This letter is to respond to Ken Allred’s column on “Denying the Deniers”, and Michael Mann’s subsequent reply.
After reading Ken Allred’s column on climate change (June 25), I thought his views sounded a bit confused. On the other hand, Michael Mann’s reply (June 29) was well thought-out and encouraged me to find out more. I’m not an expert on climate change so I decided to start googling to see what the deal was. For openers, I found that Ken had made the following mistakes (Gazette website):
Opening quote on skepticism – the source of this quote is Patrick Moore, not Patrick Draper. Moore has a PhD in Ecology from UBC, is a former president of Greenpeace Canada, and argues that anthropogenic climate change is not backed by solid data. Draper is a former St Albert City Manager.
Vivian Crouse – Her last name is spelled Krause.
Over the millennia the proportion of CO2 has actually decreased, as has the average global temperature – According to NASA, global temperatures have gone up about 1 C in the last century, and it is roughly 0.4 degrees C warmer than 1,000 years ago. The temperature graphs are actually very interesting, showing the little ice age coincided with a 0.6 C decrease in global temperature. CO2 has increased around 100 ppm over the last millennium. Looking back further, CO2 levels have regularly cycled but have not exceed 300 ppm over the last 400,000 years, and today we are at roughly 400 ppm.
Ken went on from there to use faulty logic and ill-defined concepts.
95 per cent certain – Ken is not ready to accept a hypothesis, which is only 95 per cent certain. This contradicts the opening quote he uses which says to be skeptical of certainty. If Ken waits for the IPCC to say it is 100 per cent certain, then will that make him even more skeptical? His logic is unclear.
Anti-oil campaign – Ken does not explain how anti-oil campaigns relate to scientific findings on climate change. This is baffling. I half expected him to start quoting the burning temperature of jet fuel.
Ken is almost a climate change denier – does he mean he doesn’t believe climate changes over time, or that the change is not anthropogenic? If the former, then NASA has a website showing the evidence for climate change. Is Ken denying there have been seven glaciation periods over the last 650,000 years?
“For the climate alarmists to condemn the deniers is as wrong as to condemn believers in an absolute being.” – This is an incomprehensible line of reasoning. The comparison to belief in an absolute being is not appropriate since there does not appear to be a coherent definition of an absolute being (that I could find anyway), there is no evidence, and no verifiable predictions. Climate change, on the other hand, possesses all three.
Bob Dylan – It is not clear how a Dylan anti-consumerism song from the ’60s is relevant. Is Ken implying that we should reduce consumerism? It would probably result in reduced CO2 emissions, which could be good. Remember, it was Emily Haines who wrote “Am I breathing underwater?” Sounds cool, but alas, is also irrelevant.
“I’m not gay but even more controversial – I’m a climate change skeptic!” – I read this and was reminded of the H.G. Wells time traveler running up to strangers and asking, “Quickly my good man, what is the year?” Oh, it’s 2016? That’s a relief. So being gay in Canada isn’t controversial, it’s just part of being human? I get the gist of what Ken is trying to say, but claiming that what climate change deniers experience is actually worse than the long history of systemic discrimination against homosexuality is more than a little offensive these days. I would encourage Ken to find some new catch phrases.
In the spirit of being skeptical, I should add that there is much debate on the Internet over some of the predictions climate scientists have made. For example, predictions of rising sea levels in Florida by James Hansen were overly inflated (i.e. wrong), which Michael Mann expressed concern over (The Guardian, March 22/16 article on Sea Level Rise). On the flip side, there is a Guardian article of March 27/13 talking about the accurate predictions on temperature change.
To close this off, I encourage the reader to go ahead and ask questions, find out what the current research is saying, and get informed. But it doesn’t make a lot of sense to flatly deny anthropogenic climate change, or that the climate is changing at all. To make that kind of leap, a person needs some really good evidence instead of badly informed, poorly researched, opinionated, emotional rhetoric. In closing, here is a quote I like:
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” – Daniel Patrick Moynihan (I really hope I spelled his name right).
John Hammond, St. Albert
