Any person who has truly made an effort to understand the science behind claims of global warming should find these politicians' arguments insulting. Examples follow.
From Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama: "Important scientific research is ongoing, and there are still many questions that must be answered before we take steps to address this issue. For example, is the climate change phenomenon cyclical or is it a function of man-made pollutants, or both? I believe the science must be firmly grounded before we take any actions that could seriously cripple many sectors of our economy."Very reasonable sounding, but here is the problem. It is often argued by deniers that there are natural climate cycles that could be responsible for our current warming trend, and that we shouldn't jump to the conclusion that it's man-made greenhouse gases that have put us in this predicament. Now, think about this argument for a minute. Do you for one second imagine that climate scientists, who have studied climate for many years, don't know about the natural cycles? They know more about climate than any layman or any member of Congress, because the study of climate is their profession. They know about the cycles, believe me, and they have taken the cycles into account. They know where we would be in the natural cycles with and without adding greenhouse gases. I imagine that climate scientists get sick of hearing this argument all the time, as do I. Imagine a climate scientist at a cocktail party, and somebody lays this new bit of cycle information on him or her. "Oh! Of course! The cycles! I never thought of the cycles! Thanks!"
Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama: "What about erosion? Every time you have that soil or rock, whatever it is, that is deposited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to rise because now you've got less space in those oceans because the bottom is moving up."Well, that one doesn't sound as reasonable as the last one. Sounds kind of dumb, actually. Erosion deposits silt into the oceans at a regular rate. What is new, and what is the culprit in sea level rise, is the speed at which glacial ice is melting from land masses and returning to the ocean. The deniers have not given much thought to their argument. Their tactic is to simply give some plausible-sounding alternative cause for sea level rise, and declare their job done. They may think they've done the job of refuting the scientists' claims, but they have done a piss-poor job. Scientists have done the work, and they have predicted that melting ice will cause the sea level to rise. And the sea level is rising, as predicted. You don't get to throw out an alternative theory without doing the work to back it up.
Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona: "I do not believe climate change is occurring. I do not think that humans have a significant impact on climate. The federal government should stop regulating and stomping on our economy and freedoms in the name of a discredited theory."Well, that's a very Libertarian argument. There is no attempt at all to present a scientific argument, except to flatly say the science isn't there. Biggs's argument betrays his real objection to the notion of human-caused climate change: government shouldn't be telling us what to do. The freedom of people and industries to continue behaving has they like trumps any scientific argument.
Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas: "The simple fact is that for the last 16 years the earth's temperature has not warmed."Senator Cotton said this in 2014. In the early 2000s, many climate change deniers tried a new tactic. Where they had once said that global warming was not occurring, they changed their argument to "it was occurring, but it isn't now. It has reversed itself, and now the earth is cooling!" What caused this change in strategy? In 1998, there was a spike in the temperature of the earth. It was an exceptionally hot year. For a few years thereafter, while the long term temperature trend was still upward, yearly temperatures did not match 1998. Now, as I write this, here in Washington DC, it is springtime, and I think we can all agree that it gets warmer in spring and summer. But the temperature doesn't go up in a straight line. Last Tuesday's high was 81; today's high was 72. If I took those two pieces of data and concluded that summer won't be coming this year, you would laugh at me. Well, the earth's temperature in 1998 was higher than it was in 1999, and for a few years after that. Senator Cotton would have us look at the graph for only the few years after 1998, and say, "Problem solved!" But the temperature since then has continued to lurch upward, much higher even than the "spike" year of 1998.
Senator Cotton also revealed his true, political objection to doing anything about global warming with this argument:
"They believe that Americans driving around in trucks on farms, or commuting from the suburbs where they can have a decent home into the city to work are a fundamental threat to the world, and they have to have the power and control of those Americans' lives to implement their radical vision for humanity."Again, there is no science in Cotton's argument. His argument is not that humans don't cause climate change; it is that it would be unfair to force any behavioral change.
Representative Tom McClintock of California: "The climate has been changing for four and a half billion years. The extent to which human activity has a role to play is being hotly debated right now."Hotly debated by politicians, yes. By politicians who, for reasons having nothing to do with science, refuse to let the science penetrate their defenses.
Representative John Rutherford of Florida: "Climate was changing before we had carbon emissions. I need to be convinced how much of that is man and how much of it is just the global climate conditions."Well, Representative Rutherford, the numbers are there for all to see, if you are truly interested. What would it take to convince you? If you were holding hearings in the House, and a scientist laid the science before you, would you listen, or would you defensively continue saying that climate has always changed? There is no doubt that climate has always changed. The fact that the climate has always changed does not address scientific arguments about what is causing it now.
Representative Jody Ice of Georgia: "It is a shame that because a scientist has reached a different conclusion on climate science than the liberal elite that the integrity of her research would be called into question."Again the political argument that science has a political agenda. If the "integrity" of someone's research is called into question in scientific circles, it is because the science is sloppy or in some way dishonest, not because the scientist "reached a different conclusion."
Now, I have probably used too many examples already, but the conclusion that I come to is that, for nearly always political reasons, politicians are actively engaged in a refusal to be convinced by scientific argument, and also in attempts to muddy the waters so that the general public believes that there is still some hot debate among scientists as to the causes of climate change. There isn't.
So, what are these political reasons I've been talking about? In the main, their reasons are economical (regulations are ruining our economy); and ideological (the government is interfering in people's lives; government is too big).
We can continue to argue the politics from now until doomsday, but such arguments have no bearing on whether the science is true. The scientific approach is to look at what is happening, and to try to figure out why. The scientist does experiments, and makes predictions. If the predictions don't come true, the scientist does more experiments to find out why. If the predictions do come true, the scientist writes a paper for other scientists to look over. The other scientists may criticize; the other scientists may try to reproduce the original scientist's results.
Scientific work on any worthwhile subject is painstaking, and it can take years. The scientists definitely know more about their subjects than do politicians and other laypersons. The politician's job is to sincerely consider the science, and to make policy that addresses problems. The politician who flippantly dismisses the scientific consensus is insulting scientists, and is insulting the intelligence of his or her constituents.
