Factor in supporting, contradictory climate data

By Gary Maydew

A trait we all share is the propensity to look for those real-world events that appear to confirm our biases, and to ignore those events that contradict our view of reality. So it is with climate change, especially with the media. Consider:

l An article in the New Yorker two winters ago wondered sneeringly how people could be ignoring global warming while in the midst of a balmy December. No observations in that magazine the next winter, which was chilly.

l From 2005 into 2007, NBC News speculated endlessly about the likelihood that global warming was causing the hurricanes. No discussion of that supposed relationship lately, in a year of no major hurricanes.

l The slight increase in world temperatures observed over the last 50 or so years has been repeated often; the decrease in world temperatures since 1998 less so.

The credulity of the media is also very much present in their coverage of climate change. Consider their wide-eyed presentation as gospel truth the computer models that predict all sorts of catastrophes from global warming. I have about as much faith in those models as the computer models of the banks. Those models predicted no risk from the inter-holding of derivatives and that the risk from holding so-called “liar loans” was minimal and could be controlled. We know how accurate those computer models were.

We also can twist logic to support our beliefs. A friend (committed believer in global warming) volunteered that years colder than normal were to be expected as a normal part of global warming. Perhaps, but following that logic, 50 years of below-normal temperatures could just be part of the overall cycle of say, a 1,000-year warming trend.

Our reaction to those who challenge our beliefs is often harsh; ironically, harshest among scientists. Recently, scientists advocating global warming have tried to keep contrary views out of scientific publications.

That we have had a modest warming trend over the last century years is indisputable; that it will cause even minor negative events is nothing more than a theory.

My worry is that our leaders will commit the country to economic actions that fulfill their perceived need to take action at the expense of poor and middle households. Cap and trade (and the inevitable increase in the price of electricity), subsidies for alternative energy and extreme environmental restrictions on oil drilling all will hit hardest at the working and middle-income class.

These are pretty big hits to support a theory that, however attractive to the some, is unproven.

Gary L. Maydew of Ames is a freelance writer and retired accounting professor at Iowa State University.