I tend to avoid commenting on climate change as there are excellent blogs out there written by people that understand the science a hell of a lot better than I do. However in this case I feel I ought to draw your attention to a recent development, and apologies if you’re attention has already been drawn to it. I must state out right that as I was given a somewhat traditional science training, I can’t help but be a “climate change skeptic”as the science is never settled, I also remain a relativity skeptic and consider pretty much everything else I’ve been taught to not be proven (which is probably just as well given the half life of facts. Anyway I digress it seems there is a leaked report out from the IPCC (cached zip of the PDFs here just in case) – which seems to suggest that maybe the models weren’t as good as we’ve been told and that maybe the science isn’t really that settled. Just as well everyone invovled remembered their classic science training, kept in mind it was all just theories and didn’t persuade governments to base masses of policy around it all… I mean no scientist would do anything so daft would they….
Anyway sarcasm aside if you’ve the time and the background go read the whole report, alternatively if like me you lack either the time or the background then the ever informative Katabasis has a nice starting article, for more details and ongoing updates as they chew though it head over to Watts Up with that. If we’re finally admitting that the sun may actually have a fair bit to do with climate change then the historical stuff that the Chiefio digs through on why henges were built, lifetime climate patterns and a whole host of interesting stuff that all ties together to paint a worrying picture that the current settled science just doesn’t countenance. Let’s just hope this settled science nonsense doesn’t get into the legal and educational systems.
“Let’s just hope this settled science nonsense doesn’t get into the legal and educational systems.”
I know a lot of children in their early teens who completely reject climate change alarmism. They accept that the climate changes but do not accept that it is anthropogenic. You might think that they have been indoctrinated perhaps at school, but you’d be wrong. All of them go to liberal public schools which have been showing “An Inconvenient Truth” over and over with no opposing films or opinions, the teachers openly blame humans for climate change and they ridicule any opposing views from their students. It is presented as a threat, designed to scare them out of their wits and as a result most of them reject it all. I have been an environmentalist since 1970, and I have never seen anything like this.
I have been saying for years that AGW alarmism will kill the environmental movement in the end, and now I’m seeing how. There is a whole new generation of kids who will not fill the ranks of the green movement in the future. They reject environmentalism. They reject it partially because it’s rammed down their throats everyday in school and in the media. They reject it because they are fed up with being intentionally threatened and terrified about it. They reject it because they believe it is an adults’ problem, something for old people to worry about (and old is not cool).
This is a disaster in the making.
I’d suggest that another reason why they reject it is that it’s anti-science. At times so blatantly anti-science that it’s impossible to ignore, they get taught that science works by a particular method (at least I hope they still do) and then the “science” presented for climate change plays fast and loose with that method. Once you realize that the people presenting a certain view point aren’t reliable rejecting their opinions is a rational reaction.
The knock on effect to science and genuine environmental issues is sadly a massive tragedy and a disaster in the making, though probably no worse a disaster than if all branches of science adopted the methods used by the alarmists. So in some ways I see the kids rejection of the alarmist message as heartening, if they manage to hold onto to some fundamental understanding of science then genuine causes may win them over later by presenting reasoned arguments and actual facts not models and theories dressed up as immutable truth.