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Re: Human vs. natural influences on the environment



jw wrote:

> There's another consideration: climatology (like
> some other disciplines) has been
> corrupted as an objective science
> by its new prescriptive role - because power corrupts.
> One symptom of its corruption is that it is reversing
> the wise dictum "extraodinary claims require
> extraodinary proofs": instead, it demands weakened
> standards of proof - *because* of the putative
> practical importance of the issue. Nothing
> could be more dangerous. This is how
> inquisitors reasoned: the danger of witchcraft
> or heresy is so dire that one can't be finicky about
> judicial guarantees. (Stalin's political inquisitors
> argued the same way.) Shall we give
> pseudoscientists, sitting in global
> committes and defining truth by consensus,
> the keys to our freedom? - this is the main
> issue; warming or cooling are trifles compared to this.
> 
> No, proof beyond reasonable doubt is the least
> - the least! - that we need before controlling global
> industry and economy on the basis of supposedly
> scientific claims. Even then, it would be wiser
> to subject what looks like proof today, to
> the test of time. The main benefit of such an
> approach is preventing the Faustian temptation
> of science with power, as a result of which
> that which gets the power ceases to be science.
> 
> If we want any science to be science,
> we must refuse to listen to any policy
> recommendations from it. Let
> it testify to facts, and say how
> certain they are, and stop there.
> Then laymen can judge it by its prediction record,
> and weigh its estimates accordingly, and make
> the practical decisions.

This posting illustrates a point I tried to make before.   In fact
the general assertions made by climatologists are only extraordinary in
the context of social and economic preconceptions.   Humanity is in the
process of carrying on massive but unintended experiment in changing the
nature of the atmosphere.   Whatever jw says, there is little doubt
about this in scientific circles.   Without some measures to restrict
emissions, radiatively active gases---greenhousee gases---will increase
in concentration by a factor of two or more within a century.   Our
understanding of basic physics and the Carbon cycle is more than
adequate to allow us to draw this conclusion with a very high degree of
certainty.   There are still great uncertainties about the degree to
which this will change our climate, but those who make what seems to me
the extraordinary claim that it is unlikely to have any effect
whatsoever, should be required to show some proof of that.   As best I
can tell, such `proof' that has been provided is subject to even greater
uncertainty than the projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, which fully discusses all the counter arguments also.

jw's error is in identifying the social and economic status quo with the
status quo of our physical environment.   Our social status quo is
dynamic and is bound to lead to great changes in our physical
environment.    Of course, changing the way our societies produce and
use energy may require great changes in how we act, and so may be
impossible.   But to criticize climatologists for pointing out that
something rather radical may be a consequence of present poicies
amounts to trying to stifle scientific investigation because its
conclusions may be uncomfortable.   Moreover to compare the IPCC to
Stalin or the inquisition is political rehtoric designed to inflame
rather than to inform.   Also, since the IPCC represents the world's
community of atmospheric scientists, to call their members
pseudoscientists defies common sense.   The authos of the IPCC Reports
are all respected members of their profession with records of objective
scientific research in peer reviewed journals.   It is perfectly fine to
disagree with what they say by presenting scinetific evidence and
argument, but to use such language amounts to libel.   

jw's last paragraph makes sense in part.   In fact, the IPCC Working
group I, which does the science, does not make any recommendations.
They provide scientific information for the world's governments which
can then decide what to do.   The place he departs from reason and
indulges in fantasy is where he envisions a simple situation in which
the scientists make predictions, we wait to see what happens, and if
they are right we do something about it.   The problem with this is that
at some point we have to decide if their predictions have been verified
enough to justify action and how much action is justified at that time.
This is not an on/off decision making process, but a complex process
which will have to be extended over time.   Let us look at the analogy
of a patient who is showing moderate symptoms of a new disease which on
the basis of current medical knowledge may lead to his death.   We can
of course wait unti the patient dies to act, but then it will be too
late.   Less extremely, we could wait until the patient is seriously ill
and likely to die shortly, but then measures to cure him may be too
little and too late.   In the case of climate change due to increases in
the concentration of greenhouse gases, there are long lag times.  So
we have a quandary.  If we wait until the observational evidence is so
clear cut that even the jw's of the world are convinced, any measures to
contain the effects of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere are
likely to take centuries to be effective.   In the best of all possible
world's there will be some striking clear cut evidence very soon, and
universal agreement that something must be done, but this is unlikely.
So what those of us who take the prospect of climate change seriously
suggest at present is measures which make sense in their own right.
These would include among other things increased energy efficiency,
intensified research on renewable energy sources, and switching to such
sources as nuclear, solar, and wind as much as is practical.   Now in so
doing, there will be economic winners and losers, but we shouldn't let
the possible losers dominate the debate.   Capitalistic economies are by
their very nature dynamic anyway.   During this century we have seen
great changes which the economies of the devloped world have dealth with
without great hardship.   Suggesting that even modest changes in the way
we do things is going destroy our freedoms is hyperbole, to say the
least.

Leonard Evens       len@math.nwu.edu      491-5537
Department of Mathematics, Norwthwestern University
Evanston Illinois



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