How the accumulation of evidence that man causes global warming led to a change in the thinking of the environmental skeptic who writes these lines
24.10.2006
By: Michael Shermer, Scientific American
The Cambridge University Press published in 2001 Bjorn Lomborg's book "The Environmental Skeptic" which, in my opinion, was a fascinating topic for discussion and debate in the series of lectures for the general public organized by the Society for Skepticism at the California Institute of Technology. The problem was that all the leading environmental organizations refused to participate. "There is no argument here," said one of the speakers. "We don't want to respect this book," said another. One of the leading environmental activists warned me that my reputation would be irreparably damaged if I insisted on holding the hearing. And so, of course, I insisted.
My experience is a symptom of the deep problems that have plagued the environmental movement for a long time. Activists vandalizing Hummer dealerships and destroying logging equipment are criminal eco-terrorists. Environmental groups that sow fear and despair so that donations will continue to flow into their coffers only damage their own credibility. As an undergraduate student in the 70s, I learned (and believed) that by the 90s population overgrowth would lead to global hunger and the elimination of important mineral reserves, metals and fuel, predictions that failed miserably. Politics contaminated the science and made me an environmental skeptic.
And yet, the data beat the politics. Accumulation of evidence from many sources led me to change my mind on the topic of global warming due to human influence. On February 8, 2006, my attention was drawn to the news that 86 Christian leaders—the last group I thought would join the environmental bandwagon—announced the "Evangelical Climate Initiative" calling for "national legislation that would require adequate and broad-based reductions in carbon dioxide emissions across the entire American economy." .”
Then I attended TED, the annual convention on technology, entertainment and design held in Monterey, California. There former Vice President Al Gore presented the single best summary I have ever heard of the evidence for global warming. The lecture was based on the new documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" describing his work on the subject. The amazing "before-and-after" photographs showing the disappearance of glaciers around the world shocked me and dislodged me from my skeptical position.
Four books finally brought me to the turning point. Archaeologist Brian Fagan's book "The Long Summer" claims that civilization is a gift from a passing period of mild climate. Geographer Jared Diamond's book Collapse shows how natural environmental disasters and human actions have led to the collapse of civilizations. Journalist Elizabeth Colbert's book "Notes from the Disaster Area" is an unmissable account of her travels around the world with environmental scientists documenting the extinction of biological species and climate changes undoubtedly related to human actions. And biologist Tim Flannery's book "Weather Signs" tells how he turned from a skeptical environmentalist into an activist out of faith in the face of the irrefutable data, accumulated over the past decade, linking the increase in carbon dioxide concentration to global warming.
The climate is like the porridge in "Goldilocks and the Three Bears": during the last ice age, CO2 levels were 180 parts per million - too cold. Between the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution the concentration rose to 280 parts per million - exactly as it should be. Today the concentration has reached 380 parts per million and it is expected to rise to 450 to 550 by the end of the century - too hot. Like water in a kettle that turns from liquid to gas when the temperature rises from 99 to 100 degrees, the entire environment is about to change its state under the influence of CO2.
According to Flannery's book, even if we reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by 70% by 2050, average global temperatures will rise by two to nine degrees by 2100. This will lead to the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which according to the March 24, 2006 Issue of the journal Science is already shrinking at a rate of 224±41 cubic kilometers per year, twice the rate measured in 2. For comparison, the city of Los Angeles consumes one cubic kilometer of water per year. If this mantle, and the one covering West Antarctica, melt, sea levels will rise 1996 to 5 meters, displacing half a billion people from their homes.
Because of the complexity of the problem, it was possible to justify environmental skepticism in the past. No more. It's time to move from complacency to activity.
(Site editor's note, as someone who worked in the XNUMXs as a reporter for a leading newspaper in Haifa on environmental issues - at least in this field I was never a skeptic, and this will be evidenced by my answers to the comments I receive from time to time about Dr. Assaf Rosenthal's articles which are too harsh according to the environmental skeptics).
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As we speak, quite by chance, an article appeared in the December 07-January 08 issue of Scientific American signed by a number of scientists from the Global Warming Panel.
The title is the solid science behind climate change
It's the first on the site, I didn't copy the link because it expands the entire page here. I will link soon from the article itself.
Anyway I will be in touch with you later after I see the movie
The main problem in my opinion is to show that there is a -=causal=- relationship between global warming and CO2 levels in the air.
It is true that the CO2 levels have gone up and down depending on the temperatures, but isn't it possible that this is a phenomenon accompanying the rise in temperature, and not the cause itself?
I don't know enough to take sides in the debate, but this is the focus of the debate, and the reason I still disagree about global warming.
Hello Assaf.
I have been covering the field of environmental quality since the XNUMXs as a reporter for the popular local newspaper Calvo. So the factories tried to argue about the very risk of the local air pollution in Haifa and tried to argue that in the balance between providing work and pollution, providing work increases. Today, at least according to you, it is no longer denied. In the next step there will be no need to deny global warming, it's only a matter of time until everyone sobers up. The most striking example in this direction is the effect of smoking on health. There, too, those with interests tried to prevent the publication of the conclusions, and constantly sowed doubt in the public.
I'm also a skeptic, as you can probably tell from reading large parts of the site, but I believe that it can't be that all the evidence points to something and there will still be people who deny it. Filled with evolution, the denial of which comes on a religious basis despite the billions of evidence, but what is the interest of anyone in denying the warming and the connection of humans to it. What good will it do if we notice it when we approach the position of Venus? It is better to avoid reaching such a situation, even if the price is an exaggeration here and there (at least as you claim it is).
I am not at all one of the Israelis who deny the warming. Filled the people of the oil industry in the USA.
I haven't seen the movie, I'll try to see it when I have the opportunity, but you can prove everything in movies, even that humans didn't land on the moon.
The writer presents facts that are simply not relevant to the scientific controversy on the subject. There is no dispute that the Earth has been warming in the last century. Likewise, there is no dispute about the increase in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere during that period. The scientific dispute is limited to the question of what causes what.
It is likely that, as a hardened skeptic, you have already watched the movie The Great Global Warming Swindle, which describes the great scam related to the subject, a scam that is tainted with a lot of politics and research budgets. It is also tainted by a lot of science, but there is a stain on this science that cannot be ignored. Even one of the founders of Greenpeace (!!!) talks there about the silencing of those who oppose the theory, and the horrifying hypocrisy that some of the greens are unwittingly guilty of, especially towards third world countries.
By the way, even those who dispute the accepted example that links global warming to the greenhouse effect, agree that even if there is no clear connection between the phenomena, action must be taken to reduce air pollution in general. People in any case die from the effects of environmental pollution every year, today, not in fifty or a hundred years. For thinking people, disproving the accepted theory is not enough to loosen the reins and start burning oil for fun, but it certainly has something to do with mitigating the mass panic that the western world has been suffering from in recent years regarding global warming.