Enabling Cultural Dichotomy

Climate Dichotomy

my critical response to “Global Warming for the Two Cultures” - Richard Lindzen
available at :
https://www.thegwpf.org/richard-lindzen-global-warming-for-the-two-cultures/

Thank you Phil Prince of www.SeekingObjectivity.ca for bringing Professor Lindzen’s speech to my attention.

Professor Lindzen makes the point that there are two cultural views underlying debate over what to do about man-made climate change.

He describes the complex science issues at play in thermal and fluid dynamics that characterise atmospheric studies.  Taken individually, each of these factors of heat, heat transfer, motion, energy, gravity, sunlight spectrum, pressure, mathematics, chemical composition, time, logic, language, communications, education, human behaviour, political power, history, represent specialties in scientific studies complex enough to warrant sub-fields within each of them.

This complexity is important.  When people add information and communication technology to their effort to model weather and climate to be able to forecast events, the complexity is made that much greater because every complex sub-system multiplies the complexity of the whole system.  The complexity makes it very difficult to accurately model climate and weather systems.  Difficult should not stop us from trying, but it is difficult.

Professor Lindzen makes that point quite well.

He then segregates the climate-concerned population into two groups each identified by its own culture.  Paraphrasing, one group is comprised of climate change sceptics who think the amount of change is a) overestimated and b) doubt it’s appropriate to credit human activity for any of the change.  The other group is convinced a) there is climate change and b) a significant amount of it can only be credited to human activity.  He argues that because we have incomplete knowledge of the factors driving climate variability, he must be on the side of the sceptics. 

He then goes on to argue that the sceptics are blessed with innate and intuitive understanding that the climate is not changing and any change is certainly not because of human activity.  Therefore preventative and mitigative measures we might undertake are simply expensive fool’s errands.  He further argues that the other group is populated with those who pursue preventive and mitigative measures do so out of ulterior motives. 

My Conclusion
He passes judgement on the people, blessing or cursing, using incomplete understanding of human affairs, including how humans think and act.  In fact both groups can plausibly be charged with their judgement being influenced by ulterior motives, on the one hand protection of their incomes in the status quo, on the other hand protection of their future income prospects through creation of new job opportunities.

He avoids using a basic risk analysis that asks what are the possible outcomes of each strategy, doing something or doing nothing, given that one or the other is correct.

If the sceptics are correct and we do something, we certainly will have economic and perhaps social disruption and have to add transition from our current economic and social situation to our efforts, all of which, of course, being done without complete knowledge and understanding.  We may also find we can use this opportunity to greatly drive efficiency in energy usage, which is always a positive feature, even though it will possibly have some disruptive effect on the economy and society.

If the sceptics are incorrect and we do something, we may not succeed but we might have at least tried to prevent mass extinction of all species including our own.  Again, we will be doing this with incomplete knowledge and understanding.

Furthermore, what human endeavour has ever been undertaken with complete knowledge and understanding?

Lastly, we waste collective time and energy by passing moral judgement on one or the other group.  Passing moral judgement on each other serves no useful purpose at all and in fact only creates opportunities for those power seekers who would exploit that division for their own ends.

I don’t feel Professor Lindzen’s speech used his credentials in natural sciences to increase our understanding of the underlying natural science.  Rather the point of his speech seems to have been based on humanities and social sciences in neither of which does he have recognized credentials.  While describing his understanding of the social divide over the issue, he does not offer an answer to the underlying climate question, but further divides humans over the issue.

It seems a significant educational effort is critical for understanding both the natural world and each other.

Michael Klein June 23, 2019