Last climate change post, I promise

[snousle]

Amidst the shitstorm over the IPCC report errors, I am pleased that at least one conservative commentator has seen fit to lay out what he does think is correct about climate change instead of merely throwing stones. Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Jonathan Adler explains why he believes that human activity is influencing the climate in significant ways. This in the context of a post that is mostly about slamming the IPCC. The guy is very well informed, and is firmly in the anti-alarmist camp, having written a book arguing against the Kyoto protocol, among other things.

His critique of the IPCC is relatively sober and honest, though I think he exaggerates the importance of the current scandal. This is in stark contrast to the wingnut strain of global-warming denialism, which refuses to acknowledge the aspects of climate research which are not at all politically driven and which rely on the most well established science - specifically, that given current trends, man-made CO2 will most likely raise temperatures by 3C by 2100. This is not a very spectacular claim, and of course, a lot can happen in the next 90 years which could render this projection wrong or irrelevant. But to deny its premises is either ignorant or dishonest.

He's harder on the IPCC report than I think is necessary - I am certainly disappointed by its flaws, but I think most of it is still on the mark. Is "95% right" good enough? I don't know. Nevertheless, he has done what few critics will do, which is to avoid paranoid, black-and-white, us-versus-them thinking, and establishes a middle ground on which, I hope, most reasonable people can agree.

Comments

[snousle.livejournal.com]

I think it's on the mark as far as the pre-Eukaryotic era is concerned, but it bugs me when I read quotes like "The process of evolution just isn't what most evolutionary biologists think it is." It is true that the modern synthesis really only addresses life in the past 500M years, but that doesn't mean that modern biology has gone "badly off track". That's sort of like saying that English literature is "off track" because it fails to account for Neanderthal culture.

Trouble is that creationists seize upon this language and use it for political advantage. While it represents a useful critique of the "traditional" Darwinian perspective, it could benefit from more temperate language!