Science, politics and climate change

Second, the response of churches generally to Darwin’s theory of evolution. While mostly the churches have now accepted that religion should not give an account of biological processes in competition with science, there remains significant pockets of resistance in the more fundamentalist (and politically conservative) churches which hold to a literal reading of the Bible, including the account of the origin of the species given in Genesis.

Third, and more directly political, Lysenko’s rejection of Mendelian genetics and the official adoption of Lysenkoism by the Soviet political leadership. Again scientists who held to the accepted scientific view were persecuted, and genetics as a science failed to progress for a generation in the Soviet Union, from 1930 until the 1960s.

We should learn two things from these examples. Firstly, politics of either the right or the left can come into conflict with science. Secondly, that conflict occurs when a political (or religious) group offers an explanation or theory of something in competition with the explanation or theory given of the same thing by science itself.

Before we take up the question of what alternative theory the right is offering in competition with the science of climate change, let us note in passing that the idea that some part of science is inherently political is a complete confusion. To take just two examples: the science of nuclear energy is not and cannot be inherently right-wing, nor can the science of climate change be inherently left-wing. The physics of nuclear energy was the same before humans existed and it will be the same after; it is the same now in places where we exist and in places where we do not. Likewise the science of climate change would be the same if it concerned another planet like the Earth in all relevant respects apart from the cause of an increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. There is nothing in science which is inherently political. Thus for science to become political, science’s explanation of some phenomena must be contested by a politically motivated group.

There are very limited grounds to contest the science of climate change.

The prediction of global warming came initially from Arrhenius, in 1896. He observed that the CO2 molecule absorbs long wave radiation such as heat reflected back into space from the Earth, and concluded that an atmosphere richer in CO2 would trap more heat leading to global warming. If we wish to reject his conclusion we have just three choices: Arrhenius got the physics of CO2 wrong; our burning fossil fuels and forests is not increasing the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere; this is happening but some other process is producing a balancing cooling.

None of these are seriously argued in the scientific literature. There just is no rival theory to global warming. Full stop.

Or rather, there is no rival scientific theory. The various voices raised against the theory of global warming are raised outside scientific debate: they are attacks on science rather than contributions to science, as in the case of Galileo, Darwin and Lysenko. They assert that the science of global warming is false science put forward by scientists whose real motivation is not to explain the observed facts but to enrich themselves or advance their political cause. Just what that cause may be is not made very clear, but it has something to do with green politics, anti-capitalism, diverting funds from the advanced nations to the developing world, and generally opposing the unfettered development of our economy.

If this is so, then as I have recently detailed there is a very large and diverse group of conspirators among scientists and other experts: the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and its equivalent organisations in the US and the UK, the CSIRO, the IPCC, the members of the various recent enquires into the soundness of climate science, and the peak scientific organisations in Australia, the UK and the US, not to mention the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Then we have various conservative national governments which have joined the conspiracy, in particular the UK, France and Germany.

Such an unholy alliance could not have been easily forged, so it is no surprise to find a conservative politician with the skill and credentials of Margaret Thatcher was behind it, right back at the Second World Climate Conference.

Nor in Maggie’s absence could this diverse group be held together were it not for the efforts of royalty itself! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8179778/Prince-Charles-defends-climategate-scientists.html