The Skeptic Scam: Deciphering Disinformation in the Campaign of Climate Change Denial: Part I

Alan Journet (ajournet@semo.edu)

Department of Biology & Environmental Science Program
Southeast Missouri State University

During the last four decades, a scientific consensus developed about the health consequences of consuming tobacco products and the atmospheric consequences of continuing to release human-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Despite campaigns of disinformation orchestrated by those with economic or political interests and commitments to denying the scientific evidence, public acceptance of the scientific consensus led to national / international action. In the case of tobacco, we now see warnings on tobacco products while in the case of CFCs, the Montreal Protocol of 1987 resulted in global efforts to reduce CFC use and release. As a result recent reports suggest on the one hand that cancer rates are dropping, and on the other hand that the size of the ozone hole caused by CFCs appears to have stabilized - with recovery this century a possibility (if climate change does no intervene to undo the gains made).

The same campaign of disinformation that for years delayed our addressing the tobacco human health and CFC environmental health problems has been launched against the current scientific consensus regarding climate change. In some cases, this disinformation campaign is being waged by the same individuals - employing similar tactics.

When we are diagnosed with a serious health condition demanding immediate medical treatment, our inclination is first – and reasonably – to seek a second and maybe third expert opinion. If there is consensus, we are most likely to accept the proposed treatment – even if it poses economic costs. We recognize that in medicine there is no certainty, and there are no guarantees – but prudence suggests treatment – the cost of doing nothing is probably greater than the cost of undergoing treatment. So it is with climate change.

The scientific consensus on climate change is identified in the IPCC (intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4; IPCC 2007). The existence of climate change, the IPCC concludes, is unequivocal. The IPCC also concludes that there is a 90% or greater probability that human activities are contributing. However, despite repeated scientific finding endorsing the conclusion that climate change is occurring, and that human activities are probably – at least in significant part – responsible, there remain a small, vocal, and well-financed band of deniers. These Climate Change Skeptics, however, are in disarray; they seemingly cannot collectively decide what they accept and what they challenge. Many – as will become evident – cling blindly to conclusions drawn from data of fifteen to twenty years vintage or longer, evidence that has been superseded by more compelling data collected and analyzed during the last five years or updated analyses of and corrections to earlier data.

While the evidence of climate change mounts, those promoting the campaign of denial have become shriller and more extreme in their claims. As Adler (2007) noted: “Global warming deniers … have mostly been forced to concede that the Earth is really warming, and that industrial pollution is at least partly to blame. They are now reduced to arguing that it may actually be good for you, or that the cost of reducing carbon dioxide pollution will be enormous, and fall most heavily on the developing world – without acknowledging that those are the same countries that will bear the greatest burden of drought, disease and famine as the climate changes”. While this is the position adopted by some skeptics, others seem to dwell in a world at least ten years old, where none of the data gathered in this century exist.

The skeptics’ disinformation campaign consists largely of challenging the scientific consensus by promoting the doubts expressed by a small number of individuals. Among the skeptics only a few are scientists – some even in relevant fields – but many are not even scientists.

In order to understand and combat this disinformation campaign, it is worth exploring what the so-called climate change skeptics argue. In this article I will explore the leading curiosities and myths emanating from the skeptics’ camp.

A Paradox of Skeptical Climate Scientists

Dr. Richard Lindzen, a Meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has testified both publicly and before Congress as a critic of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) analyses concerning the dangers facing us as a result of climate change. Yet Lindzen himself was a co-author of the 2001 National Academy of Sciences National Research Council report evaluating the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) which concluded:

“Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities,…”

In relation to the precise cause, this report endorsed the IPCC evaluation that among the gases carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, nitrous oxide, and chlorofuorocarbons, released y human activities, the greatest climate forcing is due to the carbon dioxide. That report also acknowledged a temperature increase during the 20^th century of between 0.4⁰C and 0.8⁰C (0.7⁰F – 1.5⁰F).

This Lindzen co-authored review also concluded that:

“The full IPCC Working Group I report is an admirable summary of research activities in climate science, and the full report is adequately summarized in the Technical Summary.”

In short, in his 2001 scientific judgment Lindzen endorsed the IPCC evaluation of climate science evidence. It is somewhat paradoxical, to say the least, that even as the evidence regarding climate change and its human causes has grown more conclusive, Lindzen (e.g. 2007) now argues that the IPCC is inaccurate in its assessment or that climate change is no great threat.

Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama (Hunstville) is a noted researcher in the arena of upper atmospheric temperatures. In the early 1990s Christy published data that challenged the expectation from climate change theory that the temperature of the upper troposphere (some 10 -15 km above us) should be increasing. Christy’s data have since been re-examined and adjusted – not once but many times – as our understanding of the techniques employed improves. Indeed, Christy himself co-authored a paper in 2006 that stated in part: “….current upper air climate records give reliable indications of directions of change (e.g. warming of the troposphere, cooling of the stratosphere)…” Despite the fact that the apparent discrepancies reported 15 years ago have been negated, the skeptics continue to employ the discredited earlier reports to justify the claim that upper tropospheric temperature patterns challenge global warming theory.

Somewhat surprisingly, Christy recently appeared in a favorite vehicle of the skeptics. In the 2007 British Channel 4 ‘documentary’ entitled “The Great Global Warming Swindle” Christy argued the line suggested by his 1990s data as though the corrections had never been performed and accepted by him.

There is no Global Warming!

An argument promoted by skeptics such as science fiction writer Michael Crichton (2004 “A State of Fear”) is that there really is no global warming. Crichton claimed that only data from the U.S. are reliable - and these don’t show any warming. The NASA data that Crichton used to make his case (Figure 1 a) ended in the early 1990s and were already outdated even when his novel appeared. While these old data suggest, as Crichton claimed, that 1934 was warmer if we look at current data (Figure 1 b) it becomes evident that the U.S. climate change is entirely consistent with the pattern global of warming (see Figure 5 b below).

Those who argue that U.S. data do not support the claim of global warming are either displaying ignorance or a lack of intellectual honesty.

It’s All Driven by Solar Radiation Anyway

In ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ Martin Durkin argued that solar activity is the cause for recent climate fluctuations (called ‘the temperature anomaly’ Figure 2). But data in the figure he utilized to depict that relationship terminated around 1980. As Figure 3 shows, however, the corrected solar activity: temperature relationship holds only through the mid 1900s – not even to the year 1980 as Durkin portrayed it using incorrect 1991 data reported by Christensen and Lassen (1991). During the second half of the last century the temperature anomaly exhibits a marked departure from solar activity. Again, the skeptics’ claim is based on outdated and uncorrected data.

It should be noted, however, that solar activity is not dismissed by climate scientists as irrelevant. Indeed, it has been implicated in many climatic fluctuations in the recent historic and distant geologic past.