Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
3 Global warming, models and language
Richard S. Lindzen
A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more
completelybecausehedrinks.ItisratherthesamethingthatishappeningtotheEnglishlanguage.
It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our
language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.
—George Orwell:
Politics and the English Language
Global warming is about politics and power rather than science. In science, there is an
attempt to clarify; in global warming, language is misused in order to confuse and mislead
the public.
The misuse of language extends to the use of climate models. Advocates of policies
allegedlyaddressingglobalwarmingusemodelsnottopredictbutrathertojustifytheclaim
thatcatastropheispossible.Astheyunderstand,provingsomethingtobeimpossibleisitself
almost impossible.
In a further abuse of language, the advocates attempt to rephrase issues in the form of
yes-no questions:
• Does climate change?
• Is carbon dioxide (CO
2
) a greenhouse gas?
• Does adding greenhouse gas cause warming?
• Can man's activities cause increases in greenhouse gases?
These
yes-no
questions are meaningless when it comes to global warming alarm since
affirmative answers are still completely consistent with there being no problem whatsoever;
crucial to the scientific method are 'how much' questions. This is certainly the case for the
above questions, where even most sceptics of alarm (including me) will answer yes.
To a certain extent, therefore, this issue cannot be discussed between opponents. We are
speaking different languages.
That said, it should be recognised that the basis for a climate that is highly sensitive to
added greenhouse gases is solely due to the behavior of the computer models. Within these
models, the primary effect of increases in greenhouse gases is multiplied several fold by
the interaction of the increases with water vapour, clouds, and other aspects of the system
thatareopenlyacknowledgedbytheIntergovernmentalPanelonClimateChange(IPCC)to
be highly uncertain. The relation of this sensitivity to catastrophe, moreover, does not even
emerge from the models, but rather from the fervid imagination of climate activists.
