Unicorns Exist! The Science of Climate Change Denial

For the past 2½ terms in team climate, and prior to that in my professional world, I’ve wondered with mild curiosity and increasing frustration how we are still “debating” climate change.  No longer are we calling it global warming (“we had the coldest winter in ages!” is a common rebuttal; global weirding seems a more appropriate term), but semantics aside, there is still an outspoken faction of the American people who don’t believe this is a problem. 

How does this happen?  Why are so many seemingly intelligent, educated people so vehemently denying that a) climate change is happening (or even that the greenhouse effect does in fact exist); or b) that it’s human-caused?  For perspective, I’ve started reading climate denier sites and articles, and especially the comments, to better understand this strong conviction of my fellow Americans. 

Some of the more entertaining comments I’ve come across:

• Climate change believers are “political radicals who want to destroy western civilization so that they can bring to fruition their dream of a great socialist utopia. It has nothing to do with science.”
• “GHGs don’t cause warming any more than insulating my house causes it to heat up.”
• “Applying scientific argument to political BS is like expecting math rules to apply in English class. The name of the joint is your tipoff: InterGOVERNMENTAL Panel on Climate Change.”
•  “For the rest of us the “globalony” issue is just a global IQ test. If you believe mankind can affect the global climate either way, you fail the test. And really, there is no need to get into the weeds on this issue. If you believe man can affect the global climate, you are an easily fooled imbecile.”  

There seem to be constant media battles on climate change.  An article last month on Fox News takes a 10 year leveling temperature reading to “disprove” the data from the past several hundred thousand years: “Climate change skeptics seize on reports showing temperatures leveling”.  "The idea that CO2 is the tail that wags the dog is no longer scientifically tenable," said Marc Morano of ClimateDepot.com, a website devoted to countering the prevailing acceptance of man-made global warming.  "In the peer-reviewed literature we're finding hundreds of factors influence global temperature, everything from ocean cycles to the tilt of the earth's axis to water vapor, methane, cloud feedback, volcanic dust, all of these factors are coming together. They're now realizing it wasn't the simple story we've been told of your SUV is creating a dangerously warm planet." 

There is still vast confusion among the general public, many of whom believe that scientists are not in agreement about human-caused global warming.  James Lawrence Powell, Executive Director of the National Physical Science Consortium, who holds a PhD in Geochemistry from MIT and doctor of Science degrees from Oberlin and Berea Colleges, conducted a study to settle this question of whether scientists are in agreement about anthropogenic climate change.

Of the 13,950 peer reviewed climate articles from 1991-2012, 24 “reject” human-caused global warming (see this great pie chart detailing “Why Climate Change Deniers have no scientific credibility).  Stated another way, of 33,700 authors of peer reviewed climate change papers, only 34 reject that it’s caused by humans.  And from an earlier study (Oreskes, Science 2005) cited by Powell (and introduced to me by our lead instructor for the UnCommon Sense Business Response to Climate Change module):

Someone who doesn’t understand science will never understand the importance of science.  But someone who is constantly bombarded by misinformation and by the media will have a hell of a time discerning what is true and what is hogwash.  I work in this field and still get overwhelmed by all the information and data.  I can only imagine how difficult it is for the average person to obtain accurate, simple to understand information to be able to form an educated opinion or have an understanding of the issue. 

I just started reading “Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming”.  It turns out that there is a war being waged against the scientists who are providing evidence of human-caused climate change.  The Guardian reported in 2007 that scientists and economists were being offered $10K to “undermine a major climate change report” from the IPCC; an Exxon Mobil/Koch/American Petroleum Institute funded scientist is writing papers to flat out dismiss climate change.  Conservative Think Tanks are rolling out studies and providing highly paid lobbyists to cast doubt on the “science of climate change”.  Not only the same tactics that were used in trying to convince the American public that smoking wasn’t bad for us, but the same lobbyists, the very same people. 

It hurts my head to read much of this, where it feels more like smoke and mirrors diversion tactics than an actual rebuttal to scientific findings.  One could easily get lost in the weeds and never find their way out (though if you’re interested, this library is a good place to start looking for climate denier links and references).

There is a faint glimmer of light with our sitting President, however.  Our EcoSecurities case cited that the leading candidates for the 2008 Presidential election all had endorsed binding emissions reduction targets and a domestic carbon market.  Upon reading this, I groaned, knowing how far those endorsements had gotten us in reality.  Imagine my surprise when on April 25^th, President Obama tweeted to encourage the American people to urge Congress to stop ignoring climate science:

They circulated a petition to call out Climate Deniers in Congress.   And I got this email in my inbox, inviting me to sign the petition and hold climate deniers accountable.  The subject line: Unicorns Exist**.  And the icing on the cake: “The sticky thing about the truth is that it’s the truth whether Congress likes it or not.”

Now, I’m game for anything using Unicorns in an argument.  But the Organizing for Action campaign is getting flack for stretching the truth a bit on this effort.  In a video accompanying this media blitz, OfA claims that 240 House members voted that climate change was a “hoax”.  The video is quite entertaining and more than a little scary, given the perspectives within. 

A recent Washington Post (and others) article states that the campaign “misleadingly cites a vote” on a climate change bill.  “We’ve written before about the growing consensus among climate researchers that climate change is the result of human activity; there’s little debate about that among scientists, though surveys show increasing skepticism among the American public. But we were intrigued by the video’s claim that 240 House lawmakers had declared climate change to be a ‘hoax.’”

The 240 House members apparently voted against an amendment to a proposed bill on taking regulatory power for carbon emissions away from the EPA and giving it to Congress.  That amendment said: "Congress accepts the scientific findings of the Environmental Protection Agency that climate changes is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare."  Sheesh.  Might as well be voting that climate change is a hoax. 

As long as we keep going round and round on semantics, we will remain in a life-threatening stale mate until this great Earth gets tired of our shenanigans and neatly stamps out our species.  Just this morning I got an email from 350.org with the news that on May 9^th, the carbon counter on Mauna Loa observatory recorded a daily average of above 400 parts per million.  Which, according to a lot of people, is bad.  Really bad.  What the (bleep) will it take, people?!?