Brethren, Peace and Good to all of you.
There is a time to affirm, and a time to reassess and reconsider
In AD 427, with the Vandals almost knocking at his door, an elderly St. Augustine of Hippo went through his entire literary output once more. The outcome of St. Augustine’s review was a unique work, which he called his Retractationes and which in English we may call his “reconsiderations.” In it Augustine offers a retrospective re-reading and review of all of his written works, one at a time. He re-read his words so as to see what progress he had made in the truth, and to correct whatever he though required changing so as to be of better clarity and use for his many readers - present and future. (Source)
I find that there’s no better starting point for me to start my own “reconsiderations” than with the hot issue of anthropogenic global warming.
On December 2, 2009, I wrote a blog post entitled Vivificat!: Climate change science going the way of Piltdown Man. Among other things, I stated the following:
What I mean is that if the whole global warming thing is based – to put it mildly – on ideologically-driven “science,” lots of powerful people stand to lose quite a bit. They will do everything they can to spin these revelations and save their already-tarnished reputations, “tarnished” no thanks to the major news networks who have studiously avoided to conduct “investigative reporting” on these matters.
Global warming is at risk of becoming the next Piltdown Man. Explanations are due; people should be held accountable and the entire global warming issue reexamined openly by scientists more concerned about science than about their reputations.
Global warming is at risk of becoming the next Piltdown Man. Explanations are due; people should be held accountable and the entire global warming issue reexamined openly by scientists more concerned about science than about their reputations.
It took three years, but now we have a man of science – and once a global warming skeptic – to wade through the entire data universe, addressing most, if not all, the concerns raised by most skeptics, in order to reach a conclusion contrary to his skepticism. The admission came from Dr. Richard Muller , a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley and founder of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project. (Source)
Bottom line: global warming is caused by humans
In an Op-Ed piece he wrote for the New York Times, Dr. Muller described his turnaround as a result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatureproject, which he cofounded with his daughter, Elizabeth. The results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases. (Source)
Regarding global warming’s attribution to human beings, Dr. Muller affirms:
How definite is the attribution to humans? The carbon dioxide curve gives a better match than anything else we’ve tried. Its magnitude is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect — extra warming from trapped heat radiation. These facts don’t prove causality and they shouldn’t end skepticism, but they raise the bar: to be considered seriously, an alternative explanation must match the data at least as well as carbon dioxide does. Adding methane, a second greenhouse gas, to our analysis doesn’t change the results. Moreover, our analysis does not depend on large, complex global climate models, the huge computer programs that are notorious for their hidden assumptions and adjustable parameters. Our result is based simply on the close agreement between the shape of the observed temperature rise and the known greenhouse gas increase. (Source)
Regarding the specific attribution of specific – and often catastrophic – recent events – or alleged events – to global warming, Dr. Muller contends:
It’s a scientist’s duty to be properly skeptical. I still find that much, if not most, of what is attributed to climate change is speculative, exaggerated or just plain wrong. I’ve analyzed some of the most alarmist claims, and my skepticism about them hasn’t changed.
Hurricane Katrina cannot be attributed to global warming. The number of hurricanes hitting the United States has been going down, not up; likewise for intense tornadoes. Polar bears aren’t dying from receding ice, and the Himalayan glaciers aren’t going to melt by 2035. And it’s possible that we are currently no warmer than we were a thousand years ago, during the “Medieval Warm Period” or “Medieval Optimum,” an interval of warm conditions known from historical records and indirect evidence like tree rings. And the recent warm spell in the United States happens to be more than offset by cooling elsewhere in the world, so its link to “global” warming is weaker than tenuous. (Source)
I find Dr. Muller’s approach sensible, conservative, and based on actual data, not on complicated computer models with built-in, unchallenged assumptions. I also applaud his skepticism regarding the connection – or better, lack of connection – between catastrophic weather events and global warming, as the doomsayers like to carp. The fact that China is the worst global polluter, and not the U.S., also will not sit well with the Al Gore crowd and many in the Third World who have come to depend on Chinese commerce and investment in their countries. To demonize the U.S . is easy, but China, well, not so much.
As a researcher myself, I am constrained by the hard, ground data; not by models – however compelling – nor by emotional appeals. Therefore, I must concur with Dr. Muller’s findings, banning any error in his data or method. We need to face the facts that, during the last 250 years, almost since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, human beings have been most responsible for the rise in global temperatures, as well as for its effects. Much research remains to be done to probe the relationship between the increase in global temperatures and specific weather events and microclimates. Of course, I will remain also very skeptical of any move by our government to grab even more powers to impose too intrusive regulations, or by transnational organizations in a quest to reduce our sovereignty and independence.
I will support collective solutions born from the principle of subsidiarity that solution for problems must come from the levels of government closer to the citizenry, thereby protecting the balance that must exist between the family and local communities, between communities and the state, and between the state and federal government. I will not support coercive, “one size fits all” federal coercion while solutions born from subsidiarity remain untried.
The Stewardship of the Environment is a Catholic Moral Imperative
As a lay Catholic Christian, I have an obligation to speak out about the environment and climate change, and a duty to come up with viable solutions for implementation in advanced, as well as in developing countries. We are to bring both our talents and our Catholic consciences to bear on these problems.
The Magisterium of the Catholic Church has established clear guidance about the right stewardship of the environment. It includes a full chapter dedicated to The Crisis in the Relationship Between Man and the Environment, found in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, as well as various pontifical pronouncements, most recently by Pope Benedict XVI, many of which you may read hereand here.
I believe we all can agree that we want a stable food supply, better air to breathe in our cities and countryside, and clear water to drink. One doesn’t have to be a global warming proponent in order to affirm basic human wants. Besides, we have a duty to protect the poor and the oppressed, who are the principal victims, not only of climate change, but of secularist organizations bent on contracepting or aborting the poor to death, supposedly to ameliorate their suffering.
My brothers and sisters: our Pastors have delineated our duty and we must accomplish it. May the Lord God, …the designer and maker of the earth, who established it, not as an empty waste did he create it, but designing it to be lived in (Isaiah 45:18, NAB), be with all of you.