Global warming?

[Henry]

Citing flat earth theory and other failed premises, or evolution and other successful premises, as synonymous to the AGW debate is a straw man argument - apples and oranges. These sorts of questions are scientific in nature and the debate did not conclude until the evidence was in. Long ago for flat earth theory (perhaps 5,000 years ago when the first mariner noticed the way the mast of a ship over the horizon emerges into view from top down), more recently for evolution, of course.

They fail at being representative corollaries because the AGW evidence is decidely not in, nor is the debate over. The debate may be over once a pro-AGW advocate is convinced, but others are not bound to his or her decision.

Citing consensus or citing the 'sheer numbers' of those who believe is a logical fallacy, that of the appeal to popularity, that if enough people believe a thing, that thing must be true. It brings an obvious question that illustrates why appeals to popularity lead inevitably to error - where is the tipping point? Is a premise untrue at 2,734,919 believers, but true at 2,734,920? True at 50.1% but not at 50%? It's absurd. That's not how reliable new knowledge is determined.

How then is it determined? By the scientific evidence, of course. With AGW the evidence depends entirely on one's faith in projective modeling, a decidedly unreliable methodology where the processes being modeled are complex, and very little exceeds global climate change in complexity. How to have faith, how to award belief, to a set of models that failed to predict global cooling over the past decade or so? Not to mention that if one speaks in terms of believing or not believing, one has ceased to speak in scientific terms.

Do not assume that because you hear so few voices speaking out against the 'fact' of AGW, that there are no such voices to be heard. Few can argue against the fact that to refuse to believe in AGW is to invite shout-downs of "denier! infidel! blasphemer!" and accusations of being pro-corporate fascist, capitalist pig, or any number of other belief-serving blind assumptions, nor is it any coincidence that this sort of reaction, just like the appeal to 'believe', is the stuff of religion, not science. One can imagine the appropriate AGW bumper sticker or tee shirt: "Gore said it, I believe it, and that settles it!"

If not the evidence, then what convinces people of AGW? That question may only be answered by the individuals involved, but one look at the resultant implications if/were anthropogenic global warming true lends a clue. If AWG is a fact and at a precipitously calamitous level, then all sorts of responses arise. They happen to fall right in line with certain political agenda, and those groups have seized the moment.

AGW justifies greenies wanting to move ASAP away from fossil fuels to renewables. AGW justifies those who would love to undermine the infrastructure of capitalism and western-style 'big bidness' sich as oil, coal, transportation, etc. AGW is extremely handy because of its global scope - one can use it to justify virtually anything with a little creative thinking.

Has the question of AGW been co-opted by assorted political factions in furtherance of their respective agenda? I don't think there's any doubt about that, nor that there's much doubt that most of these factions won little traction for their efforts before this latest round of global climate warnings. Logic dictates that AGW could be co-opted for political gain and also be true, but certification depends on solid, scientific evidence, not solidly done prospective models that nonetheless require faith in order to believe them accurate. A poorly executed scientific experiment or research teaches one nothing, for the results cannot be trusted. However, a well executed, well-controlled scientific experiment more often than not tells us our hypothesis was wrong than right, and this is a success. Too many pro-AGW advocates defend the scientific efficacy of the research and modeling as if that automatically translates into proof of AGW. That is nonsense. That jury remains faaaaar out.

I am old and recall the global cooling warnings of the 1970s, but more pertinently, I remember how assorted political factions attempted to co-opt global cooling for their agenda as well. Their efforts were short-lived and global cooling got little traction because (1) the science in support of it was scant, and (2) it was not claimed to be man-made, therefore held little political co-optive value.

If AGW were being co-opted politically, exaggerated in an effort to grab traction for pet political positions, what observations would that hypothesis produce?

1. First of all, you'd see dire predictions implying need of immediate actions.

2. Those immediately needed actions will coincide with the long-stated desires of a fairly narrow region of the political spectrum, most of which were sought before AGW came along.

3. Those dire predictions would remain always in the near-distant future, but not so distant as to lose their immediacy. Everything is just twenty years away. Twenty years from now, if AGW is not as advertised, everything will remain just twenty years away.

4. People who don't know how to interpret the scientific data will pretend they do, or will accept the interpretations of those who do know how - they will extend faith, once removed, and have no way to know if these trusted scientific believers are correct or not. Advocates will cite 'science' but think and behave decidedly unscientifically, relying on fallacies of logic, unscientific reasoning, and other pathways known to lead to error.

5. Propagandic practices will emerge if AGW is being co-opted for political gain. The crux of the biscuit is The Debate: Is Man Causing Global Warming And Is It Catastrophic? Political c0-option means the debate must be ended. However, the science and research is far from reliable, far from completed. What to do? Why, you simply declare there is no debate and move on. This makes it necessary to behave with obvious incongruency though - you'd have to simultaneously claim there is no debate even while the actual scientists continue to debate. However, if AGW is simply a political co-option, propagandic practices dictate you must declare the debate over and shout down anyone who says otherwise. Concoct negative labels like "deniers", which brings a tinge of evil resonance because of genuine labels from other debates, like 'Holocaust deniers'. If the infidel still resists, tie his refusal to believe negatively to his citizenship, his patriotism, or his morality. Keep it up until you find the irrelevancy that finally sticks. Eventually you'll wear him down anyway.

6. The truth of AGW lies along a continuum somewhere between (a) an as yet scientifically unproved hypothesis at best, and (b) an utter myth with no basis in reality at worst. However, if it is being co-opted to further socio-political goals, the discussion and 'debate' will proceed not on the acceptance of scientific evidence so strong it becomes unreasonable and illogical, not to accept it, but on calls to faith, on emotional appeals to believe for the good of __________ [fill in the political goal(s)], with castigations foisted upon the good citizenship, sincerity, patriotism, intelligence, and morality of any denier with the temerity to refuse to join the faith-based movement.

These are the sort of observations we'd expect to make if there were people using AGW to promote socio-political agenda. I'll leave it to the individual reader to decide if any of these are in evidence.

The amount of evidence for AGW is huge, literally mountains of data. However, far too much of it is speculative to say the least and emits from models of dubious efficacy. I would liken it to weak tea, too weak to 'drink' (accept as fact). One may pour a million gallons of weak tea into a huge vat, but in the end you still only have weak tea. The volume is irrelevant. In the same way, a premise is not established because a large number of people believe it.

As for me, I resist the call to 'believe' in AGW. I consider it a scientific question, one of potentially huge import, and certainly too important to leave to the vagaries of simple 'belief'. I have zero problem adhering to the fact of things concerning AGW - I don't know. And neither do you. Believe, yes. Know, no.

I don't want to believe - any idiot can simply believe a thing to be true. I want to know.