Climate Change Denial

Is the current urge to combat climate change all a conspiracy on the part of scientists whose only desire is to get rich by creaming vast amounts of money from governments in order to fund their research?

That is what you might think from some of the rhetoric of climate change deniers, especially in the United States. However, this attitude ignores some very important facts.

One is that the evidence in favour of global warming has been accumulating for more than 100 years. If it is all a plot by scientists, they got their heads together a very long time ago! They must also have been a very odd breed of conspirators, in that they conducted all their activities in full view of the world’s academics and politicians – aren’t conspiracies supposed to be hatched in secret?

Another strange feature of this conspiracy is that – having reached their findings – these conspirators seem to have bent over backwards to try to prove themselves wrong!

But this is how science operates. The greatest sceptics of all are scientists. Once they reach a conclusion based on the available evidence they do everything they can to find an alternative explanation. That is why there has been so much talk – from the scientific community – of possible causes for global warming other than man-made ones. Cosmic rays have been proposed as a possible source of atmospheric warming, as have changes in solar activity, etc. It is only by examining each alternative and finding that it does not do the trick that the original theory can be proved.

There have certainly been conspiracies over global warming, but they come from the dirty tricks departments of organisations that have a vested interest in maintaining mankind’s consumption of fossil fuels – which are the chief cause of the recent spikes in global temperatures. These people will do everything they can to bamboozle people into thinking that climate change is a myth.

However, the evidence is clear and stands up to any degree of examination. Global warming is real, and it is definitely not the result of a scientific conspiracy.

It has taken more than a century to reach the current scientific consensus on climate change. It has come about through a steadily growing body of evidence from many different sources, and the process has hardly been secret.

Now that there is a consensus, those whose findings challenge the orthodoxy are always going to have a tougher time convincing their peers, as in any field of science. For this reason, there will inevitably be pressure on scientists who challenge the consensus. But findings or ideas that clash with the idea of human-induced global warming have not been suppressed or ignored - far from it.

In fact, many of the better arguments seized upon by sceptics have been based on contradictory findings published in prominent journals, from the apparent cooling of the lower to the apparent cooling of the oceans.

Under pressure

As for the idea that scientists change their tune to keep their paymasters happy, under the current US administration many scientists claim they have been pressurised to tone down findings relating to climate change.

Indeed, those campaigning for action to prevent further warming have had to battle against huge vested interests, including the fossil-fuel industry and its many political allies. Many of the individuals and organisations challenging the idea of global warming have received funding from companies such as ExxonMobil.

That in itself does not necessarily mean that the sceptics are wrong, of course. Nor does the fact that most scientists believe in climate change necessarily make it true. What counts is the evidence. And the evidence - that the world is getting warmer, that the warming is largely due to human emissions, and that the downsides of further warming will outweigh the positive effects - is very strong and getting stronger.

Finally, perhaps the most bizarre conspiracy-related claim is that the journalists covering science have an interest in promoting global warming.

Journalists do have an interest in promoting themselves (and their books), while their employers want to boost their audience and sell advertising. Publicity helps with all these aims, but you get far more publicity by challenging the mainstream view than by promoting it. Which helps explain why so many sections of the media continue to publish or broadcast the claims of deniers, regardless of their merit.