[Vision2020] Institute for Public Accuracy: "Media Miss the Forest for the Burning Trees"

[Paul Rumelhart]

On 07/03/2012 05:42 PM, Joe Campbell wrote:
> So, Paul, why believe that smoking causes lung disease if you don't
> believe that human carbon consumption has an impact on global warming?
>
> Joe

First, I'm not saying that carbon consumption is not having an impact on 
global warming.  I'm saying that the size of the impacts compared to the 
more-or-less unknown natural factors is unknown and that the feedbacks 
from warming in general are unknown, among other things.

There are plenty of reasons, both scientific and not, that make me 
skeptical of global warming.  Although everyone will assume I'm just 
grasping at straws because of my deep-seated urge to deny everything 
(probably has to do with my relationship with my mother), I humbly 
present a smattering of them for your enjoyment:

1.  On the face of it, the idea is extraordinary.  Humans, even with our 
vaunted civilization, are small potatoes compared to the forces of 
nature.  The only reason our carbon footprint even makes a dent compared 
to natural forces has to do with the small amount of CO2 in our 
atmosphere.  We've had far less of an impact on the water cycle, for 
example, or with oxygen levels.  Not saying that it isn't possible, but 
there is automatically a bar that has to be gotten over which smoking 
causing lung disease doesn't have.  It should be common sense that 
inhaling smoke multiple times a day for years can have a deleterious 
effect on the lungs, even without bringing in carcinogens.

2.  There are some obvious questions that aren't being answered because 
of the focus on human impacts.  For example, what caused the earth to 
heat up immediately following the Little Ice Age?  If we do not know, 
how can we say with any confidence that human-induced climate change is 
to blame instead of the same natural processes still at work?  What 
causes an ice age to start, and what brings us out of one?

3.  The climate is complex, with multiple feedbacks of unknown strength 
and unknown feedbacks of unknown strength.  The sign of the combination 
of feedbacks isn't even known.  Climate models cannot be that accurate, 
given the above, yet they are seen as gospel.  Even when they make 
different assumptions and model things different ways.  As long as they 
project a warmer future, they are added to the model average and used as 
proof that global warming will kill babies and cause frogs to rain from 
the sky.

I imagine that the mechanisms for lung disease from tobacco are 
relatively straight forward.

4.  Some of the major players in the spotlight on the side of global 
warming are environmental activists with an agenda, as opposed to being 
objective scientists just following the data.  For example, Timothy 
Wirth (Senator from Colorado and leader of the negotiating team for the 
Kyoto treaty) held a hearing on global warming at the capital.  He 
called the Weather Bureau to find out what day of the year was usually 
the hottest in DC, and scheduled the hearing for that date.  His team 
then went in the night before the hearing and opened all the windows in 
the room in which the hearing was to be held, causing the air 
conditioning to fail to keep up with the heat.  All so that it could be 
hot and muggy when James Hansen gave his spiel about the dangers of 
global warming.  
(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/interviews/wirth.html)

The anti-tobacco campaigns, with all their sheer propaganda, do seem to 
be run by political activists, but that may be coincidental.

5.  Major climate scientists also appear to have political agendas. 
Michael Mann and his "hockey stick" come to mind, trying to erase the 
Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, using dubious statistics, 
all so they could show that current warming was "unprecedented". All 
this from a few bristlecone pine trees.

I haven't heard of any of these kinds of shenanigans from scientists 
studying the link between tobacco use and lung diseases, probably 
because the links were relatively straight forward.  Not so much the 
case with global warming / global climate change / global climate 
disruption.

There are more, but that gives you the gist of it.  But hey, it's just 
me being contrarian, right? So please, move along.  Nothing to see here.

Paul