warming necessarily bad? I know the assumption is, but just a few degrees change increases the crop land available.

Accurate measurements of land based temperatures began in 1979 and demonstrated that land based records, only available from 1850, are substantially inaccurate, such as due to UHI.

Systematic ocean based surface temperatures have only been available since 1979.

Thus, the only accurate database for attempting to measure a Global Average Temperature has existed for only 26 out of the 12.5 Billion years of earths history.

In the last billion years the chemical composition of earths atmosphere has completely changed three times.

Earths climate is and always has been undergoing constant change and subject to constant short term and cyclical variations.

Scores of long term non-linear, sometimes cyclical, natural phenomena (solar output, shifts in earths axis, shifts in earths orbit, shifts in magnetic field strength) are known to substantially impact GAT.

Earths systems/mechanisms responding to atmospheric changes (e.g. oak tree root systems increasing earth storage of CO2 as C02 levels increase) are largely unknown.

The mechanisms by which CO2 moderates earth temperatures is non linear and has not been accurately modeled.

In the twenty seven years of available accurate data atmospheric conditions and earths temperatures have been substantially influenced by two major volcanic eruptions and by El Nino activity.

Man made contributons to atmospheric CO2 accounts for 7/160ths of /.03% of total atmospheric compositoin, while water vapor constitues up to 10 to 12 times more of the greenhouse gas effect than total C02 from all sources.

Whether or not human based C02 emissions are contributing to Global Warming is currently a scientific UNCERTAINTY due to the limited amount of accurate data. See: University of Alabama at Hunstville, Global Climate Research (no industry funding).

Percentage of Americans who do not believe there is any short term urgency to the "Global Warming" problem = 69%
Source ABC News Poll 2006.

If any side in the GW debate has "a lot of convincing to do" it quite obviously is not the skeptics whose opinions are grounded in facts, reliable data, and common sense.

Too often, in the face of scientific uncertainty, reasonable conservatives are hesitant to directly challenge the possibility that AGW is a scientific fraud, but the alignment of political, economic, and psuedo scientific anti american anti capitalist forces in support of AGW and their conclusive consensus in the face of proven scientific uncertainty is the tippoff that it is a hoax of political convenience and has less than a random chance of ever proving accurate.

Thanks for admitting that you guys have a lot of convincing to do.

I fail to see how that's much of an admission. My point was that too many people think global warming is the world's most important problem and socialism is its solution. I assume you agree with this point. I also said that

We need to show the public why economic cost-benefit analyses are salient, why government intervention in economies almost always hurts more than it helps, especially when done by global rather than local institutions. We need to have more free trade with countries like Brazil that have developed alternative fuels and to stop subsidizing out corn farmers.

What part of that don't you agree with? The only point I could imagine a conservative disagreeing with is the last one.

You then said:

Let's hope that more studies which are not funded by oil companies come up that you can use as sources. I don't think people will trust them.

I hope you're not including yourself in that group. An open minded, rational person judges the actual content, not the source of a presentation. Unless you actually believe that the ad hominem fallacy is NOT a fallacy.

Finally, as to your advice to "keep trying":

Well, of course. A wise man I heard on the radio the other day said he won't stop till everyone else agrees with him and (as a consequence) leftists are so rare as to be thought of as harmless eccentrics-- and in this as in so many other things, Rush was right.

I have not once gotten into the economical consequences of global warming. I simply debate the causes of global warming.

You believed McKitrick's conclusions about his data, which in its raw form you cannot understand, unless you are a scientist. It's not like you sat and analyzed step by step the data presented in his paper.

I might want to compare Wigley's and Oppenheimer's and Michael Mann's views to yours, but you would have to tell me about your credentials first. I'm just not inclined to believe a baseball player over climatologists on a global warming issue.

When trying to convince people, we cannot invite them to analyze highly technical raw data because they will not understand it. We are left with the conclusions by prestigious sciensits make about this data. (for example, if an economist from an exxon-funded institute says something and a prestigious climatologist criticizes it, this likely to tilt people towards the climatologist).

This mistake is what led to my fellow debater, who was probably to try to smear Zhou after learning about his conclusions on his own study.

As for the "convincing people" discussion, it is a key to skeptics' future success to come up with a substancial amount of new studies. One study (and funded by an oil company) will not suffice against the majority of climatologists who believe in global warming.

I don't understand why there isn't a bigger amount of studies backing their views.

Nuclear power is always a good idea. The use of fossil fuels for energy production makes up a large piece of the energy pie. Fossil fuels like coal can be better used by being changed into a transportable fuels--methanol-- which can be used for automobiles. Methanol, by the way offers the best cost effective way for the future of fuel cells. With the use of nuclear energy for our electricity, we free up fossil fuels for their best use--methanol--and lessen our dependency on foreign oil. And, if the envirototalitarians can be given a little happiness, a reduction in the CO2 emissions. They will have joy that they can smoke more pot without being worried that the CO2 levels will go out of control.

It's good to see that you've given up the notion that poll is the proper way to evaluate science, as you intimated when you said that this will remain subjective until perhaps a poll is made asking the question "would you trust a study made on global warming that is funded by an oil company"?

However, you've now gone in the opposite direction. Your criticism of McKitrick seems to be that he is an economist, not a scientist--- yet you also claim that only scientists can evaluate his work. This leaves you promoting the odd position that McKitrick is in no position to evaluate his own work. To be fair, since Mckitrick has been published in peer reviewed scientific journals, I doubt you really meant to impugn his expertise. The author of the article the thread is actually about trusts 86 evangelicals to tell him what he should think about global warming. Presumably you would take issue with him as well.

The reason I brought up the issue of cost benefit analysis is because the lack of this being taken into consideration is what makes global warming enthusiasts hysterics, not their belief in global warming. "I simply debate the causes of global warming" is an insufficient answer to a very plain and very easy question.

Your statement that now I go in the opposite direction would be true If I had not criticized the fact that McKitrick was an economist before. I pointed this out in addition to my criticism of the funding by interested parties.

And you talk about me impugning McKitrick the economist, but you impugn Tom Wigley, whose credentials are so long that I don't feel like typing them again or else my fingers would get tired, and who said McKitrick is full of it.
"I simply debate the causes of global warming" is a sufficient, not insufficient, answer to a very plain and very easy question.
I came here to discuss the causes of global warming.

Well, Wigley impugned McKitrick's comments, and you believe McKitrick. Doesn't it follow that you impugn Wigley's comments on McKitrick??

In addition to this, and changing the subject a little, The president of the American Geophysics Union is quoted saying the following about the McKitrick-Mcintyre study:

“It’s a bit out of balance, obviously,” laughs John Orcutt, president of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). “But the Wall Street Journal has a conservative point of view, and studies like [McIntyre’s] are the type of stuff that attracts them.”

link

In the same link we can read James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute, saying "there is something rotten in Washington".

Well, Wigley impugned McKitrick's comments, and you believe McKitrick. Doesn't it follow that you impugn Wigley's comments on McKitrick??

No.

Oh, no! Not another ad hominem argument, attacking the motive rather than the substance of a position! This one by Orcutt is unwarranted for at least three reasons:

1. Ad hominem is a logical fallacy.

2. Except in cases where it makes no difference either way, having a conservative point of view is a strength, not a weakness. By definition, only a leftist would claim otherwise.

3. The article Orcutt references was on the news page, not in the editorial section; the two are run independently of one another. Anyone who claims the Wall Street Journal news pages are conservative is either politically naive, doesn't read the Wall Street Journal much, or is simply an Eric Alterman-level leftist. Whichever Orcutt may be of the the three doesn't matter for our purposes, since none of them leave him in a position to comment on the purported bias of the Journal.

And, just to be clear, I never said I agreed with McKitrick's analysis-- I merely took issue with unfair ad hominems against him.

You speak about fallacies, but you claim that "anyone who reads" the Wall Street Journal is among other things, an "Eric Alterman-level leftist".

Wow. Show me the results of the study you made concluding that 100% of people who read the wall street are "politically naive" and tell me the methodology used. Because you want to get technical, right? What's up with the attack on the man and not the content?

Orcutt has many, many years of expertise on climatology, and if he doubts McKitrick's study, I believe Orcutt. Because it is clear that neither you or me have analized the raw data on these studies. All we have left with is conclusions by scientists. You choose to believe the economist from the Exxon-funded institute. I choose to believe all those prestigious climatologists.

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