Climate change denial: Where political belief supersedes science

by Leigh Pomeroy
Published in the Mankato Free Press

Saturday, February 18, 2012

MANKATO — Several years ago while deplaning a flight from Colorado I was approached by a distinguished older gentleman who happened to have been sitting in the row behind me. “I found your discussion very interesting,” he said.

I had been talking politics with a seatmate, likewise a stranger, and we had come to a consensus on a number of issues. “In what way?” I asked the distinguished gentleman, expecting perhaps some dissent.

“Oh, I agree with much of what you said,” he replied. In looking at him further I thought, oh my God, this is someone I know but I’ve forgotten his name. I delicately pushed him as to who he was and eventually, somewhat reluctantly, he said he was Rudy Boschwitz.

Flashback two days earlier to one of the reasons I was in Colorado: for a college reunion. I was listening to a presentation by a former roommate who is now the foremost researcher on climate change in the Amazon River basin.

A transplanted American now living in Manaus, Brazil, Dr. Philip Fearnside was soberly and quite emphatically demonstrating to us with charts, figures and data that unless Amazon rainforest destruction and climate change were reversed, the whole South American continent would be in deep doodoo. Hot, dry deep doodoo.

Which brings me to Sen. Boschwitz’s recent op-ed piece in The Free Press — a recounting, unfortunately, of the standard smorgasbord of arguments oft repeated ad nauseam by right-wing pundits and well-paid shills for the fossil fuel industry. Boschwitz’s opening salvo in the article is that “31,487 American Scientists including 9,029 with Ph.D’s” (Google hits for this precise wording: 132) have signed a petition denying global warming.

This claim has been debunked numerous times since the petition was first floated in 1997 by or in such sources as Scientific American, the Sierra Club, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Seattle Times and the highly regarded and objective website realclimate.org.

From this assertion his article gets sillier, sighting some of the same deniers (e.g. Fred Singer) who have gained fame — and sometimes fortune — from their minority positions.

There is no argument that the planet has gone through many warming and cooling periods in its history, as Sen. Boschwitz asserts. Despite the huge complexity of the subject, climate scientists are beginning to understand what causes these fluctuations and, perhaps more importantly, what they cannot predict ... yet.

One thing they do understand is that, given the predictable cyclical causes of climate change, the planet should not be warming as fast as it is. In fact, there is evidence that it should be cooling.

“What’s causing this warming then?” they have asked. The conclusion by the overwhelming majority of scientists who really study climate — not weather, which is short term — is reminiscent of the famous old Pogo cartoon: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

This is why Sen. Boschwitz’s piece is so disappointing. Hopefully in the future his reading list will include more books and articles by true climate scientists instead of by those who make their living creating doubt.
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Below is a suggested reading list for Sen. Boschwitz:

• "Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity," James Hansen
• "Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth," Mark Hertsgaard
• "Deep Future: The Next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth," Curt Stager
• "The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future," Laurence C. Smith
• "Earth: The Operators' Manual," Richard B. Alley (also a PBS TV series)
• "Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats," Gwynne Dyer
• "World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse," Lester R. Brown

Books about climate science cover-up:

• "Global Warming and Political Intimidation: How Politicians Cracked Down on Scientists As the Earth Heated Up," Raymond S. Bradley
• "Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming," James Hoggan
• "Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming," by Naomi Oreskes

U.S. government sources:

Department of Defense and National Security:

• http://www.denix.osd.mil/nr/upload/Climate-Change-Animation-fact-sheet-FINAL-10-13-10.pdf
• http://www.globalchange.gov/agencies/department-of-defense

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration:

• http://www.oar.noaa.gov/research/2007/climatechange.shtml
• http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090126_climate.html
• http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
• http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/

NASA:

• http://climate.nasa.gov/
• http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/