by Andrew Miller
31. July 2009 08:41
According to research carried out by Judith Lean of the US Naval Research Laboratory and David Rind of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, reports the Guardian,
Temperatures will shoot up at 150% of the rate predicted by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
As El Niño approaches with an increase in solar activity, effecting a significant rise in average global temperature, it seems that very soon we may really start to feel the heat as serious and destructive climate change becomes nightmarish reality.
However, strangely enough the statistic itself wasn’t what first caught my attention. In fact, I hadn’t even got beyond the headline. The suggestion in the subtitle to the article New estimate based on the forthcoming upturn in solar activity and El Niño southern oscillation
cycles is expected to silence global warming sceptics just somehow didn’t ring true for me.
Surely, if we know anything about counter-theorists who challenge the accepted mainstream wisdom (I’m trying to steer myself away from the C-word), it has to be that the more overwhelming and forceful the evidence against them, the louder and more forcefully they protest under the supposition that the vocal majority are once again trying to bully them into submission.
Sure enough, a comment left by ZakMartin counters with an argument that is simply masterful in its simplicity:
Global warming "sceptics" (including myself) do not deny that temperatures have risen (albeit very slightly) over the past 100 years. What they say is that this warming is a natural (not man-made) occurrence which has taken place many times in the past and poses no significant threat to the environment or the planet. Most "sceptics" believe that fluctuations in the earth's temperature are directly related to solar activity, so it is absurd to suggest that this report will "silence" them or cause them to change their views on this issue.
In all fairness, he’s absolutely right.
Of course, the following comments then go back and forth, spewing an endless churning stream of accusations and affirmations of various facts and non-facts, misinterpretations and spurious citations… I should say that the comments people leave on the Guardian.co.uk (and the debates that they entail) are amongst the best of any news site on the web – I don’t want to criticize by any means - it’s just that the format really doesn’t lend itself to the possibility of any meaningful conclusions. After reading a page or so of the same cyclical argument I guess it can get a bit wearing. Still, such are the nature of these things.
I don’t doubt that as it gets hotter and hotter, the gradualness of the process will allow the sceptics enough time to constantly come up with different theories and evidence as to why this is only a temporary phase in the natural solar cycle. Like a frog in a pot of boiling water, they can keep the argument up right until the very last minute, when it is way beyond and far, far too late to have any hope of saving ourselves.
The thing that upsets me most when I read comments like that of the ZakMartin, is the constant reminder of the power of denial, and the ability we have as human beings to twist whatever facts and data we come across to support our own firmly held preconceived theories.
We define ourselves by what we believe in, and every day we go about actively, sometimes ferociously, consolidating these beliefs in everything we do, in the ongoing quest to understand the world around us, and our place in within it. For someone to ask you to take a significant step backwards and bring into question any element of your belief system is essentially asking you to doubt the person you are, and all the time and effort you’ve invested throughout your whole life in trying to grow and develop as a person. It’s not something we would ever undertake lightly.
Of course, the greater the potential impact of a serious change in opinion to the stability of your core belief systems, the more inconceivable and psychologically traumatic it will be. What implications do you think there are in changing your mind about something as deep-seated and fundamental as your visualization of the future of the world?
When it comes to climate change “sceptics” I’m not expecting to hear any voices silenced just yet.
