Joe wrote on Facebook:
I'm scared.
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Dad writes: I think there is some confusion on your teachers' part about
the difference between theory and fact. Theories are not false or true: they are ways of explaining things, and they are more or less useful. Evolution is a useful theory because it mostly fits the crazy data we have (fossils, finches on various islands, etc). The theory that the earth is flat is less useful because it can't explain much about how boats sail around the earth or what the astronauts saw from space.
That Global Warming is happening is a strong theory for me. It explains what the records of temperature show, the retreat of the glaciers, the breakup of the Bearing Strait. But maybe (probably) your teachers are talking about the theory that global warming is caused by human forces. That buying fossil fuels, in particular, has hastened or enhanced an overall warming. Since we are buying a million years of fossil fuels every year (took a million years of sunlight to create that much "fossil" fuel).
But it's not clear that humans are the central cause. Does that mean "global warming is a myth"? Of course not!
Causal forces in complex systems are hard to separate out (evolution, immune responses, changing scores on national tests). When you can't point to a single cause, some people say there are no facts and nothing to do. They say "It's all a myth." But that's not right, IMHO. In complex situations, you have theories (like evolution) that we can take very seriously. If I were an oil company, I would very much be inclined to say that global warming theories are cute distractions, but until there were "facts," nothing needs to change. There needs to be lots of data collected and reflected on, sure, but there comes a point where you have to be persuaded by the entirety of a situation: the interrelationship of polar ice-cap melting, the burning of a million years of fossil fuels in five decades, species extinctions, habitat destruction, topsoil depletion, salination of cropland and the like are all parts of a bigger story: we are destroying our physical space here. All of these interrelated forces need to be taken very seriously because they are part of the same event.
Saying global warming is a myth is like looking at a massive famine in Africa and saying “there is no proof it was preventable. The real problem might be the poor food distribution system, or the antiquated farming practices, or AIDS weakening the population, or pollution of groundwater, or….” The question is not whether any one of those likely exacerbating factors is the one key cause of the starvation; the real problem is how we can look at the big picture and figure out how to respond to complex situations. Saying “global warming is a myth” is silly because it pretends to simplify a complicated situation.
What “global warming is a myth” really means, in practical terms, is “we don’t have to do anything different.” It allows us to ignore the overall big-picture of our health as a planet and stand still until we figure out all the symptoms, causes, and diagnoses. So my bottom-line point: saying that global warming is a myth says we need facts, not theories, before we act (and the facts will never arrive with the clarity and obviousness people expect facts to have). Saying global warming is a myth allows us to continue with the very comfortable short-term idea that “business as usual is fine.” And that is a myth much more dangerous than any other one your teachers might present to a class of impressionable students.
Alex is right: there is no way to sift that mountain of data and come to a simple “yes or no” conclusion about the cause or even the nature of global warming. But that is no reason to take it very seriously and to look at the big picture, the environmental whole. We’re using global warming as an excuse to ignore that issue, one that in my mind is more important than all the rest. For me, the question is one about health, overall environmental health, sustainable health that extends past you and me and down to and past our grandchildren. That's not being discussed, and breezy dismissals of global warming are not helping.
That Global Warming is happening is a strong theory for me. It explains what the records of temperature show, the retreat of the glaciers, the breakup of the Bearing Strait. But maybe (probably) your teachers are talking about the theory that global warming is caused by human forces. That buying fossil fuels, in particular, has hastened or enhanced an overall warming. Since we are buying a million years of fossil fuels every year (took a million years of sunlight to create that much "fossil" fuel).
But it's not clear that humans are the central cause. Does that mean "global warming is a myth"? Of course not!
Causal forces in complex systems are hard to separate out (evolution, immune responses, changing scores on national tests). When you can't point to a single cause, some people say there are no facts and nothing to do. They say "It's all a myth." But that's not right, IMHO. In complex situations, you have theories (like evolution) that we can take very seriously. If I were an oil company, I would very much be inclined to say that global warming theories are cute distractions, but until there were "facts," nothing needs to change. There needs to be lots of data collected and reflected on, sure, but there comes a point where you have to be persuaded by the entirety of a situation: the interrelationship of polar ice-cap melting, the burning of a million years of fossil fuels in five decades, species extinctions, habitat destruction, topsoil depletion, salination of cropland and the like are all parts of a bigger story: we are destroying our physical space here. All of these interrelated forces need to be taken very seriously because they are part of the same event.
Saying global warming is a myth is like looking at a massive famine in Africa and saying “there is no proof it was preventable. The real problem might be the poor food distribution system, or the antiquated farming practices, or AIDS weakening the population, or pollution of groundwater, or….” The question is not whether any one of those likely exacerbating factors is the one key cause of the starvation; the real problem is how we can look at the big picture and figure out how to respond to complex situations. Saying “global warming is a myth” is silly because it pretends to simplify a complicated situation.
What “global warming is a myth” really means, in practical terms, is “we don’t have to do anything different.” It allows us to ignore the overall big-picture of our health as a planet and stand still until we figure out all the symptoms, causes, and diagnoses. So my bottom-line point: saying that global warming is a myth says we need facts, not theories, before we act (and the facts will never arrive with the clarity and obviousness people expect facts to have). Saying global warming is a myth allows us to continue with the very comfortable short-term idea that “business as usual is fine.” And that is a myth much more dangerous than any other one your teachers might present to a class of impressionable students.
Alex is right: there is no way to sift that mountain of data and come to a simple “yes or no” conclusion about the cause or even the nature of global warming. But that is no reason to take it very seriously and to look at the big picture, the environmental whole. We’re using global warming as an excuse to ignore that issue, one that in my mind is more important than all the rest. For me, the question is one about health, overall environmental health, sustainable health that extends past you and me and down to and past our grandchildren. That's not being discussed, and breezy dismissals of global warming are not helping.
By the way, I’m very interested in arguments such as this one
(quote below), which seems to admit that it’s money, not health, that drives
the argument against global warming: “even the most rudimentary cost-benefit analysis demonstrates that it is
far more cost-effective to adapt to, rather than to try to prevent, any
possible human-caused climate changes” (under “Robert Carter” on http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/).
So there. My 2 cents.
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