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Published online 25 October 2007 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2007.198
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Climate sensitivity 'inherently unpredictable'
Knowing exactly how the planet will respond to greenhouse gases isn't necessary, experts say.
Climate models might be improving but they will never be able to tell us exactly what to expect. That's the conclusion of experts from the University of Washington, Seattle, who have set out to prove that predicting the exact level of climate change is by its very nature an uncertain science.
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There is a fundamental flaw in any study of climate that takes a period as recent as the start of the industrial revolution as its starting point. This assumes a degree of importance in relationship that cannot be established in so selective a view. The period mentioned also includes the dramatic decline of the "Little Ice-age" and other catastophic events like; major volcanic eruptions, the advent of powered flight, the Siberian meteor strike, World Wars I and II, several enormous fires and on and on. A more meaningful impression would require comparisons with pre-Little Ice-age and pre-"Last Great Ice-age conditions as well. The danger in this sort of thing is that it can feed the arguments of a political movement that seeks a catastrophy so great that it becomes a prolonged emergency. That emergency is used to convince people that they must surrender their individual rights and the free-market economy in order to empower government to impose wide-sweeping controls and powers. Global warming is real, but whether and to what extent it is a product of human activities is unclear. What is not at all unclear is that the escalation of this issue into a catastrophic emergency provides the scenario wherebye the the constitutional safeguards on individual rights and freedoms in many nations can be eroded or overcome in order to provide governments with the authority to save us all from global warming. To those who believe they have become so enlightened that their judgments and values exceed the lessons and traditions of three thousand years of modern civilization this would be seen as a God-send, if God was not one of the silly old ideas they are working hard to get rid of. The period they have selected also corresponds with the rise of the modern movement toward democracy and individualism, led by the American Revolution and its Constitution's diversification and limits on the accumulation of power. Democracy and its co-joined twin, free-market capitalism now stand in the way of those who would impose their 'new-more-enlightend' values on the rest of us through what the 19th Century called, "Social-Corporativism", the first half of the 20th Century called, "Fascism" and we now call, "Progessivism." To institute environmental regulations extensive enough to have any effect on global warming, an far-reaching effort will need to be made and coordinated by a centralized authority posessing undisputed power over virtually all energy production and use. The same authority can, and is proposed to be used to, regulate issues touching almost every other aspect of our lives. So every one dealing with issues around global warming should begin by making a choice. You cannot have control of carbon-based energy use without either sacrificing democracy or finding arguments so persuasive that democratically empowered individuals will take those steps on their own. IF significant man-made global warming is really a crisis it must be addressed. But addressing it will cost us and future generations our freedom. Before we throw that away, it would serve us well to make very, VERY sure that this really is a crisis. The American Revolution and the forging of our Constitution came about under very unusual circumstances. Those circumstances will never be repeated. Once lost, this is something the world may never see again.
Freedom is not in jeopardy! I find Mr. Loftus' analysis somewhat disingenuous. To claim that our freedoms are on the anvil of global warming is simply overstated and wrong headed. No matter how you may personally feel about global warming, the scientific facts are in and the globe is warming. Some part of this is clearly due to human activity and the best models we have suggest strongly that our part is bigger than smaller. We, as a species, therefore have a choice, a free choice, which is the exemplar of true freedom. We can try to do something now and hope that the models are correct and we have a big enough lever on the future to change it, or we can plan for the fact of a warmer future. This means spending lots of money over the next few hundred years to save places like New Orleans and Miami, not to mention Bangladesh. What science is telling us IS we have a CHOICE and it is giving us this information early enough that we may be able to direct our own future. I doubt there is a wrong answer, as in destroy the planet or save it, it is simply a choice and we have the tools, the knowledge and hopefully the wisdom to make a good one. There can be no higher goal for science than to inform and warn and give options to humanity to enrich our lives, choose our future and direct our fortunes. Science, in all its manifestations, including global warming, maintains and expands freedoms by maintaining and expanding choice. The problem comes when the doomsayers on one hand and the denialists on the other cause inaction and paralysis ( the smoking controversy of a few decades past comes to mind). As an old college buddy used to say: “Not to decide is to decide�. Which brings up another free choice, what is the legacy we wish to leave our children, surely inaction by argument, which prepares us for neither outcome, is not one we will be proud of.
I suggest that Edwin Loftus actually read in detail about climate research. The statement he makes that provides the foundation of his entire political argument is completely false. Indeed if climate models were based only on data from the last 200 years, they would indeed be completely flawed. However, an enormous component of climate modelling is linking paleoclimatic studies (and these include numerous independent fields of research) to current climatic change. The factual but conservative IPCC 2007 reports and the references therein are a good place for him, and others, to start. Political and social arguments can follow once an appropriate level of understanding is present. They are certainly important - we have many decisions to make. As our growing population and societal demands start to push our planets resources and systems, climate change is only one of many factors that we will have to make difficult decisions about in the next few decades.