News & Views item - September 2010

 

 

 Are We Really Re-entering the Dark Ages? (September 9, 2010)

The lead editorial in the September 9, 2010 issue of  Nature is entitled "Science Scorned" and elicited some 19 comments between 1:28 am and 11:59 am September 8, 2010.

 

Concurrently the Union of Concerned Scientists placed on line "What Is the Scientifically Accurate Response to Claims That Global Warming Is Only Related to Natural Changes in Earth's Climate?" by Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist who leads UCS's climate science education work aimed at strengthening support for sound U.S. climate policies. Dr Ekwurzel holds a Ph.D. in isotope geochemistry from Columbia University and has studied climate variability in places as disparate as the Arctic Ocean and the desert Southwest.

 

Below we reprint Nature's editorial, Dr Ekwurzel's article and several of the comments received and published by Nature.

 

 

Science scorned

Nature Volume: 467, Page: 133
Date published: (09 September 2010)  doi:10.1038/467133a
Published online 08 September 2010

The anti-science strain pervading the right wing in the United States is the last thing the country needs in a time of economic challenge.

"The four corners of deceit: government, academia, science and media. Those institutions are now corrupt and exist by virtue of deceit. That's how they promulgate themselves; it is how they prosper." It is tempting to laugh off this and other rhetoric broadcast by Rush Limbaugh, a conservative US radio host, but Limbaugh and similar voices are no laughing matter.

There is a growing anti-science streak on the American right that could have tangible societal and political impacts on many fronts — including regulation of environmental and other issues and stem-cell research. Take the surprise ousting last week of Lisa Murkowski, the incumbent Republican senator for Alaska, by political unknown Joe Miller in the Republican primary for the 2 November midterm congressional elections. Miller, who is backed by the conservative 'Tea Party movement', called his opponent's acknowledgement of the reality of global warming “exhibit 'A' for why she needs to go”.

The right-wing populism that is flourishing in the current climate of economic insecurity echoes many traditional conservative themes, such as opposition to taxes, regulation and immigration. But the Tea Party and its cheerleaders, who include Limbaugh, Fox News television host Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin (who famously decried fruitfly research as a waste of public money), are also tapping an age-old US political impulse — a suspicion of elites and expertise.

Denialism over global warming has become a scientific cause célèbre within the movement. Limbaugh, for instance, who has told his listeners that “science has become a home for displaced socialists and communists”, has called climate-change science “the biggest scam in the history of the world”. The Tea Party's leanings encompass religious opposition to Darwinian evolution and to stem-cell and embryo research — which Beck has equated with eugenics. The movement is also averse to science-based regulation, which it sees as an excuse for intrusive government. Under the administration of George W. Bush, science in policy had already taken knocks from both neglect and ideology. Yet President Barack Obama's promise to “restore science to its rightful place” seems to have linked science to liberal politics, making it even more of a target of the right.

US citizens face economic problems that are all too real, and the country's future crucially depends on education, science and technology as it faces increasing competition from China and other emerging science powers. Last month's recall of hundreds of millions of US eggs because of the risk of salmonella poisoning, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, are timely reminders of why the US government needs to serve the people better by developing and enforcing improved science-based regulations. Yet the public often buys into anti-science, anti-regulation agendas that are orchestrated by business interests and their sponsored think tanks and front groups.

In the current poisoned political atmosphere, the defenders of science have few easy remedies. Reassuringly, polls continue to show that the overwhelming majority of the US public sees science as a force for good, and the anti-science rumblings may be ephemeral. As educators, scientists should redouble their efforts to promote rationalism, scholarship and critical thought among the young, and engage with both the media and politicians to help illuminate the pressing science-based issues of our time.		 What Is the Scientifically Accurate Response to Claims That Global Warming Is Only Related to Natural Changes in Earth's Climate?

Ask a Scientist - September 2010

C. Ortiz from Ivyland, PA, asks "What is the scientifically accurate response to those who claim that global warming is not human-caused, but is only related to natural changes in Earth's climate?" and is answered by Dr. Brenda Ekwurzel, Assistant Director of Climate Research and Analysis

The climate can be influenced by a number of factors from both natural causes to human activities. Natural phenomena that can affect the climate include the sun's energy output, particulate matter from volcanic activity, and changes in snow and ice cover or vegetation that influence the reflectivity of the surface of Earth. Human effects include heat-trapping emissions from cars and power plants and particulate matter and soot from pollution. But how do scientists know which of these factors are causing the climate to change?

One way is to tease apart the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2)—one of the main heat-trapping gases responsible for global warming—to see how much is from natural sources and how much is from human activity like combusted fossil fuel sources.
This is actually my area of research—isotopes. An isotope is an element (those things on the periodic table we all study in school) that has a different number of neutrons. For example, each carbon atom has six protons in the nucleus, but there are several different carbon isotopes with varying numbers of neutrons in the nucleus. It’s these carbon isotopes that climate scientists like me look at when trying to determine where the carbon is coming from. Fossil fuel emissions have a mixture of different carbon isotopes than natural atmospheric carbon does. But that’s what we’ve found is changing. Over time, we’ve seen more and more carbon isotopes from human-caused sources in our atmosphere. That’s a really big red flag and clearly shows that the increases we’ve seen in carbon emissions have human fingerprints all over them.

Another way to find out whether natural or human factors are causing global warming is to track which factors match the changes in global temperature that we are seeing. We use computer models to study the climate, both to help us analyze the past and, for various emissions scenarios, project the future. These models are subjected to numerous tests before they are used to ensure they produce accurate results. For instance, in one test, researchers use the model to reconstruct what’s happened to the climate over the course of the twentieth-century. They start the computer model with data from 1850 and run it to the present, accounting for changes in heat-trapping emissions, volcanic activity, and a host of other variables. The model has to be accurate enough to reproduce the climate features of the twentieth century before scientists use it to project into the future.

What’s most revealing about this exercise is that when these computer models include only recorded natural effects on the climate—such as the sun’s intensity or large volcanic eruptions—the models cannot accurately reproduce the observed warming of the past half century. While the rate of energy coming from the sun changes slightly day to day, including sun spot activity and solar flares, and, over the time-scale of millions of years, is a critical factor influencing climate (e.g. ice ages), changes in solar energy over the last century don’t match the magnitude and distribution of the rise in global mean temperature we’ve observed during that same time period. So it’s clear to scientists that solar activity isn’t the cause of global warming.

These are just a few examples (you can find more about the fingerprints that humans have left on Earth’s climate here); the critical point is that no natural changes alone explain the temperature changes we’ve seen. But when human-related factors are also included in the computer models, then they can accurately capture the recent temperature increases we’ve seen in both the atmosphere and the oceans. When all the natural and human-induced factors are compared to one another, the dramatic accumulation of heat-trapping emissions from human sources is by far the largest contributor to climate change over the past half century. That, along with multiple other lines of evidence, is why scientists are clear that, if we are to avoid the worst effects of global warming, we need to take action now to make swift and deep reductions in these emissions

 

 

Comments engendered by the Nature editorial

 

2010-09-08 02:12 AM
Johan F. Prins said:
It is a pathetic comment on the American right. Believe me, I am not on their side but their criticism of science is spot on. Even Limbaugh looks like a superliberal when he is compared to the physics community; and the way in which this community safeguards mainstream scientific dogma. It is hilarious that NATURE has the arrogance to criticise Limbaugh while this publication drives one to believe that the BIBLE was better "peer-reviewed" than the trash that is regularly published in NATURE! My, my, how much more of taxpayers' money must be wasted on the delusion into which physics has moved after Bohr, Heisenberg and Born, went against Einstein's impeccable physical insights. Science stinks at the moment because it is controlled by bigots against who Limbaugh just cannot compete in any way. Science can only blame itself NOT the American right!

 

 

2010-09-08 03:53 AM
Jonathan Cole said:
So according to Mr. Prins, not only climate change, but quantum mechanics too is a "delusion"? Aside from the irony that his comments are posted using technology made possible by the "delusional" science he decries, Mr. Prins makes the editorial's point most effectively. Once we start down the path of rejecting or banning any science that happens to conflict with our personal philosophy, politics or prejudices (and the evidence be damned), there's no end to it--or to the damage we do ourselves.

 

 

2010-09-08 04:18 AM

Wesley Button said:
It seems as if as society has moved away from religion and community, a certain group of people has placed a whole lot of faith in the rise of science and technology and it's ongoing evolution. Whether it's people who look forward to cyber-warfare or dream of an interconnected world, the common factor seems to be a belief that such developments will benefit humanity or possibly usher in a new utopia.
Is this a realistic worldview? With billions of people mired in poverty, the biggest new breakthroughs seem to come in the form of weaponry or consumer gadgetry, hardly the most noble of fields. Forgive me my cynicism, but I don't think that science has been quite the panacea that many people in the first half of the 20th century thought it was. Fundamental realities of poverty, economics and ecological destruction seem to persist while new UAV's and ipads are rushed off the line.

 

 

2010-09-08 06:41 AM
Russell Seitz said:
While the Republican War on Science was in large measure a Democratic invention , its escalation into a War on Republican Scientists should give pause to think tank denizens on both sides of K-Street.

 

 

2010-09-08 06:59 AM
Wesley Button said:
Scientists have given us pollution, an 80 hour work week, a victimized third world, and nuclear weapons. How dare someone question them!

 

 

2010-09-08 11:59 AM
Björn Brembs said:
Indeed, some comments here prove the editorial true: medieval, anti-science dogmatism is rising sharply in the US. This appears, presumably, to be the backlash of more than two generations of botched educational policies and, consequently an educational system on par with developing countries. Anybody not convinced just needs to read some of the comments above.
If memory serves me well, analogous editorials in the past have never failed to trigger responses verifying the editorial.