Dear Fella,
Thank you for all your ideas & inspirations. I agree with most of what
our friends suggested, we should start from within, start from
ourselves and act now to preserve the environment.
As an impartial spectator of the world events, I believe it is more revealing
to observe and reflect on how we (people & ourselves) respond to an
issue rather than focusing on the issue itself. The climate change
bonanza is by far THE most controversial and complex issue humankind
have ever encountered in history, due to its vast implications on
environment, economic, politics & social behaviors, not to mention
the seemingly running away, and still unsettled science debates on the
validity of the global warming claim.
Just like anything else that involves politics, power and money, things got distorted and bias
& manipulation displaced truth in most of the arguments. The
journalists are not helping much either, with some popular media preyed
on our psychology by exaggeration and sensationalism in their
own pursuit of profit & eyeballs, while misguiding the public even
farther from the truth.
As human, our own psychology & fantacies feed into the hype that lead us down the garden path of
ignorance. Egotistical & wishful thinking are some of the major
causes of errors that we make without "outside help," sources of subtle
intellectual weakness have we honestly reflected on ourselves. We all
want to believe we're right or what we already believe in is true, and
so when we form a hasty first impression without getting all the facts
together, due to complacency and laziness, it is difficult to discard
it later on. We then proceed to interpret future information so that it
confirms what we already believe we know, or agrees with our belief,
even the evidences suggest otherwise. It's all-too-human, as we feel
emotional discomfort when making some minor errors, more painful if
& when we have to admit our own mistakes.
To identify some of the most common myths and misconceptions, I've summarized a few
ideas based on my clippings which hopefully may serve as a guiding
light in the haze of the climate debates. (That, my friends, is not
without some pains and difficulties for an amateur.) Please bear with
me and I'm relying upon all of you to chip in more thoughts, expand or
correct this article as necessary.
Frame the Issue
First of all, let's review the common consensus and major disagreements in the science of climate change.
There is no controversy about the fact that the earth's climate has changed
rapidly and violently in the past hundreds of thousands of years, with
the planet swung abruptly between warmer & colder states. The
exception is the past 10,000-15,000 yrs, in which human civilization
has developed & flourished, when temperatures have remained
relatively stable (in the context of the planet history). There is a
common ground among the scientists that global climate can change; that
the world may have warmed up over the past few hundred years, and that
greenhouse gases (water vapor/high clouds as majority, and other
anthropogenic minor substances like CO2, methane, nitrous oxide etc.)
may have played a key part of it.
The main disagreement ranges over what we don't know. Here are some critical arguments between the scientists, i.e. the anthropogenic(repeat, man-made) global warming theorists vs. the sceptics:
Is there a strong or weak or no link between the observed global warming & CO2 increase caused by human? Is
there any basis for concern regardless of whether any relation between
the observed warming and increase in human-made CO2 can be established?
How fast global warming will proceed; is it inevitable? how much
CO2 caused by human will be responsible for it; whether the mega
effects of the natural systems are responsible (i.e. the solar system,
naturally occurring cycles like El Nino, the Pacific & Atlantic
Oscillations etc... ) and will they accelerate or decelerate it; what
its effects will be on our eco-system and climate; and how much it will
cost to bring it under control, and how best to proceed?
In one sentence, the argument boils down to one between those who are convinced that the
evidence of what is already happening, and scientific projections on
what may likely take place; and those who believe equally strongly that
this is too uncertain to justify measures that would redirect the
thrust of the world resources & economy, which can be allocated to
more pressing needs. So both sides agree on the importance but disgree respectfully on the degree of urgency of the issue (as you may guess, yours truly belongs to the latter camp).
As you can see, there is a great deal of key science questions being
unanswered at the moment. Does it deserve prudence before we pull any
trigger? Absolutely.
Reason & Fallacies
With the excessive influx of real-time information and persuasive messages coming at us from all angles, the seemingly
constant battle of our minds and allegiances have been a distinctive
feature of our life in the 21st century. We are overwhelmed by so many
things of which most of them are beyond our understanding but require
immediate actions. How can we tell which is a logical argument and
which is not? Here, I would like to share with you some common types of fallacious arguments which
we've encountered in many of the climate debates:
The 'fallacy of sweeping generalization' is committed when a general rule is applied to a specific case to which
the rule is not applicable. The argument goes like this: those people
who disagree on global warming theory have no respect to the
environment. XYZ is sceptical about global warming, so he too has no
respect to environment. The fact is XYZ may not agree with the concept
of "man-made" global warming, but he/she may not be an enemy of the
environment as many people want to conveniently label him/her.
The 'fallacy of slippery slope' is widely used in political argument, which means that if we take one
step on it we will not be able to stop and will slide down the whole
slope or will lead to some dire consequences. This is a familiar
argument by many climate alarmists: Experts have agreed that if CO2
continues to increase, the global temp will rise 2, 4, ...10C, and it
will lead to world destruction or Armageddon.
We need to ask ourselves if the situations being projected are beyond any reasonable
doubt; are those projections measurable, falsifiable, and
scientifically proven? Are there any other possibile alternatives? How
sure are we that it's inevitable to head downhill?
In the early 70's when I was a young engineer, I was a big fan of the 'The
Club of Rome'. We had to study the little book called 'The Limits to
Growth' in the university and held it like a bible. The Club of Rome,
using advanced computer techniques, extrapolated trends & predicted
disaster within 100 yrs unless preventativies more severe than Malthus
(see following) suggested were taken. The preventatives: stop economic
growth, stop population expansion, and recycle resources. No country is
willing to walk down that path since it means stagnant growth, drastic
loss of jobs, social unrest and retrenchment of human development,
despite that some people claim to prefer a simple lifestyle.
Fast-backward to the late 18th century, when Thomas Robert Malthus, an
elite of Cambridge, the prophet of doom & population boom, applied
his statistical analysis and mathematical model (state-of-art at his
time) and concluded that the 'positive checks' of war, famine, and
plagues will exert limit to growth on humanity. It's worth to take a
listen to what Malthus had said over two centuries ago:
"The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce
subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other
visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able
ministers of depopulation. They are the precurors in the great army of
destruction; and they often finish the dreadful work themselves...
(through) war of extermination...epidemic, pestilence and plague..."
Does it sound familiar to you?
The 'fallacy of hypostatization' consists in regarding an abstract or imaginary word as if it were a
concrete or realistic one. Examples: abstract words designate general
qualities of objects, such as redness & roundness; concrete words
designate particular objects or attributes of ball and diameter.
Abstraction plays an important part of our language and thought,
enabling us to communicate with each other ideas and feelings. But the
drawbacks are equally omnipresent: how we describe things determine how
we come to see it, and what we come to believe about it, and as a
result, how we come to react to it. Sometimes, our vocabulary decieve
us into believing that the name things actually exist, rather than our
own creation. Consider these familiar arguments: "Nature will take back
what it gives to mankind someday; nature will punish us for our
environmental sins..."
Question is: does mother nature actually exist and is endowed with the ability to know what is appropriate or
not for the planet earth? Or is it just you and me thinking?
The 'fallacy of false cause' is an argument that suggests that events are causally connected when in
fact no such causal connection has been established. We've seen
numerous examples in the medical and nutrition fields - what the
experts agreed as maxim ten yrs ago, only find out now that the
conclusion is completely opposite. While there is a hypothesis for a
probable connection between CO2 and global warming, equally so is the
disagreement. If the science is not settled, and most likely it never
will in the near future (due to the limitation of our knowledge), as
suggested by many known scientists, could this turn out to be a false
cause like many other medical inventions? Only time can tell. For now,
scepticism seems to be a prudent position and reasonably warranted.
The 'fallacies of irrelevance'
are arguments in which the premises, despite appearance & appeals,
do not bear upon the conclusions drawn in the arguments. The object of
argument is to trade on emotional features of our nature, such as our
susceptibility to prejudice, pity, fear, vanity and the like. The
fallacy of appeal to pity exploits our feelings of sympathy (a dying
polar bear, for instance); fallacy of appeal to authority exploits our
modesty and vanity. In the fallacy of mob appeal, it is our gullibility
that is exploited. Others like fallacy of appeal to our sense of
ignorance and of fear (e.g. a computer-animated video of melting
icebergs by the minute as we move into the future) are commonly
employed. All aiming to achieve the objectives by introducing
irrelevant information designed to provoke emotions that will goose us
to accept a deceptive conclusion not supported by the premises.
The information provided in this essay is far from exhaustive. But I can
assure you they are based on the facts that I know. You don't have to
believe what I said, but please check it out yourselves. My aim is to
draw your attention to the essence of this discussion - how best to
make a choice, based on unbiased, sound logical arguments. My personal
opinions may turn out to be wrong; but I hope my approach to the issue
may be helpful in your search for truth and make your own decision.
Your humble pal,
Stephen
Postscript:
The Copenhagen summit ended with a face-saving "accord" which is
completely lack of substance is a clear indication that the world
leaders are not buying the urgency of the "global warming" hypothesis.
Rather, the developing countries see climate change as a potential
foreign aid bonanza, and they are at the table to leverage the West's
environmental angst into massive transfer of wealth and technology. As
Ed Miliband, EU Energy and Climate Change Secretary complained last
wednesday that the whole thing is likely a farce: "To fail because we
could not agree on substance is a tragedy, to fail because we could not
agree on process is a farce. By his definition, Copenhagen summit is a
tragedy.
Re: Facts, fallacies & fantacies in the climate debates
Hi Stephen,
Excellent points of discussions. The outcome of the Copenhagen meetings is not a
surprise to me, rather, it was what I had expected, not that I wanted
to see. 99%, if not all, of the leaders nowadays are politicians whose
interests and top prorities are how long they can hold on to their
jobs. I don't think there is much disagreement on the cause(s) for the
global warming around the world. The disagreements are mainly or only
on how much each country (or the people of each country) can and
willing to sacrifice its economy to save the world. Therefore, the
non-binding agreement signed at the very last minutes of the
meeting was just to declare the party is over, the leaders could go
home and tell their own people that they did try, but the task is just
too huge to tackle in one meeting, more work needs to be
continued. (Doesn't this kind of wordings sound familiar?)
In the next climate meeting, I bet more than 50% of these leaders would be gone, that means someone else problem.
Again, I apologise that I sound pessimistic, but this is a reality.
Thanks
Gary
Re: Facts, fallacies & fantacies in the climate debates
Dear Stephen,
Much to your notions and concepts about the great
debate on the the world climate, I think it is time to reflect on some
of the expert opinions and be critical in a rational manner.
I am glad that you have brought up the "Fallacies". In fact they are cognitive distortions!
This implies some degrees of negative distorted thoughts and dysfunctional assumptions.
Cognitive distortions or errors have the following characteristics:
1. Systemic error in reasoning
2. Lead to negative interpretation of experience
3. More frequent when the mood is intense
4. It has a vicious cycle
These 4 steps follow on each other sequentially naturally if you think about them.
The following are some examples of thought distortions or errors, to
mention a few. (There are a lot more of these if one cares to find
them.)
Please note the similarities to your expressions and interpretations:
1. Overgeneralisation - Making sweeping judgements on the basis of a few incidents and generalising them to other events
2. Catastrophising - Predicting the future negatively without considering other more likely outcomes
3. Arbitrary inference - Jumping into conclusions in the absence of evidence
4. Selective Abstraction - Forming conclusions based on 1 isolated detail
of an event, ignoring contradictory evidence or the context.
5. Dichotomous thinking - Thinking in extremes , black and white thinking
6. Magnification and Minimisation - Exaggerating the negative and minimising the positive
7. Disqualifying or discounting the positive
Stop and think, these are not normal and rational thinking!
Thus we can see that when we are interpreting the political statements and
other daily activities, we need to be vigilant and more explicit!
As you will be aware, there are lots and lots of these examples in our normal daily events
I hope these few sentences can help us to clarify the complex issues into some manageable level headed thinking.
David
Re: Facts, fallacies & fantacies in the climate debates
Dear David and Friends,
Happy holidays to all of you!
Thanks to David who has been generous to share your ideas and suggestions from
the psychology perspective, which fit perfectly well with those notions
from the logic perspective of the philosophy traditon.
In case you're interested to understand a bit more about some 'dissentient'
opinions of the climate debates, after so many good food and wine
parties during Christmas, I have some clippings attached here to help
your digestion. While their opinions may deviate from the climate
alarmists, nevertheless, most of them have a strong desire to seek for
truth and contribute ideas to develop a better environment. They are
just against the reasons given by the 'global warming' crowd.
I believe the first 'mistake' for some scientists was to rush out to deem
global warming a settled science; then of course the snake-oil salesmen
step in and blow the whole thing out of its scientific proportion by
politicizing it. The 'ClimateGate' exposed the lengths to which
climatologists were willing to go in order to stifle debate about
global warming (doubt if they have to do it if the truth is on thier
side?) Harold Bloom and Patrick Michaels' pieces (attached) painted a
picture of a corrupt scientific establishment that is arrognant and
self-absorbed. Daniel Botkin's piece is an excellent observation about
the myth of the 'delicate balance of nature.' Follow the money,
suggested by WSJ-Op: 'The economics of ClimateGate' is something you
shouldn't miss. These
articles help to explain why the climate science is still unsettled and
the undeniable facts behind the 'ClimateGate' scandal.
Those who have a genuine interest in the future of humanity should take heart
and ask yourselves some honest questions. Mind you, the word 'dissent'
is derived from Latin 'dissentire' which was synonymous with
Nonconformists who refused to conform the doctrines and beliefs of the
establishment of the Catholic Church. Some of the famous dissent
scientists in the 16th & 17th century were Copernicus, Galileo
& Newton, whose ideas have proven to be true despite the tremendous
threat from the establishment.
Stephen
RE: coffee & global-warming continuum
Dear Folks,
Latte lovers, do take heart!
"The Truth about coffee" is a good article about the arguments for & against the health effects of coffee which is worth sharing.
Come to think of it, if such a trivial thing as to prove the effects of
coffee on human is so controversal and still not yet settled, how can
the climate alarmists be so sure about the inevitable trend of a
trillion-trillion-time more complex issue like global climate change in
the next 100 yrs or beyond?
Relax and enjoy your coffee!
Stephen