Reply #16: The climate IS changing...do we know why? [View All]

[Psephos]

But those who say it's only due to a cause-and-effect relationship between CO2 and global temperature fundamentally misunderstand the mechanisms of climate change.

Are humans pushing the change? That's beyond reasonable doubt. But is it due only to atmospheric CO2? Anyone who says an unequivocal yes is substituting what they want to believe (usually because of politics) for what the facts show. The same is true for anyone who says an unequivocal no.

The facts show that there is no one determinant of climate change, and furthermore, that there can not be a single factor.

"We must strive to make things as simple as possible, but not simpler than possible."
- Einstein

A number of powerful influences underly climate trends. Some of them are oceanic, others are astronomic. Others are due to feedback loops that amplify or suppress change as the relationships and linkages between ocean, atmosphere, Earth orbital variations and Sun energy output swing smoothly through cycles, as they have for uncounted millions of years.

Chaos Theory arose from attempts to model weather on early computers. Chaos theory is a mathematical attempt to describe nonlinear, nondeterministic systems. (Other frequently-cited examples are the minute-by-minute direction of the stock market, and the flow of traffic.) Climate is a classic example of a non-deterministic system of linked influences. That means that direct cause and effect syllogisms ("if this happens, then that will happen") are invalid tools for understanding. Only the mathematically ignorant attempt to force deterministic outcomes from chaotic systems.

"The truth is rarely pure, and never simple."
- Oscar Wilde

I'm not putting anyone down here. A big problem is that most journalists who write about climate are mathematically and/or scientifically uneducated. They create simplified explanations about the obvious physical changes occurring in the world, explanations that resonate with common-sense (but false) understandings of the way the physical world actually works. We have a deep urge to find a single cause (or especially, a person or group of people) to blame for whatever worries us. When this urge becomes married to political urges, the mixture is toxic.

That's exactly what has happened in the global warming political wars. It's not about science, it's about belief.

Again, the debate is not over climate change. That's a scientific fact. The debate is over what's driving that change.

The prudent response is to limit human influence on the atmosphere and oceans as much as possible, even at some cost to economic health (although we must remember that such actions will also condemn some people to misery or death). Let's listen more to the scientists and less to the politicians to figure out how best to do that. While we're at it, let's weed out the scientists who have become overwhelmed by political emotions, too.

Only a nonpolitical, science-based call to action will be able to unite all people to move for change. Politics as usual has already shown that its chief product is division, finger-pointing, and worst of all, inaction.

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies."
- Groucho Marx

Peace.