With the election of a climate change denier as President of the United States, and Canada’s official stance that global warming either doesn’t exist or should be ignored, it is difficult to see how we are going to make progress with halting the warming of the planet.
I have been watching the effects of warming for as long as I can remember, starting with the steady retreat of the glaciers I could see from my home in Canada. When I lived on Mo'orea, French Polynesia, the coral fringe reef in front of our house died, along with its complement of fish, shell fish, and other invertebrates, during the ten year period we lived there. Back in Canada, the weather patterns had shifted enormously in my absence and the drying forests took to burning, millions of acres yearly. Now I'm in a place where the rain virtually stopped about eight years ago, and the land is almost completely dead, a sad thing to be watching out of my window. Summers have had hot spells up to 50 degrees Centigrade.
So it is obvious that natural patterns are changing much too fast for human societies and animal and plant life to cope with.
James Hansen, pioneer climate scientist, first sounded the alarm in 1988. He had been studying Venus, and why it is so hot, and found that the reason was its heavy cloud cover, which enveloped it like a blanket. He realized that removing carbon from Earth and putting it into the atmosphere would have the same effect and long-term, rigorous scientific research confirmed this. At that time, he and other scientists assumed that politicians and other leaders would make the required changes to make sure that the threat was avoided. President Bush announced at the time: "Those who are concerned about the Greenhouse Effect are forgetting about the Whitehouse Effect."
But the oil companies got together, formed a giant coalition and began casting doubt on the science. They used the same tactics that had been developed by the tobacco companies to convince Americans to continue smoking, even though they had known since the 1950s that smoking causes cancer. Indeed, some of the very same people who lobbied for the tobacco companies and other sad cases including the flame retardant industry, worked to discredit the science behind global warming and the scientists who published papers about it.
Exxon Mobil is a major funder of climate change misinformation—funding over thirty different organizations that seem to be independent from the oil industry, and which broadcast disinformation. There are” “think tanks” that do nothing but crank out global warming denial articles every day. Scientists, on the other hand, are doing science, and make announcements from time to time.
The media presented these arguments, or debates, as if it was a disagreement between scientists. But instead, the climate scientist was pitted against an oil lobbyist with an agenda that was not based on any facts. Nevertheless, the public was given the impression that there was a debate among scientists about global warming which was not at all certain.
But while scientists are always considering new data and how it might affect their understanding of reality, deniers have made up their minds in advance. They simply argue against global warming no matter what the facts are. Like a lawyer defending a guilty client, they only present information that favours him.
Their arguments will change depending on the situation:
The earth is not warming
The earth is warming but it is not due to humans
The earth is warming and it is due to humans but the cost of doing something about it would be ruinous for society.
It's all about delusion and distraction from the actual findings of science. For example, the tobacco industry broadcast that those wanting to regulate cigarettes and smoking were attacking basic American freedoms in order to get the general public behind their ideas. The key word is belief. Their belief is associated with a particular political and commercial stance, and has nothing to do with science and the facts.
There is also the point that many people have a bias against science and scientists, though they don't know much about the scientific method and how hard it actually is to publish a scientific paper. So it is easy to get others to turn against their concerns.
Anyway, I decided to outline their arguments here--please feel free to use them in your discussions of the subject with "climate change" deniers if you like.
People who deny or downplay the extent of human-caused global warming often argue based on several key points:
1. Natural Climate Variability
Argument: Earth's climate has always fluctuated naturally, and current warming could simply be part of a natural cycle. Deniers often point to past climate changes, such as the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age, as evidence that the climate has always undergone shifts due to natural factors like volcanic activity, solar radiation, and ocean currents.
Counterpoint: While natural variability does play a role, the current rate of warming is unprecedented and coincides with the industrial revolution and a sharp rise in greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. The vast majority of climate scientists argue that human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, are the primary drivers of recent warming.
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Graph showing the relationship between CO2 and temperature for the past 800,000 years. It clearly shows that atmospheric CO2 has risen so fast recently that the temperature has scarcely begun to catch up with it.
7. Historical Cooling and Lack of Immediate Catastrophe
Argument: There has been no immediate catastrophic effect from global warming, and past predictions of disaster have not come to pass.
Counterpoint: The argument overlooks the long-term and cumulative nature of climate impacts. Extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, flooding, wildfires, and droughts, are becoming more frequent and severe. In addition, the long-term consequences, such as sea-level rise, species extinction, and agricultural disruption, are already being observed and are projected to worsen over time. Indeed, some of the problems are worsening much faster than predicted in past years.
8. Economic and Political Motivations
Argument: The push to address climate change is politically motivated and driven by financial or political interests, such as the promotion of green technologies or imposing environmental regulations, rather than genuine scientific concern.
Counterpoint: The scientific consensus on climate change is rooted in decades of research and data. Additionally, addressing climate change could lead to new economic opportunities and innovation, particularly in clean energy and technology sectors. After all, the oil companies have been making super profits during all these decades. They could have invested some of their billions in renewable energy research and led the world in switching to clean technologies. But they did not.
9. Focusing on Regional or Short-Term Data
Argument: Some skeptics emphasize short-term regional data or anomalies that show no warming, or even cooling, in certain parts of the world, to challenge the idea of global warming.
Counterpoint: Climate change refers to long-term global trends, not short-term regional fluctuations. The overall trend, measured across the entire planet over decades, shows a clear rise in temperatures. Localized cooling events or colder years don’t invalidate the broader global trend of warming.
These arguments are commonly used by climate change deniers, but they have been consistently challenged by a wide body of scientific research involving the analysis of vast amounts of empirical data, and a deep understanding of the factors influencing the Earth's climate. The burning of fossil fuels and deforestation are without doubt the primary drivers of global warming.
The denial of the overwhelming evidence of human-driven climate change has been recognized as a stance motivated by political and commercial agendas rather than scientific inquiry.
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