Moron Climate Change

A few posts back, I mentioned the now quite infamous documentary, 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' and have received some vitriolic responses (mainly 'shut-up, you're wrong'). What I find funny, is that I was quite careful not to say that global warming is untrue, but that opinion is seemingly mixed about what's going on. I am a psychologist not a climatologist, and I have no real interest in the topic, per se, except on the level of wanting to know what is true. Will recycling my milkbottles, really plug the hole in the ozone layer? How do we prevent people from destroying the planet - if they are indeed capable and responsible?

So, I have seen a number of hit pieces on the web, about the documentary, including one published today over at the Guardian:

The problem with The Great Global Warming Swindle, which caused a sensation when it was broadcast on Channel 4 last week, is that to make its case it relies not on future visionaries, but on people whose findings have already been proved wrong. The implications could not be graver. Just as the government launches its climate change bill and Gordon Brown and David Cameron start jostling to establish their green credentials, thousands have been misled into believing there is no problem to address.

But if some of the science in the documentary is 'wrong', it still raises some interesting points on the politics of the global warming debate, and its effect on the poorest people in the world. You shouldn't be throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and if scientists have doubts about global warming, then it is interesting to hear from them (better them, than a politician who knows nothing about science). Former editor of the New-Scientist, Nigel Calder, appeared in the documentary, and I discovered an interesting article by him, in the Times (from mid-February):

Twenty years ago, climate research became politicised in favour of one particular hypothesis, which redefined the subject as the study of the effect of greenhouse gases. As a result, the rebellious spirits essential for innovative and trustworthy science are greeted with impediments to their research careers. And while the media usually find mavericks at least entertaining, in this case they often imagine that anyone who doubts the hypothesis of man-made global warming must be in the pay of the oil companies. As a result, some key discoveries in climate research go almost unreported. Enthusiasm for the global-warming scare also ensures that heatwaves make headlines, while contrary symptoms, such as this winter’s billion-dollar loss of Californian crops to unusual frost, are relegated to the business pages.

The early arrival of migrant birds in spring provides colourful evidence for a recent warming of the northern lands. But did anyone tell you that in east Antarctica the Adélie penguins and Cape petrels are turning up at their spring nesting sites around nine days later than they did 50 years ago? While sea-ice has diminished in the Arctic since 1978, it has grown by 8% in the Southern Ocean. So one awkward question you can ask, when you’re forking out those extra taxes for climate change, is “Why is east Antarctica getting colder?” It makes no sense at all if carbon dioxide is driving global warming. While you’re at it, you might inquire whether Gordon Brown will give you a refund if it’s confirmed that global warming has stopped. The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999.

Finally, I noticed that a couple of visitors had reached my site using the key-terms "global warming" and "matt ridley". Since I've mentioned Matt Ridley before, I was interested to find out his take on the issues, and found this small (and admittedly quite old) article at Slate.com:

We are furiously worried about global warming, for instance, even though a) the evidence seems to me to be growing that it will be modest and is partly driven by solar activity rather than by carbon dioxide, and b) England would get a better climate with a couple of degrees of warming.

Regardless of what any of us think about the issues of global warming, there are legitimate questions being raised about how much we actually know about the Earth's climate, and our impact on it. That's not really surprising, given the small length of time that accurate records have been kept, and the very long time our planet has been here. What we need is clear scientific opinion (even if it is a 'we don't have a clue'), not morons saying they know what's going on, when they don't!