A guest post from Gooch who took the time (and emotion) to provide a comprehensive and impressively polite reproach to a denier’s disingenuous argument. To the extent that someone is an ‘honest’ skeptic, this provides the substance to change a mind that is ‘open’ to truth. Enjoy … and learn.
I got an email from my Aunt last Thursday:
Dear [Gooch] – I got this e-mail from Bob [xxx], who is in our small group at church. He is the son of Bob & Betsy [xxx] who were active in the Congregational Church in Bethany. I wondered what you thought about the ideas expressed in the article below.
Love, Aunt Ellen
PS – hope all is well in Portland!
…
I took the bait.
Dear Aunt Ellen:
Thank you for passing along Regis Nicoll’s essay. You know I think these issues are important ones, so I’m going to take my time responding, rather than rush through it. It has taken me a long time to put this together. I got your email this morning at work, and I’ve been working on a response ever since (with time out for a couple of meetings).
I’m justifying that loss of my workday by seeing this as a small part of my mission as an employee of a conservation non-profit. We are not directly focused on climate change, but my desire to do this work is, I believe, the same thing that motivates climate change activists: love of the earth and a commitment to solutions.
This is a long email. But I hope that you will take the time to read it all, and perhaps to pass it on to Mr. [xxxxxx] (I do remember his parents, with affection). The subtitle to Nicoll’s essay is “Long on Faith, Short on Fact.” I will leave you to judge whether he’s speaking about climate change science, or his own essay.
I will discuss Nicoll’s evidence, then talk about why I think he might make these arguments.
Global Warming and Climate Change
At the outset, I want to say a little about the phrase “global warming.” This is a misleading term, but it’s often used by the press because it seems simple enough to understand. Scientists use it in a very particular way: to describe an increase in the average temperature near the surface of the earth and in the troposphere. This warming, to the extent that it exists, is both a symptom and one of the many causes of “climate change.” It is important to distinguish between the two, because using the phrase “global warming” to describe what people like NASA scientists and, yes, Al Gore, are warning us about is a little misleading. The concern is not warming, necessarily. The concern is climate change.
Why? Because if you’re waiting for it to get really hot in order to believe global warming is real, you’re going to be disappointed. The average temperature of the earth’s surface and low atmosphere only needs to fluctuate about 2 or 3 degrees centigrade in order to have subtle but important effects on the global climate. Big changes in weather patterns are the result — winters may actually become colder, summers hotter, and more large-scale storms like Katrina would become more common.
I’ll come back to this all later, but for now, let’s talk about Nicoll’s evidence.
Nicoll’s first claim: It’s Not Getting Hot
In his first link, Nicoll cites a blog called “Climate Audit,” and a post there about US temperatures. The Climate Audit piece discusses a ranking of the warmest US temperatures on record, and cites these results from a NASA study. That study is doing two things: finding the average yearly temperature of the 48 contiguous United States, then taking those years which are “anomalies” and ranking the anomaly years against each other. (You can read more about it on NASA’s web site.)
Note that the list Climate Audit and Nicoll are using refers only to North American results, and not global results. The US has slightly different results than the rest of the globe for an important reason: According to NOAA, The United States experienced its warmest years in 1934 and 1936. This was the height of the dustbowl — not the biggest drought in North American history, but the biggest in modern times. As both NOAA and NASA note, the rest of the world was also a few fractions of a degree warmer in those years. The impact on the gulf stream due to those slightly higher global temperatures altered it enough to induce a drought in the midwest. This is similar to the “El Nino” effect that is becoming more common on the west coast.
This report that Nicoll cites drew a lot of attention from people who think that climate change is a lie. NASA found an error in its calculations and dropped 1998 from first place on the list, replacing it with 1934. But Nicoll is misleading you by saying “NASA’s latest tabulation shows a general cooling trend over the last decade with only three years of that time line among the hottest years on record.”
First of all, remember that we’re looking at anomalies, not trends. We’re looking at a list of years that stand out from the averages because they are exceptions. Trends are averages, not anomalies.
Second, look at the list. The 90’s and 00’s have four years in the top 10. The only other era with that kind of representation is the 30’s: the Dustbowl.
When I say trends are not anomalies, this is what I mean: These rankings measure the change in each year on a year-by-year basis, and change against a 5 year mean. Look at the NASA rankings in the link above. In the first column is a ranking of yearly mean temperature. Every year since 1997 has gotten warmer. That’s the longest run of warming temperature in history.
In the second column is a ranking of 5 year mean temperature, recalculated for each year. Every year since 1984 has increased the 5 year mean temperature. That 23 year run (the list doesn’t include the last two years, which would make it 25) is the longest run in history — even longer than the dustbowl run.
You may wonder why we haven’t had a dustbowl, if this is the case. The main reason is that we’re smarter about farming now than we were in 1930. In the 30’s, people really believed that “rain follows the plow.” (This link is a large .pdf.) Farmers were encouraged to plow already-dry soils in the belief that that would induce rain. They ripped up all the good topsoil and the wind took the dust beneath.
But that hasn’t stopped drought from coming anyway — we’re just not suffering dustbowls. You might remember that just over a year ago things got so bad that the Governor of Georgia called a press conference to pray for rain. 2006 was the driest year in the midwest since 1895 — dryer even than the dustbowl. If we still had an agrarian-based economy, it might have been 1932 all over again for those people. It will be interesting to see what this summer brings, given the state of the economy.
Anyway, either Nicoll is lying about what the list says, or he doesn’t understand it. The trend is a warming one, not a cooling one — exactly the opposite of what he claims.
This is confirmed by NASA. If Nicoll is willing to cite one of their studies, he should be prepared to explain their analysis of those numbers. Look at this graph. It uses numbers from a NASA table like the one Nicoll cites, except global — not limited to the US. The earth is half a degree warmer now than it was in the 50’s. You might also notice that it’s getting warmer faster than at any time on the graph.
This may not seem like much, until you recall that 20,000 years ago, the world was only about 10 degrees colder on average. And Connecticut was under 2 miles of ice.
Nicoll #2: The Oceans Are Getting Cooler, Not Warmer
Nicoll’s next bit of evidence is that according to NASA, the oceans have been cooling, not warming, for the last five years.
First, let’s note that in the article cited by Nicoll, NASA also reports that even if the water is cooling, sea levels are still rising — an inch in the last four years.
But what’s really going on here? Well, it’s lazy reporting. Nicoll likes these news reports (the blog cited by Nicoll is actually quoting an NPR story), because they bolster his belief that climate change is a fiction. The report issued by NASA actually confirms that the seas have been warming. Here’s a link to NASA’s press release (notice the title): Short-Term Ocean Cooling Suggests Global Warming ‘Speed Bump.’
Here is the meat of the story:
Researchers found the average temperature of the upper ocean rose by 0.16 degrees Fahrenheit from 1993 to 2003, and then fell 0.055 degrees Fahrenheit from 2003 to 2005. The recent decrease is a dip equal to about one-fifth of the heat gained by the ocean between 1955 and 2003. …
Lyman said the recent cooling is not unprecedented. “While global ocean temperatures have generally increased over the past 50 years, there have also been substantial decadal decreases,” he said. “Other studies have shown that a similar rapid cooling took place from 1980 to 1983. But overall, the long-term trend is warming.”
Remember the graph of global temperatures? Here are several more, breaking down those temperature changes in different ways. Here’s one showing land and ocean mean temperature changes (also from NASA). All of these graphs, showing the data about temperature change, have a couple of things in common:
First, they ALL show that the earth’s surface, its land and the oceans, have been increasing in temperature at least since the industrial revolution of the 1880s. This isn’t a theory, these are measured temperatures.
Second, as you can see from looking at the graphs, the line is not straight. Temperatures might be up or down from one year to the next — even a couple of years in a row. The line zig-zags up and down as time passes. However, the trend is undeniably upward, and moreso as time passes. Again, this is not a theory; these are measured temperatures. So while the oceans may have cooled from 2003 – 2005 (even though this is only 3 years at most, Nicoll says 5 — I guess because he found the story in 2008), that brief period of cooling is part of a larger and longer-standing warming trend.
Nicoll’s point is that the oceans are cooling. The source he’s using says the opposite. They aren’t cooling, they’re warming.
Nicoll #3a: Antarctic Ice is Growing
Nicoll makes two points in one bullet — that Antarctic Ice is growing, and that Arctic ice is, too. I’ll deal with them separately. First, to the anti-pode!
“Antarctic ice has been growing steadily since the late 1970s,” says Nicoll. He links to this article on the Newstrack India website: “Antarctic ice growth is one of the odd side effects of global warming.”
In defense of Nicoll, the article’s editor clouds the issue almost immediately. This is why we need to recognize the difference between “global warming,” which is a cause, and “climate change” — the result. Since 1979, the year-round ice extent in Antarctica has increased, according to the article. If the world really is getting warmer, then why?
As we’ve seen, measured temperatures from around the world show that, on average, the world is warming. Why not Antarctica?
As is often the case, the press — and Nicoll — are only telling part of the story. In this case, more is actually less.
First of all, remember some significant facts. Unlike the Arctic, Antarctica is not simply a sheet of ice floating on the surface of the sea. As you can see by this entry in the CIA World Factbook, Antarctica is in fact a fairly large chunk of rock — easily big enough to be considered a continent, which it is — larger than Australia or Europe.
Second, when the article talks about Antarctic ice increasing, it is talking about the area covered by ice, not the volume of ice. Antarctica is covered by a thick sheet of ice all year round. In recent years, there have been two dramatic changes in the Antarctic ice shield.
First of all, it’s getting thinner. Four major glaciers on the continent are retreating steadily. This is a reduction in the volume of ice on the continent (and a concomitant rise in the amount of fresh water in the ocean). In addition to losing ice through the retreat of glaciers, snow is melting further inland and the total mass of ice in Antarctica is decreasing overall. Both of those are links to NASA studies.
So why is Antarctic ice covering more area? Oddly, because the air is warmer. Warmer air holds more moisture. As the temperature rises in the far south, the air is capable of holding more of the melt-water and sea-water and this means more snow — much more. A joint study by the American Geophysical Union and NASA discovered two things: first, more snow is falling on Antarctica’s coastal zones. Second, that increased snowfall piles up on the ice shelf, forces the ice under and out and spreads the ice-shelf. Ice covers more area than before, but it’s thinner overall. More sea-ice, less land ice; less ice volume, more ice area.
Rather than debunking climate change, this phenomenon supports that theory.
Finally, while there might be more area covered, the ice simply isn’t staying. As documented by the European Space Agency, the Wilkins Ice Shelf broke up completely last year, right in the middle of the Antarctic winter. This is the first time that has ever happened.
So Nicoll is right — Antarctic ice is covering more area — but it doesn’t mean what he thinks it does. In fact, the latest observations conclude that Antarctica has been warming steadily for the past 50 years.
(As an aside, pollution causes more than just climate change. The ozone hole over Antarctica has allowed more UV light to pass through our atmosphere. This UV radiation is harming the DNA of the Icefish, endangering the species. See the CIA Factbook entry.)
Nicoll #3b: Arctic Ice is Also Growing
Nicoll next asserts that the extent of Arctic increased 9% over last year. He provides this link to The National Snow and Ice Data Center in support of that figure. If you visit the site, I think you’ll be as surprised as I am. So far, Nicoll has either mis-characterized or misunderstood the science of climate change. In this case, he has stated something that is flatly contradicted by the very source he cites.
If you visit the site, you’ll read that not only is the ice formation tracking below normal levels this year, but that “this January is the 6th lowest January in the satellite record.”
Again, these are not scientific theories. This is observed reality: over time, thinner ice is covering less acreage.
Further data from this NASA-affiliated program indicates that earlier in the winter, ice formation was in fact greater than last year. However, that is no longer true and ice formation is falling below the winter of 2006-2007. Furthermore, both last winter and this winter are dramatically lower than the average for 1979-2000.
Since I don’t think Nicoll would refer to a site that flatly contradicts him, I think we can see the danger of cherry-picking evidence. If it reaches 40 degrees in Portland today, would it be legitimate for me to conclude that this winter is warmer than last winter? Of course not. You have to look at the data over time in order to figure out a trend. In the case of Arctic sea ice, the trend is very clear: Less and less Arctic sea ice is forming every year.
This is not a scientific theory. This is what people see when they actually go and look at the ice, then write down what they see and take a photo, then compare that to what they saw last year and the year before, etc.
Nicoll #4: The Winter of 2008 was the Coldest Since 2001
This is Nicoll’s final opening shot. By now, you should probably be able to predict how this will turn out. Based on my investigation of Nicoll’s work to date, and bolstered by my understanding of the climate change theory, I’m forming the following hypothesis (you’ll just have to trust that I’m doing this before checking the site):
The winter of 2008 was indeed the coldest since 2001. The scientific theory of climate change predicts that due to minor (but overall) increases in the earth’s average temperature, we will see more dramatic swings in weather. Summers are likely to be hotter and winters may sometimes have more extreme cold and more violent storms. So I will also predict that there were abnormally strong winter storms that year, making it a wet winter, but that in dry latitudes the winter was even more dry than normal. I will also predict that in spite of 2008’s cold winter, the average temperature of winters is trending up — even though the storms of winter are increasing in severity — along with the average temperature of the planet itself.
Let’s investigate this theory by visiting the link to NOAA that Nicoll gives us.
On that site we learn the following:
- Although the coolest since 2001, 2008 was still a warmer winter than average.
- The southeast and east actually experienced much warmer temperatures than usual.
- Places where snow usually falls experienced much more than normal; sometimes twice as much.
- Places like Texas that were in drought conditions actually saw those conditions worsen.
- In spite of the fact that the US experienced a cold winter, the global temperature for that time frame was the 16th warmest on record.
- This cold (though still warmer than average) winter was followed by an unusually warm early spring.
All of this is consistent with the theory of global climate change. And we know from the temperature data that we already looked at that the global temperature trend is upward, the occasional cold (though still warmer than average) winter notwithstanding.
Nicoll starts off his essay by making five statements about the climate, all of which are either false or misleading. That’s what spin is: misrepresentation offered as fact. He accuses climatologists of this, but it is he who has actually done the spinning. Brazenly done it, in fact, by citing to sources that plainly contradict him.
Nicoll says, “Scientists are not to be trusted.”
One of the beauties of science is that theories remain theories until they are incontrovertible, shown never to be wrong, then they become laws. Climate change is an observed phenomenon, something you can see if you graph changes in the earth over time. One symptom of climate change is a gradual increase in the temperature of the earth. One possible explanation for that documented warming trend is the impact that human activity — not just pollution but development, deforestation and population growth — has had on the ecosystem. This is the theory of anthropocentric climate change.
Like all theories, this one is constantly being perfected. But because today’s theory of climate change explains more than yesterday’s, that does not mean that today’s theory is wrong.
Nicoll cites German scientists whose model indicates a brief hiatus in warming before it resumes. Nicoll apparently thinks that the fact that science responds to new data makes it somehow faulty. Yet if you look back at those NASA measurements of temperature over the last century, you can see that cooling periods have always been a part of the increase in global temperature. Yet the upward trend persists.
Unlike Nicoll, these German scientists didn’t just put in the cherry-picked data that he uses. He implies that’s what they did. But they did more. They went back over 50 years of data in forming their more accurate model. Everything they’ve done supports the theory of climate change through global warming.
This isn’t a “voila” moment, as Nicoll would have you believe (if you still believe a thing he says, that is).
The Global Warming Petition
Nicoll’s next move is to cite the “Global Warming Petition” as evidence of a deep schism in the scientific community concerning the theory of climate change. This Petition is kind of famous, in a sad way.
The Petition claims that over 31,000 scientists have signed on to the statement that
there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.
Citations to this petition drive pop up every now and then. It has been released several times to the media, claiming various numbers of signers. It has also been debunked, repeatedly, as a good example of junk science and in fact, junk polling.
Names on the list include thousands of people whose main qualification is a bachelor’s degree in science — any kind of science. Some signers lack even that bare credential. Earlier iterations also included BJ Honeycutt and Hawkeye Pierce of M*A*S*H fame. Few have expertise in earth science. Some are dead. You can add your name to the petition online, no matter what your credentials are.
As aptly described by the Skeptics Society (the kind of group normally disposed to question Climate Change):
In conclusion, through his Global Warming Petition Project, Arthur Robinson has solicited the opinions of the wrong group of people in the wrong way and drawn the wrong conclusions about any possible consensus among relevant and qualified scientists regarding the hypothesis of human-caused global warming. His petition is unqualified to deliver answers about a consensus in which the public is interested. He has a right to conduct any kind of petition drive he wishes, but he is not ethically entitled to misrepresent his petition as a fair reflection of relevant scientific opinion. He has confused his political with his scientific aims and misled the public in the process.
That hasn’t stopped people who have a stake in fighting this science from citing the petition, of course.
Dr. David Evans
Evans is an honest skeptic, which actually provides some credit to the large mass of science that supports anthropocentric global warming theory. Evans is the exception which proves the rule.
Essentially, Evans argues that in spite of the acknowledged overall increase in atmospheric CO2 (and whether or not it comes from people), CO2 actually has very little impact on global warming. You can read an interesting exchange with him at this blog post (check out the comments). You may find yourself wading through deep science-talk, but it makes an interesting read.
The science on CO2 is well established. That doesn’t mean it’s easily understood, but it is pretty sound.
The scientific flaws in Evans’ arguments I will leave to scientists. But I will offer a social reason for doubt: There are thousands of geo-scientists out there (though not many of them are on the Petition). Evans believes that the “global warming industry” holds most of them in thrall, and that they are all behaving as a herd and only he has the courage to speak out.
The biggest problem I see with that, is this: Other than scientists employed by industry, pretty much everyone else makes their living by testing theories at universities. Scientists make their money by proving other scientists wrong. It’s how they win tenure and get grants and book deals. In spite of this (and in spite of what the authors of the Petition would have you think) there is overwhelming consensus within that community that anthropocentric global warming is at least one important cause for the climate change that we have been observing. They differ on the details. But not on the general substance.
It should also be pretty clear that no matter how much money there might be out there for global warming research, there’s far more money available for scientists who find ways to let people continue doing what they’re doing, whether that’s driving everywhere or burning coal.
One maverick and a flimsy “petition” don’t amount to a credible argument.
Fear
Things need to be made simple in order to get people to change what they’re doing — especially if what they’re doing is fun and comfortable. No serious climatologist believes that the oceans will rise tomorrow. Even Al Gore hasn’t said anything remotely like that.
But the fact is, people do not pay attention until they are personally under threat. Look at the recent financial collapse. Economists have been warning for most of the last decade that our deregulated financial system was over-leveraged and under-capitalized. But no one wanted to do anything about it because it seemed like everyone was getting rich. Even if you weren’t getting rich, it felt like you might.
Then everything crashed and suddenly people perked up and started paying attention. Thankfully, there’s still something we can do about it.
In contrast, if the theory of anthropocentric climate change is correct, we can’t really wait for the crash to pay attention. We have to do something right now, in advance. Doing in advance isn’t really a human strong suit. So if people are a little scared, that’s probably a good thing.
As we near the end of this discussion, perhaps you can see why Steven Schnieder feels that he sometimes needs to over-simplify things. Climatology is a complex, nuanced field. Sticking to nuance rarely compels people to act.
The End of Humans
Finally, this is just ridiculous. Really, does Regis Nicoll think that people concerned about over-population are planning for the complete extinguishing of human existence? I’d laugh, but he’s apparently quite serious.
This is just insulting, in the end. Nicoll starts with the inflammatory claim that “birth rates around the globe are falling below replacement levels.” Like so much that he puts into this essay, this is technically, grammatically correct. Around the globe, many countries have low birth rates and in some places that rate is below replacement for that area. But it’s not a crisis. The human race is in no danger of disappearing.
The human population of the earth is growing at a furious rate.
Take a look at this chart. Not one country of any size is not growing. Not one. The only four sovereign nations experiencing zero growth are Christmas Island, the Pitcairn Islands, Cocos Islands and The Vatican. Everyone else is experiencing a growing population.
If you look at other data on that site, you’ll see that the country with the highest death rate, Swaziland, is being out birthed by the top 48 birthrate countries. Check out this population clock. Note that the birth rate is considerably higher than the death rate and that the population is growing at a fair clip.
Nicoll is being completely disingenuous by suggesting that the human race is in danger. He’s trying to scare you.
The earth cannot sustain an infinite human population. In fact, there is a finite number beyond which there simply will not be enough food. This is a simple matter of physics. And if concerns over pollution as it relates to global warming are too abstract to consider, then consider the very concrete, tangible physics of feeding, clothing and sheltering all of these people — never mind disposing of their waste (biological or otherwise).
Mengle. Offering incentives to encourage people to have fewer children is the opposite of Mengle, the Nazi doctor who selected Jews for the gas chamber. This is a disgusting comparison, but it’s one Nicoll makes with apparently little concern. The fact — ignoring climate change completely for a moment — is that if the human population continues to grow at its current (and accelerating) rate, there will come a time when we begin to die of starvation and disease.
This is precisely what people who argue for population restraint are hoping to avoid. If we live within the means of the earth to support us, we will avoid that suffering. If we figure out how to do that before we are forced to do that, we can avoid that suffering. Otherwise, we are dooming future generations. And I’m not even getting in to whether or not climate change is anthropocentric or merely the course of nature. Overpopulation is a simple matter of math.
Arithmetic, actually, not even advanced algebra.
What’s the Point?
In the end, after comparing these scientists to Nazis, Nicoll denigrates climate change theory as “chic science, unguided by fact, reason or revelation.” I hope that I have done enough here to show that there are many facts and much reason backing up the scientists pursuing this study.
Far, far more fact indeed than Nicoll himself applies. Nicoll criticizes Schneider for admitting to the choice between “being effective and being honest.” Schneider was talking about withholding his doubts. But in making the choice between being effective and being honest, Nicoll chooses “effective” not by withholding his doubts (he has none), but by obstructing the truth.
He begins poorly, either lying out-right or knowingly mis-representing data — statements that are transparently false and easily disproved. But he moves from that into a forthright critique (bolstered by these lies), citing a discredited petition, and overstating the case of one of the few sincere critics.
At the last, he tosses in the “celebrity” argument. If famous people support a cause, he seems to be saying, it must be wrong. He tries to taint the discussion by bringing in movie stars, because, I suppose, Hollywood is inherently evil.
Then, finally, the Nazis.
Why?
Even if he was right, even if this was a sinister plot by well-heeled secret interests to buy off science and change the way we live, so what?
First of all, sustainability makes economic sense. Especially now, with many of our traditional economic sectors on the ropes, alternatives are necessary. It has finally become obvious that the oil supply is finite. So, therefore, is the era of the automobile. Other ways of getting us and our things around will soon be necessary.
Increasingly, we are realizing that ecological crises result in economic ones, too. Ask any Maine fisherman — groundfish, lobster, scallops — and he can tell you that the fishery is not sustaining his industry any more. There aren’t enough fish.
At a very basic level, alternative fuels, innovative transportation, “green” infrastructure and development have the potential to create many new jobs. In the process, they may save many “old” ones. Where will the steel and aluminum and copper wire for windmills come from? From foundries and shops that once supplied the auto industry, perhaps.
Decreasing pollution, especially in poor and blighted communities (who often bear the brunt of our modern poisons), will help the least among us, and lift them up.
Yet Nicoll would scrap all of this. He claims to write from a Christian perspective, but I’ll be darned if I can see the Christian in his positions.
One of the things I most remember from the Bethany Church where we grew up was the repeated urging to be stewards of the Earth:
Even the most conservative banker is obliged to improve the stock for the benefit of the heirs. The parable of the talents makes it abundantly clear that we who are entrusted with his property will be called to account for our obligation to improve the earth. The stewardship imperative assumes that the moral and ecological constraints are respected, and it adds the obligation to distribute the benefits justly. The steward must “give them their portion of the food at the proper time.” Mistreating his charges, gorging himself on the resources in excess consumption, and not caring for the resources will all cause the stewards to be “cut off.” True stewardship requires both respect for the trusteeship and covenanted imperatives and an active effort to improve the land for the future and to use it in a manner to benefit others. Ethical proportionality applies to all those responsible for the earth, for “when a man has had a great deal given him on trust, even more will be expected of him” (Luke 12:48-49).
At their heart, the pleas of climate change activists amount to nothing more — or less — than a call to fulfill this obligation, however it is revealed to the individual. This, at last, is the “revelation” that Nicoll claims to find lacking. As practical, economical, scientific, or social the appeals made by these groups might be, in the end they are motivated by a deep love of the earth and fear for its future.
And even if they are wrong in all their particulars, the policies that they espouse would be better for the planet than continuing in our current course.
How could anyone argue against that? Why would they?
I don’t know. People like Nicoll have always confounded me because they don’t seem to have a reason for their mendacity. Even if anthropocentric climate change theory was totally, completely wrong, taking the steps those scientists say we should take would benefit almost everyone financially and absolutely everyone in terms of health and quality of life. And they would help the planet.
So those are my thoughts on Nicoll and his essay. I hope you persevered to the end – if only because it took me a day to write this. I hope you will consider passing it on to the list of people to whom Mr. Bergen sent the original essay.
Love to you and Buck,
[Gooch]