This series is structured as a debate between the Climate Change Advocates and the Climate Change Deniers based on the writings of six advocacy books and seven books with a skeptical view. Segment 1 will include brief excerpts from four advocate books and three skeptic books to provide you a snapshot of the ensuing advocate points and skeptic counterpoints which will continue throughout the thirteen segments. Additionally, throughout the series you will find frequent reference to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). So, I have included excerpts from the IPCC website on what it is, how it works, and who is involved.
Two American climate change advocates have had a profound impact on the debate. The first was Jim Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute from 1981 to 2013, with his Congressional testimony in 1988 on global warming. The second was Al Gore, Jr., who served as the 45th Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001 and the Democratic nominee for President of the U.S. in 2000. Following that election Gore became an environmental activist which earned him the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the IPCC. This segment’s excerpts are all from his highly acclaimed book An Inconvenient Truth published in 2006.
This is the first counterpoint segment of the series which focuses on two aspects – the 1500-year climate cycle of the earth which explains the recent warming trend and multiple technical areas where the authors contend the advocates greenhouse theory does not support global warming. The book Unstoppable Global Warming by S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery from which the excerpts come, was a New York Times best seller published in 2008.
This segment takes the debate to a point-by-point basis – meaning that there is a point and counterpoint position noted for two debate aspects. The debate begins with both sides agreeing that the global average temperature has increased 1 to 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880. The two debate aspects are: 1) is the temperature increase due to the use of fossil fuels by humans and 2) the reliability of General Circulation Models (GCMs) in predicting future temperature increases and the resulting consequences.
The “Hockey Stick” is a reference to a graph produced by Dr. Michael Mann who published his initial findings supporting the graph in 1998. This is of importance to the debate because the first two climate assessments by the IPCC (1990 and 1996) stated that it wasn’t yet possible to attribute any significant temperature increase trend due to an increase in greenhouse gases. The third IPCC assessment in 2001 stated the greenhouse effect was the primary contributor to the temperature increase which started in 1880 and it was unique to the planet’s history, because of fossil fuel emissions. The change in the IPCC’s perspective between the first and third assessment was due primarily to the Hockey Stick technical analysis. The excerpts for this segment come from Dr. Mann’s book titled The Hockey Stick which was published in 2012 fourteen years after his original findings were presented to the IPCC.
This is the first of two counterpoints to the Hockey Stick. Segment 7 features a single author A.W. Manford in his book The Hockey Stick Illusion. In the excerpts you will note that the author alleges that the IPCC became a climate change advocate versus being a judge. This time period also is when “global warming” changed to “climate change,” specifically in the years 2006 and 2007.
The excerpts for the second Hockey Stick counterpoint come from the book A Disgrace to the Profession (2015). The book contains 120 perspectives on the Hockey Stick from scientists throughout the world. Thirty-six are represented in the excerpts.
Segment 9 presents a view of how world-wide politics should react to Climate Change from the perspective of an advocate, Naomi Klein in her book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. Climate.
Segment 10 presents ten global warming myths and how world-wide politics should not react to Climate Change by Christopher C. Horner in his book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (2007).
This segment picks up on the point/counterpoint debate of segment 4 and presents some additional views on climate science. The advocates view is presented by journalist Robert Henson in his book The Thinking Person’s Guide to Climate Change (2014). One of the skeptics, Dr. Robert M. Carter in his essay Climate Change, The Facts: The Scientific Context, suggests the scientific debate is now down to three issues. The debate surrounds these three issues, with the counterpoint presented by a number of identified skeptic scientists, plus a key question from both sides of the debate.
This segment picks up on the point/counterpoint debate of segment 5 dealing with future global consequences. Not only does this include the perspectives of the IPCC and the NIPCC (Non-Government International Panel on Climate Change) but also the perspectives of Robert Henson (see above) for the advocates and numerous identified scientists for the skeptics.
Since the volume of excerpts up to this point in the series is weighted towards the skeptics this last segment’s excerpts is totally devoted to the Advocate position. The source of the excerpts is from Climate Change What Everyone Needs to Know (2016) by Dr. Joseph Romm, a noted communicator on climate science (see the book listing)
The postscript contains two 2018 articles on climate change which appeared during the penning of the series – one from USA Today (7/31/2018) and one from The Wall Street Journal (6/22/2018) which serve as a final point/counterpoint. Additionally, the introduction to the postscript contains some of views I garnered from researching the subject to put the series together.
The original series on Climate Change was conducted as a debate between the Advocates for Climate Change versus the Skeptics of Climate Change, as noted above. This debate was published in the summer 0f 2018. Since then, my learning continued. I have consolidated that learning into five epilogue segments of excerpts plus an introduction to the five segments. Epilogue Introduction: Climate Science Baseline The purpose of the introduction is to provide a grounding of scientific facts to assist you in making determinations about the validity of the information presented in the epilogue excerpts.
One of the significant pieces of learning the COVID – 19 pandemic has taught us is when a subject gets politicized the reporting of the underlying science become convoluted and distorted. Such is also the case with Climate Change, including the reporting of scientific information contained in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports. This epilogue segment will provide some additional perspective on the reporting of climate science as assessed by (1) Dr. Steven Koonin, who has had a distinguished career in academia, national scientific laboratories, and as Undersecretary of Science in the U.S. Department of Energy under President Obama, and (2) Michael Shellenberger, an environmental activist, researcher, journalist and IPCC expert reviewer who deeply cares about getting the facts and science right.
This epilogue segment reports on the trends, causes, future probabilities and potential consequences of many reported climate change apocalypses including hurricanes, floods, droughts, wildfires, sea level rise, and food production up to and including data through 2020.
There are many different groups of people who influence perspectives on the climate and how and why it is changing – the media, politicians, scientific institutions, scientists, activists, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the IPCC. This set of excerpts looks at each group and assesses potential biases, peer review or the lack of it, and other influences in determining their reported perspectives.
Excerpts in this epilogue segment are from The Future We Choose: The Stubborn Optimist’s Guide to the Climate Crisis written by Christina Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac. These two authors led the United Nations negotiations that resulted in the historic Paris Climate Change Agreement of 2015 signed by 195 countries. The authors outline two possible scenarios for our planet. In one, they describe what life on Earth will be like by 2050 if we fail to meet the Paris Agreement’s climate targets. In the other, they lay out what it will be like to live in a regenerative world that has net-zero emissions. They argue for confronting the climate crisis head-on, with determination and optimism. The Future We Choose presents the options and tells us what governments, corporation, and each of us can, and must do to fend off disaster.
Epilogue 5’s excerpts focus first on the realism of today’s climate change solutions: (1) Can we meet our energy needs with renewable energy alone? (2) What would it take in terms of land requirements, batteries, windmill and solar panel disposal after they are worn out, etc.? Second, what is the global impact of eliminating the burning of wood as a fuel, the largest pollutant in the world? Third, what other potential technological solutions exist to address fossil fuel emissions other than limiting their use? And fourth, how much of the potential problem can be managed via adaption strategies?