A new posting from Jim Torson
The discussion I wrote that Psiclops posted was a personal message I wrote to him. He suggested that it be posted to the Skeptiko forum, and without thinking much about it I said, sure go ahead and post it. I realized later that I should have updated it to clarify some things that would probably not be obvious to others.
The most important thing I should have clarified was my statement that, "This illustrates that "debates" like this are really a total waste of time."
I think this is related to Alex's question about control - not so much control of the climate, but control of us. Who is doing the controlling? Why are they doing it? And, how are they doing it?
Naomi Oreskes, who studies the history of science, has done an excellent job of discussing these issues. Very briefly, the "why" is ideology and politics. The "how" is by using the techniques developed by the tobacco industry. This consists of creating doubt about the science in order to delay action to address the problem. For anybody who wants to understand what is really going on with all the climate change debates, I would highly recommend looking at what Oreskes has to say .
For the most part, discussions of details of the science create and perpetuate the incorrect impression that there is a valid scientific debate within the scientific community. Yes, the climate system is complex and there are things we don't fully understand. However, in reality, there is no valid debate about the important basics: climate change is happening, it is largely the result of human activity, and it is a problem. We know enough to know that it is way past time to move on to discussions of what we should do about the problem.
The following page contains two videos of Oreskes discussing these issues:
Naomi Oreskes and the Merchants of Doubt
http://climatecrocks.com/2011/09/16/the-weekend-wonk-naomi-oreskes-and-the-merchants-of-doubt/
The first video (34 minutes) is a good overview and discussion of the use of the strategy of creating doubt about the science.
The second video (59 minutes) starts with a very good discussion of the history of global warming science, beginning more than a hundred years ago. Decades ago this reached the point where it was not really controversial that it was accepted that there was a problem. Then, at about 26 minutes into the video, she starts discussing how and why all this became controversial.
The following page contains a review of her book, and it includes another video of Oreskes (an hour and 14 minutes) discussing these issues:
Review of the must-read book:
Merchants of Doubt: How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from smoking to global warming
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2010/07/14/206422/merchants-of-doubt-naomi-oreskes-review/
The video includes some discussion of the question of uncertainty in science. The review begins with this:
"In
Merchants of Doubt Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway take us on a fascinating trip down what they call Tobacco Road. Take the journey with them, and you’ll see renowned scientists abandon science, you’ll see environmentalism equated with communism, and you’ll discover the connection between the Cold War and climate denial."
I would suggest that you start with reading the review of her book. There is some overlap in the three videos, but there is enough difference that I would highly recommend watching all three. I would suggest starting with the first 34-minute video.
Oreskes says that it is relatively easy to "follow the money" in the funding of things like think tanks that are creating doubt about climate science. However, more recently it appears that this is changing so that much of the funding is now being done such that the funders are kept secret:
Conservative Donors Pump $1 Billion A Year Into Climate Denying Groups, Study Finds
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/12/22/3099141/climate-denying-groups-funding/