Global Warming Is about Social Science Too
Who's in denial?
Both sides in the debate over global warming are known for calling their opposition all kinds of derisive names. Perhaps the worst is “denier” to describe those who allegedly deny that global warming is “real.” The echoes of Holocaust denial are indeed offensive, particularly because the debate over global warming often conflates science with social science. This matters because one could accept that science has established global warming but still reject for social scientific reasons the claim that the policies normally associated with environmentalism are the proper way to address its effects. Does that make one a “denier?” It is that question I hope to answer indirectly below.
To help clarify what’s at stake, I offer a list of questions that are (or should be) at the center of the debate over anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming. I will provide some quick commentary on some to note their importance and then conclude with what I see as the importance of this list.
1. Is the planet getting warmer?
2. If it’s getting warmer, is that warming caused by humans? Obviously this is a big question because if warming is not human-caused, then it’s not clear how much we can do to reduce it. What we might do about the consequences, however, remains an open question.
3. If it’s getting warmer, by what magnitude? If the magnitude is large, then there’s one set of implications. But if it’s small, then, as we’ll see, it might not be worth responding to. This is a good example of a scientific question with large implications for policy.
Matters of Science
All these questions are presumably matters of science. In principle we ought to be able to answer them using the tools of science, even if they are complex issues that involve competing interpretations and methods. Let’s assume the planet is in fact warming and that humans are the reason.
4. What are the costs of global warming? This question is frequently asked and answered.
5. What are the benefits of global warming? This question needs to be asked as well, as global warming might bring currently arctic areas into a more temperate climate that would enable them to become sources of food. Plus, a warmer planet might decrease the demand for fossil fuels for heating homes and businesses in those formerly colder places.
6. Do the benefits outweigh the costs or do the costs outweigh the benefits? This is also not frequently asked. Obviously, if the benefits outweigh the costs, then we shouldn’t be worrying about global warming. Two other points are worth considering. First, the benefits and costs are not questions of scientific fact because how we do the accounting depends on all kinds of value-laden questions. But that doesn’t mean the cost-benefit comparison isn’t important. Second, this question might depend greatly on the answers to the scientific questions above. In other words: All questions of public policy are ones that require both facts and values to answer. One cannot go directly from science to policy without asking the kinds of questions I’ve raised here.
7. If the costs outweigh the benefits, what sorts of policies are appropriate? There are many too many questions here to deal with in detail, but it should be noted that disagreements over what sorts of policies would best deal with the net costs of global warming are, again, matters of both fact and value, or science and social science.
8. What are the costs of the policies designed to reduce the costs of global warming? This question is not asked nearly enough. Even if we design policies on the blackboard that seem to mitigate the effects of global warming, we have to consider, first, whether those policies are even likely to be passed by politicians as we know them, and second, whether the policies might have associated costs that outweigh their benefits with respect to global warming. So if in our attempt to reduce the effects of global warming we slow economic growth so far as to impoverish more people, or we give powers to governments that are likely to be used in ways having little to do with global warming, we have to consider those results in the total costs and benefits of using policy to combat global warming. This is a question of social science that is no less important than the scientific questions I began with.
I could add more, but this is sufficient to make my key points. First, it is perfectly possible to accept the science of global warming but reject the policies most often put forward to combat it. One can think humans are causing the planet to warm but logically and humanely conclude that we should do nothing about it.
Second, people who take that position and back it up with good arguments should not be called “deniers.” They are not denying the science; they are questioning its implications. In fact, those who think they can go directly from science to policy are, as it turns out, engaged in denial – denial of the relevance of social science.
Comment by Alex on 23 February 2012:
Finally, a Freeman piece about which I can say, “Great article, Horwitz!”
Comment by Beth on 23 February 2012:
Here here! This is another great article. It sums up what I have tended to believe for a while.
Comment by Beth on 23 February 2012:
By the way, I found out first-hand last semester just how easy it is to be labled a “denier” by the scientific community. As I have fit the main description above in Steve’s article, that of being open to climate change science but not of the policies, I am labled just as badly as those who believe in absolutely no climate change at all.
There is a lot of defensiveness in the realm of climate science which makes me doubt some of the motivations.
Comment by George Leef on 23 February 2012:
Excellent piece. The fact that merely asking those questions is enough to bring down upon one’s head the wrath of the global warming crowd indicates that this is just another in the long line of excuses for expanding the power of the state. In the 19th century, the big excuse was that laissez-faire would lead to the “immiseration of the proletariat.” In the 20th century, it was that a free society would suffer from terrible economic depressions if the state didn’t step in to regulate and redistribute income. In the 21st century, the excuse is that the planet will boil over unless the state intervenes to keep us from using so much energy. If global warming fizzles out, it will be replaced by some new excuse.
Comment by Diane on 23 February 2012:
You are so right; and so few people even want to listen to what you are saying.
Comment by bionic mosquito on 23 February 2012:
Anthropogenic global warming was (is?) to be the tool to move global governance along. What is more global – demanding a global solution and response – than the climate (perhaps an attack by space aliens, but that will be for the next generation’s manipulation)?
The outcome was to be a global carbon type tax. To pay the tax, one had to earn or obtain credits. Thus, the new global currency.
When a debatable idea has such force behind it – media, social, political, etc., and this force continues despite almost every setback (the email hackers and the identified manipulations of the data, for example), it is obvious that the objective is much bigger than that which was stated. I believe this was true for AGW.
Comment by Mark Brady on 23 February 2012:
“Do the benefits outweigh the costs or do the costs outweigh the benefits?”
I suggest a revision to read “Does the marginal benefit outweigh the marginal cost or does the marginal cost outweigh the marginal benefit?”
Comment by Bullseye on 23 February 2012:
If you want to know whether someone’s opinion is scientific versus religious, ask them what evidence would convince them to change their minds. If the answer is, ‘none’. They’re not practicing science.
Most of the discussion of global warming is religious.
Comment by Bullseye on 23 February 2012:
Climatology is incompetent at explaining the root causes of global climate change. Is that a big assertion? Judge for yourself. This is a famous graph of atmospheric temperatures, CO2, and airborne dust over the last half million years derived from ice cores:
http://serc.carleton.edu/images/eslabs/cryosphere/vostok_ice_core_data.png
Ask a climatologist to explain the concurrent increases in CO2 and temperatures that began 350, 250, 150, and 20 thousand years ago. In each case, CO2 increased 90 parts per million by volume and temperatures increased 10 degrees Celsuis over 30 thousand years. The scientists that claim to understand climate change can explain exactly 0% of the major increases in that graph. Then, for fun, ask them to explain the very obvious and pronounced 100 thousand year cycle.
Like I said: incompetent. They’re at a loss, because they can’t blame my SUV. Since they are not competent at explaining the causes of global warming, it is insane to base policy on their conclusions.
(Fortunately, this is raw data, not mathematically ‘improved’ or lost.)
Comment by andyccooper@gmail.com on 23 February 2012:
Just for information, I should point out the following because no climate scientist appears to want to. Temperatures have stayed flat for all intents and purposes since 2001. We are entering our 12th year of flatlining. This is according to readily available data in tabular and graph form from the three global temperature records that are used by the IPCC, namely, GISS, HadCRUt, and NOAA. HadCRUt shows a very small decline, the other two, a very small rise. All three have a common script when countering doubts over the temperature rise hiatus. One is that you must not look at yearly swings but decadal variations and then they immediately refer to the 90′s to prove that this decade has higher average temperatures than the last. The second is to say that the 11 of the last 13 years are the hottest on record. Neither of these clever statements changes the fact that global temperatures have stayed flat for 11 years. I have not heard a single climatologist admit this simple fact. It is worthy of mention and of discussion. That is the least we should ask of them.
Comment by Drik on 23 February 2012:
Corollary to #7
Do we even have the capacity to make any changes that will have any noticeable differences given our limited, minimal input and control on the behavior of the rest of the world
Comment by GK on 24 February 2012:
It could be argued that a scientist, or a group of scientists, telling the EPA that CO2 is a “pollutant” creates a higher risk to human well-being than the CO2 itself. Power-hungry bureaucrats and politicians would love an excuse to regulate a ubiquitous substance like CO2 – a by-product of every human activity. Metaphorically, the lemmings in Washington could stampede our economy right off the cliff in Solyndra-like fashion – doing more damage to life on earth than the alleged climate change.
Comment by Justin on 24 February 2012:
And for the science:
http://mises.org/daily/5892/The-Skeptics-Case
Basically, yes global warming is real, but the “climate change” people have overestimated it by at least a factor of 3. Also, it has not been confirmed that this is caused by human activity.
Comment by jose lori on 25 February 2012:
Agendas and opinions are not science. The warmists have rode the AGW
horse for over 30 years, changing their hat as the rest of us caught on to
their charade. First it was global
warming, and then it was climate change.
Next came climate disruption all the time predicting catastrophic
consequences. They seemed to have
an insurmountable position as they morphed their belief into a theory that
attributed all weather extremes – hot or cold, wet or dry, snow or no snow,
glacial advance or retreat, greater or weaker hurricanes, changes in sea
levels, and more to atmospheric CO2.
At the same time real science, real data, observations and
reality caught up with these extremists. None of the catastrophes that they have predicted have
come to pass. The earth’s
temperature, as measured by NASA’s Aqua satellite clearly shows stable to
declining temperatures for at least the last 15 years.
One might suspect that the end is near for these
eco-terrorists and might even hope that the most egregious of them would be
held accountable for the harm they have done to the earth’s peoples and
economies. But I am afraid that
this will never happen.
Within the next year or two, the world’s elitist
environmental police, led by the UN, will seamlessly slide into a new meme,
still proclaiming the same dire consequences and demanding the same draconian
sacrifices this time not in the name of global warming but now in the name of sustainability.
Comment by Brittney on 26 February 2012:
Excellent! This is precisely the split I have been trying to articulate (including to those people who reflexively deny the existence of global warming BECAUSE of its alleged policy implications).
Comment by Greg on 26 February 2012:
Regarding costs of policies, simply recognize that no less than a 50% reduction in CO2 output is required as per the IPCC. Some have even suggested 80%. So IF we forbid any third world country from providing reliable and afordable electricity to their citizens, which excludes solar and wind, and IF we can quickly get solar and wind up to the documented maximum possible 20% share for the rest of the world, remember we only have ten years to save the planet, always ten years regardless of how long ago we were warned that we only have ten years, and IF we can them reduce our consumption by 30% then we can prevent a global catastrophe. And the cost is only in the trillions. Pretty much as soon as one realizes just what is needed then we should all recognize that it can not, under any scenario, be accomplished. IF AGW is a major looming catastrophe then our only option is to adapt if and when it arrives. But This would leave those who financially benefit from AGW standing out in the cold, so to speak.