|
Arguments of Those Unconcerned About Global Warming
by tyler
Sunday February 01, 2004 at 12:55 AM
tnorman@equalvision.net
Section 3 of Perspectives on Global Warming: A Primer
Arguments of Those Unconcerned About Global Warming
Some scientists, including prominent members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), a collaboration between the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme,
believe that human activities are not increasing the greenhouse effect at all, or that climate change will have primarily
neutral or even positive effects.
Climate scientists who have come to the conclusion that global warming is not a threat criticize those who are
concerned as being unscientific in their methods, relying on guesswork and scientific dogma rather
than the hard logic and irrefutable evidence normally called for by the science community. Climate is an
extremely difficult object of study, because it is extremely complex, and they believe that the current computer models
are wildly innaccurate, and that the study of climate, which ought to be as objective as any other science, is
being overridden by questionable environmentalist ideologies. As author Michael Crichton states, Nobody
believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years
into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?
They are also highly critical of the work of the IPCC, claiming that science is not about consensus,
but objective truth. They remind us that throughout history, the brilliant scientists who spoke against the consensus
of the scientific community have subsequently been celebrated for their genius and scientific integrity. In general,
they are dissapointed by what they see as politics dominating and steering science, much as the church prevented
real science from being conducted in the past. Crichton also states, As the twentieth century drew
to a close, the connection between hard scientific fact
and public policy became increasingly elastic. In part this was possible because of the complacency of the scientific
profession; in part because of the lack of good science education among the public; in part, because of the rise of
specialized advocacy groups which have been enormously effective in getting publicity and shaping policy; and in great
part because of the decline of the media as an independent assessor of fact. A significant number of
scientists contest the claims of the threat of global warming because they feel the evidence for it is weak, if not
outright false, and they feel the entire scientific community, which once prided itself on its objectivity, is being
dominated by policy-makers and lobby groups to form theories as part of environmentalist public relations efforts.
Resources:
Other Articles about Global Warming:
|
