Arkady
President
For the most part, climate change denialism does not involve people who have specific issues with specific building blocks of the consensus position. Rather, it involves people who have political issues with where that case ends up, and so they'll regurgitate any critique they think hurts it. If you check out the leading denialist blogs, you'll see what I mean. They effectively act as clearing houses for any argument that might help block policy action. They're equally happy to devote space to denying that warming is happening, or to accepting that it's happening but denying the human role, or accepting those things but insisting it will be beneficial, or just ignoring the science entirely and attacking Al Gore and Leo DiCaprio personally.
I don't mean to brand all denialists that way. There are a handful who don't take that "throw in the kitchen sink" propagandistic approach. Instead, they get very specific in their criticisms of one element of the case. One historical example were the scientists who suggested the rapid measured warming was due to expanded heat islands (formerly rural weather stations finding themselves in the hot concrete footprint of an expanded city-scape, and thus registering higher temperatures). That was an honest scientific critique, in that it was specific and substantive, and in its nature it suggested a way to test that alternate hypothesis. And, in fact, that alternative was tested, by recompiling the data using just the best sites, where expanding heat islands weren't an issue. When that showed nearly an identical temperature trend as the full data set had shown, it changed the minds of the honest denialists whose objections had been based on that specific hypothetical problem.
Other examples of relatively honest denialists would include Freeman Dyson -- not a climate expert, but a distinguished scientist who has focused on problems with climate modeling and thus predictions driven by such models. Judith Curry is another example. She's a former professor from Georgia (and current social media personality) whose criticisms are mostly focused on the idea that the mainstream science underplays uncertainties while doing too much guessing when it comes to how dangerous the change will be.
In the interest of seeing whether the denialists here are of the variety who focus on particular perceived weaknesses in the science, or whether they're the "kitchen sink" variety who are just as happy whining about any aspect of the case (or the personalities involved), for political/cultural reasons, I'm hoping people can identify which particular building blocks of the case they're objecting to:
(1) Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons.
(2) When hydrocarbons are burned, they release a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere.
(3) Humans have been burning huge amounts of hydrocarbons, including billions of tons of coal and tens of billions of barrels of oil per year.
(4) CO2 levels in the atmosphere, which had varied only within a fairly narrow range for hundreds of thousands of years, have, since the start of the industrial era, shot up to levels at least a third greater than reached during all that time.
(5) The recent dramatic spike in atmospheric CO2 is consistent with it being mostly due to human activities (in terms of isotope signature, timing, and the obvious issue that we know for a fact we've been adding comparable levels of CO2 by burning fossil fuels).
(6) CO2 resonates at infrared frequencies -- meaning it can absorb radiation at those frequencies and turn it into heat (also called the greenhouse effect).
(7) The more CO2 that infrared radiation has to travel through, the more of the radiation will be absorbed and converted to heat before it can pass into space.
(8) Global temperatures have risen during the industrial era.
(9) That increase has accelerated over the course of that era.
(10) There is no comparably large and rapid increase over the course of thousands of years prior to the industrial era.
(11) The pattern of measured warming is consistent with solar radiation being the primary source (e.g., less warming in the deep sea, deep caves, and other places sensitive to geothermal heat, and more in the atmosphere and surface seas).
(12) Sea levels have been rising at an unusually rapid pace in recent decades.
(13) Sea levels will continue to rise unusually rapidly, as a result of glacial melting and thermal expansion, if the earth keeps warming unusually rapidly.
(14) There has been an unusually high rate of species extinction in recent decades.
(15) The rate of species extinction will continue to be unusually high if the earth keep warming unusually rapidly, as it overwhelms the capacity for species to adapt, evolve, or migrate.
(16) Climate change shifts zones for diseases, exposing new populations that lack natural resistance, meaning a bigger hit from those diseases (e.g., "virgin" populations of humans being exposed to malaria, or non-resistant crops being exposed to pests and blights that previously couldn't thrive in their climate zone).
(17) Oceans absorb more CO2 when exposed to higher-CO2 atmosphere.
(18) More dissolved CO2 in water makes it more acidic.
(19) Many marine species struggle to live in more acidic ocean water.
(20) There are practical steps humans can take to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere (e.g., reducing high-carbon energy generation in favor of low-carbon generation).
(21) There is no currently identified alternate natural explanation that would explain the sudden and massive spikes in CO2 and temperatures.
I'm hoping for something other than "they're all fake news and also Al Gore sucks." I'm hoping at least some of the denialists here are focused specifically on one or two perceived weaknesses in the science -- something that we could dig into and test with specificity, similar to that old heat-island argument.
I don't mean to brand all denialists that way. There are a handful who don't take that "throw in the kitchen sink" propagandistic approach. Instead, they get very specific in their criticisms of one element of the case. One historical example were the scientists who suggested the rapid measured warming was due to expanded heat islands (formerly rural weather stations finding themselves in the hot concrete footprint of an expanded city-scape, and thus registering higher temperatures). That was an honest scientific critique, in that it was specific and substantive, and in its nature it suggested a way to test that alternate hypothesis. And, in fact, that alternative was tested, by recompiling the data using just the best sites, where expanding heat islands weren't an issue. When that showed nearly an identical temperature trend as the full data set had shown, it changed the minds of the honest denialists whose objections had been based on that specific hypothetical problem.
Other examples of relatively honest denialists would include Freeman Dyson -- not a climate expert, but a distinguished scientist who has focused on problems with climate modeling and thus predictions driven by such models. Judith Curry is another example. She's a former professor from Georgia (and current social media personality) whose criticisms are mostly focused on the idea that the mainstream science underplays uncertainties while doing too much guessing when it comes to how dangerous the change will be.
In the interest of seeing whether the denialists here are of the variety who focus on particular perceived weaknesses in the science, or whether they're the "kitchen sink" variety who are just as happy whining about any aspect of the case (or the personalities involved), for political/cultural reasons, I'm hoping people can identify which particular building blocks of the case they're objecting to:
(1) Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons.
(2) When hydrocarbons are burned, they release a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere.
(3) Humans have been burning huge amounts of hydrocarbons, including billions of tons of coal and tens of billions of barrels of oil per year.
(4) CO2 levels in the atmosphere, which had varied only within a fairly narrow range for hundreds of thousands of years, have, since the start of the industrial era, shot up to levels at least a third greater than reached during all that time.
(5) The recent dramatic spike in atmospheric CO2 is consistent with it being mostly due to human activities (in terms of isotope signature, timing, and the obvious issue that we know for a fact we've been adding comparable levels of CO2 by burning fossil fuels).
(6) CO2 resonates at infrared frequencies -- meaning it can absorb radiation at those frequencies and turn it into heat (also called the greenhouse effect).
(7) The more CO2 that infrared radiation has to travel through, the more of the radiation will be absorbed and converted to heat before it can pass into space.
(8) Global temperatures have risen during the industrial era.
(9) That increase has accelerated over the course of that era.
(10) There is no comparably large and rapid increase over the course of thousands of years prior to the industrial era.
(11) The pattern of measured warming is consistent with solar radiation being the primary source (e.g., less warming in the deep sea, deep caves, and other places sensitive to geothermal heat, and more in the atmosphere and surface seas).
(12) Sea levels have been rising at an unusually rapid pace in recent decades.
(13) Sea levels will continue to rise unusually rapidly, as a result of glacial melting and thermal expansion, if the earth keeps warming unusually rapidly.
(14) There has been an unusually high rate of species extinction in recent decades.
(15) The rate of species extinction will continue to be unusually high if the earth keep warming unusually rapidly, as it overwhelms the capacity for species to adapt, evolve, or migrate.
(16) Climate change shifts zones for diseases, exposing new populations that lack natural resistance, meaning a bigger hit from those diseases (e.g., "virgin" populations of humans being exposed to malaria, or non-resistant crops being exposed to pests and blights that previously couldn't thrive in their climate zone).
(17) Oceans absorb more CO2 when exposed to higher-CO2 atmosphere.
(18) More dissolved CO2 in water makes it more acidic.
(19) Many marine species struggle to live in more acidic ocean water.
(20) There are practical steps humans can take to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere (e.g., reducing high-carbon energy generation in favor of low-carbon generation).
(21) There is no currently identified alternate natural explanation that would explain the sudden and massive spikes in CO2 and temperatures.
I'm hoping for something other than "they're all fake news and also Al Gore sucks." I'm hoping at least some of the denialists here are focused specifically on one or two perceived weaknesses in the science -- something that we could dig into and test with specificity, similar to that old heat-island argument.
You are welcome.......he lost
