Naomi Oreskes - A History of Denialism

Thanks to Joe Romm at Climate Progress for pointing us to this video of a presentation by science historian Naomi Oreskes. Joe has some good background on the lecture.

This meticulously put together presentation explains a lot about the uncertainty expressed by the America people when asked to describe their feelings about global warming. You've heard all these same tired arguments for years now. Oreskes reveals the original script writers.

Here's the YouTube intro:

Polls show that between one-third and one-half of Americans still believe that there is "no solid" evidence of global warming, or that if warming is happening it can be attributed to natural variability. Others believe that scientists are still debating the point. Join scientist and renowned historian Naomi Oreskes as she describes her investigation into the reasons for such widespread mistrust and misunderstanding of scientific consensus and probes the history of organized campaigns designed to create public doubt and confusion about science.

The link between strange and extreme weather and climate change. Does it matter?

The powerful killer tornados that blasted across the Southeast on Tuesday were - according to Dr. Jeff Masters, the most deadly mid-winter tornados in recorded history with the exception of a storm in January, 1949. The drought that continues to plague northern Georgia, Alabama and the Carolinas is equally unusual in that region's history.

Scientists and responsible science writers (such as Chris Mooney) are admitting that in both cases - and in general - they must be very cautious about attributing these oddball extremes to climate change.

Fair enough. That's how science should and must be. But really, does it matter? If we are witnessing hundreds of broken records for temperature, rainfall and drought in the course of a year, there's a gut level instinct that tells you something is changing in the world. No one has yet defined how we'll mark the official, scientifically sanctioned and approved beginning of Climate Change. No one has described how we will someday look back on history and set a pushpin on a timeline and declare, "This is when the climate began to change."

We certainly can't say that just because over 50 people were killed in February tornados this year, we can expect to see such patterns repeated from now on. The most certain thing we can say about climate change is that its behavior will be uncertain. Our weather patterns may change, but they may not settle into any patterns at all.

I think it's fair to say that having the Arctic ice cover disappear, having countless glaciers retreat, having severe flooding in England, catastrophic drought in Australia and shrinking snowpack in the Rockies all represent changes in...something. We can studiously avoid blaming these facts on global warming, but not if it means denying that they are happening.

California's big climate change conference

Next week I'll be attending the Fourth Annual Climate Change Research Conference in Sacramento. Sponsored by the California Energy Commission & California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA), this four-day event brings together scientists and policy makers to share the most up-to-date findings and challenges regarding global warming and its impacts on the varied ecosystems and population centers in the state.


This will be an opportunity for me to meet other individuals and organizational representatives with interests in this area, and it will provide me with a good baseline for where government agencies are currently positioned with regard to climate change risk assessment.

As my next post explains, I'm narrowing my focus and adding another wrinkle to the mission of Climate Frog.

"There's no one responsible for sea-level rise."

So says a frustrated David Holland, who directs New York University's Center for Atmosphere Ocean Science. And right now, according to an article in the Washington Post, no one has developed a computer model that can predict when sea level will begin to rise more rapidly, or how high it will rise.

Since the most serious contributor to rising sea level is the melting of glacial ice on Greenland and Antarctica, computer models must be able to account for the complex movement of these ice sheet across the unknown terrain that lies beneath them.

Without those models, scientists are left to guess on the timing and severity of sea level rise, and with estimates varying between the IPCC's forecast "that it would rise between 7.8 inches and two feet by the end of the century" and more catastrophic warnings that both ice sheets could slide into the ocean entirely, under certain conditions, policy makers are unable to move ahead with any planning to prevent or mitigate future coastal damage.

Worst case, as stated by Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton University professor of geosciences and international affairs, is "if the Greenland ice sheet disintegrates, sea level would rise about 23 feet. If the West Antarctic sheet melts, as well, it would add an additional 17 feet or so." Such a scenario would wipe out coastal civilization as we know it. And no one can say, for certain, that such a scenario is impossible.

Uncertainty, Science and the Press

I rely on RealClimate to untangle much of the confusion around reports of global warming and climate change. This confusion - as described in this classic case concerning the melting of the Greenland ice cap - is often generated by the biases and ignorance inherent in press coverage.

As my preceding article explained, there is alway uncertainty in forecasting, and there is definitely uncertainty in any attempt to predict the weather - whether it be for the next decade or this afternoon. But misinterpretation of scientific findings introduces even more uncertainty in the minds of citizens, who read or hear conflicting reports and then decide not to trust any of them.

A deep core sample of the ice in Greenland found the "oldest pure DNA ever" and the reports published in Science magazine included some mentions of historic ice cap melting some 125,000 years ago when the sea level was some 6 meters above what it is today. Some press accounts of the Science article interpreted those mentions as meaning that forecasts of the impact of current Greenland meltoff were overblown, exaggerated.

RealClimate provides a more accurate explanation of the original study, which is consistent with the IPCC findings regarding the ice cap. So we're back to considering the possibility that a Greenland meltoff, combined with similar melting of the Antarctic ice cap, the melting of many smaller mountain glaciers around the world and the expansion of the ocean itself due to warming may - MAY - still result in at least a 6 meter rise in sea level.