A good conspiracy theory strings together disparate bits of information into an obvious conclusion. This is an anti-conspiracy theory. This is more of a Jackson Pollock than a Da Vinci. I invite you to appreciate these bits and see if there’s a painting in there.
It took me a long time to believe in “Climate Change.” I couldn’t stand the conclusion that this is my fault, therefore, climate change must not be real. So I want to break it down and look a few facets of this gem. This is also a partly a letter to my 20 year old self to help explain my current thoughts on the matter.
What even is “Climate Change?”
Let’s start with the idea that it’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. It’s not China’s fault. And it’s not Exxon’s fault. Let’s start with data. One form of data is anecdotal. The benefit of anecdotal is that it’s easy, the bad part is that it’s not reliable. It’s easy to say, “Gee, it seems hotter this year, but maybe I’m remembering incorrectly.” Maybe as we get older we focus more on the weather so it just seems hotter. Ok, let’s not start with anecdotes. Let’s start with recorded data. Presumably, there’s a thermometer at City Hall or something and the intern reads the temperature and records it.
Here’s rolling 30 year period since 1950. A rolling 30 year period (over lapping 30 years) should smooth out the extremes of any particular year. This trend shows it’s getting hotter in Tucson since 1951.
Ok but that’s just Tucson, AZ. What about other places?
It looks like the data goes all the way back as far as 1904, and the top 10 highest temperatures are since 1949 with the vast majority in the last 15 years. When people talk about climate, this is what they are talking about: weather trends.
And yeah, sometimes you get a cold winter. Sometimes you get a mild summer. That doesn’t prove or disprove climate change. It pisses me off when it’s cold one day in late summer and people say, “Well I guess climate change isn’t real!” Gah! We’re not talking about one day, or one season, or even one year! We’re looking at over all trends, not blips.
Ok fine, I guess Climate Change is real. It’s still not my fault. Climate Change happened way before I got here.
I agree! Climate change seems to have been happening since there was oxygen on earth. There are cycles and ice ages, etc. etc. They have this thing called, “Paleoclimatology” which is “data are derived from natural sources such as tree rings, ice cores, corals, stalagmites, and ocean and lake sediments.” 1 You know, trust it at your own will. Seems a bit hokey to me. It requires a lot of interpretation. But, hey, Einstein conceived of the General Theory of Relativity out of thin air and so far that’s worked for us. If we’re going to require one science to meet a certain level of scrutiny, then we should require all science to meet that level of scrutiny. And since I’m not going to independently verify the speed of light, I’m just going to take Einstein’s word for it. Same for Paleoclimatology.
Do Scientists Even Agree With This Stuff?
I remember a big debate about what percentage of scientists agreed that Climate Change was real. Who cares? What if none of them think it’s real? That doesn’t change if it’s real or not. The Royal Society of London’s motto is “Nullius in verba” which means “Take nobody’s word for it.” That’s according to Wikipedia. I haven’t independently verified that is their motto or what it means. At some point it’s impractical to be that skeptical. On the other hand, did you know they removed the word, “gullible,” from the dictionary? We have to use our judgement of how skeptical to be.
So the temperature suddenly goes straight up in the late 1800s, right around when we had the industrial revolution. It could be a coincidence.
Yes, it could be. But it probably isn’t. The earth is full of feedback loops. One of the feedback loops is that the hotter the surface is, then the air can hold more water vapor, which traps more heat, which causes the surface to be hotter. A negative feedback loop is when water vapor condenses on dust particles and forms clouds which block light, which lowers the temperature, which reduces the amount of water vapor that the air can hold. Carbon dioxide also has a heat trapping effect, but no cloud forming effect. This tips the balance in favor of holding more water vapor. This is one form of climate change, but there are as many forms as there are feedback loops.
Ok CO2 causes climate change, how do we know that we caused it? Maybe it was the volcanoes or the cows?
Maybe, but probably not.
All of your data are cherry picked and you’re all a bunch of liberals trying to bully me
I know it can feel that way because I used to feel that way too. I don’t like the idea of it being my fault, or having to change, or that I might be wrong. It feels bad, like hurtful. But what I found is that if I do independent verification and searching for the truth on my own terms, it feels good to come to a conclusion for the right reasons.
- https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/paleoclimatology ↩︎