Climate Climate & Energy

‘The scientists aren’t even sure’ — No scientist ever is

(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)

Objection: Even the scientists don't know that the climate is changing more than normal and if it's our fault or not. If you read what they write it is full of "probably," "likely," "evidence of" and all kinds of qualifiers. If they don't know for sure, why should we worry yet?

‘One hundred years is not enough’–Yes it is

(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)

Objection: One hundred and some years of global surface temperatures is not long enough to draw any conclusions from or worry about anyway.

Answer: The reliable instrumental record only goes back 150 years in the CRU analysis, 125 in the NASA analysis. This is a simple fact that we are stuck with. 2005 was the warmest year recorded in that period according to NASA, a very close second according to CRU. Because of this limit, it is not enough to say today that these are the warmest years since 150 years ago, rather one should say 'at least':

1998 and 2005 are the warmest two years in at least the last 150.

An interview on planning for climate change

An interview I recently did has been published in the newsletter of Caisse des Depots, a state-owned financial institution that performs public-interest missions on behalf of the French government. Also quoted in the interview is Patrick Criqui, Director of the Energy and Environmental Policy Department of the Grenoble LEPII. You can get the full newsletter here (PDF). It's all about the problems posed by the long timescale climate change operates on, and is definitely worth reading.

Here is the interview:

‘Warming is due to the Urban Heat Island effect’ — No, it isn’t

(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)

Objection: The apparent rise of global average temperatures is actually an illusion due to the urbanization of land around weather stations, the Urban Heat Island effect.

Hard-knock New England city welcomes region’s largest solar installation

Brockton, Mass., is championing solar power. Photos: SCHOTT Solar This city was once the shoemaking capital of the Northeast, and over the years it was home to boxers Rocky Marciano and Marvin Hagler, earning it the nickname “City of Champions.” Today, however, Brockton, Mass., holds the dubious honor of being one of the region’s trash […]

Crazed, Greedy Drilling in Texas? You Don’t Say

Natural-gas drilling booms in Fort Worth Forth Worth, Texas, lies atop a huge natural-gas field, and thus is at the center of the biggest urban drilling boom in the U.S. today. The city has leased more than 2,400 acres of public land for natural-gas development; over 600 wells have cropped up in the last year […]

‘Mauna Loa is a volcano’ — CO2 rise is measured on top of a volcano!

(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)

Objection: CO2 levels are recorded on top of Mauna Loa ... a volcano! No wonder the levels are so high.

(image courtesty of Global Warming Art)

‘There is no evidence’ — Yes, there is

(Part of the How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic guide)

Objection: Despite what the computer models tell us, there is actually no evidence of significant global warming.

Answer: Global warming is not an output of computer models; it is a conclusion based on observations of a great many global indicators. By far the most straightforward evidence is the actual surface temperature record. While there are places -- in England, for example -- that have records going back several centuries, the two major global temperature analyses can only go back around 150 years due to their requirements for both quantity and distribution of temperature recording stations.

These are the two most reputable globally and seasonally averaged temperature trend analyses:

A new series

We've all encountered them, shuffling across the cultural landscape like desiccated zombies: arguments about climate change that have been bludgeoned with a thousand rebuttals, but keep lurching to life, attacking again and again. Each time they appear, the search begins again for the same rebuttals, the same citations and resources. In the face of this kind of undead onslaught, even Buffy might lose her perk.

Coby Beck wants to help. Over the course of 2006, he's written a series of posts called "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic." He wanted to ...

... provide a layman's guide to defending against the assorted specious attacks that are out there, both by pointing out the basic logical fallacies they are based on and providing some appropriate reference material to avoid the typical "is too, is not" exchanges these things frequently devolve into.

Mission accomplished, as they say, almost 60 carefully argued posts and hundreds of citations later.

I'm very happy to report that Coby has agreed to join us here at Gristmill, and happier yet to report that he'll be bringing his series with him. Each entry will be updated, improved, or polished as necessary and then published on Gristmill, one per day.

How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic

A new series gives you the ammunition No matter how many times they are bludgeoned with informed rebuttals, the same skeptical arguments about climate change keep lurching back to life like zombies. It can get tiresome searching for the same counterarguments over and over again. A new series on Gristmill aims to put all those […]