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The Libertarian Warmist Brigade
Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Professor Jonathan Adler, a scholar with “strong libertarian leanings” urges conservatives to accept man-made global warming, even though it is not “ideologically convenient.” Although I doubt whether his embrace of anthropogenic global warming (AGM) is all that inconvenient — a surefire way for any conservative to gain mainstream credibility is to take up some liberal cause, and lately that means either climate change or same-sex marriage — Adler does, I think, make two important points: 1) one’s ideology should not influence one’s conclusion about climate change (or lack thereof), and; 2) belief in man-made global warming does not necessarily mean that you endorse loony left solutions to climate change.
Fair enough, but Adler himself does not summon any evidence in favor of human-caused warming. Instead he cites an article in Reason by libertarian science writer Ronald Bailey, who makes the case for AGM. But none of Bailey’s evidence proves any link between human activity and climate change. Indeed, I don’t think he even presents evidence of a long-term warming trend: he cites no data earlier than the 1950s, and much of his data is from the last couple decades — surely a mere blip in climate terms. Bailey concedes that scientists can only speculate as to the reason for the 17-year hiatus in global warming, and he declares that the growing extent of Antarctic sea ice is “a climate change conundrum.” Other than that, it’s a slam dunk case for AGM.
Ricochetti: is this the best evidence there is for AGM? I’m not convinced, but if you are, come out and make the case. There’s nothing to be ashamed of – with Adler and Bailey, you’re in very respectable company.
The entire global warming scare is based on computer models, with the most important parameter a postulated 3X multiplier effect of water vapor–by far the most potent and abundant greenhouse gas– interacting with CO2. The fatal problem for the warmists is that the predicted effect is not supported by the data. The upper troposphere should be warming in lockstep with increasing CO2, but this is not occurring and, as has already been noted, net global warming has “paused” entirely for the past 17-19 years.
The late author Michael Crichton put it best in his 2003 Caltech lecture Aliens Cause Global Warming:
For the latest overview on the topic, I recommend Climate Change: The Facts. If you are interested in digging more deeply into the science–but still staying clear of climate mathematics–it’s tough to beat Singer and Avery’s Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years .
I live on Cape Cod, home to our own weather station in Chatham. The weather forecasts are never right. Never.
I think it might be more correct to say that they’re a wholly different kind of evidence than observation, rather than that they’re not evidence. They’re also very dependent on user bias and should always be treated with less authority than direct observation.
I’ve always disliked that point, as it compares things that are dissimilar in two ways; i.e., apocalyptic global warming is bunk and but not caused by direct human agency, while ISIS is real and caused by directly by people.
If someone devoted his life to increasing farm yields or protecting us from asteroid impacts, that sounds like a very worthy epitaph.
It has always struck me that those attempting to reduce CO2 levels (other than through photosynthesis) display a bias against plant life. Have you seen how much faster plants grow given even a small increase in atmospheric CO2? So why do the Climate Warriors want to hurt plants? Why do they want a browner (and whiter) globe? I thought it was supposed to be the green movement. But, no. Like Jadis they seem to want a world where it is always winter and never Christmas.
Seawriter
Tom that’s very wrong. A model is in effect a hypothesis, nothing more. It predicts events in the real world, it does not demonstrate them in any sense whatsoever. A modeler’s review of evidence may contribute to how he chooses to construct his model — in other words it may inform the hypothesis/prediction/guess that his model represents. But the model itself, and it’s predictions, have no evidence value whatsoever. Evidence is what occurs in the natural world.
It is, by the way, terribly important that we remember that. The claim that these models “prove” this or that is at the center of the warming hysteric’s arguments, and it is deeply, disturbingly, and to anyone who knows anything about the scientific method, obviously, false.
By the way, I’m surprised no one’s mentioned it yet, but this is a really well articulated view of what’s would be needed to substantiate the warmist’s claims.
Alinsky rule number 4: Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.
I’ll suggest embracing Global Warming and use it to actively dismantle all of the “green” programs that turn out to have negative effects on the environment:
And so forth…
It is striking in which the AGW crowd seeks to have us accept it as though they are proselytizing a religion. It’s not that we have to accept it because there irrefutable evidence that humans are the main driving force of climate change or that there is without a doubt demonstrable evidence that the earth is actually warming. We have to accept it because it is mainstream. The priesthood of “science” has said we must. The biggest clue for me that this was a sham from the get-go was the fact that the solution to it was socialism. How people can’t see through this attempt to complete the full socializing of the US I will never know.
Dan and Michael—thank you! Very helpful!
There are other costs to the focus on global warming, regardless of which side is closer to being right —-I read an essay in the New Yorker a few weeks ago by an ornithologist who said that phrases like “global warming poses the greatest threat to bird life” are actually making it much more difficult to do the kind of basic conservation work that might actually help protect and preserve bird populations so that they’re here to evolve and adapt to whatever the climate of the future might be. “The birds are doomed anyway” is not the sort of slogan that is likely to encourage a real estate developer to install bird-safe(r) glass in his new high rise office building.
Gratifyingly, this validated my long-held contention that apocalypticism of any kind tends to distract and discourage us from attempting to do good things in the here and now. There are environmental problems that we can solve, for the benefit of the present generation and future generations too (if any!?).