How Much of an Emergency Can the Climate Actually Be?

From time to time, I get myself into odd debates by assuming common ground that isn’t there. Sometimes I know there’s not a lot of overlap, and at other times I just take something for granted as though it should be when it turns out not to be. Current case in point: climate change. I still encounter people who deny its existence, deny that it’s man-made, or deny that we should do anything about it. The latter seems to be be variously based on the idea that we have lots of time to act, that the situation is overstated, that we can’t fix it anyway, or that the whole thing is cooked up as a money-making scheme. The end result of all of these is to deny that climate change is an emergency.

Recently, a group of 500 scientists, academics. lobbyists, politicians, and business people wrote to the UN denying that there was, in fact, a climate emergency. The letter accuses climate scientists of exaggerating results, questions statistics concerning natural disasters, criticizes existing climate models, and denies that CO₂ is a pollutant. It characterizes mitigation efforts as costly and damaging, saying that wind turbines kill birds and bats. Expressing economic concern, the letter calls on politicians to “dispassionately count the real benefits as well as the imagined costs of adaptation to global warming, and the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of mitigation.”

The timing for this letter coincides with Greta Thunberg’s¹ address to the UN² and the Global Climate Strike.³ In Canada, all these events fall during a federal election campaign where the environment is already a key issue between the parties. Because this is a current issue, and because I find myself a bit dumbfounded by deniers demanding proof, I thought I’d do a little exploratory writing on the subject.

Challenging 500 Challengers

The group of 500 has been variously referred to in media coverage⁴ as experts, scientists, climate deniers, climate skeptics, climate scientists, “esteemed scientists,” “prominent scientists,” professionals, and has been noted to include academics, lobbyists, politicians, and economists. No doubt all of these are true to varying degrees for various members of this group, but who are they, and are they, in fact, climate experts? Even if they represent a minority viewpoint, should they be listened to?

To begin, the effort behind the letter⁵ is led by Dr. Guus Berkhout, a dutch engineer who has worked in the oil and gas sector and served as a professor of acoustics, geophysics and innovation management and in 2019 founded the climate change denial organization Climate Intelligence Foundation (CLINTEL).⁶ Although Berkhout can claim significant expertise and has numerous accomplishments in his field, it doesn’t appear that climate science is directly in his professional wheelhouse, though he has been engaged on this topic in recent years. Without questioning his integrity, it must be acknowledged that his direct ties to the oil and gas industry present something of a credibility challenge to his impartiality.

Although The Independent initially erred in its reporting of the number of signatories,⁷ the paper points out that the signatories include two associated with the Cato Institute and several from the Heartland Institute in the US (both part of the Koch-funded Atlas Network). The letter is connected with “UK-based free-market organisations such as the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), Adam Smith Institute (ASI), and Taxpayers’ Alliance”, and the group is “well represented” by members of the UK-based Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). Other associations within the group are to Boris Johnson’s government and to the fossil fuel industry. In a fairly significant sense then, the list appears to substantially consist of representatives of pre-existing lobby groups rather than being in any real sense a gathering of expert climate scientists.

In a bit of poking around, I found a number of similar letters and assertions by various groups, typically smaller, but no different in their makeup. I found that lead scientists and spokespeople for those groups included a professor of mathematics, and a meteorologist calling for a strictly free-market response to climate change, who also took some official criticism for referring to those criticizing the denial position as “global warming Nazis.”⁸

Concerns Expressed with Zero-Emission Targets

Following a brief introduction, the Berkhout letter states,

The general-circulation models of climate on which international policy is at present founded are unfit for their purpose. Therefore, it is cruel as well as imprudent to advocate the squandering of trillions on the basis of results from such immature models. Current climate policies pointlessly, grievously undermine the economic system, putting lives at risk in countries denied access to affordable, continuous electrical power.

We urge you to follow a climate policy based on sound science, realistic economics and genuine concern for those harmed by costly but unnecessary attempts at mitigation.

While the basis for its denial of crisis is a criticism of climate models which “most likely exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases”,⁹ the actual concern being expressed is largely an economic one. The letter calls on scientists to “openly address the uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming”, which is claimed to have taken place at a much slower rate than predicted, and within the ranges of the planet’s natural climate phases.

The letter gives as examples of the negative effects of climate mitigation the fact that wind turbines kill birds and bats, and that as a necessity for photosynthesis, CO₂ is actually good for agriculture, saying that “[m]ore CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth: additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass.” No consideration is given for the fact that there exists a proper balance for the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere, beyond which it ceases to be beneficial. In this, the letter glosses over some very basic concepts of climate science which even laypersons today are familiar with.

I wondered how many bats and birds were actually killed this way, and it turns out to be not a lot,¹⁰ particularly when compared with “nuisance bird control kills”, communication towers, fossil fuel powerplants, and oilfield oil waste and waste water pits. I’m going to go ahead and call that particular criticism just grasping at straws in an effort to support an unconvincing argument.

The concern for the cost of fighting climate change is revisited at the end of the letter when the signatories “strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050.” Taken all together, the letter begins to sound like the product of a group of individuals already denying climate science for reasons of their own, financial ones seemingly chief among them. Let’s put a pin in that and come back to it in a bit.

Why is Greta Such a Threat?

Swedish teen climate-fighter Greta Thunberg is attracting more than her share of ire following her appearances in the USA and Canada, particularly from climate-denying politicians like Donald Trump and other ultra right-wing ideologues. The reasons for this are somewhat puzzling, since she has no official position or power with which to threaten others. She does, however, have an audience for her small but pointedly direct voice. In other words, the only power she has is that which her audience gives her by listening.

Therein lies the danger for the climate-deniers. To their quest to halt any efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change for reasons of their own, Greta Thunberg presents a mortal danger. The momentum she carries threatens to defeat the denialist position with clear and overpowering political action, and to meet this threat, her opponents call attention to her age, her Asperger’s, or some other herring – anything but the science behind her calls to action. It’s borderline comical until you recognize the pathos in it.

THE GRETA THUNBERG HELPLINE:
For adults angry at a child. pic.twitter.com/JAtIKyG4Va

— Mark Humphries (@markhumphries) September 26, 2019

One of the bizarre charges is that she’s only in it for the money. As proof of that, I’ve been offered the argument that Al Gore profits from climate change. One of the oddities is that there’s much more money to be made within fossil fuel industries, yet the charge here is the opposite. One possibility has to do with projection. I often note that people seem quicker to accuse someone of motivations that they themselves hold or at least understand or sympathize with. Essentially, they believe the other person would do something because that’s what they’d do. Some people have difficulty believing a person acts for altruistic reasons, and instead ascribe motivations they’re more familiar with.

The Problem with Climate Denial Arguments

One of the issues with the denial arguments¹¹ is the source, which as far as I can tell, is fairly consistently from the political/philosophical right. The near-center right has some time ago stopped denying climate change outright (those that did), and is beginning to consider policies of response, albeit slower and more measured than those of the left. The upshot is that if the climate denial argument had more genuine merit, one should expect it to transcend political/philosophical lines. Spoiler: it doesn’t. This fact suggests that the argument is based less in science than in a political/philosophical (including religious) ideological framework that for one reason or another conflicts with climate science. In these cases, rather than adjust the ideological framework, those who hold it do so very closely, and as a result, choose to deny the science.

In Canada, it seems that those who deny climate change (on some level) are more common in regions which vote more conservatively, and/or those which have oil and gas revenue as a significant part of their economy.¹² While nobody is completely free of bias, it does appear consistent that the farther-right end of the political spectrum clearly harbours most of the climate change deniers.

The second issue with the sources for the climate denialist¹³ position is the scientific basis for the argument. Here, we should expect to find not only that the scientists who make it represent the full political spectrum (insofar as their political affiliations are known), but that they are or include a representation of bona fide climate scientists whose positions are based in climate science using the scientific method, evidenced in the presentation of their evidence.

What we find among the supporters of the Berkhout letter is that the scientists involved do not appear to represent climate specialists, but scientists from other specialties.¹⁴ In and of itself, their individual specialties do not discredit their positions, but the lack of climate specialists on the list is a problem. Good analysis, a good idea can come from anywhere, especially from parallel disciplines.¹⁵ The analysis, however, the idea, should be convincing to someone with deep knowledge, and expert. Perhaps not every expert, but some number of experts who are then able to add convincingly to the presentation of the argument.

Before going any further, I must point out that an appeal to authority is a form of logical fallacy.¹⁶ This fact cannot be used to dismiss the claims of experts, especially when there is expert consensus. The constraint of this fallacy is that while an expert may be wrong, it is not reasonable to dismiss the opinion unless the person arguing against it has a similar depth of knowledge, understanding, and/or access to empirical evidence. In sum, an expert isn’t intrinsically correct simply because they’re an expert, but their opinion cannot be set aside in the context of an argument unless (a) the person arguing has a similar level of expertise in the subject matter, or (b) the opinion is at odds with expert consensus. If the dissenting opinion is to be given weight, it must be convincing enough to disrupt the expert consensus.

The question becomes not whether one list of climate scientists or other experts can be stacked up against an opposing one to determine which is more numerous (and therefore correct), but whether there is expert consensus with regard to climate change. And by any reasonable measure, there is. At the risk of creating a dueling-list scenario, I was easily able to find a number of instances of such consensus.

• The Union of Concerned Scientists¹⁷
• NASA¹⁸
• The Royal Society¹⁹
• World Meteorological Organization²⁰
• International Institute for Sustainable Development²¹
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change²²
• Canadian Coalition on Climate Change & Development²³

Not all of these organizations are 100% staffed by climate experts of course, but they do clearly demonstrate expert consensus at the international level, reached by experts in this field who have been specifically tasked with research and recommendations on this issue. Moreover, none of the experts representing this consensus are suggesting that the matter is not urgent. Anyone still doubting consensus – or indeed, any of the other scientific facts concerning climate change – might now be directed to Grist‘s “How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic: Responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming”,²⁴ a very thorough list of articles grouped by stages of denial, argument type, scientific topic, and level of sophistication to respond to each particular objection, including “no consensus’, “models don’t work”, “part of a natural change”, “can’t be stopped”, and “economically infeasible”.

As of 2013, climate denial had become a Billion-dollar industry in the US alone, comprised of 91 “think tanks and advocacy organizations and trade associations”.²⁵ If you’re being honest, you have to ask yourself, “if they’re spending a $1 billion per year to fight climate change, how much are they making from it?” Consider that winning at prevention of climate change mitigation efforts is likely infeasible, so the financial gain here is derived simply from delay. Funding for these mostly registered charities comes primarily from conservative billionaires.²⁶ Don’t kid yourself, the motives spreading climate denial using pseudo-science and lobbying tactics are financial.

Ultimately, there can really only be one reason for refusing to consider adjustments to your philosophical framework when it fuels some level of climate denial: fear. The fear of lost profits is fairly clear, and drives the majority of the primary anti-climate lobby. The fear driving a substantial amount of the rhetoric (the echo, if you will) is quite different. When you are heavily invested in some ideology, perhaps even built your life around it or in some way depend upon it for your identity, it’s extremely disorienting to have to make changes to that framework. I get it. It’s a big deal, and I don’t mean to make light of it… but the fact is that your fear of reconciling your philosophical framework with the reality of climate change is not a sufficient reason to expect others to ignore it. The actual changes to your philosophical framework are beyond the scope of this essay, but know that you can work through them. Indeed, if your framework is to be trusted in the future, you must work through them to reconcile it with the facts of climate change. Begin by abstaining from the climate denial echo.

It’s deeply ironic when the denialist response is to charge climate scientists with fearmongering, or to continue echoing a purchased opinion by calling people sheep for accepting the expert consensus.

Risk Management & Economics

I wanted to visit one last concept, being that we shouldn’t bother trying to stop climate change. Even if you accepted that it was impossible or to late to stop the effects of climate change (which I do not), or if you subscribe to the red herring that we should do nothing if China does nothing, there are still ample reasons to make every effort. Firstly if China (or whoever else) does nothing, it is increasingly imperative that everyone else does something. As a problem with global effects, it is inevitable that some countries will have to do more than others to stop it, and for their own benefit. Whether other countries also benefit is beside the point – failing to act for this reason is the equivalent of, as the old saying goes, cutting off your nose to spite your face.²⁷

The larger question I wanted to address is risk management. There are two considerations in measuring risk: frequency and severity. These are the two factors upon which your insurance premiums are based, and are the reason (whether you know it or not) that you purchase insurance. In other cases, risk management techniques are used besides insurance. The advice to not keep all your eggs in one basket is one such technique, known as spread of risk.

You can imagine a diagram with four quadrants with the two axis labeled frequency and severity to demonstrate risk assessment. The four quadrants will then represent low-frequency/low-severity, low-frequency/high-severity, high-frequency/low-severity, and high-frequency/high-severity. Now imagine that frequency and probability are synonyms: in other words, high frequency means that something occurs often enough that there’s a high likelihood that it will happen again. Severity represents the impact of the loss, whether high or low, and we have different strategies for these.

High-frequency/high-severity: don’t build your house in a flood plain. High-frequency/low-severity: keep a spare tire in your car. Low-severity/high-frequency: take it in stride, develop a coping mechanism. Low-frequency/high-severity: you buy insurance.

Low-frequency/high-severity is for things that don’t happen often, but when they do, they are devastating. For these things, when you can, you buy insurance to help you get back on your feet. The way this works is to share the risk among the policyholders: we know someone’s house will burn down this year, but we don’t know whose, so we agree to pool certain resources to help whoever the victim turns out to be. In the case of climate change, we can’t simply insure the planet, and as many of the protest signs say, “There is No Planet B.” Besides, we know it’s coming, and to some extent, we’ll all be victims. For this reason, we must invest in every way possible to minimize the effect of climate change. At this stage, prevention may be impossible since it’s already underway, but we can minimize the further effects and mitigate the ones now underway.

Of course this will be incredibly costly, and we have no way of knowing in advance what that cost will look like. We don’t know how long it will take to repay, nor how the economy will be reshaped afterward: we only know that the effect of doing nothing will be far worse, and is fundamentally unacceptable. It may be surprising to some, but this is not a unique circumstance: all of those same conditions existed in the early stages of World War II.

Winston Churchill²⁸ made an incredibly powerful speech, which is remembered to this day for its inspiring reversal of the sentiment toward surrender that was sweeping Britain at the time, because for him, such acquiescence was unthinkable. In North America, the same became true when called upon to fight against the tyranny of racist fascism. To the extent that any costs were or could be counted in advance, they were deemed acceptable: it was an “or die trying” moment, when the resolve to do “whatever it takes” to win is formed in recognition that the risk of doing nothing is even greater than the risk of the unknown. This is the current state of climate change in meeting the economic argument. Once you’ve accepted that climate change is real and that it’s urgent, you must then recognize that we’re in such a moment.

Simply put, protecting the economy is short-sighted and ignores the larger picture. It’d be like not fighting World War II because we hadn’t decided who was going to be in charge of replacing damaged bricks in the buildings of Europe. We’ve been in these situations before, against seemingly insurmountable odds. The human spirit has risen to that in the past, and can do so now, with the resolve to do whatever it takes. As with post-war reconstruction, we’ll find a way to deal with the aftermath, but first we’ve got to fight the war.

1. Wikipedia: Greta Thunberg
2. Transcript: Greta Thunberg’s Speech At The U.N. Climate Action Summit
3. See globalclimatestrike.net and Wikipedia: September 2019 climate strikes
4. For example, in Europe Reloaded; The Independent; The Epoch Times; Climate Change Dispatch
5. Full text, Berkhout letter
6. See Wikipedia: Guus Berkhout
7. 400 instead of 500; see Hundreds of climate sceptics to mount international campaign to stop net-zero targets being made law
8. Wikipedia: Roy Spencer (scientist)
9. op. cit., emphasis added
10. Wikipedia:Environmental impact of wind power
11. I use the term denial here not in the sense of outright denial that the climate is changing, but as a catchall for those who argue we shouldn’t do anything about it.
12. See Is climate change “an emergency” and do Canadians support a made-in-Canada Green New Deal?
13. Yes, that’s a real word.
14. The full list of signatories is to be released in October, but of those already available, one should already expect to find some notable climate scientists.
15. On this subject, I recommend the book Range: Why generalists triumph in a specialized world by David Epstein
16. Wikipedia: Argument from authority
17. UCS on Global Warming
18. NASA: Evidence for Global Climate Change
19. The Royal Society: The Basics of Climate Change
20. WMO on Climate
21. IISD: Climate Change Adaptation
22. The IPCC is the UN body for assessing climate change science
23. c4d.ca
24. How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic
25. Smithsonian.com: Meet the Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement
26. The Guardian: Conservative groups spend up to $1bn a year to fight action on climate change
27. Or to the point, something like “We decided to let Miami sink into the ocean because China wasn’t doing its part.”
28. Perhaps the Greta Thunberg of his time?