I read in today’s newspaper (12/15/2007) that 100 “reputable scientists” had written an open letter to the UN Secretary General on global warming, titled “Don’t fight, adapt: we should give up futile efforts to combat climate change”. The phrase “reputable scientists” made me instantly skeptical. Could this be yet another collection of web trolls or Rush Limbaugh “dittoheads”? No: actually these are real scientists. The list included the physicists Geoff Austin, a Professor at Auckland (where I taught 1992-99), and Freeman Dyson whose book “Infinite in all directions” is the best science book I’ve ever read.
Dyson’s 2005 Commencement Speech at the University of Michigan is worth reading for many reasons, not least of which is his view on Global Warming. It is worth quoting in full:
” Unfortunately, I am an old heretic. Old heretics don’t cut much ice. What the world needs is young heretics. I am hoping that one or two of you may fill that role. So I will tell you briefly about three heresies that I’m promoting.
The first of my heresies says that all the fluff about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens that believe the numbers predicted by their models. Of course they say I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak.
But I have studied their climate models and know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics and do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in.
The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That’s why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.
There’s no doubt that parts of the world are getting warmer, but the warming is not global. The warming happens mostly in places and times where it is cold, in the arctic more than the tropics, in the winter more than the summer, at night more than the daytime.
I’m not saying the warming doesn’t cause problems. Obviously it does. Obviously we should be trying to understand it. I’m saying that the problems are being grossly exaggerated. They take away money and attention from other problems that are much more urgent and more important—poverty, infectious diseases, public education and public health. Not to mention the preservation of living creatures on land and in the oceans.”
The rest of the speech is also well written and well worth reading.
So what do the 100 scientists say? Here is an excerpt:
“While we understand the evidence that has led them to view CO2 emissions as harmful, the IPCC’s conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it. “
The 100 scientists are mistaken here. Their mistake is to believe that “attempts to cut emissions will slow development.” That is not necessarily true–cutting C02 emissions will not necessarily lead to world wide economic decline. In fact, the invention, development, and deployment of emission reduction technology may well be a great boost to the world economy. I’m sure I’m not the first person to say that it could easily dwarf the internet as a source of wealth generation and job creation. Let us not assume that lowering CO2 emissions means lowering our living standards. The world could likely end up heathier and wealthier as a result.