9th Feb 2023 published by: Robert Phillips
CLIMATE CHANGE SCEPTICISM
Global dimming vs warming
The famous Swedish scientist Svente Arrhenius warned about the potential dangers of global warming as far back as 1896, when he confirmed that carbon dioxide absorbs heat. But it was thought at the time that the effects would be too small to be significant, and in any case, the oceans were likely to absorb the surplus CO2.
Indeed, an ecology textbook that I read from the early 1970s, was more concerned that the particulate matter being pumped into the atmosphere, as a result of human industrial activity, would reflect sunlight back into space – a process known as ‘global dimming’. The fear at the time was that this could trigger another ice age.
For some time, there was debate about whether global dimming or warming would prevail: were we heading for an Ice Age or a greenhouse world? By the 1990s, the prevailing scientific view was that the warming effect produced by excess greenhouse gases, would prevail over the dimming effect.
That there continued to be scepticism about global warming was understandable until, by the early part of this century, it became increasingly clear that warming was happening. Why then, has there continued to be scepticism. There may be a couple of reasons for this.
Elective Affinity
Elective Affinity was a term coined by the sociologist Max Weber around 1900. It refers to the tendency of people, albeit unconsciously to align their beliefs with their vested interests. He used it as a central argument in his thesis on The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Because Protestants believed in hard work and frugal living, they accumulated wealth, which they then invested to make more wealth. So their beliefs tied in with their vested interests.
In regard to climate change, the greatest degree of scepticism occurs in areas that produce the greatest amounts of fossil fuels. People involved in the fossil fuel industry are sceptical about climate change because it doesn’t fit in with their vested interest.
This has led some fossil fuel companies to deliberately try to discredit claims of climate change, often by dubious means. The fact that climate change will affect them as badly as everyone else is beside the point. They benefit from selling fossil fuels, therefore climate change cannot possibly be happening, and claims that it is must therefore be some sort of conspiracy.
One degree change
The other reason for scepticism is quantitative rather than qualitative. Greenhouse gases produced by human economic activity account for only three or four hundred parts per million, or less than one part per thousand, of atmospheric composition. Even accepting that these gases have some warming effect, how could they possibly account for the levels of warming predicted?
Sceptics may be prepared to accept that these gases could warm the world by one-fiftieth of a degree each year. In which case, it follows that in 50 years, they should warm the planet by one degree.
But so what? Based on personal experience, one cannot tell a difference in temperature of only one degree. Could you tell the difference between a temperature of 20o and 21o?
Therein lies the conceptual problem. For one thing, a one degree increase does not mean that every day and every night in the world is one degree warmer than it would have been without global warming. This is where averages can be misleading. One degree average increase may mean that the number of very hot days increases. As the oceans warm and expand, even raising sea level by only a few centimetres, can mean more devastating high tides, especially king tides. A one degree change in temperature can mean significant changes in the tides in the air and the tides in the sea.
The extra energy in the system associated with a one degree rise can mean more severe storms, floods and fires, as well as a range of effects on wildlife.
Predictions
One question that can be asked of climate change sceptics, is that if they don’t think climate change is happening, what do they think wil happen to the climate over, say, the next ten years – long enough for yearly fluctuations to even out. Logically they should say, if climate change isn’t happening, that the climate should revert to the long term means. One wonders how someone who expressed that view in 2010 would react to the continued warming since that date, culminating in the heat and massive bushfires of the summer of 2019-2020? Or the flooding events of recent months?
If pressed, they may concede that global warming is happening, but it’s not our fault. It is due to natural causes. If this is true, then it is the most depressing scenario of all. It implies that we are heading for disaster, no matter what we do, or don’t do. As it happens, scientists estimate that naturally caused warming, known as the ‘forcing effect’, accounts for only six per cent of the total warming. The other 94% is our fault.
