INSIGHT Weekly commentary
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
September 13 , 2006
The Attack on Science: The Right's Desperate Lunge at Climate Change
Recently I encountered the counterattack on climate-change science, and it is a sobering experience.
When I was giving a talk at a book store on Manhattan's Upper West Side late last month, a young man began to pester me with hostile questions. My book, 100 Ways America is Screwing Up the World, has "Altering the Earth" listed at No. 1, a chapter that briefly tours the science and politics of climate change. The young man (among other obstreperous comments) upbraided me for saying there was scientific consensus on climate change, telling the audience that he had a petition signed by 17,000 scientists denying the threat of global warming. It was the first I had heard of such a petition, but in the days to come I noticed emails from people I'd never heard of on this same topic.
The book, I knew, was bound to stir some passions, and it has. I cover about a dozen ecological topics, so anti-green zealots were bound to find me. And one mode of way their attack is by wielding this Global Warming Petition.
The petition flatly states that "there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."
A little investigation revealed that the petition is actually eight years old, although a "living" document in that signatures are still being solicited. Its originator is an obscure place called the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, which specializes -- according to its own website -- in civil defense, home-schooling materials, and health profiling, among a few other research areas of "science and medicine." Arthur B. Robinson, a chemist who is the prime mover behind the "institute" and the petition, appears around the country excoriating environmentalists as dangerous and responsible for millions of deaths.
The petition has been roundly criticized, and is prominent among a series of anti-green hoaxes that purport to counter broad scientific judgment about climate change. (The Union of Concerned Scientists has an informative list of "skeptics" that reveals them to be largely phony.) I call this a hoax because I did a little random survey of the names listed on the petition, those for my home state of Massachusetts. The results were revealing, to say the least.
Of 100 names googled, only about 2 percent turn out to be scientists with any training relevant to climatology, usually physics. A small number -- about 15 percent -- were other kinds of scientists or physicians, but with no relevant training. Several in this overall pool of scientists were quite elderly. The remainder were either people with no scientific credentials whatsoever (40 percent), or names that did not appear in the search -- highly improbable nowadays if indeed such people existed.
Scientific American similarly probed the petition list last year. The journal ...
... took a sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition -- one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers -- a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community.
So the petition is clearly fictitious, at least in about 80% of its names and 99% of its claims, and a nasty one at that.
Now, this would be fairly harmless except that the web and the blogosphere in particular keep such things alive and dangerous. The petition is featured on right-wing websites and by prominent bloggers. Robinson published an article in the Wall Street Journal in 1997 titled "Science Has Spoken: Global Warming Is a Myth" that is widely cited. Along with the other fabrications of skeptics (and with the tiny number of highly publicized scientists who are skeptics), this petition is used to feed industry-led efforts to block meaningful federal action.
Then, a few days ago, I was attacked again, this time in the Canadian magazine, Maclean's, by something named Mark Steyn. An incoherent stumble altogether, one of his only "factual" assertions (after the mandatory anti-Muslim sneer) was to berate my support for climate change action: "But what's his answer? A boilerplate defence of the Kyoto Protocol, a quintessential piece of transnational humbug. Canada and Europe signed it and increased their greenhouse-gas emissions; America didn't sign it but decreased its emissions . . ."
Could that be so? Ten minutes worth of searching yields this result: America has increased its greenhouse gas emissions since Bush took office (despite the economic downturn after 9/11 and tepid economic growth since); and, since 1997 (when Kyoto was negotiated) the net emission of such gases has risen 4 percent. That's according to the U.S. government. When 2005 and 2006 figures are released, it will continue to show steady increases, well above the Kyoto standard.
How is Europe doing? Citing a European Commission report, Friends of the Earth said: "The EU is way off track in meeting its Kyoto protocol target of cutting emissions by eight per cent by 2012. Latest figures show emissions are currently only 1.7 per cent below 1990 levels." In the same period, the United States increased its emissions by 16 percent.
What could persuade Maclean's, once a respected magazine, to make such assertions? I don't know, but one has to assume it has joined the broader attack on science that is now standard for the misnamed "conservatives." Altogether, their tactics include superstition, phony "science," or fear-mongering about economic costs to undermine rational discourse. The same crowd decrying global warming is usually lining up to prevent new stem cell research and insist that schoolchildren be taught "intelligent design." Typically, they also rant about the universities being too leftish, the same venues, not incidentally, where most new scientific knowledge is produced.
So beware the Petition on Global Warming. As ludicrous as it is in many ways, it has, like an urban legend, gained an inexorable life of its own. And along with it are the myriad other attacks on the science and understanding of climate change, which is now the official bullseye of right wing extremism.
-- John Tirman
johntirman.com |
