Gracias to the Gadfly
Gracias to the Gadfly
When climate experts describe the climate change debate, they usually say that the argument that human activities that release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere are causing the climate to warm is supported by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community. They describe the opposition as a noisy band of fossil fuel industry hired guns, free market fanatics, scientifically challenged amateurs, and Richard Lindzen. The outlier is Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
In an op-ed (“Climate of Fear,” Wall St. Journal, 4/12/06) Lindzen complains that climate change orthodoxy has made it impossible to question the scientific foundation of climate change claims, and he takes personally the charge that any scientist who raises questions must be a stooge of the fossil-fuel industry. Although there are plenty of stooges to be found, it seems more likely that Lindzen’s flaw is idealism. He believes that it is possible to have a thoughtful, open-minded, civil debate scientific debate about a controversy that has enormous political and economic implications.
I’m not qualified to judge the validity of Lindzen’s own climate research, but I’m inclined to believe the majority consensus that he questions. However, on the character of the political debate, Lindzen has a valid point. The urgency that many scientists feel about the necessity of taking action on climate change leads them to an us and them stance in the political debate. As a result, they are unlikely to criticize the errors and exaggerations of nonscientists who are fighting for action to slow climate change and impatient with scientists who want to quibble with any of the science.
There is nothing wrong with criticizing Lindzen’s scientific work, but there is a problem when scientists tolerate the errors made by allies who know far less about climate than does Lindzen. The evidence that climate trends are cause for concern is very convincing. The failure to blow the whistle on unreliable or misguided arguments ultimately weakens the case for action.
Most scientists who want action on climate change view Lindzen as an annoying distraction, a gadfly who provides legitimacy to uninformed and meretricious critics. They would be wiser to let Lindzen have his say and to refute it, but to make clear the difference between him and the willfully uninformed. At the same time, they need to work harder to distinguish what they know with scientific confidence from the uninformed speculation of some of their political allies. A critique that addresses Lindzen’s excessive skepticism as well as the credulousness of the climate change faithful will move the political debate in the right direction.
When climate experts describe the climate change debate, they usually say that the argument that human activities that release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere are causing the climate to warm is supported by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community. They describe the opposition as a noisy band of fossil fuel industry hired guns, free market fanatics, scientifically challenged amateurs, and Richard Lindzen. The outlier is Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
In an op-ed (“Climate of Fear,” Wall St. Journal, 4/12/06) Lindzen complains that climate change orthodoxy has made it impossible to question the scientific foundation of climate change claims, and he takes personally the charge that any scientist who raises questions must be a stooge of the fossil-fuel industry. Although there are plenty of stooges to be found, it seems more likely that Lindzen’s flaw is idealism. He believes that it is possible to have a thoughtful, open-minded, civil debate scientific debate about a controversy that has enormous political and economic implications.
I’m not qualified to judge the validity of Lindzen’s own climate research, but I’m inclined to believe the majority consensus that he questions. However, on the character of the political debate, Lindzen has a valid point. The urgency that many scientists feel about the necessity of taking action on climate change leads them to an us and them stance in the political debate. As a result, they are unlikely to criticize the errors and exaggerations of nonscientists who are fighting for action to slow climate change and impatient with scientists who want to quibble with any of the science.
There is nothing wrong with criticizing Lindzen’s scientific work, but there is a problem when scientists tolerate the errors made by allies who know far less about climate than does Lindzen. The evidence that climate trends are cause for concern is very convincing. The failure to blow the whistle on unreliable or misguided arguments ultimately weakens the case for action.
Most scientists who want action on climate change view Lindzen as an annoying distraction, a gadfly who provides legitimacy to uninformed and meretricious critics. They would be wiser to let Lindzen have his say and to refute it, but to make clear the difference between him and the willfully uninformed. At the same time, they need to work harder to distinguish what they know with scientific confidence from the uninformed speculation of some of their political allies. A critique that addresses Lindzen’s excessive skepticism as well as the credulousness of the climate change faithful will move the political debate in the right direction.
posted by Kevin Finneran at
3:53 PM
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