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#62 The Evidence for Climate Change
June 4, 2010 · 7 Comments
We’re joined by John Cook, author of Skeptical Science, a website that examines climate change denial. What are the most common arguments used to create doubt about global warming? Are they supported by scientific evidence?
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Meg Askey, Director of the Flagstaff Film Festival
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7 Comments so far
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Here’s my question:
“Much has been said lately about ‘crank magnetism,’ the idea that those who cross the line from skepticism to denialism are likely to do so in more than one area. Notable examples are the Discovery Institute’s recent endorsement of climate denialism, and the number of think tanks working to seed doubt about climate science that also had a hand in doing the same thing over the link between tobacco and various cancers. Another good example is the overlap between anti-vaccine groups and those doubting the HIV-AIDS link. To what extent do you see this tendency being a matter of coincidence, for example due to an overarching political ideology or religious view, versus a ‘bleed-through’ of suspicious and conspiratorial thinking in general that prevents them from properly evaluating a wide swath of scientific information?”
If this is a bit long for the question segment, perhaps you can work the points into the main interview.
You may also want to reference at some point the following recent items:
1. New Scientist – “Living in Denial”
http://www.newscientist.com/special/living-in-denial
2. “The Scientific Impotence Excuse” (paper by Geoffrey D. Munro, PhD Experimental Psychology)
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/05/when-science-clashes-with-belief-make-science-impotent.ars
by Ryan · on May 31, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Popular perceptions and politics are too much aligned against taking the big steps necessary to reduce our production of CO2. An overwhelminly united climate science front isn’t (surprisingly) by itself enough to overcome this.
This is largely due to the misinformation advanced by the climate denial industry.
Skeptical Science counters these arguments individually, convincingly, and with the latest research.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/
Some day honest arguments and warmer temperatures will get through to opinion makers (politicians, columnists, reporters,…). In the meantime we can watch the dailies (14000feet, channel 5). Will 2010 be the warmest year ever?
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
by John Guillaume · on June 7, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Thanks very much for a really interesting show! I follow John’s website and applaud his efforts (although I don’t always follow some of the finer points of the science); I think that the work that he and his colleagues do is very important. Thanks for this excellent (newly-discovered) podcast!
Steve
by Steve Bencze · on June 8, 2010 at 7:23 pm
That’s a very interesting display of confidence in area of knowledge that is completely gray. Every assertion of Mr.Cook can be either debunked or neutralized with counter-arguments. Regarding peer review, he expresses an ignorance of a layperson who never published anything serious. There are no “thousand lines of evidence” about AGW; there are only several one-sided selective interpretations of dubious facts or heavily massaged data. All data in climatology are prone to serious deficiencies that render most their derivations inconclusive from scientific standards. The entire website of Mr.Cook is based on “straw-dog” arguments: he picks stupidest arguments, spins them into worst possible formulation, and successfully debunks essentially his own constructions.
by Al Tekhasski · on June 8, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Thanks very much, Steve. And welcome!
Al, as a layperson, I can only be guided by what climate scientists tell me is mostly agreed-upon research. Is is possible that one day they will uncover something that blows their theories completely out of the water. But without becoming an expert in the field myself, I’ll have to defer to those mostly-in-agreement people that have spent their lives studying the topic. Thanks for listening!
by Desiree · on June 10, 2010 at 12:57 pm
[...] For more accessible climate change science information, my go-to resource is Skeptical Science, and that’s not just because I interviewed the site’s creator. [...]
by Happening Now: Climate Change (Even In Winter) « The Paltry Sapien · on December 27, 2010 at 7:12 am
can you guys use a player that allows us to fast forward, and select when we want to start listening. I am kind of frustrated to find an interview with John Cook, and have to listen to ~30 mins of other stuff.
by loveofphysics · on October 26, 2011 at 10:11 pm