Ordinary Gweilo

I have now got round to reading Senator Inhofe’s speech about how global warming is all a hoax perpetrated by self-interested scientists and the media.  Before I get to that, though, I have been reading New Scientist magazine:

"Further global warming of 1 °C defines a critical threshold. Beyond that we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know."

So says Jim Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. Hansen and colleagues have analysed global temperature records and found that surface temperatures have been increasing by an average of 0.2 °C every decade for the past 30 years. Warming is greatest in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, particularly in the sub-Arctic boreal forests of Siberia and North America. Here the melting of ice and snow is exposing darker surfaces that absorb more sunlight and increase warming, creating a positive feedback.

Earth is already as warm as at any time in the last 10,000 years, and is within 1 °C of being its hottest for a million years, says Hansen’s team. Another decade of business-as-usual carbon emissions will probably make it too late to prevent the ecosystems of the north from triggering runaway climate change, the study concludes (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 103, p 14288).

and an editorial:

AMONG climate researchers, the consensus is growing that global warming may be close to a tipping point beyond which runaway feedbacks could take hold, creating what George W. Bush’s top climate modeller this week calls "a different planet" (see "’One degree and we’re done for’"). Yet the political discourse that should be helping us find ways to respond to such warnings remains a mess.

Last week, the Royal Society in London sent a measured complaint to the oil company ExxonMobil, asking it to end its long-standing and extensive funding of lobby groups that the society says "misinform the public" on climate change. What response does it get? Nothing from ExxonMobil and its lobbyists, whose contempt for one of the world’s oldest scientific institutions seems to rival their contempt for good science. Instead, we get lectures from climate change sceptics, such as the UK-based Scientific Alliance, which claims the Royal Society wants to "close down debate". It further charges that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the cornerstone of scientific consensus-building on the issue, has become politicised.

This is farcical. The Scientific Alliance and its ilk have done more than anyone to politicise this debate, and now they have the cheek to claim purity of purpose. There is plenty of room to discuss the nature and extent of climate change, but the politically and commercially motivated abuse of science carried out by some climate change sceptics and those who back them needs to be exposed for what it is. Let the contrarians speak, by all means. But bullying, like censorship, has no place in scientific debate.

Sadly, I think that the last thing that Senator Inhofe and friends want is a real scientific debate.

You can find Senator Inhofe’s speech here. 

His first critism of the media is they have a history of getting it wrong on environmental issues.  He cites stories about "global cooling" from the pages of Time and Newsweek 20 years ago to support his case.  However, if you actually read the Time article you will find that it gives a fairly balanced account of different theories about what might happen in the future.  Also, there is an important distinction between stories about ‘global cooling’ in the 70s and today’s about global warming.  Twenty years ago there was certainly no scientific consensus about global cooling, whereas today there is a consensus about global warming. 

Of course the mass media do like a sensational story, and do frequently get the facts wrong.  Where I agree with Inhofe is that there are many examples of scare stories that turn out to have been totally wrong.  The Economist highlighted some examples nearly 9 years ago (Plenty of gloom):

IN 1798 Thomas Robert Malthus inaugurated a grand tradition of environmentalism with his best-selling pamphlet on population. Malthus argued with impeccable logic but distinctly peccable premises that since population tended to increase geometrically (1,2,4,8 ) and food supply to increase arithmetically (1,2,3,4 ), the starvation of Great Britain was inevitable and imminent. Almost everybody thought he was right. He was wrong.

It’s worth reading the full article (and you will notice that back then The Economist was more sceptical about global warming). I am sure there are dozens more examples – locally, what about the plague of red fire ants or shoulder surfing or SARS (and maybe Bird Flu)?  So a certain amount of scepticism is always a good thing.

Inhofe’s second point is that the media reports are often one-sided.  Wow, really?  Still, at least Fox News is "fair and balanced", so that’s one less thing to worry about. 

So where does this leave us?  Inhofe is right to warn that any articles about global warming in Time or Newsweek probably need to be taken with a pinch of salt.  Science is not exactly their strong point – they simplify it, add a few pretty diagrams, find an "expert" to make it look credible, and off they go.

Of course Inhofe doesn’t just want to convince us that this is just shoddy journalism.  He thinks the media are actually biased in favour of environmentalists.  No surprise there, because on almost any contentious issue both sides normally argue that they are getting a raw deal from the media.  In reality it’s almost impossible to be objective and balanced (and when I try it, I get accused of ‘sitting on the fence’).  On an issue where the scientific consensus is clear, surely "balanced" is likely to mean that you reflect that consensus – not to give equal time to the majority and minority views.

Inhofe complains that it is unfair for the media to highlight the fact that certain scientists receive fundings from energy companies and not to do the same when the money comes from ‘left-wing’ groups (such as the Heinz Foundation (run by Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of John).  The reason surely is that energy companies have a financial interest in the outcome of the debate, whereas the Heinz Foundation does not. 

Interestingly, in the UK this debate is no longer divided on party political lines, and instead there is a consensus amongst all three major parties that global warming is a real issue.  Both the government and business seem determined to something about it.  Here are two recent stories from The Guardian:

Warming will cost trillions, says report

Shell’s chairman, James Smith, said: "We do have to tackle climate change and that’s a matter for government, companies and individuals as well, because the costs in the coming years from rising sea levels, from floods and extremes of climate will be too high.

"The cost-benefit equation of action to tackle climate change is favourable. That’s true not just for the UK but internationally as well," he said on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

Government plans climate change law

The government signalled yesterday that it is planning legislation to tackle climate change, with a bill possibly to appear in next month’s Queen’s Speech, as it acknowledges the formidable political consensus emerging over the need for action.

Which, I guess, brings us back to Senator Inhofe.  He is not interested in a consensus, and indeed it seems he is not interested in getting to the truth.  Instead he rants about media bias and cherry picks scientific research that fits in with what he wants to believe.