Climate – discuss solutions, but don’t question the science

Whilst more discussion of how we should best adapt to and tackle the problem of climate breakdown would be welcome in LTT, it is really disappointing to see further coverage given to the doubtful, and frankly dangerous, views of the very small number of people represented by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (‘Global warming: real, or groupthink?’ LTT 02 Mar).

These views might be more plausible if they were expressed by a credible source, but the Foundation has a long history of publishing misleading views [1], and Richard Lindzen and Christopher Booker are serial naysayers on a variety of issues. 

The Foundation is an opaque body with around only 100 members, and does not disclose its funding sources; ironic considering the demands on transparency they put on everyone else. 

Professor Richard Lindzen is recorded as having received funding from fossil fuel companies, so is hardly an impartial observer [2]. His views on climate change have been publically rejected by his colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [3]. Christopher Booker, a journalist with no climate-related academic qualifications, also has a history of peddling inaccuracies and myths [4].

The arguments portrayed in the article are risible. The study of climate change has probably been the most challenged and scrutinised issue in the history of scientific research, and the vastly overwhelming number of climate scientists agree on the principle of man-made climate change. One may as well argue that the statement that the earth is round is a result of groupthink because most people agree with it; their argument could be applied to any established and accepted principle. It is, I suppose, theoretically possible that groupthink could be the reason “no new theory has emerged comprehensive enough to replace it”, but I think it much more likely that this is because in fact the climate scientists are right.

The assertion over ‘vested interests’ is baffling; there is no fortune to be made chasing climate research grants, and the fact that the threatened oil industry, one of the richest in the world, cannot buy any credible evidence that climate breakdown is not man-made suggests that there isn’t any.

Articles such as this distract from reaching solutions to the real and pressing issues of how society, its economic framework, and in our sphere transport, need to change.

References:

1. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/

2011/oct/21/lord-lawson-global-warming-errors

2. https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/

Richard_S._Lindzen

3. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/

06032017/climate-change-denial-scientists-richard-lindzen-mit-donald-trump

4. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/

georgemon