A brief history of global warming
This is the way I remember it.
My memory ain't great for details like dates, but
the overall progression reflects my recollections.
Specific dates refer to New York Times articles.
- 1975: Earth's overall temperature observed declining
sharply in recent decades.
- Climate experts are alarmed by global cooling.
Solution: expand government powers,
fund more climate research.
- 1981-08-22: Earth's overall temperature observed rising.
- Climate experts are alarmed by global warming.
Solution: expand government powers,
fund more climate research.
- 1988-08: Unusually high temperatures.
- Climate experts say this confirms the validity of
their global-warming models.
- 1996-01-14: Worst blizzard in 48 years paralyzes the northeast.
- Climate experts say this confirms the validity of
their global-warming models, explaining that
"warming" is just shorthand for many complicated
things that they didn't mention before but that
definitely included blizzards, as they
knew all along, absolutely.
- 2004: Very bad hurricane season.
- Climate experts say this confirms the validity of
their global-warming models.
- 2005: Another very bad hurricane season.
- Climate experts say that this further confirms the validity of
their global-warming models, and that it gives us a taste of
what we're in for if we don't take their advice
and expand government powers and fund more climate
research.
- 2006: Extraordinarily mild hurricane season.
- No hurricanes made landfall in the United States.
Climate experts are unavailable for comment.
- 2006-12-13: NASA reports that 1998 was the warmest year on record.
- NASA also reports that all five of the warmest years on
record occurred after 1980.
Climate experts say this confirms the validity of
their global-warming models.
- 2007-08-14: Oops. NASA admits goof: warmest year was 1934.
- NASA also reports that three of the five warmest years
on record occurred before 1940.
Climate experts warn against overinterpreting individual
data points.
Apology to honest climate experts:
This is
a portrayal of climate experts as they appear after being
filtered through the media.
I'm sure there are many competent, honest climate experts
out there, but whatever reasonable and balanced things
they're saying are not getting into our public discussion.
And my point is . . .
My point is that
our public discussion of climate change is
"a tale told by an
idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
In particular, it is not an honest scientific discussion.
To get an idea of what an honest scientific discussion
looks like, consider this excerpt from Richard Feynman's
chapter on Cargo Cult Science (in Surely You're Joking):
It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of
scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter
honesty—a kind of leaning over backwards. If
you're doing an experiment, you should report everything
that you think might make it invalid—not only
what you think is right about it: other causes that could
possibly explain your results; and things you thought of
that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how
they worked … Details that could throw doubt on your
interpretation must be given, if you know them. … If
you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put
it out, then you must also put down all the facts that
disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it.
Back to Peter's Stuff.
2007-10-19
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