Global warming overblown?

Conservatives and liberals both agree that science is crucially important for making public policy. But the answers provided by scientific research are rarely certain and always open to disputation or challenge. When conservatives today call for "sound science," the evidence suggests that what they really want is to hold a scientific filibuster - and thereby delay political action.

In early 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body comprised of over 2,500 scientists that's the world's leading authority on global warming, released its third major assessment of the issue. The IPCC concluded that humans are responsible for global warming and that this poses serious future risks. Now, for obvious reasons, this report posed a problem for the Bush administration, which quickly sought a review of the IPCC's findings by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Given the IPCC's lengthy and thorough process, this seemed a rather redundant effort to many. Sure enough, the NAS panel quickly confirmed the IPCC findings, adding still more force to the weight of scientific consensus.

Given this, anyone wishing to challenge the heavily reviewed conclusions of the IPCC and NAS has to overcome a rather staggering burden of proof. That's not to say it can't be done. But for the moment, it hasn't, which means that adopting a skeptical stance towards climate change in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus can hardly be considered the most defensible position. Instead, I would hazard, it amounts to an abuse of skepticism.

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The reason we're so vulnerable to abuses of skepticism is that it's extremely hard to ever say that scientific conclusions are absolutely certain--much less to label scientific dissent a bad thing. After all, it's certainly possible that 2,500 IPCC scientists might have made the same mistake. And if so, we would want someone to point that out. Still, the prevailing view on climate change has gone through repeated challenges in the court of scientific opinion and emerged in its current form. If we really wish to discard this consensus position, then in some sense we're opting to discard the scientific process itself.

And that, finally, points to a way of determining when skepticism has gone too far and outlived its usefulness. In order to be responsible and useful, skepticism must respect the basic scientific process, rather than seeking to undermine it. It's one thing to doubt. But it's something else altogether to undermine the best mechanism we have at our disposal for knowing anything.

Thanks for your reply foxfyre.

Global warming is a reality. It is anthropogenic...that is as a result of human activity. And there is absolutely nothing we can do about it, except to build sea defences and perhaps stock up on tinned food.

So keep driving the SUV, it makes no difference. What's coming is coming.

Do you consider the "Skeptical Inquiror" to be reliable for credible information? Do you know who funds it? Do they always include reliable sources for the information? I thought they were essentially a site for discussion of the paranormal.