The Information is Beautiful website has a new display up about the arguments and counterarguments of climate change.
Even though they’re listed as “Climate Change Skeptics” on the image above, the website author seems to go back and forth between calling them “skeptics” and calling them “deniers” (note that the link is “climate-change-deniers-vs-the-consensus”). Personally, I feel a bit conflicted about the whole naming convention. On one hand, the term “denier” has a negative connotation and smacks of name-calling and attempts to steer the debate. On the other hand, the term “skeptic” seems a little too generous, and I think it has a positive connotation that essentially amounts to steering the debate in the favor of the anti-global-warming crowd.
Personally, I haven’t delved very much into learning about the whole global warming thing. It’s an interesting summary of the arguments on each side. (I generally trust the scientists, have seen a lot of bad arguments on the anti-global warming side, and think the ultra-rich oil industry is doing the same thing to undermine global-warming research as the tobacco industry did with to undermine smoking research.) It’s also sad that opinions about global warming fall largely along political lines.
While three-quarters of Democrats believe the evidence of a warming planet is solid, and nearly half believe the problem is serious, far fewer conservative and moderate Democrats see the problem as grave. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans say there is no solid evidence of global warming (Source)
Personally, I think Republican pundits are dismissive of global warming largely because the Democrats take it seriously, and because there’s enough confusion on the issue that they can use it to cast Democrats in the “they’re stupid socialists” role. The political divide makes it hard to make headway. It means that a Republican pretty much has to admit that the Democrats are right about something and the Republicans are wrong in order to accept global warming, which is something a lot of Republicans won’t be happy to do.
I’d also add that the claims/arguments of the deniers do not belong in a side-by-side with what physics and data tell us.
One side conducts science, by gathering data, running physical computer models, forming useful models of climate that explain the data (distant past, past and present), and publishes its results in the scientific journals. There is also a unifying explanation of what we are observing in our climate based on multiple converging lines of evidence. At present there is no competing model or explanation for the observations (distant past, past, present), or what will happen in the future.
The other side doesn’t attempt to do any of those things, and hasn’t a unifying explanation for anything. In short, they are not engaged in doing science. Instead volumes of hot air are generated, ~99.999% of which is based on ignorance. Really now, your car mechanic may know a thing or two about cars, but would you want him blathering about his ideas to the team of neuroscientists/surgeons that will operate on your brain? Or maybe a random guy on the street should be given equal time on the physics of radioactive material and its affect on living tissue? Or on developing defenses against resistant strains of bacteria?
Scientists are far more skeptical, in the real sense of that word, of what they know *and don’t know* than those who have mistakenly laid claim to that term.
I’ll also add that climate scientists (as all good practicing scientists) do not claim to have a full understanding of Earth’s climate. Most people forget that it is the unknown is that intrigues scientists. But not knowing everything is a far cry from knowing nothing. And with very few exceptions(**), the contrarians of science and climate science in particular offer no unifying, cohesive (or coherent) explanations for the behavior of nature. As with the creationist (or the anti-vaxer, or the …), the issue isn’t binary — i.e., if climate science is wrong about anything, then they’re right about everything. Right about what, exactly? What’s the alternative model that explains all the old stuff better and makes better predictions about new stuff?
The reason the vast majority of climate scientists are expressing serious concern is that the mountains of observational data and our best, yet far from complete understanding of the workings of Earth’s climate (past and present), indicate the likelihood of “business as usual” leading to significant climate change, and on longer time scales the potential for catastrophic climate change threatening human civilization. Do the scientists actually claim that they know exactly what will happen? — absolutely not. But the “known unknowns” and the certainty of the “unknown unknowns” are as much or even greater concern than all of what we do know. And so weighing the probabilities vs. potential consequences, human scientists have come to the conclusion that they must take their scientific findings directly to the public for consideration.
(**One might include Lindzen or Pielke as exceptions, who more often exhibit themselves as knowledgeable “delayers” than contrarians.)