Eugene Robinson
The Washington Post
I write in response to your column in today’s Washington Post, Tell it to the ice caps: An e-mail storm worsens the climate for consensus. I have not been a party to the debate over global warming, but became interested in it because of my academic responsibilities.
I am a physical scientist with a PhD from Brown University. My thesis was in quantum mechanical scattering theory. I spent a full career developing strategic weapons
before being ordained an Anglican priest. I served several parishes in California and Colorado before moving to the Chesapeake shore. Last year, while serving as a Senior Fellow in the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, I had the privilege of moderating a theological symposium entitled
God, Energy, and our Kinship with Nature, which was sponsored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The question addressed in that symposium was: What is there about the theological worldview that would awaken in us an ethical aspiration that in turn would move us to ethical action? Because the symposium would address the question of the sustainability of human life on earth I began to read the ecological literature quite widely. There are not just a few issues here. There are many, and very daunting ones at that. I began to see clearly that it is critical to think more than one generation ahead; we must develop in our culture a new awareness of our responsibility to future generations. It is equally critical that we develop a widely shared consensus regarding priorities. The question of climate change is just one of many issues here, but it seemed to be sucking all the oxygen out of public discourse on sustainability. (Pardon the metaphor.) Was that warranted?
I picked up the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and read it. I was not comforted by the quality of what I found there. The process
by which the consensus statements were reached, and the use of statements of probability seemed insecure. I sensed bias in it, which is the enemy of good science. To that subjective reaction I added one specific, scientific criticism: There is not, and could not in principle be, such a thing as a global average temperature. To obtain any kind of average would require combining temperatures measured in locations that are at different temperatures, and therefore by definition, not in equilibrium. For example, you might think of adding two temperatures and dividing by two to get an average. But, the moment you add two temperatures you will produce an absurdity. The number computed would correspond to nothing in nature. Dividing by two would not solve that problem. Any statement in physical science must be a statement about nature. There is no way around this. As I reflected on this it became clear to me that an observation of a global trend in temperatures could only be based on comparing trends in local temperatures, but not by combining them into some kind of average (1).
In defense of the good scientists who find themselves in the minority on the question of global warming I would like to offer you my view of the questions of truth behind the debate. The scientific questions are:
- Is global warming occurring?
- If so, is human activity a significant factor in the warming?
- If so, is the observed increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide specifically
involved?
As you know, major international agreements and major economic legislation are currently being drafted, based entirely on the reports of the IPCC and publications of the scientists involved in that panel. I will explain below how it is that I have concluded that global warming is not occurring. If this were the case, of course, then the questions of human activity and the role of carbon dioxide would be quite uninteresting. The questions would then be: How could so many scientists and government officials have been persuaded of something that, in the end, proved to be untrue, and how could they have gone so far with treaties and legislation in reaction to that untruth? Is there a straightforward way to definitively show that global warming is not occurring? The first question is sociological, and I would not attempt to address it. I will, however, address the second question.
I was invited to serve as a “distinguished speaker” for the Academy of Management (AOM) at their meeting in Chicago this past August, where the question of global warming came up again. I was to address a group of new professors and graduate students of management who shared a special interest in the intersection of management, spirituality and religion. The overall theme of this year’s AOM meeting was “Green Management Matters”. My talk had to weave together good management practice, good theology and sound ecological practice. These were people at an early stage of their careers in university life, who wanted advice regarding how best to approach the choices that lay before them. The question of sound priorities for business managers affected by ecological issues as far as two generations ahead provided the theme for my talk. I had to deal with the problem that concern for global warming might distort their judgment and lead them to make poor decisions.
So I did a bit of research.
I found that the National Weather service had been formed in 1870 and that in that year a weather station had been placed on the roof of the Customs House in
Baltimore Harbor. That station had produced a continuous temperature record for 138 years. I downloaded the data and plotted the average annual temperatures for those years. I found that 1871 had been slightly warmer than 2008, but that there was no discernable warming or cooling trend over that time. During that time the world’s population grew fivefold. I did this analysis carefully, within a single afternoon. It led me to conclude that, if global warming is indeed happening, Baltimore has somehow been exempted. Or, alternatively, that the climate changes that have been observed in some places are regional, and not global. This experience leads directly to my recommendation.
In view of the fact that there is so much at stake just now over the question of global warming and the role of human activity and carbon dioxide in the supposed warming, a decisive, critical review of the question should be done. It would best be sponsored by the United Nations, using scientists who have taken no position one way or the other on the question. They should be PhD level physical scientists educated in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. They would simply compare the average annual temperatures measured in different places around the world over a span of at least one hundred years. I understand that New Zealand has several stations with about 150 years of temperature data. This might be true of other places in the former British Empire, and in Europe. There are quite a number of stations in the United States that could be used. The first step would be to analyze the raw data uncritically. Just let the data speak. Only then should the scientists on the review panel address any concerns they might have about the calibrations of the thermometers, or the placement of the weather stations, or any other concerns that might affect the accuracy of the measurements. I fully expect that a sufficient number of good temperature records would be found to decisively answer the question of whether global warming is, in fact, happening. (2)
The unauthorized release of computer files from the University of East Anglia will likely prove a godsend to all of us. Those files reveal not only a pattern of bias
inimical to science, but the possibility of actual deception. This would not be the first instance of a false orthodoxy in physical science, but it would surely be the most
significant in its immediate political and economic effects.
With best regards,
John H. Huntington
1 See Does a Global Temperature Exist? This paper was in press in the Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics in June 2006. The authors Christopher Essex, Ross McKitrick and Bjarne Andresen show that there is no physically-based way to construct a meaningful global average temperature. Furthermore, a given data set could be interpreted as either “warming” or “cooling” depending on the kind of averaging method one might choose.
2 Many interesting observations are being made of ocean temperatures and temperatures in the upper atmosphere, but I argue that this question could be decisively addressed using only data take of air temperatures four or five feet above the ground, where we live.
Reverend John H. Huntington, PhD can be reached at:johnhdr@comcast.net
