Environmentalism as Politics

A few years back, I was really, really pissed off at Michael Crichton. The pissery was in response to his speech, “Environmentalism as Religion”, given to the Commonwealth Club of California (link: http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html). In it, Crichton describes the modern environmental movement and scientific community as being based on faith and ideological fundamentalism, with elements of Christian redemption theory and eschatology. He believed it was time to reform the scientific community and corresponding movement so that scientific rigour, not ideology or politics, became the movement’s driving force. Suffice it to say that Crichton was a climate-change sceptic: his book, State of Fear, presented an extensively researched collection of evidence that countered (or tried to, at least) the prevailing notion that climate change is a clear and present danger to humanity.

Now, of course, I flew right into Crichton’s trap. My first reaction, righteous indignation, is exactly what an “environmental fundamentalist” would do, and any group that reacted to Crichton’s speech in a similar manner would just as much be inadvertently proving his point. The only good rebuttal is one that wields evidence. Scientists went after State of Fear for the representation of its data (http://www.pewclimate.org/state_of_fear.cfm is an example, ignoring the political comments at the end). This is a science debate, and Crichton was absolutely right in saying that hard science, not politics, or ideology, or personal belief, should shape debate. The only arguments he makes that I would contend with are on the mindset of the climate science community and the validity of climate data.

But this isn’t a blog post about Crichton. (It isn’t?) This is a blog post about the politicization of science. Recently, Senator James Inhofe’s Environment and Public Works press blog had an article entitled “UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims”, and subtitled “Study: Half of warming due to Sun! –Sea Levels Fail to Rise? - Warming Fears in 'Dustbin of History'”. (Access the article at: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6&Issue_id= .) When I read this, I immediately started to feel that righteous indignation boiling up again, but I calmed myself down, lest I fall into Crichton’s trap again.

As it turns out, the study, published in the American Geophysical Union’s Geophysical Research Letters (http://www.agu.org/contents/journals/ViewPapersInPress.do?journalCode=GL&sortBy=author), does not say that! Quoting from the abstract: “The strong correlation
between reconstructed temperature and solar activity suggests solar forcing as a main
driver for temperature variations during the period 1250-1850 in this region.” Furthermore, “Solar contribution to temperature change became less important during industrial period 1850-2000 in the Altai region”. On the fifty percent quip, “Our results are in agreement with studies based on NH temperature reconstructions [Scafetta et al., 2007] revealing that only up to approximately 50% of the observed global warming in the last 100 years can be explained by the Sun.” And note, this article is a study on one region in south-central Russia. There are two possible explanations for happened here: either one of Inhofe’s staff (or he himself) only read the last part of the last sentence of the conclusion (and you’re supposed to read the abstract!), or, for whatever reason, they cherry-picked phrases.

This is, purely and simply, a blatant misrepresentation of a legitimate scientific study. Add in the sensationalist headlines, and you have exactly what Crichton warned against: the politicization of science, and the corruption to public understanding it brings. Public understanding of climate change cannot be guided by U.S. senators or by ex-vice presidents or rock stars: they need to be dictated by the presentation of hard data and good interpretation. The senate minority report attached to the blog post is a list of (apparent; for all I know they could be misquoted) climate sceptics and their credentials. Exactly what am I to do with their credentials? Their endorsements of climate scepticism based on what they perceive to be the politicization of the IPCC and other climate science organizations? Judging by their credentials, these people must have evidence to back up their claims, and that’s where the debate should be. If they don’t, they’re an embarrassment to the establishments that granted them degrees.

My political science professor said in my global politics class the other day that climate change is an issue that draws from natural science, political science, social science and economics. This leaves four axes of knowledge along any one of which a person can be misled. This is why the sceptics movement in the U.S. (largely funded by free-market think tanks and the auto and oil industries) has been so strong: so long as they can keep people’s understanding muddled and confused, they prevent change from occurring.

If Canada or the United States were an autocracy, the king/emperor/president-for-life would need very good, trustworthy advisors in all these fields to tackle the problem (assuming s/he’d want to). Canada and the U.S. are democracies, and so (theoretically) the people have power. Therefore, the people need to be educated in all these fields. Of course, I don’t mean only people with dual degrees in science and the humanities should be allowed to vote. Ordinary people don’t pick climate change policies; they pick people who pick people who pick climate policies. But what the voting population does need is enough knowledge and analytical experience to know when they’re being fed nonsense. Otherwise, people like Sen. Inhofe and his staff (or the people at the David Suzuki Foundation) will have absolute free reign to shape public opinion to suit their own political agendas.

So what to do? The next time you hear a speech on environmentalism, or are presented with yet another “hockey-stick graph” (a la Al Gore’s PowerPoint presentation), look at it critically. Do research, and do your best to become informed. I know not everyone is cut out to get PhDs in environmental science, or political science for that matter. But power in this country, and in great industrialized countries around the world, belongs to the people, and those with power should never allow themselves to be patronized and treated like idiots. You have the power to make political change. Once you gain knowledge as well, nothing will stop you.

Oh, and don’t take my word for anything I’ve said here. If you’re not sure about a fact I’ve stated, look it up!

~Charles

P.S. Senator Inhofe has had Michael Crichton on the senate floor to argue the case of global warming scepticism. I wonder what Crichton would have thought of Inhofe’s blog post.

P.P.S. I can’t help myself. Quoting Crichton’s speech:

“I can tell you the percentage the US land area that is taken by urbanization, including cities and roads, is 5%.”

The continental United States covers a total area of 9.83 million square kilometres. A square covering 5% of that would be around 700 kilometres to a side, or more than the entire state of New Mexico (New Mexico is around 500 kilometres to a side)! Imagine a city that large - it would be reminiscent of Blade Runner. In the bad way.

That was just for fun, an indication that 5% is a lot. We don’t have Blade Runner yet because that 5% is spread out quite well. But imagine if I crisscrossed the entire country with electric fences so that each square kilometre of the U.S. is fenced off. Surely that wouldn’t take more than 5% of the total U.S. land mass, and wouldn’t affect trees much, but I’ve effectively destroyed the habitat of any creature larger than a fox. Size doesn’t necessarily matter in such cases.

P.P.P.S. I realize that I have failied utterly to give credit where credit was due. It was Jacob who discovered the article, and it was Jacob who found the error, not me. Also, many of the ideas of this post result from productive discussion with Jacob. Sorry, Jacob!