With all of the fires and storms, I felt it was time again for me to post my thoughts on climate change.
Let me preface this by saying I do believe it is time for more action to reduce the human-made emissions which contribute to climate change. However, I think many people misunderstand the science.
I’ve looked at mainstream coverage of the science, going beyond the summary reports into individual studies. I’ve also looked at two or three “skeptic” scientists. I can summarize my position thusly:
* I am convinced the climate is in fact warming due to human-made effects.
* What the effect of this warming will be is far from clear, from a scientific standpoint.
With one exception, the claims of future calamities are based on statistics and computer models, which do not satisfy me. Statistics on a global scale are frankly easy to massage to one’s liking. And the attempts to model climate over time — to take into account all of the various factors and forces at play — are noble indeed, but to me are inconclusive. Consider the classic one-liner from chaos theory: the flapping of a butterfly’s wings over Hawaii can lead to a tornado in Nebraska. How in the world can scientists model with any degree of certainty weather patterns years or dozens of years from now? While the sheer number of studies predicting ill-effects is cause for concern, the doom-and-gloom hysterics seem overblown.
The exception is sea level rise. While I am convinced that measuring sea level is somewhat tricky, the combination of the melting of the glaciers (proven to me), and the expansion of ocean water due to temperature rise (also proven to me), indicate there is a real risk to coastal cities.
While the number of major calamities seems to be growing, most climate scientists will agree that their tools and techniques are not sufficient to say conclusively that any one event (forest fire, hurricane) has been caused by climate change. They are certainly working on developing tools which can do so, but they are not there yet. Add to this the vastly more rapid and comprehensive communication of daily events to many of us worldwide (fifty years ago we simply didn’t hear about as many weather events), and our perception of what is happening may be skewed. With regards to forest fires, I’ve heard several people say at least one cause relates to the ways in which we have been managing our forests.
That being said, on an intuitive level, it certainly seems to me that the number of extreme weather events is increasing, and doing so in line with the predictions of the climate change computer models. It is tempting for me to agree with Bernie Sanders and the governor of California and many others. But the science just doesn’t support my intuition – at least not yet.
Climate science for me resides between a hard science (chemistry) and a soft one (sociology). And predicting the future in any domain is tricky business. However, there is enough science to provoke me to want to watch things like heat waves, draughts, fires and so on. And to begin to prepare for the worst. Therefore, I support the calls for action to reduce emissions which cause climate change, as well as funding for preparations to deal with calamities (especially coastal flooding due to sea level rise.)
Lastly, many of the prescribed solutions (moving to non-fossil fuels, eating less meat for two examples) seem like good things to do for several reasons, for individuals as well as the planet. So why not just do the good things, for goodness’ sake (whether or not climate catastrophe is just around the corner)? This question of course is an invitation to a longer conversation…
Offered with Love.
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Post script:
My hypothesis is many people recognize that humanity is doing many harmful things. It is clear that spewing pollutants into the air from all kinds of smokestacks is bad for us. It is clear that discarded plastic is polluting our lands and oceans. It is clear that air quality is declining in many places around the world. It is clear many people cannot drink the tap water anymore. And the list goes on and on… So my hypothesis is that many people use climate science as a way to persuade people that we need to make healthy changes. Because apparently it is not enough to simply say, “doing these things is bad — we can see that — so let’s stop doing them.” I know it is bad to eat processed sugar, but I don’t stop. But if the fate of the world is at stake, then maybe I’ll stop.
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PPS: This statement needs researching. “As you warm up the atmosphere it can hold more moisture and so it can pull more moisture out of forest ecosystems, therefore drying them out faster. And so then as long as you get spark and wind, and you’ve got enough to burn, you are going to burn it.” Park Williams, hydro-climatologist, Columbia University. As quoted on the PBS News Hour. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aul7dVMaJRs
The following link is an excellent, accessible dive into the subject. From a brief skim, my conclusion is this: while there is some evidence climate change is leading to more severe forest fires, it is not yet conclusive. I would add that it seems logical that increased temperatures would lead to more evaporation which would lead to dryer forest vegetation which would lead to more fuel for fires. However, because there are so many factors to consider, it is a hard thing to pin down scientifically. At any rate, this link is definitely worth a skim…
Click here for the link
