The overwhelming consensus on climate change

The climate is changing, and we are the primary cause. These are simple facts that are supported by a vast body of evidence and agreed upon by virtually all experts. Nevertheless, many people continue to think that the science isn’t “settled” and there is widespread disagreement among experts. Unfortunately, these myths have been propagated and supported by very active misinformation campaigns, so I want to take a few minutes to explain why they are incorrect. First I will explain what we mean when we say that a topic is “settled” or that there is a “consensus,” then I will demonstrate that such a consensus exists for the topic of anthropogenic climate change.

“Settled” science

The Logic of Science.

 First, I need to explain what I mean by “settled science,” because there are many people who argue adamantly that science is never “settled” because it is always possible that some future discovery will overturn the current thinking. That is technically true, but it can be misleading and requires clarification.

It is true that science, by its very nature, does not provide “proof.” Rather, science shows us what is most likely true given the current evidence. So to that extent, it is true that science is never 100% “settled,” because it is always technically possible there is something we have missed. However, there is a huge difference between a technical possibility and practical doubt. For example, it is technically possible that we are wrong about smoking causing cancer. It is technically possible that all of the countless studies on smoking and cancer are wrong and smoking is actually safe or even beneficial. Further, you can even find a handful of doctors that argue that we are wrong about smoking causing cancer. Does that mean that the science isn’t “settled” or that there is serious debate on the topic? Of course not! The topic has been so well studied so many times by so many people that the odds that we are wrong are insanely low. They are so low that for all intents and purposes, we can treat them as if they are zero. The notion that smoking causes cancer is “settled” in the sense that it is supported by such a massive and consistent body of evidence that it is extraordinarily unlikely that it is wrong, and we must act as if it is correct until such time as compelling evidence arises to the contrary.

Read the Logic of Science story - “The overwhelming consensus on climate change.”

How to lose friends and influence the security of your nation

It’s uncomfortable when a belief you have long held is contradicted by new facts. Even more so if an entire worldview comes under pressure from the evidence. Psychologists call it "cognitive dissonance" and it explains why it is so hard to change our minds even though we flatter ourselves that we base our opinions on the evidence.

The evidence linking bushfires to climate change is overwhelming.

In the political domain, perhaps the most powerful source of discomfort is the fear that if we change our views and express a new opinion then we will be cast out of the community of those who share and reinforce our beliefs. When worldviews are at stake, this community can actually give us our identity. They are "my people".

It’s not surprising that most people most of the time find ways to explain away or ignore evidence that contradicts their beliefs. So we talk to those who agree with us, limit ourselves to media that confirms our biases, and attack those presenting contradictory evidence as somehow disreputable or purveyors of fake news.

As a person from the political left, when I decided to write a book about Chinese Communist Party interference in Australia, I found myself experiencing this cognitive dissonance. As I researched and wrote the book, Silent Invasion, my worldview underwent an upheaval.

Read the story from The Age by Clive Hamilton - “How to lose friends and influence the security of your nation.”

Pruitt’s Own Scientist Appointees Challenge EPA Science Restrictions

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt faces harsh criticism from members of the agency's Science Advisory Board (SAB)—including from some he named to the panel himself—over his plan to restrict the types of scientific evidence the agency can use in writing EPA rules.

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, has proposed
 a new regulation to restrict the types of scientific evidence that can be used
in writing EPA rules. National science organizations have mounted a campaign
to reject Pruitt’s approach.

Ten members of an SAB work group, in a signed memorandum, called for the full board to scrutinize Pruitt's proposal at a meeting on May 31, saying his approach was designed without necessary input from the scientific community. Leading national science organizations have mounted a campaign to reject Pruitt's approach.

Pruitt's proposal would no longer allow the EPA to use scientific studies where the underlying data is not public. The move could rule out health studies that promised participants confidentiality—some of which have served as the underpinning of regulations, especially clean air standards. The policy takes up a cause long-championed by the fossil fuel industry and its allies in Congress.

Read the Marianne Lavelle story from Inside Climate News - “Pruitt’s Own Scientist Appointees Challenge EPA Science Restrictions.”

You don’t have a right to believe whatever you want to

Do we have the right to believe whatever we want to believe? This supposed right is often claimed as the last resort of the wilfully ignorant, the person who is cornered by evidence and mounting opinion: ‘I believe climate change is a hoax whatever anyone else says, and I have a right to believe it!’ But is there such a right?

True believers in fakery.

We do recognise the right to know certain things. I have a right to know the conditions of my employment, the physician’s diagnosis of my ailments, the grades I achieved at school, the name of my accuser and the nature of the charges, and so on. But belief is not knowledge.

Beliefs are factive: to believe is to take to be true. It would be absurd, as the analytic philosopher G E Moore observed in the 1940s, to say: ‘It is raining, but I don’t believe that it is raining.’ Beliefs aspire to truth – but they do not entail it. Beliefs can be false, unwarranted by evidence or reasoned consideration. They can also be morally repugnant. Among likely candidates: beliefs that are sexist, racist or homophobic; the belief that proper upbringing of a child requires ‘breaking the will’ and severe corporal punishment; the belief that the elderly should routinely be euthanised; the belief that ‘ethnic cleansing’ is a political solution, and so on. If we find these morally wrong, we condemn not only the potential acts that spring from such beliefs, but the content of the belief itself, the act of believing it, and thus the believer.

Read Aeon story by Daniel DeNicola - “You don’t have a right to believe whatever you want to.”

What might appear to be common sense is not always based on scientific evidence

The term “evidence” has a fascinating linguistic and social history – and it’s a good reminder that even today the truth of scientific evidence depends on it being presented in a convincing way.

The quest for scientific evidence can trace its
roots back to the classic masters of rhetoric.

As recent climate change scepticism shows, the fortunes of scientific evidence can be swayed by something as fleeting as a tweet.

But what does it even mean to speak of “scientific evidence”?

History reveals that scientific forms of evidence have rarely, if ever, been detached from rhetoric. In fact, the very idea of evidence has its origins within the context of classical rhetoric, the art of persuasion.

Read the piece from The Conversation by a Research Fellow from The University of Queensland,  James A. T. Lancaster - “What might appear to be common sense is not always based on scientific evidence.”

Solar farm threat to Goulburn Valley orchards

GOULBURN Valley fruit growers are calling for solar farms to be located away from orchards and other irrigated properties, in the midst of growing evidence the large banks of solar panels act as massive heat sinks.

Concern that solar farms act as massive heat sinks and so should
be kept well clear of orchards and irrigated properties in the GV.

An article published in the science journal Nature has reported solar industrial developments act as heat banks, raising surrounding temperatures by 3-4C.

The US team behind the research found that not only do solar farms increase daytime temperatures, but they acted as heat sinks that delay cooling at night across all seasons.

Read Peter Hunt’s Weekly Times story - “Solar farm threat to Goulburn Valley orchards.”

US report finds climate change 90% manmade, contradicting Trump officials

A comprehensive review by 13 US federal agencies concludes that evidence of global warming is stronger than ever and that more than 90% of it has been caused by humans.

The 477-page report said it’s ‘extremely likely’ that global warming is manmade.

The conclusion contradicts a favorite talking point of senior members of the Trump administration.

A 477-page report released on Friday said it was “extremely likely” – meaning with 95 to 100% certainty – that global warming is manmade, mostly from carbon dioxide through the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.

The energy secretary, Rick Perry, and Environmental Protection Agency chief, Scott Pruitt, have said carbon dioxide is not the primary contributor to global warming.

Since 1900, the report says Earth has warmed by 1C and seas have risen by 8in. Heatwaves, downpours and wildfires have become more frequent. 

Read the Associated Press story on The Guardian - “US report finds climate change 90% manmade, contradicting Trump officials.”

Tony Abbott dares us to reject evidence on climate, but reveals a coward

Tony Abbott titled his London speech on climate change “Daring to Doubt” – a challenge, if you will, to reject mountains of evidence and instead lick your fingers and shove them into the plug socket of denial.

In a speech to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Tony Abbott
 went for the whole canon of tired climate science denial talking points. 

Go on, I dare you.

Throughout his speech, the former Australian prime minister urged listeners to think that dismissing decades of research backed by the world’s leading scientific institutions required bravery and fortitude, rather than other less celebrated human attributes.

But what would constitute bravery for a conservative politician like Abbott? Changing your mind when the evidence tells you you’re dead wrong, or saying what you’ve always said, using the logical fallacies that you’ve always used? One step is brave, the other is cowardly.

Read Graham Readfearn’s story on The Guardian - “Tony Abbott dares us to reject evidence on climate, but reveals a coward.”

Climate optimism has been a disaster. We need a new language – desperately

Elle Mae O'Hagan - "we desperately
need a new language".

In 1988, when the scientist James Hansen told a senate committee that it was “time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here”, those who took him seriously assumed that if they just persisted with emphasising that this terrible fact would eventually destroy us, action would be taken. Instead, the opposite happened: when confronted with the awful reality of climate change, most people tended to retreat into a panglossian vision of the future, or simply didn’t want to hear about it.

A lot of work has been done since to understand why climate change is so uniquely paralysing, most prominently by George Marshall, author of the book Don’t Even Think About It. Marshall describes climate change as “a perfect and undetectable crime everyone contributes to but for which no one has a motive”. Climate change is both too near and too far for us to be able to internalise: too near because we make it worse with every minute act of our daily lives; too far because until now it has been something that affects foreign people in foreign countries, or future versions of ourselves that we can only conceive of ephemerally.

Read the comment by Ellie Mae O’Hagan on The Guardian - “Climate optimism has been a disaster. We need a new language – desperately.”

Has ‘denying’ won? - Radio National

The science is 150 years old and growing each day, yet it is still being rejected by politicians and some academics. 

The "pale blue dot".

We shall talk to a few of those who remain unconvinced by climate research and its conclusions: a former vice-chancellor, a renowned Princeton mathematician, a space scientist from WA who worked on the Apollo program, a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and a climate researcher in America. 

Have they ever changed their minds on the topic? Do they perceive any risk at all? What do they think of President Trump’s policies? How can critics remain unmoved as the evidence mounts? Sharon Carleton reports.

Listen to the Science Show on Radio National - “Has ‘denying’ won?”

High energy prices? Blame fossil fuel generators, not renewables

It seems that you can ask the Coalition government pretty much any question – about plunging polls, Donald Trump, Cory Bernardi or even the weather – and the answer will always be the same: “We’re focused on electricity prices.”

Fair-weather profits: Queensland’s electricity
system is low on renewables and high on prices.

Great. But what exactly is the Coalition doing about them? On the evidence to date, not a whole lot, apart from blaming renewables for soaring wholesale electricity costs and promoting something called “clean coal,” despite all the evidence pointing to the fact that coal generation is not very clean, and not cheap. 

They are chasing the wrong target. Australia has experienced some extraordinarily high wholesale electricity prices this summer, and most of these price surges have come in states with little large-scale wind or solar.

It is the activities of the fossil fuel generators that are to blame. This is about competition, or the lack of it, and the fossil fuel generators have been going to extraordinary lengths to get rid of competition.

Read the story by Giles Parkinson on Inside Story - “High energy prices? Blame fossil fuel generators, not renewables.”

'Holy smoke!' - did China's carbon emissions just fall?

E

arlier this year, many of us who follow such things were astounded by news that global CO2 emissions might have actually stalled last year.

Now, comes news via the Greenpeace Energy Desk that Chinese carbon emissions may have fallen 5% in the first four months of this year.

If true, this is very big news indeed. In fact, a drop of that magnitude would—according to Greenpeace—be the equivalent of the UK's entire emissions output.

I'm not sure many of us saw this coming. While there's been plenty of evidence that China is ramping up an impressive commitment to clean tech and a lower carbon future, the much heralded China US climate pact of last year had Chinese CO2 emissions peaking around 2030. (As critics of the deal never tired of reminding us).

Read Sami Grover’s story on Treehugger - “Holy smokes! Did China's CO2 emissions actually just fall?”

Skeptic handed the reins in the U.S.

-      Robert McLean

I weep for humanity when the most powerful country in the world hands control of its science program to a climate change skeptic.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was named chair of America’s subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness, where he will oversee NASA and science programs.

Cruz has claimed there isn't enough evidence to prove global warming is occurring, telling CNN he was skeptical of the "so-called scientific theory."

The Huffington Post tells of Cruz’s appointment in the story: “Ted Cruz, Longtime Foe Of NASA And Science, Will Oversee NASA AndScience In New Congress”.

The seriousness of climate change ecliped by fantasy, again!

Indisputable evidence that many in powerful places are not sufficiently intellectually equipped to understand the seriousness and consequences of climate change is illustrated in a Huffington Post story.

The story, headed: “House Science Committee is more worried about aliens than climate change” reports that the chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee has spent more time studying existence of extra-terrestrial life than it has examining climate science or the repercussions of global climate change.

More and more evidence that the 'whole world is warming'

Prof Neville Nicholls.

“It’s just more and more evidence that the whole world is warming,” said a climate expert as Monash University, Professor Neville Nicholls.

Prof Nicholls was quoted in a Melbourne Age story today (September 7) headed: “Seas may be rising faster than predicted, scientists”.

The story referred to the not yet released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, of which some details have been “leaked”.