Geological Society of America Joint Annual MeetingOctober 7, 2008Houston

1
Geological Society of AmericaJoint Annual
Meeting/October 7, 2008/Houston

• INTELLECTUAL ATROPHY THEORY APPLIED TO THE GLOBAL
  WARMING PSEUDOCONTROVERSY A CASE STUDY OF
  SCIENTIFIC STAGNATION
• presented by
• George T. Stone
• Milwaukee Area Technical College

2
The greatest tradition is change.
--Frank Lloyd Wright
3
The very essence of science is change.
4
Science

• Science is best defined as a careful,
  disciplined, logical search for knowledge about
  any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by
  examination of the best available evidence and
  always subject to correction and improvement upon
  discovery of better evidence.
• -- James Randi
• Founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation

5
Responsible skeptic v. ostensible skeptic

• As predators keep prey alert and adaptable, so
  skeptics keep scientists honest. Skeptics play
  an essential role in the process of science.
  Responsible skeptics, that is.
• A responsible skeptic plays by the rules of
  science, ever striving for objectivity and rigor.
• Alas, the ostensible skeptic interprets these
  rules loosely and may deem a foul ball fair,
  straying into the field of dreams and
  pseudoscience.

6
Atrophy(Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

• Etymology
• Late Latin atrophia
• from Greek atrophos ill fed
• from a- trephein to nourish

7
Intellectual atrophy(W. T. Wu/Nanjing
University letters, 1936)

• Intellectual atrophy describes an immutable and
  closed mindset which denies itself the
  nourishment of new knowledge in order to preserve
  a revered or cherished paradigm.

8
Conceptions of an orderly world

• Ideas without precedent are generally looked
  upon with disfavor and men are shocked if their
  conceptions of an orderly world are challenged.
• -- J. Harlen Bretz

9
Scientific stagnation

• Scientific stagnation develops when the
  nourishing oxygen of discovery in an open
  intellectual system is excluded, resulting in
  conceptual stasis.

10
Confirmation bias(from Wikipedia/the free
encyclopedia)

• Confirmation bias (or confirmatory bias) is a
  tendency to search for or interpret information
  in a way that confirms one's preconceptions and
  avoids information and interpretations which
  contradict prior beliefs.
• Confirmation bias is mothers milk to ostensible
  skeptics and is symptomatic of scientific
  stagnation.

11
History of science

• The history of science is replete with examples
  of scientific stagnation when new evidence and
  new ideas threatened to perturb and oxygenate the
  comfortable quietude of long-held concepts.

12
Perturbers of scientific stagnation

• James Hansen
• F. Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina
• Harry Hess
• Guy Callendar
• J. Harlan Bretz
• Alfred Wegener
• Albert Einstein
• Svante Arrhenius
• Charles Darwin
• Louis Agassiz
• James Hutton
• Galileo Galilei

13
History of global-warming science

• 1827 Joseph Fourier explains greenhouse
  effect
• 1862-3 John Tyndall publishes experimental
  data documenting infrared absorption by
  H2O and CO2
• 1895 Svante Arrhenius calculates that doubling
  C02 in the atmosphere would raise Earths
  surface temperature 5 to 6oC
• 1938 Guy Callendar concluded that CO2 from the
  combustion of fossil fuels is changing
  Earths climate
• 1988 James Hansen testifies before Congress
  presents GISS projections of global warming

14
The greenhouse effect and global warming

• Now, the discoverers and documenters of the
  greenhouse effect and global warming clearly
  perturbed the resource-friendly paradigm of
  planetary immunity to human activity.
• And ostensible skeptics and true believers
  charged onto the playing field.

15
Example of non-science

• When the state of a system is a function of
  multiple independent variables, it is naïve at
  best and dishonest at worst to attribute cause
  and effect to only two variables while ignoring
  the relevant impact of a third (or more).
• For example concluding that the thermal
  properties of CO2 were inoperative simply because
  the dimming impact of aerosols temporarily masked
  the greenhouse effect.

16
Another example of non-science

• If a well-defined, longer-term trend (say,
  multi-decadal) exhibits short-term fluctuations
  (say multi-annual), it would be unjustified
  indeed, disingenuous to conclude on the basis
  of a fluctuation that the long-term trend did not
  continue or was invalid.
• These examples are not hypothetical they
  represent two of many ploys that have been used
  in the guise of science by ostensible skeptics to
  create the perception of controversy. Such
  fallacies do not constitute science and contrive
  only pseudocontroversy.

17
Science, credibility, and public policy

• The effectiveness of science in informing
  public policy derives from its credibility -- and
  also, unfortunately, from its political
  convenience.
• We can control credibility it derives from
  integrity. And integrity is the duty of science,
  as it is for all scholarship. As scientists, it
  is our duty to demand integrity and rigor in our
  research and in our education of students and the
  public at large.
• Pseudoscience and rigorless disinformation
  should not be granted legitimacy-by-association
  in a forum of scientific research or on the stage
  of scholarship.

18
Understanding global warming(James E. Hansen,
Director/NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies)

• Understanding the nature and causes of climate
  change is essential to crafting solutions to our
  current crisis.
• -- Tipping Point Perspective of a
  Climatologist
• (20082009 State of the Wild)

10/10/2009
GStone/MATC
19
CO2 rises exceed worst-case scenarios(Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences/May 22, 2007)

• CDIAC EIA data compared to IPCC

• The world's recent carbon dioxide emissions are
  growing more rapidly than even the worst-case
  climate scenario used by the Intergovernmental
  Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
• C02 emissions from fossil fuels increasing at 3
  times the rate of the 1990s

20
CO2 emissions accelerate in 2007(Global Carbon
Project/September 25, 2008)

• atmospheric CO2 increase (ppm/yr)
• 1970-1979 1.31980-1989 1.61990-1999
  1.5 2000-2007 2.0 2007 2.2

21
CO2 emissions accelerate in 2007(Global Carbon
Project/September 25, 2008)

• the growth rate of emissions continued to
  accelerate, through 2007, bringing atmospheric
  CO2 to 383 ppm
• anthropogenic CO2 emissions have been growing
  four times faster since 2000
• "This new update of the carbon budget shows the
  acceleration of both CO2 emissions and
  atmospheric accumulation are unprecedented and
  most astonishing during a decade of intense
  international developments to address climate
  change.
• -- Pep Canadell, Executive Director Global
  Carbon Project

22
2007 land temperature warmest on
record!(National Climatic Data Center/January
15, 2008)

• For 2007
• the global land surface temperature ranked
  warmest on record
• the Northern hemisphere land and land ocean
  surface temperature ranked second warmest on
  record
• the combined global land ocean surface
  temperature ranked fifth warmest on record

10/10/2009
GStone/MATC
23
The greatest challenge of human history

• We now face what may well be the most daunting
  challenge in human history anthropogenic
  greenhouse warming.
• The magnitude and immediacy of this challenge is
  staggering and not yet fully grasped by many.

24
We have a very brief window of opportunity
(James E. Hansen, Director/NASA Goddard
Institute for Space Studies)

• We have a very brief window of opportunity to
  deal with climate change . . . no longer than a
  decade at the most.
• If the world continues with "business as usual,"
  temperatures will rise by 2 to 3o Celsius (3.6 to
  7.2o F) and "we will be producing a different
  planet"

25
Einsteins wisdom(Sandra Postel/October 5, 2008)

• You cant solve a problem with the same mindset
  that created the problem.
• -- Albert Einstein

26
A call to duty!

• As geoscientists -- with expertise in climate
  change and energy resources -- it is our
  professional duty to demonstrate leadership in
  preparing policy makers and the public to deal
  with the greatest challenge of human history!

27
We can do it!

• Si se puede!

28

• (AP photo courtesy of Dan Crosbie/Canadian Ice
  Service)
• Thanks for your attention!!