By Shamim Ahad and Phil Liew
Climate change is the quintessential hot-button issue. As the effects of climate change are felt all over the world, both climate change supporters and deniers have been doing their best to flood the public with waves of information supporting their divergent positions. The politics of climate change go beyond the science and touch a very emotional public-nerve, which is why the fear of climate change and the fear of climate-change remediation resonate so strongly with the public.
Questioning the objectivity of the Science
The strength of science lies in its objectivity. The scientific method, through hypothesis, inquiry, experimentation and repeatability provides a way to measure the objectivity of the experience. When scientists and engineers answer the “why” and the “how”, often this leads to other questions, stimulating more inquiry and more discovery. All this helps to assuage our fears, because suddenly the unknown is within reach of being known and understood. This is all positive and desirable, but not perfect. Science is not developed in isolation. The initial seeds of inquiry and the basis of hypothesis are still subject to the subjectivity of human intent. There is a general belief that when an “expert” makes a statement, then that statement is fact. Studies, statistics and experimental results are taken at face value by the public and the media without enough scrutiny of who are interpreting the data and how they come to their conclusions. Scientists, and other technical specialists provide a measure for what is “true” . This is why the paid expert business is as lucrative as it is. No where is this more obvious than in the debate about climate change.
The Facts?
A drunken forest in Siberia caused by melting permafrost. Melting of permafrost releases methane into the atmosphere, accelerating global warming.
Global warming is the term most often associated with climate change. It can be described as the natural cyclical exchange of energy between the radiation of the sun and the gases in our atmosphere. The assumption is that increasingly larger amounts of energy and gases are being absorbed in our atmosphere, creating a “greenhouse effect”, which in turn contributes to the increase in overall global warming. The consequences of higher temperatures are numerous, but the most popular ones are melting glaciers, increased natural disaster activity (hurricanes, earthquakes), rising coastlines, and changing animal and human habitats.
In this heated discussion, there are the those who do not acknowledge climate change (the Deniers), those who acknowledge climate change but aren’t too excited to do much about it (The Accomodators) and those who acknowledge climate change and are actively trying to find solutions to mitigate reduce the causes of global warming and the negative effects of climate change (The Proponents). Then there are the rest of us, all trying to wade through the oceans of data, media clips and “expert” advice. In reality, the heart of the climate change debate isn’t actually about climate change. The empirical evidence is sound: there is a global increase in temperature, there are increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere, the glaciers are melting. The experts are arguing about what is causing all this and what can or ought to be done about it. It’s all about the economic and political consequences of taking action against climate change.
Politicization of Climate Change download 007 the spy who loved me dvdrip
Climate change Deniers and Accomodators have the most to lose because their model for prosperity, that is the oil-based, mass production, resource extraction dependent, globalized economy, is under real scrutiny. For them to reign in their activities, it would mean that they could not continue to profit in the ways they traditionally have. Their main weapons are their deep pockets, which have helped fund lobby groups and research think tanks whose intent is to obfuscate the climate change debate by disseminating misinformation about climate change research.
The Bush administration was an ardent supporter of the denier camp, going so far as to consult with Exxon Mobil when drafting their climate change policies, controlling which climate scientists could speak with reporters, and editing scientists’ congressional testimony on climate science and key legal opinions. A 16-month probe led by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform found that “The Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policy makers and the public about the dangers of global warming.” It is indeed ironic that those who have made a career out of “questioning” the scientific findings of climate change have spent a lot of money and energy circulating “questionable” science. This is no accident. It’s a diversionary tactic called creating an artificial controversy.
Stephen’s Harper’s government, in a bid to their allies in the Alberta oil sands, has also conveniently neglected the issue of climate change, other than to imply that Canada’s economy would be crippled should it have to keep to its Kyoto commitments. They have also gone the distance to control access to their own government climatologists and scientists. According to Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver, government scientists are forbidden from talking about climate change without pre-approved authorization from media-relations staff. Journalists must submit questions in writing, and all responses given by Environment Canada scientists must be scrutinized by media-relations staff. The latest references to the IPCC’s (UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)reports have also been deleted from Environment Canada’s Web sites. So if you hide pertinent information and then censor anyone who can explain the data, who can the general public turn to?
Proponents of climate change have also their own armies of researchers and supporters. Most famous are Al Gore and our own David Suzuki. However, climate change supporters should not be exempt from scrutiny. Supporters of climate change should continue hold themselves to a high standard by which their own motivations cannot be questioned. This means, as in any scientific debate, entertaining dissent and moderating language so that the public can focus on solutions rather than panic. We each have a responsibility to ourselves to look at the issue of climate change as objectively as we can. We all should be asking ourselves where the information is coming from and what agenda is behind its presentation. So, let’s start by having these discussions amongst ourselves. Let us lend our scientists and researchers support by holding our governments more accountable for ways in which they distribute information.
Debating the Data – Historical Temperature Variations
As an example of how presentation of data may distort our perceptions. The graph that is most commonly seen regarding temperature warming usually only measures temperature for the approximate past 150 years (top chart). It shows a clear exponential increase in our temperature.
Climate change opponents question the chart because it excludes a medieval warming period (bottom chart). The inclusion of that information shows a more cyclical temperature fluctuation where we are exiting a cold period. It should be noted that statistical information can always be skewed when we’re talking about such long periods of time because assumptions must be made on estimating temperature.
Measuring temperature can be a subjective matter as temperature readings come from either ground measurements which will be subject to locality, or computer models which make a wide range of assumptions and have a large variability. Just as the weather forecast can make false guesses, so to do these models.
To add another layer of confusion, orbiting satellite readings of temperature show no large sign of increase in temperature.