After reading many newspaper articles and listening to commentators talk about the issue of global warming, I realize that little reasoned debate actually takes place.
Some politicians say the debate is over and we must act now. This type of reasoning is antithetical to the critical thinking skills that my college experience has ingrained in me.
Therefore, I cannot simply swallow the global warming/climate change mantra because a so-called “majority” or “consensus” says so.
The first stumbling block when discussing global warming is defining the issue.
It has come to my attention that the phrase global warming is now passé. The new in vogue term is climate change. I’m not sure why global warming needed a makeover but that’s another issue.
The debate is about man-caused climate change (a.k.a. anthropogenic global warming) and whether humans have a significant negative impact on climate change.
But these clarifications are sometimes not mentioned by the media.
Many times people who don’t believe in anthropogenic climate change are accused of denying any kind of climate change. This is just a straw man attack leveled at skeptics to make them look stupid because, what insane person would believe that climate is a static entity that never changes?
Another tactic used against skeptics is to label them as deniers instead of skeptics. This is simply a rhetorical trick that distorts the skeptic’s position.
The skeptic is lacking evidence for his belief and is not intentionally denying a truth.
Many times it is psychologically uncomfortable for those who have such a strong belief about something to look at the evidence objectively because of the high emotional investment in their belief. So to them the “deniers” are not rational skeptics but instead are people who have a warped sense of reality.
Another problem I have with the whole climate change issue is the repeated appeals to authority.
Supposedly nobody can talk about the issue unless they are some kind of expert on climatology. Last time I checked, you were not required to have a Ph.D. in critical thinking to be a skeptical critical thinker.
I don’t have to be an expert on the climate to realize the proposed solution is a one-sided solution. This apparent problem can only be solved by government intervention.
As a critical thinker I reject all or nothing approaches to problems. Why can’t the solution be market-based, voluntary or scientific? Why must the only solution be a big government one?
Looking at the science behind anthropogenic global warming, one can find many problems, but I will just highlight a few.
A major premise in the man-caused global warming theory is that rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels cause temperature to increase. Al Gore, in his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” presented this correlation between CO2 levels and temperature as proof for CO2 causing temperature increase.
As any good scientist knows, correlation does not equal causation, but it can point you in the direction of the possible cause.
Many scientists are challenging Gore’s premise.
Climatologist Tim Ball argues that the ice core sample data points to higher temperatures as the cause of rising CO2 levels. He points to data that shows CO2 levels lag hundreds of years behind corresponding temperature levels.
Another aspect often overlooked by anthropogenic global warming believers is the effect that natural causes, like the sun, have on climate change.
Some scientists look at the data and think that solar theories about climate change fit the data better than anthropogenic theories. It seems counter intuitive to argue that humans have such a significant impact on natural processes when we don’t have such a significant impact on natural processes like gravity, planetary motion or tidal movements.
Do human beings really possess the ability to affect immense natural phenomena on the scale that the sun can?
Nevertheless, the anthropogenic climate change crowd could be right. But how correct are they? What is the magic ideal CO2 level for Earth? How are we going to decide the ideal CO2 levels? Should we just exponentially decrease CO2 usage?
If CO2 is such a problem, will we look to somehow decrease the effect of non-human CO2 producers like volcanoes?
As a critical thinker, one must assess the possible negative side effects of acting on this supposed problem.
Maybe reducing CO2 levels will decrease the amount of the necessary ingredients that plants use to produce oxygen. Maybe Third World countries will be more negatively impacted by climate change legislation.
Possibly, our solution could make the world worse off.
Whatever the real answer to the cause(s) of climate change is, I hope that people will remain skeptical of all claims people make, especially those in the climate change debate.
Don’t blindly accept consensus when deciding the merits of an argument. And don’t take my word for it either.
Use the critical reasoning skills you have acquired through your college experience, investigate the issue and decide for yourself.
Increase Text Size
Decrease Text Size
Print Story
Mail to Friend
More Stories
Comments
Okay, here's my critical reasoning for why you are wrong to quote Tim Ball. The man is former head of Friends of Science, a non-profit organization, closely linked to the oil industry. Not exactly the type of guy to go around proclaiming anthropogenic global warming is real. It wouldn't be good for his bank account or career now would it?
Also, I can point you to about 10 different graphs showing that CO2 does not lag, but actually is in sync with rising global temperatures. I think the evidence is pretty clear that when CO2 rises so does temperature. This has been true throughout all of Earth's history. So whether it's human CO2 or natural CO2, they work in the same way. And since humans are emitting a mass amount of CO2 into the atmosphere, I'd say that there's a very good chance that we are doing something. Once again, another skeptic fails to see the problem beyond a human timescale.
Where does the Daily get these columnists? Are they pulling from T. Boone Pickens' personal propaganda machine?
I'd much rather listen to some skeptic Know-it-all college student with no experience in climate science whatsoever over the scientists at NASA, NOAA and the USGS who've spent their careers looking at climate change. I'm sure I'll make a real informed decision that way.
Thank you Cambrian.
As college students it is completely necessary to be a critical thinker. You have to think about how over 6.5 billion people use resources on this planet, the rate at which we dispose of our resources, and how we continue to flatten mountains and rainforests for our own uses. As you can see humans do very little to harm this planet and can't cause our ph levels in the oceans to rise, destroy entire ecological systems, cause dead zones in our oceans, completely wipe our entire species, and of all things we are not able to raise the temperature of this planet. Anyone who has any common sense can just look around and tell that humans are causing so much damage to our planet. Fortunately, we can have hope, it is the 21st century and todays technology will help us solve all the problems we have created. The world is not doomed, but it is getting in pretty poor shape and we are going to have a lot of problems unfortunately. With hopeful passage of the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act in the Senate in the coming months along with the international climate talks in December, world leaders will convene and will hopefully agree upon a smart and fair treaty. This is not a time to debate on whether or not climate change is real, because if we look at other problems we are causing worldwide like I mentioned above than we should shift our ways and go green. It is unfortunate that big oil and coal along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and mainly Republicans and some Democrats that are fighting against a new and better economy. We cannot be scared of the future, we must move forward and protects Gods green earth. I believe in the hope of people to do the right thing. It is the 21st century and I hope people wake up and start believing in the hope for this country and the world to move in the right direction.
The term "global warming" is, in fact, passé, and we are now expected to use the term "global climate change". However, I would suggest that this new term isn't quite sufficient to encompass all that the terrible cancer of humanity is doing to the Earth. I would like to propose yet a new term...weather. If it is raining, shinning, windy, calm, hot, cold, icy, wet, dry, or any other meteorological phenomenon that could possibly occur, we should call it weather and attribute it entirely to carbon dioxide released by filthy humans.
Actually there have been studies that weaken the assumption that solar activity is the contributing factor to the recent measurements of global warming. They found no correlation, as I recall.
Now while it's true you don't need a Ph.D. to be a skeptic, you also need to have the proper scientific understanding to logically debate the issue. Your questions about the "ideal" carbon dioxide level, for example, are patently ridiculous. The biosphere existed for eons before humans began to release the amounts of carbon, and to assume that our increased CO2 levels are somehow needed for the environment is silly and not the result of well-considered skepticism.
As to the political consequences, you need to realize that they are just that: political. You can accept the science and be skeptical about the politics; however, this article lumps them together in one large amalgam that fails to distinguish scientific evidence from the proposed political solution.
That being said, CO2 excess is a classic case of the "tragedy of the commons" if you accept the notion that its excess damages the native environment. Look it up.
Finally, please don't mention Al Gore's movie in a skeptical debate... because guess what? He SIMPLIFIED what he was told by the scientists in an effort to make the information accessible to a broader audience. He widely succeeded in this respect, but don't mistake mass-marketed popular science for scientific rigor. He left things out. No peer-reviewed article will ever mention Al Gore as a reference for fact, and neither should you.
In fact, a good skeptic will disregard this article entirely.
Post a comment
Commenting requires registration.