The Copenhagen Diagnosis: why you should take it seriously

Here is a very readable update on the state of the science of climate change, authored by 26 climate scientists and including up-to-date references to the scientific literature. It includes discussions of global temperatures, ice caps, sea-level change and other climate-change issues.

Copenhagen Diagnosis

Of course, you can always choose to be skeptical about this, and believe what you read on sites like 'Friends of Science' instead. People who reject the science tend to do exactly that, whether it's a matter of climate change and global warming or evolution and the age of the earth. If you're like Rex and Margaret and you find yourself tempted to take that approach, you should ask yourself what comes first in forming your opinion: if the fact that you don't like the idea of global warming leads you to reject sources that support the idea as 'biased' and to accept sources that reject it, then you're not thinking about the evidence at all-- you're just picking and choosing sources according to whether they agree with your preferences.

This is perfectly human and natural, but it's not rational. Being rational is actually hard and it doesn't come naturally. It requires us to think seriously about points of view we don't accept and to consider evidence that runs against our own positions. We can't ignore that evidence (even if we suspect it's not trustworthy). We have to understand it thoroughly and deal with it. If you take a serious look at a site like Realclimate, you'll see how carefully the bloggers there have addressed arguments from the skeptics and deniers, and how they've tried to explain the science to those of us who can't follow all the technical details. They've also listed extensive links to other sites, including massive amounts of climate data and code.

Compare their efforts to skeptic/denial oriented sites. The contrast is striking. Like the debate between defenders of biology and the creationist/intelligent design crowd, on skeptic/denial sites, you will find brief notes about denialist talking points along with highly selected data-- for instance, you might find references to the fact that 2008 was colder than 1998. But this fact is also noted and acknowledged on Realclimate, where it is placed in a much more informative context: it turns out that 2008 was still the 9th warmest year in the instrumental record. Further, 2008 included a la Nina event, which drives down surface temperatures, while 1998 included a major el Nino event, which drives surface temperatures up. As another example, on Realclimate you'll find serious discussion of the lists of supposedly skeptical 'scientists' often mentioned on climate denial sites--discussion that points out that many people who have been listed have spoken up and asked for their names to be removed, and many others have no qualifications in climate science at all. (This is another strong parallel between evolution denial and climate change denial-- lists of scientists, many not even biologists, who are claimed to be skeptical about evolution, or about natural selection, are a staple on evolution denial sites, but the credibility of those lists has been examined and carefully criticized on sites like TalkOrigins, while those critical examinations don't ever get discussed-- let alone answered-- on evolution denial sites.)

It takes a little work and some careful attention to the back-and-forth, but what you will find if you have the patience to carry through this kind of cross-checking analysis is something quite important: arguments and evidence on the skeptical/denialist sites are actually addressed and thoroughly answered on evolution and climate science sites, while skeptical/denialist sites regularly repeat the same arguments over and over without ever responding to the criticisms and answers given on science sites. So long as that's the way the debate goes, there's only one side of the debate that's actually serious about what it's saying, while the other side is relying on spin, and hoping for an audience with a preconceived attraction to their position. What's especially nice about applying this test is that you don't have to be a scientist yourself to figure out which is which.

Now, journalists don't have time to get a degree in climate science or evolution. But they do have a responsibility to actually look into the issues they're commenting on. In fact, although Rex and Margaret could improve a lot just by reporting on both sides' claims and arguments, journalists have a responsibility to do better than just 'balance' their work by including claims from both sides. A serious journalist actually tries to figure out who's telling the truth-- and in this case, it's not really that hard. So how about it?