Revisiting the Denial Lobby: It's About the Science, Stupid!

Recently we have seen the Denial Lobby visiting Culture Kitchen to reassert some debunked myths about global warming. So I think it may well be time to revisit some old diaries, with some updating, I wrote about the Denial Lobby.

First off let me define who I mean by the "Denial Lobby" using the words of the person who, as far as I know, coined the term. Lord May of Oxford, former president of the Royal Society, used the term in his outgoing message (from BBC news):

In his final speech as president of the Royal Society, Lord May of Oxford will say scientists must speak out against the climate change "denial lobby"...

"Ahead of us lie dangerous times," he will say in his fifth and final anniversary address.

"There are serious problems that derive from the realities of the external world: climate change, loss of biological diversity, new and re-emerging diseases, and more.

"Many of these threats are not yet immediate, yet their non-linear character is such that we need to be acting today.

"And we have no evolutionary experience of acting on behalf of a distant future; we even lack basic understanding of important aspects of our own institutions and societies.

"Sadly, for many, the response is to retreat from complexity and difficulty by embracing the darkness of fundamentalist unreason."

The "Denial Lobby" is the group of people who continue, against a well-emerged scientific consensus based on decades of research, to baldly claim that anthropogenic (man-made) global warming doesn't exist. In one case I encountered a slew of such Denial Lobbyists who contacted me by email to "refute" what I had said about global warming. All their arguements were, pun intended, warmed over "counter" theories that had largely been disproven or were out right wrong information. In one case I was able to track the person contacting me down to a coal industry lobby. That's the kind of person I mean when I say "Denial Lobby."

For the record, since I know how sensitive he can be, let me say that I do not really consider our new friend "Steam Geek" to be part of this lobby, though some of his statements have skirted that territory. But he has always backed away from full denial. He is at the stage of asking what, if anything, we can do about it and questioning what time scale we are talking about. I disagree with many of his conclusions and feel there are some inconsistencies in his arguements (like the consequences are too far in the future to worry about now but also that things have gone too far for any actions on our part to mitigate them, if I am understanding him correctly). But the questions he is asking are good questions that we do need to consider. So I may disagree with his conclusions (emphasis on disagree...doesn't mean I assume I am right and he is wrong) but value his questions and I wish we could have a wider range of experts available to discuss his questions from both sides. As it is, I am not engineer enough, and he tends to brook no deviation from his stated conclusion, so discussion is seldom productive. Come on you alternative energy advocates and technical people! Let's get you involved here.

But we have had some real Denial Lobbyists coming by lately and so let's revisit some of the science.

The global warming "debate" is not what the right wing portrays it as. Long ago a solid, overwhelming consensus was reached among scientists that a.) global warming is happening, b.) that humans are contributing to warming, and c.) warming will seriously impact our civilization in the near future...maybe already is.

The debate among scientists has shifted to details. Will there be localized cooling in the North Atlantic? Where will there be droughts and where flooding? How rapidly and how bumpy will the changes be? But the main question for all of society is whether it is too late to do anything. THAT is the new global warming debate. I have two answers to this: we sure had BETTER be able to do something about it and YES, WE CAN!

I have been aware of global warming science for at least 25 years. The science goes back even further, to the 1960's when measuring carbon dioxide levels and the observation that carbon dioxide was increasing were first done by Roger Revelle. Way back then, Revelle noticed changes and predicted that temperatures would rise as a result. When I became aware of global warming some 25 years ago, many predictions were made: increased storminess, Northward migration of tropical diseases, increased variability of temperature extremes, etc. What has astonished me as I read about current global warming science is just how many of the predictions of 25 years ago are coming true. In science the value of a theory is in its predictive value. From what I can tell as an informed, though not professional, observer is that the predictive value of the global warming models has been good. Details may be inacurate, but the general predictions have come true.

Let's look at what scientists have to say...not Al Gore, not coal industry lobbyists, but scientists. In a study conducted at UC San Diego (which, coincidentally, named it's first college after Roger Revelle) looking at 10 years of peer-reviewed scientific literature on global warming found that not one single peer-reviewed article found evidence against the basic model that global warming is happening and that it is cauesed by human activity. There is not one single article contradicting the global warming hypothesis. To quote Donald Kennedy, editor and chief of America's most prestigious scintific journal, Science, "Consensus as strong as the one that has developed around [global warming] is rare in science."

Now let me quote at length from the policy statement from Scientists and Engineers for America on global warming: (the statement is written by Dr. Michael MacCracken, Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs with the Climate Institute in Washington DC)

The Administration and Congress have failed to adequately address global climate change, and their policies are hurting the United States. Climate change has become evident in many places around the world...An enlightened federal policy would be heeding these early signs of much greater change to come rather than saying the policy is set and will not be reconsidered for another decade—which has been the President’s position.

o The present policy of relying on voluntary reductions of greenhouse gas emissions is not working. US emissions are continuing to increase. The resulting changes in atmospheric composition will mean much larger climate changes ahead while also creating the need for much sharper and more disruptive cutbacks in the future. An enlightened federal approach would be moving responsibly now to promote emissions limitations and gradually tightening the policies over time.

o There are uncertainties about the future, but all the basics are very clear, and have been for decades (the first scientific report on climate change by the President’s Science Advisory Council was submitted in 1965). But instead of acting progressively to build a new industry based on alternative energy resources, research efforts on alternative energy technologies remain well below what is needed and the President is downsizing NASA’s efforts to look at the Earth from space to assess what climate change will mean for the US and how to better prepare.

o In 1990, 1995, and 2001, the world scientific community met with policymakers from around the world and unanimously agreed on the scientific underpinnings of global warming. There are few other issues where there has been such universal agreement on the scientific basis of a problem. But the Administration and some members of Congress keep downplaying the science. The Administration has prevented government scientists from speaking freely on global warming and has suppressed government reports that indicated that human activity contributes significantly to global warming...

o We have the power to do something now. A National Academy of Sciences report from 1992 pointed out that the United States should reduce its emissions substantially using approaches that would pay for themselves in a few years—we can do more now, mainly by enhancing incentives to change. California, for example, has created those incentives, through building and appliance standards and energy pricing, so that the average Californian uses half as much electricity as residents in other states, saving the average family about $1000 per year. And California’s long-term plan for reducing emissions also envisions the changeover helping the state’s economy. Implementing similar policies nationwide will save our environment and boost our economy in the end.

o The present position of our leaders is putting our industries at a disadvantage. Instead of having a policy that stimulates the development of new technologies that are needed by the nations of the world, our lack of an aggressive approach keeps many of our industries focused on old fossil-fuel-driven technologies. The requirement to limit CO2 emissions can be made into a major innovation program—helping save the environment while creating jobs and building our future economy.

The United States can take the lead in transforming the world’s energy system. We have creative minds, plenty of land, wind, and solar resources, and there is significant potential to reduce emissions at low or no cost. Right now governors Schwarzenegger (CA) and Pataki (NY) are competing to have their states have the lowest emissions, the nation’s architects are competing to see how low emissions can be from buildings, and the technology is on the horizon to cut transportation emissions substantially. All we have to do is get headed in the right direction with modest incentives, set our long-term goals, and get going. We must do a great deal if we want to be able to pass a viable environmental legacy on to our children and grandchildren.

Now let me quote from Real Climate, a blog used by climatologists to discuss climate-related issues, discussing just what is meant by "scientific consensus" when that term is used by the consenting scientists:

We've used the term "consensus" here a bit recently (see our earlier post on the subject), without ever really defining what we mean by it. In normal practice, there is no great need to define it - no science depends on it. But it's useful to record the core that most scientists agree on, for public presentation. The consensus that exists is that of the IPCC reports, in particular the working group I report (there are three WG's. By "IPCC", people tend to mean WG I). Fortunately that report is available online for all to read at http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/. Its a good idea to realise that though the IPCC report contains the consensus, it didn't form it. The IPCC process was supposed to be - and is - a summary of the science (as available at the time). Because they did their job well, it really is a good review/summary/synthesis.

The main points that most would agree on as "the consensus" are:

1. The earth is getting warmer (0.6 +/- 0.2 oC in the past century; 0.1 0.17 oC/decade over the last 30 years...) [ch 2]
2. People are causing this [ch 12]...
3. If GHG emissions continue, the warming will continue and indeed accelerate [ch 9]
4. (This will be a problem and we ought to do something about it)

I've put those four points in rough order of certainty. The last one is in brackets because whilst many would agree, many others (who agree with 1-3) would not, at least without qualification. It's probably not a part of the core consensus in the way 1-3 are. Most (all?) of us here on RealClimate are physical scientists - we can talk sensibly about past, present and future changes in climate, but potential impacts on ecosystems or human society are out of our field. If you want to see the IPCCs own summary, it's here.

Other things we have mentioned in other posts come in as supporting evidence. That the increase in atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic is so obvious that few people question it and in consequence few people rebut skepticism of it (though Eric has done so recently here; and the IPCC mention it). That the recent increase in temperature is unprecedented in the last 1000 years (see e.g. posts 64 or 7 by Mike) is one (but by no means the only) line of evidence indicating that recent change is likely to be unnatural...

The skeptic attitude to consensus usually starts with "there is no consensus". That's wrong, and they usually retreat from it to "but consensus science is meaningless", and/or "consensus has nothing to do with science". The latter is largely true but irrelevant. The existence of the consensus doesn't do a lot to determine what science is done; it doesn't prevent contrary lines being explored. But the consensus view does come into the tricky interface between science and policy, and science and the media.

The existence of the consensus shouldn't be used to hide the fact that there are areas of doubt. Climate models clearly aren't perfect. There are questions about the differences between surface and tropospheric temperature trends. Conversely the existence of some areas of doubt shouldn't be used to try to hide the many areas of understanding and agreement.

That was written in 2004. Since then the controversy cited in the last paragraph has largely been resolved by a reassessment of the data in 2005.

My point is this: the scientific evidence is solid and THAT is why there is an overwhelming scientific consensus. Now let me go into more detail about what that consensus is in broad agreement on.

Combine our increasing numbers and our increasing industrialization and you have a large impact on the environment. The world's population has essentially doubled during my lifetime. And it keeps increasing. The global human population is at unprecedented levels. Multiply those numbers by increasing energy use globally and you have a huge demand for energy. This has led to a huge usage of carbon-based fuels, leading to a huge increase in emissions. The result of humans cutting down trees for tens of centuries and burning fossil fuel for a couple of centuries has led to a sharp increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. I said that the level of human population is at unprecedented levels. I will also say that atmospheric carbon dioxide is at levels unprecedented for the last 400 thousand years. Over that period it never reached above 300 ppm...it has now surpassed that point and shooting towards 400 ppm.

The correlation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature is EXTREMELY well established over the past 650 thousand years. Look at the graph I link to. The correlation is astonishingly close. So, no scientist is surprised that at the time we are experiencing record atmospheric carbon dioxide (and, I should add, record levels of OTHER greenhouse gasses as well) we are also expriencing record temperatures. Something like 21 of the hottest years on record occurred within the last 25 years. That means only 4 years in the past 25 were even close to normal or colder than normal. We are at the warmest point in at least the last 2000 years and possibly one of the warmest points in the last 100,000 years. For human civilization, the average global temperature is at unprecedented levels.

But there are other unprecedented things occurring with the same timing as the unprecedented levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and unprecedented temperatures. Glaciers are receding GLOBALLY (with only small pockets of exceptions) to the smallest level ever recorded in human history. Arctic ice has been rapidly thinning since the 1970's, after remaining largely constant since at least the early 1900's when measurements began. For the first time in known history, a giant ice shelf in the Antarctic broke up. And, as of last year, it has been determined that the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets (as oposed to ice shelves) are shrinking and shrinking at an accelerating rate. The ice shelves, whatever else they do, don't add much to sea levels. But melting ice sheets do, which is why that new trend is worrisome. We are seeing record numbers of tropical storms. We are seeing an observable rise in the pH of the oceans, something that is affecting fisheries and coral reefs and algal blooms. Coral reefs are dying off at unprecedented rates. In 1998 alone, the second warmest year on record, 16% of the world's coral reefs died. And we are seeing species extinctions unprecedented since the last mass extinction. Most mass extinctions have major geological or astronomical events at their cause: comet strikes, supervolcanoes, major climate changes, etc. I am aware of only one previous case where living organisms radically changed the makeup of the earth's atmosphere, leading to huge changes in species survival and evolution: the emergence of blue-green bacteria which then produced most of the oxygen in our atmosphere. That event occurred about 3 billion years ago.

Those who claim that global warming is a scam are either ignorant of the facts, listening to the right wing media, or are actually lying blatantly as part of the right wing Denial Lobby which is paid for by the oil and coal industries and which has had a strong presence in the Bush Administration. The facts are clear. There is an unprecedented rise in carbon dioxide that matches the increase in human activities that are known to release carbon dioxide. The chemistry of carbon dioxide's contribution to the greenhouse effect is not controversial. It is physics. The correlation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature variations is extremely close. The fact that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps heat is about as solid as the fact that if you drop a lead weight it will fall down because of gravity.

Let me address some specific myths that have been brought up here. Many so-called skeptics use complete bullshit to counter solid science. For example, claiming that just a short time ago atmospheric scientists claimed we were entering an ice age (as someone recently claimed right here on Culture Kitchen), so clearly these scientists don't know what they are talking about. That is false. A single scientists made that claim. He made it in the popular press, NOT in a scientific paper. And he retracted that claim a short time after with a clear explanation of why it was wrong. There is NO BASIS TO THIS CLAIM. But you still hear it used by right wing extremists to discredit legitimate science.

Then there is the claim that "global warming is happening on Mars too so it can't be caused by humans." This is also wrong. Once again I draw from Real Climate:

Recently, there have been some suggestions that "global warming" has been observed on Mars...These are based on observations of regional change around the South Polar Cap, but seem to have been extended into a "global" change, and used by some to infer an external common mechanism for global warming on Earth and Mars...But this is incorrect reasoning and based on faulty understanding of the data...

So what is causing Martian climate change now? Mars has a relatively well studied climate, going back to measurements made by Viking, and continued with the current series of orbiters, such as the Mars Global Surveyor. Complementing the measurements, NASA has a Mars General Circulation Model (GCM) based at NASA Ames. (NB. There is a good "general reader" review of modeling the Martian atmosphere by Stephen R Lewis in Astronomy and Geophysics, volume 44 issue 4. pages 6-14.)

Globally, the mean temperature of the Martian atmosphere is particularly sensitive to the strength and duration of hemispheric dust storms...Large scale dust storms change the atmospheric opacity and convection; as always when comparing mean temperatures, the altitude at which the measurement is made matters, but to the extent it is sensible to speak of a mean temperature for Mars, the evidence is for significant cooling from the 1970's, when Viking made measurements, compared to current temperatures. However, this is essentially due to large scale dust storms that were common back then, compared to a lower level of storminess now. The mean temperature on Mars, averaged over the Martian year can change by many degrees from year to year, depending on how active large scale dust storms are.

In 2001, Malin et al published a short article in Science (subscription required) discussing MGS data showing a rapid shrinkage of the South Polar Cap. Recently, the MGS team had a press release discussing more recent data showing the trend had continued. MGS 2001 press release MGS 2005 press release. The shrinkage of the Martian South Polar Cap is almost certainly a regional climate change, and is not any indication of global warming trends in the Martian atmosphere. Colaprete et al in Nature 2005 (subscription required) showed, using the Mars GCM, that the south polar climate is unstable due to the peculiar topography near the pole, and the current configuration is on the instability border; we therefore expect to see rapid changes in ice cover as the regional climate transits between the unstable states.

Thus inferring global warming from a 3 Martian year regional trend is unwarranted. The observed regional changes in south polar ice cover are almost certainly due to a regional climate transition, not a global phenomenon, and are demonstrably unrelated to external forcing. There is a slight irony in people rushing to claim that the glacier changes on Mars are a sure sign of global warming, while not being swayed by the much more persuasive analogous phenomena here on Earth...

So, the "ice age" claim and the "Mars too" claims are both bogus. Anyone who uses them either is listening to the right wing Denial Lobby or is part of the right wing Denial Lobby. There is another "it's all about water vapor, not carbon dioxide" hypothesis which is a more genuine scientific theory, but it is one that has largely been discredited. A revamped version has come up recently, but the evidence supporting the consensus theory is far, far greater than the slim evidence for the water vapor only theory.

I have gone into great length here, quoting from many sources (please explore the links as well as the Union of Concerned Scientists discussion of global warming) because I really want to convey just how overwhelmingly the sceintific theory of anthropogenic global warming has stood up to scientific scrutiny. The time for denial has long past. Now we need to ask what can we do.

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