Climate Change

When we choose a new topic to explore, we are often surprised at how our initial thoughts and impressions change after researching the subject deeply. That has never been truer than for this article. We knew we’d have to educate ourselves in this area well beyond what we’d heard following the topic in the news over the years. While the technical research proved interesting, we were amazed at how much of the recent history of climate science (last 25 years) is more about psychology, ego, politics, credibility, and public perception than the scientific method. Regardless of which side of the debate you align with, science has largely been secondary during this time. While the earth’s climate has been studied for a long time, the colloquial use of the phrase “climate change”, preceded in the popular lexicon by “global warming”, covers a relatively short history in the public eye. It began in the 1980’s, but really hit the spotlight in the late 1990’s. Here’s what we learned and the opinions we’ve formed:

Up through the 1980’s, researchers of the earth’s climate practiced the accepted form of discovery that applies to all scientific endeavors. Dr. Ian Plimer, Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne, describes this traditional path best – “…Science is underpinned by practitioners who must be skeptical of the methodology used to collect evidence, the analysis of the evidence, and the conclusions based on the evidence … Science bows to no authority, is not based on a consensus, and is in a constant state of flux…”. One conclusion of climate researchers that gained widespread publicity at this time was that the earth’s average temperature had risen in the previous 100 years. The use of accurate thermometers and meticulous record-keeping of temperatures from around 1850 (suitably compensated for localized temperature effects) provided real observable data from which this temperature increase could be verified by any scientist.

Concurrently, research papers were citing an increase in the amount of CO2 (carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere. Much like the temperature, CO2 levels are also measurable, and the observed increase can be verified. However, direct measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere have only been available since 1950, so less reliable means of measure had to be used for any point prior to then. Nevertheless, increasing amounts of CO2 in the air are verifiable. It is a known fact that CO2 is the 2^nd most abundant greenhouse gas in the earth’s atmosphere (water vapor is number one by a large margin). Greenhouse gases interact with the atmosphere to retain heat. These gases are necessary for human life on earth since without them the planet would be mostly ice. On the flip side, too high a concentration of greenhouse gases could make it very warm. It was this latter property, combined with the near-simultaneous timing of CO2 and temperature increases during the previous 100 years, that led certain climatologists to presume a direct “cause and effect” conclusion – the increase in CO2 was the cause of the observed temperature rise. Those climatologists further concluded that the source of the rising CO2 was the burning of fossil fuels by humans from the start of the industrial age (mid-1800’s). Thus, it was now adjudged that human activities were the cause of the temperature increase.¹ An ancillary assumption followed: that if the rise in CO2 levels were stopped or decreased, by way of reducing the use of fossil fuels, the earth’s temperature would stabilize or possibly even go back down to where it was prior to the industrial age.

However, unlike the direct and verifiable observations of increases in both the earth’s temperature and atmospheric CO2, these last three conclusions were inferred, not as easily verifiable, and were therefore challenged by other members of the scientific community. They theorized other factors not related to the CO2 increase could have also contributed to the temperature rise, and while the CO2 increase may have played a part, it might not have been the dominant factor. Nevertheless, a group of climatologists latched onto the implication that continuously increasing temperatures would result if the CO2 increase went unchecked, and they began sounding alarm bells.

In the latter part of the 1980’s, a world body called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed. The goal of this panel was to review all the ongoing climate research work and published literature to derive “consensus” viewpoints for inclusion into a summary report, published periodically, for government policymakers around the world. A worthy goal, but one immediately limited by the IPCC’s charter statement that their focus was to be on human-caused climate change. Having designated itself as the international authority on climate change, the IPCC had by fiat established that human activities were the cause of climate change before they even set about writing their first report. This didn’t leave much room for the consideration of other scientific evidence and theories as to why the earth’s temperature was rising, and immediately implied a dismissive context to any such alternative explanations. In our opinion, this is where the “science” part of climate change first started to become less important than the public perception of climate change.

Significantly, at the birth of the IPCC, historical temperature evidence existed that a warm period, similar to now, had occurred in medieval times (950AD-1250AD). Analysis of the evidence for this “Medieval Warm Period” had undergone and survived decades of rigorous scientific review and was the prevailing hypothesis at the time. How could this historical warm cycle be explained since it preceded any possibility of human-caused CO2 emissions creating a greenhouse effect? An unexpected answer to this came to the IPCC as they were preparing their 3^rd periodic report, published in 2001. Only months after receiving his PhD in Geology and Geophysics, Dr. Michael Mann was the lead author of a paper published in 1998 describing new techniques for estimating the temperature in past centuries. One year later, Dr. Mann and his colleagues produced a graph showing the results of these modeling techniques over a 1,000 year period. The graph showed virtually no variation at all in the earth’s temperature for 900 years, including the medieval period, and ended with a significant rise in the temperature in the final 100 years. Dr. Mann’s graph eliminated from history the existence of the Medieval Warm Period based on his different (and unverified) method of calculating the temperature 1,000 years ago. With the unexplained Medieval Warm Period no longer present to pose a paradox, the obvious conclusion was that the only possible cause of the recent rise in temperature was human activity in the industrial age. Dr. Mann’s graph, known as the “hockey stick”, and its implications featured prominently in the IPCC’s 3^rd report in 2001. This one graph now formed the sole foundation upon which the IPCC’s original focus (human-caused climate change) could rest without any historical inconsistencies.

From this point on, the “science” part of climate science began to be overtaken by a myriad of governmental, journalistic and activist influences. For many, including the IPCC, Dr. Mann’s graph had now “settled” the science of why the earth’s temperature was rising and all that remained was the imperative to convince policymakers around the world of the consequences and possible remedies. During the next several years, a perfect storm of sorts occurred as highly visible and formidable forces – academic journals, the IPCC, news organizations, government leaders, and activists from around the world all converged on the certainty of human-caused climate change as portrayed by Dr. Mann’s work and graph. Dr. Mann himself received a large amount of attention and associated fame during this period, unusual for a relative newcomer in the field. The apex of the “human-caused” warming theory occurred in 2007 when the IPCC and Al Gore were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for “…for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change…”.²

Against this very public backdrop, and during the same time interval (2000 ~ 2007), the traditional scientific method was still being employed by other climate scientists. However, reexamination of data and attempts to confirm the experimental results of Dr. Mann and his colleagues was proving difficult for other scientists. These questioning scientists, now deemed “skeptics”, found that Dr. Mann’s data and climate modeling algorithms were not easily accessible for the customary review and analysis standard in scientific practice. For example, Dr. Mann did not even release his computer code for review by others for 5 years. His refusal could hardly be considered rendering one’s evidence and methods transparent to peer review, especially important as it was the cornerstone of new theory. A growing resistance to the suggestion of any alternative explanation for the warming trend was fast becoming prevalent. All the powerful public entities mentioned earlier, whose credibility had become so deeply entangled in the notion of human-caused climate change, now had a vested interest in defending the premise. For them, the theory of human-caused global warming had long since graduated from the laboratory and was now dogma. A stigma began to be attached to anyone who challenged the theory of human-caused warming, to include even the best-credentialed scientists. They were accused of “denying” the established science rather than continuing the legitimate scientific task of testing/verifying a hypothesis. It wasn’t long before the word “deny” morphed into the pejorative term “denier”, and the discourse of climate science inquiry devolved into ad hominem attacks much more typical of political mud-slinging. Forces outside the scientific community were now exerting almost total control over the tone and direction of the discussion. This influence included providing top cover for an increasingly belligerent Dr. Mann.

The rancor continued to worsen towards the end of the decade as the IPCC orthodoxy of human-caused warming wound its way ever more deeply into government budgets, stricter emissions standards, political campaigns, and education systems. Under the radar however, there was growing discontent among scientists from all points of view with how “science” had lost control of this vitally important topic. Challenges to any scientific theory would normally be used to strengthen, modify, or even replace the existing theory if that’s where the science led. This process was being adulterated by forces outside the scientific community whose powerful agendas were effectively imprisoning any challenges to the human-caused warming doctrine. Then a small “earthquake” occurred in 2009, not in the tectonic plates, but in the climate science community…

In November of 2009, a computer server located at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) in England was breached by hackers and more than 4,000 emails and documents were taken and subsequently made public. At the time, there were a lot of sensational headlines claiming that the content of the stolen files revealed that climate data supporting human-caused warming had been falsified and/or altered, and that data supporting alternative theories was being purposely suppressed. As a result, the term “hoax” became a popular rallying cry for those who disagreed with the now “tainted” content of IPCC reports. The name “Climategate” was satirically given to this event. However, it was the tenor of the emails in this cache of information that was most impactful. The emails exposed significant and valid scientific concerns with Dr. Mann’s methods for estimating the temperature 10 centuries ago.³ It was also clear there was a concealed uneasiness with the absolute “certainty” that humans and CO2 were the sole causes of the earth’s rising temperature, and distress that this conclusion had been arrived at without the proper scientific process of challenge, review and restatement. The overwhelming “consensus” which had been portrayed so publicly was not so overwhelming after all. Regardless of how many of the sensational claims coming out of this data breach were to be believed (and some were admittedly over the top), it was plain there was at least some level of deception evident in Dr. Mann’s analysis as well as evidence the IPCC was suppressing the voices of dissenting scientists. The principle effect of this “unveiling” was to embolden more skeptics (now consistently referred to as “deniers”) to publicly defend their viewpoint. In turn, the IPCC juggernaut and their media and political allies refused to acknowledge that anything other than normal business had been revealed by the data breach. In fact, they doubled down by sounding ever more devastating climate change alarm bells. This popularized the term “alarmist” as the pejorative of choice used by the “deniers” against those perpetrating the climate “hoax”. Get the picture of how the lingua franca of climate science had been hijacked?

By the time 2014 rolled around, a real-world climate observation added yet another fascinating twist to this story – the rate of global warming had all but stopped and the average temperature of the earth had not risen beyond the margin of measurement error for over 16 years. While this fit well with an alternative theory that the unpredictable ebb and flow of natural phenomena is responsible for climate change, it didn’t help the human-caused warming argument. After all, humans were still depositing large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere and yet no corresponding warming was now occurring. Terms such as “warming pause” and climate “hiatus” were used to describe this interval. While the IPCC offered several technical explanations for why no warming was currently evident, none of them were easy to digest, nor immediately trusted on the heels of Climategate.

That brings us up to the present, where aggressive and dismissive attitudes on both sides of the climate debate are more entrenched than ever. For example, in Dr. Mann’s recent book titled “The Madhouse Effect” (2016), he states the following – “If you ever meet someone who says there is no warming or that the facts are not known, don’t argue the point. Simply say politely that denial is no longer a respectable position because it is not.” Science by decree? This attitude, one that allowed no dissent and eschewed thoughtful discussion had now infected the activist/scientific climate community.  As you might imagine, Dr. Mann and the IPCC were not happy with the result of the US presidential election of 2016 as it removed their advocates from leadership positions in the federal government. Predictably, the number and magnitude of climate change “alarms” increased almost overnight to include assigning climate change as the cause of recent extreme weather events.

So where does that leave us? Are there scientific explanations for warming temperatures other than humans being the sole cause? Certainly. The simplest of them is the existence of a naturally-occurring period of warming brought on by the myriad of variables that continually combine to create earth’s changing climate. We could simply be experiencing a modern-day version of the Medieval Warm Period, the existence of which was prevailing scientific theory before Dr. Mann’s 1999 hockey stick graph. To wit, there are legitimate scientific challenges to the way Dr. Mann and his colleagues chose to calculate the earth’s temperature 1,000 years ago. Since his result is a large part of the foundation upon which the human-caused warming theory rests, it should be subject to rigorous verification from all challengers. That is how science is supposed to work. In this case, it clearly did not.

Also, while there is no debate that humans are creating more CO2, and that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, there is considerable debate as to how much CO2 in the atmosphere is required to warm the earth beyond the margin of temperature-measuring error. This is the other component in the assumed foundation for human-caused warming. There have been scientific challenges to each of these bedrock components of the human-caused warming theory. However, these challenges are regularly excoriated as unnecessary and erroneous since human-caused warming is now “settled science” and the associated scientists berated as “deniers” who care little about the earth’s future. The machinery that has been built to protect and defend the human-caused warming theory, now composed mostly of non-scientific people, has stifled the scientific method in climate science. As a result, it is impossible for us to conclude with any confidence that science has settled on anything regarding climate change. Beyond the hyperbole and aggressive bluster that now characterizes almost any discourse on the topic, we see no more certainty in the theory of human-caused warming, coincidental as it may be with the industrial age, than one that posits a naturally-occurring warming period.

There is also interesting debate on how warm is warm enough to truly disrupt life on earth beyond the human ability to adapt. Likewise, the point at which the beneficial qualities of increased CO2 levels are exceeded by its detrimental effects is also not settled (in addition to being a greenhouse gas, CO2 is vital plant food). Both warming and CO2 have become “boogeymen” so to speak, synonymous with evil in the context of any climate discussion. This is the result of years of bombarding the public with only a negative perspective of climate change. The perception is so bad that many people don’t even realize that CO2 is a colorless, odorless, gas that cannot be seen or smelled and is not the “smog” hovering over large cities.

The theory of human-caused climate change has from the start included the supposition that the very same humans that are causing climate change can also stop and even reverse it. This is the part of the climate story where money has deeply infected the integrity of the associated science. Vast amounts of money have been allocated by governments around the world to enacting rules and regulations to limit CO2 emissions and make heavy investments in non-CO2 producing energy sources like solar and wind.⁴ Absent in the decision-making process for this spending is a truly objective reckoning of the value of the investment. What if the earth is in fact warming, but the cause is a natural climate cycle and not the greater amounts of CO2 being produced by humans? In that case, if any money were to be spent on climate change, there would be far more value investing in adaptation to life on a warmer earth than a futile attempt to prevent the earth from warming. In fact, a policy of adaptation works equally as well if either of these climate theories are true.

Unfortunately, “climate change” has now become an industry all its own. Like any other industry, its leaders are motivated to both protect and grow their business. Influencing government policy, monetary investments, aggressive marketing, media coverage, research grants, campaign platforms – it’s all there. We cannot trust an objective conclusion of science to emerge from this cauldron of ulterior motives and mania. We find it particularly regrettable that the “doctrine” being promulgated, much of it the combative tradecraft of climate business and not the broad-minded exploration of climate science, has penetrated the education system. This will, most unfortunately, take a long time to correct. Lastly, we strongly believe the level of alarmism now being used to scare and intimidate has gone beyond science and into the realm of science fiction and is driven completely by activists. Sadly, Dr. Mann himself has entirely transformed into the role of climate activist using the “PhD” after his name to legitimize his protestations (an inescapable observation after reading his most recent book, The Madhouse Effect).

We have ultimate confidence in the human ability to adapt to any long-term change in the climate. We do not believe that any long-term climate change will come on so fast, or be so suddenly severe, that all humans will perish because there was not enough time to adapt. Humans are presently facing more immediate problems that need action and money (e.g. poverty) which, if rectified, would result in much greater value to us all than anything we could possibly do to affect climate change.

¹ However, to assume without compelling evidence that temperature rise is caused by the C02 rise is an example of the logical fallacy cum hoc ergo propter hoc, “with this, therefore because of this”. The fact that two events or processes occur together does not prove that one caused the other.  If a rooster crows at dawn, it does not mean that the rooster caused the sun to rise.

² Dr. Mann famously, and erroneously, proclaimed that he himself was a Nobel Prize recipient resulting from the 2007 award. He was later forced to retract that claim.

³ Dr. Mann and his colleagues relied heavily on the analysis of tree rings from trees up to 1,000 years old as the means to estimate the earth’s average temperature prior to the existence of reliable thermometers. While feasible to do in theory, factors such as the number of trees used, their geographic locations, their type, etc. all had to be properly “weighted” so the resulting temperature estimations could be appropriately used side-by-side with the far more accurate direct temperature measurements of the modern era. The accuracy of temperature estimates from centuries old tree rings, and their proper weighting, was the principle point of contention with Dr. Mann’s analysis and the famous “hockey stick” graph that sprang from it. The greatest challenge to the accuracy of ancient tree ring temperature estimates came when the same technique was applied to tree rings from 1960 forward. That analysis shows a temperature decrease when we know in fact (from thermometers) that the temperature has actually risen. This paradox, technically referred to as the “divergence” problem in climate science, has never been adequately explained. A legitimate conclusion of this experiment using modern day tree rings is that temperature estimates from ancient tree rings is not enough by itself to overturn the pre-existing body of evidence of a medieval warm period similar to now.

⁴ With several major world governments blindly following the IPCC’s recommendations to drastically reduce their “carbon footprint”, energy sources must be made available to replace what will be lost from oil, coal and natural gas. The problem is that the two main contenders, solar and wind, are a long way both technologically and economically from being able to replace the energy presently supplied by fossil fuels. Governments must subsidize the cost of their use since they are not economically viable on their own. There is a justifiable argument for how much harm this expenditure is causing by not instead investing the money in more immediate and better understood ailments of the human condition, particularly in the developing world.