The global warming “crisis” and why science and politics don’t mix
Best-selling author Michael Crichton, whose books featured technology and medical themes, wrote an article titled “Politicized Science Is Dangerous.” His article opens:
“Imagine that there is a new scientific theory that warns of an impending crisis, and points to a way out.
“This theory quickly draws support from leading scientists, politicians and celebrities around the world. Research is funded by distinguished philanthropies, and carried out at prestigious universities. The crisis is reported frequently in the media. The science is taught in college and high school classrooms.”
Crichton was not referring to global warming. Instead he described a theory supported by Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, Alexander Graham Bell, and George Bernard Shaw as well as professors at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Johns Hopkins.
The relative few who challenged the theory were ostracized and shunted into intellectual purgatory.
The theory: eugenics, the science of improving the human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. Needless to say, it fell out of favor following World War II courtesy of the Nazis.
Crichton wrote, “Today, we know that this famous theory that gained so much support was actually pseudoscience. The crisis it claimed was nonexistent.”
So how did eugenics retain so much support from so many distinguished individuals and institutions for so long?
In a nutshell, its arguments seemed to make sense at first glance. And making the opposing argument was difficult, essentially arguing to continue filling the world with those possessing less desirable characteristics.
In the last 50 years, we have seen a number of “scientific theories” describing impending crises. The solutions seemed to make sense and gained popular support.
Start with the concept of “nuclear winter” that would result from a massive superpower exchange of nuclear weapons. In the late 1970s, both the National Academy of Sciences and the Office of Technology Assessment said the science was poorly understood and the climate effects likely minor.
Yet in 1982 the Swedish Academy of Sciences speculated that smoke would cover the Northern Hemisphere, blocking the sun and disabling photosynthesis — nuclear winter. Celebrity scientist Carl Sagan opined that a nuclear exchange would cause temperatures to drop below freezing for three months.
There were no studies and no serious research to back the nuclear winter theory. Princeton theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson explained why there were no counterarguments: “It’s an absolutely atrocious piece of science, but who wants to be accused of being in favor of nuclear war?”
Turn to another example of politicized science, the health risks of secondhand smoke.
In 1994, the Environmental Protection Agency found that 11 studies of the link between secondhand smoke and cancer were not conclusive. Undaunted, it labeled secondhand smoke a carcinogen. Ditto the World Health Organization.
Since then, study after study has found no statistically significant relationship between cancer and breathing secondhand smoke. Yet no one takes the other side of the argument.
Once again, no one is in favor of secondhand smoke, so the lack of scientific rigor is given a pass.
Crichton turned to global warming:
“Now we are engaged in a great new theory that once again has drawn the support of politicians, scientists, and celebrities around the world. Once again, the theory is promoted by major foundations.
“Once again, the research is carried out at prestigious universities. Once again, legislation is passed and social programs are urged in its name. Once again, critics are few and harshly dealt with.
“Once again, the measures being urged have little basis in fact or science. Once again, groups with other agendas are hiding behind a movement that appears high-minded. Once again, claims of moral superiority are used to justify extreme actions.
“Once again, the fact that some people are hurt is shrugged off because an abstract cause is said to be greater than any human consequences. Once again, vague terms like sustainability and generational justice — terms that have no agreed definition — are employed in the service of a new crisis.
“I am not arguing that global warming is the same as eugenics. But the similarities are not superficial. And I do claim that open and frank discussion of the data, and of the issues, is being suppressed.
“Leading scientific journals have taken strong editorial positions of the side of global warming, which, I argue, they have no business doing. Under the circumstances, any scientist who has doubts understands clearly that they will be wise to mute their expression.”
Crichton’s prescient words remain true today. Climate is extremely complex. No climate model can explain the earth’s temperature history, not one. There is no scientific rigor linking global warming to carbon dioxide, only a correlation between increases in the two in recent decades.
Yet even that correlation is uncertain. While atmospheric carbon dioxide has steadily increased over the last century, global temperatures have fluctuated inexplicably. What is presented as a clear upward trend is the result of “adjustments” to actual measured data.
Recent headlines reported that last year was the globe’s hottest on record. Yet buried far down in the story was the fact that last year was only 34th warmest in the last century for the continental U.S. No explanation is available for why the U.S. is an island of cooler temperatures.
As an engineer, I support the efficient and sustainable use of all resources. I drive a hybrid car and plan to replace it with an all-electric vehicle in coming years. But I oppose the drastic and ill-considered anti-carbon policy prescriptions of the radical left.
The motivation of those advocating immediate action is exemplified in the Green New Deal. As Alston Chase put it, “When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power.”
The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.
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Not really worth commenting on, but here goes: Balderdash.
Note: I’m working on a rebuttal to this opinion article, which I hope will be in next Sunday’s edition.
Also, Mr. van der Merwe’s comment, Balderdash is quite appropriate.
Where did Mr. Sierer get his doctorate in climate science? Trump University?
I have a Masters Degree in Planetary and Space Physics from UCLA and spent the early years of my career modeling complex astrodynamic phenomena described by non-linear differential equations. Climate science is far more complex and not amenable to a simplistic, one factor description. Sadly, as Michael Crichton describes, the chance to implement preferred political policies has overshadowed the science.
You do not advance your argument with an ad hominem attack on me. Instead your comment, like the two above it, illustrates Crichton’s statement, “I do claim that open and frank discussion of the data, and of the issues, is being suppressed.” I look forward to your contribution to an “open and frank discussion” of the data.
“I do claim that open and frank discussion of the data, and of the issues, is being suppressed.”
Were you being suppressed when you wrote this op-ed? This was your chance to demonstrate your expertise and discuss the data and the issues – and yet, all you did was make a bunch of claims without providing links to sources to back up those claims.
All Crichton does is cherry-pick instances in the past in which an issue was politicized and acted upon politically before enough scientific rigor could be performed to reach conclusive results. Hardly compelling evidence that it’s definitely the case in Climate Change.
You even misrepresent the one relevant link you provide to anything resembling data by claiming that the headline states that 2019 was the warmest on record – when the actual headline claims it’s the SECOND warmest on record. You may think that’s neglible, but when your attention to detail is so obviously lacking, it diminishes credibility.
Your credibility is also diminished by so obviously carving out something from that NASA report regarding the average tempature for the continental US while ignoring the data for the entire world – as if anyone is specifically focused on the only the 48 states. It’s yet another disingenuous cherry-pick to push your flawed narrative that you can’t even back up with any compelling evidence other than ‘there hasn’t been enough research because climate is so complex.’
So, here’s your second chance. Can you actually provide sources to back up your claims while simultaneous representing those sources accurately?
Interesting critique of my column, guilty of some of the same sins that you attribute to me:
My column was not suppressed because I have a publisher and editor open to a variety of viewpoints. When was the last time you read a column skeptical of climate change data in the MSM?
You missed the fact that Crichton only addressed eugenics. I added the nuclear winter and second hand smoke examples of cases where politics overrode science. Read more carefully next time.
My sincere apologies for mislabeling 2019 as the warmest on record. Whether it was first or second wasn’t central to my point.
Yes, I was “ignoring the data for the entire world” whose provenance is uncertain. Worldwide data is likely subject to the same kinds of measurement errors endemic to U.S. until NOAA’s Climate Reference Network showed that previously reported U.S. data was subject to a number of uncertainties, frequently wrong, and averaged 1-2 degrees higher than the actual air mass over the country.
But a thoughtful reading of my point was NOT to discuss the global data but to point out that there is no explanation for why temperatures in the continental U.S should be cooler in 2019 – only our 34th warmest on record – while the rest of the world was reported as warmer. Why are we an island of cooler temperatures while all those around us warming? Puzzles like this that are not answered by any climate model, give credence to scientific skepticism.
I backed up my skepticism in detail and at length in my column on this subject last fall: http://suindependent.com/u-s-temperatures-unchanged-since-2005-follow/
I am data driven and fully believe that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and has contributed to warming temperature. But the fundamental question is how much? No climate model can reproduce the earth’s temperature history in recent times, not one. All those that were used in years past predicted temperatures higher, sometimes much higher, than we’re observing today. What possible credence can they be given for their 2050 or 2100 predictions? Recall that Al Gore predicted that Manhattan’s streets would be underwater by 2015.
They fail because they assume ever-rising carbon dioxide levels are the driving force. But the data make clear that other factors must be in play, factors that have at least as big an impact. What are they? Lots of speculation, but no real answers…yet.
My bottom line is that these understandable scientific uncertainties are more than sufficient to prompt caution before we remake the world’s economies with the radical political solutions being bandied about today. Are you ready for the Green New Deal?
Furthermore, any action by the U.S. will be dwarfed by China, India and even Japan who are building coal fired power plants. China alone will be emitting more carbon dioxide than the U.S. and Europe combined by later in this decade. No international solution is within sight.
Now is a time for political caution while science chips away at the great climate change enigma.