Adam Fleischmann offers a disturbing argument for accepting that climate change is a major threat to civilization: Since climatological models are complex and hard to understand, simply accept that they are accurate. He takes this argument directly from an advocacy publication article by the popular science writer Michael Barnard: “Believe in Climate Change the Way You Do in Gravity.” Noting that our understanding of gravity is usually rudimentary while the phenomenon itself is complex, Barnard asks, “So what do we do?” And answers his question, “Well, don’t demand that people understand it all, just ask that they accept it.”
Embracing that argument, Adam writes:

“The scientific consensus, such that such a thing can exist, for anthropogenic climate change has now been deemed statistically and figuratively equivalent to the consensus for gravity! Isn’t that wild? What theories, if any, in, say, the paleo-sciences have an equal amount of consensus as gravity? Are they still considered valid until the next best alternative comes along? What about gravity?”

What about gravity? Wild, indeed. Validating climate change on the basis of scientific knowledge of gravity is perhaps the worst analogy one could possibly make, since a scientific “consensus for gravity” is non-existent. In fact, the nature of gravity is a fundamental and vitally important issue. As the astrophysicist Ethan Siegel writes in “The Greatest Unsolved Problem In Theoretical Physics: Why Gravity Is So Weak,”

“That’s a description of the way our Universe works, but we don’t understand why. Why is gravity so much weaker than all the other forces? Why is the “gravitational charge” (i.e., mass) so much weaker than the electric or color charge, or even than the weak charge, for that matter? That’s what the Hierarchy Problem is, and that problem is by many measures the greatest unsolved problem in physics. We don’t know the answer, but we’re not completely in the dark on this.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2015/12/11/the-greatest-unsolved-problem-in-theoretical-physics-why-gravity-is-so-weak/#54a110271826

Searching for an answer takes us into the thickest weeds of astrophysics, where competing solutions invoke a parallel universe, string theory, super symmetry. Faced with these formidable choices, asking us to “believe in gravity” is nonsensical.
As if that were not enough, gravity lends itself to prediction only in special cases. One such case is the solar system: astronomers can predict the approximate position of the planets hundreds of years in the future. But that’s only because the sun is so massive that its gravity mostly overwhelms, cancels out that of the planets. But what if three comparably sized massive bodies interact gravitationally? Or ten or twenty? Well, then we have the three-body problem or the n-body problem. And there prediction is impossible. Wild!
Concluding thought: climate change is an n-body problem.
Please note: <500 words

My posts have been censored as well. Wonder if this one will get through. Guess 1984 has finally arrived.

“The scientific consensus, such that such a thing can exist, for anthropogenic climate change has now been deemed statistically and figuratively equivalent to the consensus for gravity! Isn’t that wild? What theories, if any, in, say, the paleo-sciences have an equal amount of consensus as gravity? Are they still considered valid until the next best alternative comes along? What about gravity?”

On November 8 I submitted to anthrodendum a response to that comment, suggesting that it is highly questionable to make any scientific issue a matter of belief and, to top it off, that there is absolutely no scientific consensus regarding the nature of gravity. Gravity is perhaps the most intractable puzzle in modern physics.

That post did not appear in the comments on the 1.5 degree thread. Over the next several days I attempted to resubmit it, and attempted to contact the Moderator when that posting was unsuccessful. To date, six weeks later, I have heard nothing from the Moderator and my submitted comment has not appeared. Meanwhile, comments by others have since appeared. All this leads me to question whether anthrodendum, like Facebook and Twitter, is suppressing ideas its principals find objectionable. Am I being shadowbanned?

The subject of climate change is too important to merit anything less than a full-bore, unrestricted discussion. One hopes anthrodendum is up to the task.

Good luck with the class, Kate!

John: Why is 1 or 2°C warmer something to worry about? From little changes large effects may grow.

Ryan: First, that’s one degree Celsius, which is about two degrees Fahrenheit. It adds up (as John notes) . . . Sometimes these seemingly incremental changes turn out to be sort of . . . problematic.

I think we’re all right here. Let me explain. John’s observation that “from little changes large effects may grow” nicely sums up a key feature of complexity theory, that butterfly fluttering its wings in China and a subsequent heat wave in the U.S. Midwest thing. That parable issues from complexity theory’s important contribution to modern thought: the concept of self-organized criticality: Any large historically established system is made up of inherently discordant elements always on the point of disrupting other elements. What we call “stability” is thus a perpetual teetering on the edge of chaos. Human societies, the earth’s crust, the stock market, and, yes, weather patterns are such systems. Anything, any seemingly minor event, can induce drastic changes in them. So I must agree with John and Ryan: that one degree change may be enough to throw the existing climate into a tailspin. But here’s the rub. Climate, as I suggest in an AD submission of yesterday, Nov 8 which somehow FAILED TO POST, is an n-body problem: any number of dynamic elements other than that one-degree change can have equally dramatic results. Which element and when it kicks in are unpredictable. Thus the more complete a climatological model, the greater the chance that one variable will jiggle just a little bit and throw off the whole prediction. On a smaller scale, isn’t this the built-in problem of predicting the landfall of a hurricane a few days out at sea? Make that decades and centuries rather than days and the whole project becomes, well, meaningless.
Meanwhile, on the level of everyday life we all experience, n-body problems abound. The next time you’re out driving, a drunk’s car can cross the median and game over. Your trip to the movies or dance club may be interrupted by a madman. Your 401k may be gutted by the next market collapse. Any number of other devastating traumas can affect you or your family. Yet somehow you soldier on. If someone brings you the news that the planet’s temperature increased by a degree over the past 115 years, well, that may not rock your world.

1) Yes, of course it’s possible to examine the socially constructed nature of ‘facts’ without devolving into a raving deconstructionist.

2) Yes, the climate changes. There’s no such thing as a stable climate. These changes have shaped human history (eg the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene and all the agricultural fun and human expansion that came with it). The last 7000 years or so have been quite stable. That appears to be changing. The current issue is not so much about change (we’ve seen it before), but about the rate of change, the potential effects, and of course the causes and possible solutions. Change in and of itself isn’t really the issue.

3) It’s ironic that in your first comment you bring up “Anthropologist-devotees of the cult of climate change,” and in your second you lament the “ideological, almost religious rallying cry” of climate discourse. So far as I can tell, you’re the only one reducing the discussion to these (very) limited dichotomies. Granted, ideologies, beliefs, and positions abound on this issue, and this is where things get interesting for anthropology. Anthropologists (eg Shirley Fisk) are doing some great work on questions of climate change discourse/belief. And there are plenty of scientists who rightly take a hard, critical look at these issues, as they should (this is how science works). At the same time, there are also plenty of folks who are engaging in ‘skepticism’ in less than good faith (eg Fred Singer; see the 2011 book “Merchants of Doubt” by Oreskes and Conway for more). Dissent is all good, but some arguments about this issue are more useful—and accurate—than others. There are in fact many skeptics/denialists who have ulterior motives (see: Exxon Mobile and friends). It’s probably helpful to sort that out a bit instead of aiming for some sort of weird relativism that prioritizes ‘dissent’ at all costs.

4) You write of reports “massaged by politicians and bureaucrats with little or no scientific ability.” Have you looked at some of the people who have written these reports? Asking for a friend.

5) You write: “One degree over the past 115 years? Somehow I’m not ready to open my veins in despair.” First, that’s one degree Celsius, which is about two degrees Fahrenheit. It adds up (as John notes). Check Adam’s link too, which is a decent start. Sometimes these seemingly incremental changes turn out to be sort of…problematic. Especially for humans who have gotten comfortable during the last 7-8k years of relative stability. A few degrees can go a long way.
6) And finally you ask: “what’s so terribly wrong about the planet warming up a bit?” Well, if you’re looking to start a vineyard for warmer weather varietals in Greenland, you may be in luck. But for many others around the world, this warming, especially if it continues, will be a serious problem.

Reading some of these comments makes me think I could intervene with some resources. Here are some that I hope will be helpful.

1) This piece seems relevant to current discussion about the significance of 1ºC:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/09/22/why-even-a-one-degree-change-in-the-earths-average-temperature-is-a-big-deal/

2) Since the 1970s, anthropologists of science, and, more recently, anthropologists of climate science (which I am not, strictly speaking), have usually been the first demonstrate the contingency rather than ‘objectivity’ of science. ‘Objectivity’ is impossible and anthropologists instead analyze the entire assemblage of technology, machines, processes, calculations, people (their biases, cultures, etc.) that make up the fairly-obviously-not-objective vision of the world that is science. There’s a reason why anthros love to cite Paul Edwards (2010)’s history of climate science!

For a recent and very lucid recapitulation of this type of work (and how, in its critique and unpacking of all the ‘black boxes’ of science, it has gotten science in trouble), see this month’s NYT Magazine story on Bruno Latour:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/magazine/bruno-latour-post-truth-philosopher-science.html

3) The scientific consensus, such that such a thing can exist, for anthropogenic climate change has now been deemed statistically and figuratively equivalent to the consensus for gravity! Isn’t that wild? What theories, if any, in, say, the paleo-sciences have an equal amount of consensus as gravity? Are they still considered valid until the next best alternative comes along? What about gravity?
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/06/10/believe-climate-change-way-believe-gravity/

And that 97% consensus number you keep hearing about? Of the 3% of research papers that don’t agree with the consensus, none of their results are replicable:
https://qz.com/1069298/the-3-of-scientific-papers-that-deny-climate-change-are-all-flawed/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/aug/25/heres-what-happens-when-you-try-to-replicate-climate-contrarian-papers
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00704-015-1597-5

And let’s remember to keep our comments under 500 words in keeping with the Anthrodendum Comments Policy! https://anthrodendum.org/comments-policy/