I suppose it should come as no surprise to me that so many people, including many influential journalists, are coming to such disastrously wrong conclusions about the meaning of recent revelations regarding mistakes made, sloppy data gathering done and even alleged wrong-doings committed by certain UN scientists. The scientists in question have been prominently vocal in warning about the potentially harmful and expensive ramifications, for nations around the world, of the increasingly rapid climatic warming that is occurring globally. The reason I should not be surprised is that the vast majority of people, regrettably, have little or no understanding of science or of scientific method.
Most people, even atheists and agnostics, are people of faith in their way of thinking. They do not think scientifically. You do not have to have faith in any particular God, religion or book to be a 'faith-thinker.' You simply have to be a person who tends to base your opinions and conclusions on faith in a person or group relaying information to you, and by extension the conclusions that person or group has come to, rather than on review and scientific consideration of the evidence that person or those persons based their conclusions on. This is not the same as trust. We all might, justifiably, come to trust a certain source of information based on past performance. If it can be reliably demonstrated later that this source has made serious mistakes or even lied or falsified data in some way, then we will, justifiably, lose our trust in that source and perhaps cease to listen to them. The difference here between the scientific-thinker and the faith-thinker is that the faith-thinker will frequently tend to throw out everything that disgraced source has said whereas the scientific thinker will review the evidence to determine what conclusion to come to, not just about the guilt or innocence of the source mentioned, but about what they were claiming that he was tempted to believe.
Take, for example, Margaret Wente's recent submission in the Globe and mail: (www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-great-global-warming-collapse/article1458206/). The very title, "The great global warming collapse." suggests that we can all now relax about global warming as if it has been shown to have all been a great conspiracy, a fraud. This is only one example. There are many others of its ilk readily available not only in news articles but in myriad blogs across the net. The problem with this conclusion is that these people are trying to throw out decades of replicated and verified data gathered by literally thousands of independent scientists from all over the world based on their new found lack of trust in someone they probably had never heard of before. Some talk as if belief in global warming was based on the work of a handful of scientists or on one or two studies which might be flawed, or even falsified, instead of on thousands of independent studies by thousands of independent scientists over many decades. As for those who suggest it is all a great scientific conspiracy: how could you possibly organize and run such an enormous conspiracy even if you wanted to? What would the motivation be to be part of such a conspiracy? There would be far, far, FAR more money in being on the anti-global warming side with merry buckets of cash and huge honours gratefully proffered by the vastly wealthy and powerful oil and coal companies as well as those corporations that depend on ready and cheap supplies of oil and coal and the petro-State governments (such as Alberta's) if you could only demonstrate scientifically that global warming was not occurring.
The problem for those who insist that global warming is a fraud and a conspiracy is that the scientific evidence for it is overwhelming and no one has been able to demonstrate that it is not occurring. In fact, we have reached the point where anyone who examines the evidence for global warming, rather than depending on "he said/she said" arguments, can see that global warming is a fact. It does not take a scientific degree to be certain of this. It simply takes scientific thinking coupled with EXAMINATION OF THE EVIDENCE. The glaciers of the Alps may not be gone by 2035, but they are unquestionable receding at an astonishing rate. North American and Australian glaciers are similarly retreating at a great rate. A quick search of the internet will reveal comparative photographs, taken over decades, of numerous glaciers that demonstrate this retreat. The Greenland Ice cap is thinning at a historically unprecedented rate. Huge ice shelves are breaking up both in the Arctic and Antarctic. The Arctic Ocean shows more open water every year. Weather stations around the world evidence increased temperatures. This can readily be verified even by non-scientists with little or no formal scientific training. I can assure you that the Inuit all across Canada's north can testify that the Arctic is warming without reference to a single scientific report.
Even if you feel that the jury should be out still on the question of the amount or degree of anthropogenically caused global warming, there can no longer be any valid, scientific denial that global warming is occurring and this warming will cause huge and expensive problems for people all over the world. I live in Alberta and, while global warming may bring a benefit or two such as warmer winters, it will also bring increased incidence of tornados and greatly reduced fresh water supplies. People who live in the Arctic, on many small Pacific islands, in many coastal cities and in areas already marginal because of drought, will face even greater problems. As for anyone who claims that there is no significant anthropogenic contribution to the observed global warming, I will ask again here, as I did in my posting of December 31, 2009, how can we possibly add billions of tons of carbon-dioxide and methane to the atmosphere year after year and not contribute significantly to global warming? That is a question perennially avoided by those who argue that warnings by scientists of global warming are due to some sort of conspiracy.
Not everyone can be a trained scientist. Not everyone should be. But everyone should be willing to take a scientific look at the evidence for global warming before making up his or her mind about it. Trust in particular experts can be comforting and nice, but it is not necessary when looking for truth in a matter so eminently open to materialistic examination as global warming. Only the willingness to examine the material evidence objectively and logically is necessary. For anyone interested in learning more about how scientists approach the evidence in forming their opinions I would, at a bare minimum, recommend reading the following:
Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1962. 2nd edition 1970. 3rd edition 1996
Popper, Karl, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Basic Books, New York, NY, 1959
Suppe, Frederick (Editor), The Structure of Scientific Theories, University of Illinois Press, Chicago, IL, 2nd edition 1977.
