Weather vain

Hell hath no fury like a global warming evangelist scorned.  The science columnist at Slate, Phil Plait (who I still think should be a food columnist) has launched another tirade against someone who dares to question the scientific consensus about anthropogenic climate change.  Plait always avers that he writes these polemics more in sorrow than in anger, but he sure seems to enjoy whupping unbeliever ass.

Plait's target this time is Matt Ridley, the author of "The Rational Optimist", who recently published a column on climate in the WSJ.  Ridley isn't even a climate change denier per se, but he has the temerity to question some of the more extreme conclusions reached by some of the experts.  However, his biggest sin, in Plait's eyes, seems to be that he quotes from other climate change skeptics, rather than from the "peer reviewed research" that Plait endorses.  Of course, Plait rather snidely notes,  there isn't much peer reviewed research that denies climate change.  That may have something to do with the growing and rather unsavory evidence that anyone who dares to voice doubts about the consensus is highly unlikely to get tenure anywhere.

Plait and others of his ilk seem genuinely unable to understand why non-scientists would doubt the supposed scientific consensus.  How about this?  Scientists have managed to frame the debate in such a way that they can't possibly lose it.  Last year in Toronto there was record-setting summer heat and a near drought.  The cause: climate change.  This summer Toronto has twice seen major flooding, with the one-day rainfall total last Monday setting a new record.  The cause? Well, meteorologists are saying we can't directly blame climate change, but since they add in the next breath that we can expect more such events in the future, it seems they don't really mean it.

Drought: climate change.  Flood: climate change.  I'm no expert on the significance of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere (neither is Phil Plait, by the way -- he's actually an astronomer), but when the experts claim that the same supposedly well-understood phenomenon can cause two such diverse outcomes, I confess I get a bit suspicious.

What's more, if the weather is quite normal, well, apparently that's consistent with the models too.  After all, climatologists say, they've never claimed that climate change would happen in a straight line.  And that's just as well, because as this NY Times story relates, right now global warming isn't happening at all.  Not since 1998, in fact, and that despite the fact that carbon dioxide levels are still rising.

Scientists are casting around for an explanation, but seem unwilling to reconsider their basic thesis, even though they never predicted this plateau would occur.  Look guys, we can accept that you can't extrapolate from one year's data, or maybe even two or three years.  But fifteen years does start to look a teeny bit like a trend, wouldn't you say?  So please go a bit easier on Matt Ridley or anyone else who asks you to think again in light of new evidence.  I thought that was the scientific method, but then again, I haven't been peer reviewed in ages.