Debate with a Climate Change Skeptic

In 2000 Debbie and I returned to the Cleveland, Ohio area, for good. Notice the comma in that sentence; it’s important.

After living in the Detroit area for fourteen years, and in the far southern part of Ohio for the seven year prior to that, we did move here for good in the sense that this would be one of our last moves, and certainly our last big one. But the for good part has an additional meaning: we returned to be closer to our family and many of our old friends. We are happy that we did it; it’s proven to be a very good move.

Although we were sad to have left our Michigan friends, the old Ohio buddies welcomed us back. We also made several new friends, and many of these were through running. One of the very first of those to welcome me personally was Mike George. Mike was one of several that I met through the Dead Runners Society (aka DRS, an international internet group of runners who write about their running).

Since we’ve stayed in touch, Mike and I have now been friends for seventeen years. We traveled to Maryland together to run the JFK 50-Mile run, and even met up in Prague before the Prague Marathon. We now work at the same company and still occasionally run together.

I know what you’re thinking. That’s nice Dan, but what does it have to do with pooping (or not) in the pool? And the answer is: lots.

Mike is a self-described climate change skeptic. He has written some thoughtful, even analytical comments in response to my If You Believe post. My answer follows, but first I want to say that we need to keep this kind of dialogue going. I truly appreciate all comments and criticism. But I am still struggling mightily to understand how and why reasonable, thoughtful, intelligent people – many of them family members and friends like Mike – either a) don’t believe the climate is changing, b) believe it’s changing but the change is not man-made, or c) believe in anthropogenic climate change, but don’t think it’s important enough to vote accordingly. This struggle is described in greater detail in my An Open Letter post, and it's still going.

Now that that’s out of the way, I should say that I’m not so sure I’m the best person to conduct a debate such as this, for several reasons:

1) I consider myself a lousy debater. I almost never win. I can only barely convince my wife that I’m not such an awful guy, and that’s only after 41 years of marriage (just kidding there – I think she thinks highly of me).

2) Even though I believe in the science, I’m certainly not a scientist. I only write about it in this blog because I feel it’s important with regards to the future of our little planet. Where’s Bill Nye when you need him?

3) Despite what I said about keeping the dialogue going, I have other feelings in the back of my head, to the effect that we ought to be well beyond debate on this issue. We no longer debate whether the earth is the round, whether we’re at the center of the universe, or whether gravity, relativity or electricity exist. That would be counter-productive; discussion on those topics now centers around how best to work with the facts at hand. It’s the same with climate change. It’s where that issue/debate ought to be now.

Now, aren’t you happy that’s out of the way? On to Mike’s assertions.

The amount of change appears to vary widely, depending on the source. Mike cites one source stating the rise has been +1.0 C in the past 50 years, and another claiming +0.8 C in 100 years. My response is that this is the internet; anyone can say anything. Some discrepancies may be due to different start and end points, including, if it’s a little older, no reference to the data of the past couple record heat years. My preference is data from NASA. I don’t think there can be any dispute of that. This page states a rise of 0.6 C to 0.9 C degrees between 1906 and 2005.

Secondly, Mike questions data projected into the past, before humans began to record it. One of my favorite charts begins 20000 BCE. Where and how do they get data going back that far, or even as far back as 1950? The answer is that there is an entire field dedicated to this end called paleoclimatology. Here is a high level overview. The Wikipedia page explains that, ‘it uses a variety of proxy methods from the Earth and life sciences to obtain data previously preserved within things such as rocks, sediments, ice sheets, tree rings, corals, shells and microfossils.’

Thirdly, Mike asserts that variation in solar radiation is considerable, and ought to have a much greater impact on the earth’s temperatures than the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, measured in parts per million (PPM). According to information from the EPA, many factors, both natural and human, cause changes in Earth’s energy balance, including variations in the sun's energy, changes in the reflectivity of earth’s atmosphere/surface, and changes in the greenhouse effect, which affects the amount of heat retained by earth’s atmosphere. The EPA goes on to say, ‘Recent climate changes, however, cannot be explained by natural causes alone. Research indicates that natural causes do not explain most observed warming, especially warming since the mid-20th century. Rather, it is extremely likely that human activities have been the dominant cause of that warming.’

One final piece of information: a general purpose reference provided by Mike himself, that I think provides some very useful information.

I lied. This recent article by Bill McKibbin is as pertinent as important as any.

I very much doubt that I’ve convinced Mike, who does admit that he’s better informed after some of the same research. This is a little discouraging. If we can't convince a friend who is thoughtful and thorough, who can we convince? Anyone?