Global Warming: The Rise of a New Religion

TKKenyon · Intern Joined: 30 Sep 2007 Posts: 40 Local time: 6:00 PM

Morning Edition on NPR recently produced a puff piece ( http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89619306 ) about Kristen Bynes, blogger of Ponder the Maunder, a blog dedicated to refuting the idea that global warming is a man-made phenomenon.

While the issue of a 16 yo kid becoming a leading global warming contrarian is devastating for the contrary view's validity as a scientific theory, and it seems that she indeed attended a short course at UGoog in Climate Science to arrive at her pre-ordained conclusions (which is the complete antithesis of how science should be conducted,) and that NPR is succumbing to natural selection by lowest common denominator, it seems that there is more to this story.

Personally, I’m not sold on the whole idea of global warming, man-made or not. I used to be. I was upset by the enormous amounts of CO2 that we humans were venting into the atmosphere, just like we exhaust raw sewage into our oceans, etc., etc., etc. And, you know, it seemed warmer, discounting that horrendous Iowa winter of 1995 when temps hit -40F and the Iowa River froze over. You can eliminate outliers in your data, as long as you can account for them, or at least make a nice statistical argument for ignoring them. It seemed that the consensus of the scientific community is that man-made global warming is a threat, and I generally go along with scientific consensus unless there’s a valid reason to doubt, and it had better be a good one. I don’t like the contrarian position.

I do, however, like data. Hard data. Preferably raw, pre-crunched data.

Here’s what changed my mind on global warming: I read that horrible anti-GW novel by Michael Crichton, which so sticks in my mind that I can’t recall the title, and I thought that his novel was so badly written that surely its conclusions can be tossed aside with great force. Crichton is both a horrid novelist and merely an MD.

(Yes, I am arrogant to snark so widely. I hold a fiction MFA from Iowa, where I received many prizes, and have published two well-received novels. During my PhD work in microbiology, I taught medical students in a Midwestern medical school. They’re great at memorizing things but, let’s face it, medical school does not reward original thought nor critical thinking. Their exams are multiple-guess. So, I’m snarky and arrogant. Crichton has loads more money than I have and a huge house on Kauai. He can take the shot.)

So, I set out on my own course of study at UGoog. I expected to quickly dismiss Crichton’s objections with data and confirm the majority opinion. It seems like an overwhelming opinion. I figured it would take an hour.

Here’s what I found: the global warming data is terrible. The methods that collected the data that produced the scary graph that we’ve all seen (where temperature spikes up in the 1970’s) are beyond shaky. It’s really bad science. I read the whole UN report, and the data that is cited in the prologue, which everyone reads, is a minor part of the whole report. Only surface temps, and only those in major urban areas, are going up. Atmospheric temperatures are not. This is to be expected by the “heat island” effect, where asphalt retains more heat than soil and re-radiates this heat at night.

Personally, I’m on the fence. The data behind GW, whether man-made or not, sucks. Here’s the problem: whenever you say that the data sucks, people jump on you like you insulted Jesus. They label you a “denialist” and, rather than debate the data, accuse you of wanting to rape the planet.

The global warming debate has moved from the arena of science, where one is free to debate data, methods, and conclusions, and into the area of religion, where one must adhere to dogma or else risk retribution.

That’s a huge problem.

When I published a short blog post about this ( http://science4non-majors.blogspot.com/2007/11/hoax-of-global-warming-john-coleman.html ), I got hate mail. Not refute mail. Not argue mail. Hate mail.

Even though my blog post encouraged recycling and conservation, people accused me of trying to destroy the planet.

The debate about global warming must return to being a debate, not a tirade, not a crusade, and not a sermon.

TK Kenyon
http://science4non-majors.blogspot.com/
_________________
TK Kenyon
www.TKKenyon.com

Author of RABID: A Novel and CALLOUS: A Novel

RABID: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1601640021
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"debut novelist Kenyon isn't fooling around. [Rabid] metamorphoses into a philosophical battle between science and religion. Kenyon is definitely an author to watch." --Booklist Starred Review

gnosis

Sal1981 · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 2:14 pm Post subject:

Hear hear.
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"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool" --- Richard P. Feynman

"Why not just make your null hypothesis be that..." - Philosophos

Jason_Harvestdancer

romans120 · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 2:17 pm Post subject:

I afraid science got thrown out the window as soon as politics got involved. I personally think man-made GW is another prank by the same people that brought us Y2K. I'm no scientist but when I start seeing junk thats obviously propaganda *ahem - "an inconvenient truth"* then their obviously wasn't enough science to fill the script so somebody said lets just make stuff up. BTW - if you can reproduce some of the raw data and show thats is sucky data it would probably help stimulate debate here
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For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. Romans 1:19-20

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Pekkle · Intern Joined: 21 Mar 2008 Posts: 72 Local time: 6:00 PM

I used to be very concerned about global warming, but I've started to become very suspicious.

We've been cooling since 1998 after all, and 2008 is the coldest year in the past 10.

In addition the antartic has grown larger than it ever has since we've been recording it's mass.

gnosis

Moloth · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 2:27 pm Post subject:

Philosophos · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 2:29 pm Post subject:

She blogs about it here. There, she brings up two points.

Her heat island affect point is interesting, but I don't know for sure how many of the thermometer's environments changed and in what ways.

Her analysis of new record highs being later than new record lows is questionable, as it uses less sensitive nonparametric analysis where it may not be needed. Why not just make your null hypothesis be that the average temperature will not deviate positively from zero over time?

It also makes me a little concerned that she immediately confuses climate change for weather change.

But, her suggestions at the end of the post are quite reasonable. Even people who don't believe in global warming would probably agree.

My view on global warming is ignorance. I simply haven't payed any attention to the issue, as I agree with TK that it's in my own personal interest to stop wasting so much to save myself some money, so that's what I make some effort to do. When ignorant about a given matter, a first approximation for holding a reasonable position would be to defer to the view of major scientific organizations that would be authorities on the matter. For instance, the American Meteorological Society states:

Sal1981

Same OP text, but with just a couple of headlights. Not to be read out of context, if you know what I mean ...

gnosis · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 2:33 pm Post subject:

The point I was also making was that the same political forces behind intelligent design support the "debunking" of global warming.

How could man cause any change in "God's creation", right? God will sort it all out, of course. Global warming won't matter when the rapture comes. Rolling Eyes

Please note the section regarding warming of the atmosphere and oceans below:

Sal1981 · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 2:35 pm Post subject:

romans120

Knight_of_BAAWA

gnosis

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