I believe they do and they merely jump on the climate change bandwagon because it is the most effective way to get headlines. Simply talking about poverty reduction or a sensible renewable energy policy has been tried and it failed. Hence the more alarmist the message the better, regardless of the actual truth.

So why is climate change a priority? Because it is so easy to blame everything on it, however tenuously, and thereby attach your own agenda – even a nuclear energy or a trading paper agenda. However the downside that few people want to look for is the huge chance of unintended consequences from bad policy. One example is that an African authoritarian regime recently imposed a ban on traditional cooking stoves without actually giving people any alternative.

I personally see most of the basic science as naked opportunism masquerading genuine uncertainties with very poor stats and even poorer models based on very crude assumptions. That really wouldn’t matter though if it were all for the greater good. But the bad policy stemming from this grossly overhyped science can and will kill people a lot quicker than any small future effect from any supposed unnatural climate change.

We were not emphasising uncertainty in and of itself. The problem is the way that seemingly a priori facts operated within the environmentalist’s argument, and stood against any possibility of alternative. The argument for climate change mitigation, for instance, holds more currency than the possibility of abolishing malaria. The phenomenon of malaria, in the argument offered, is almost a given, therefore – an inevitability.

The idea that scepticism has been influential seems to us to lack any basis whatsoever. It isn’t, as such, something which reproduces itself in political institutions. That ‘the US listened to sceptics’ is interesting only to the extent that the contrast between the UK and US says something about the failure of UK democratic institutions to have such a debate! It didn’t take organised scepticism for the US to fail to ratify the Kyoto protocol, and the influence of ‘well-funded denial-machines’ is much over stated. As we’ve mentioned a lot here on this blog, the ‘evidence’ offered by Greenpeace is that little more than $45 million was made available to lobbying organisations, over the course of a decade. One only needs to compare that to the amount Greeenpeace – just one lobbying organisation – spent on its own campaigning effort ($2.2 billion) to see the disproportion at play. Moreover, in spite of the claim that denial acts in the interests of certain industries is not as clear cut as is widely claimed. Bush didn’t need to legitimise his inaction. It was the environmental movement that failed to make a sufficiently persuasive argument, not a conspiracy of deniers that ‘distorted’ the ‘debate’.

“environmentalism is based upon the science of ecology in the same way that other political ideas are based upon the science of economics.”

You might notice that there has been a move towards creating an economic basis for the mitigation of climate change – Stern, etc. More to the point, you only need to look to Malthus to find a classical political economist making ‘ecological’ arguments, many years ago. Our argument is that ecologists/greens/environmentalists posit the inevitability of catastrophe to legitimise their political agenda, and to close down debate about its terms, and therefore to close down the possibility of alternatives to the problems it identifies. We might ask, therefore, whether environmentalism, at least insofar as it influences the mainstream really has ‘ecological science’ as its antecedent, or whether its politics is prior to ’the science’. We think the politics of environmentalism are prior to the science, but that it is expedient to the existing political establishment, as are any other forms of ‘the politics of fear’.

“environmentalism seeks to improve our planet/standard of living through improving the environment in the same way that capitalism seeks to improve our planet/standard of living through wealth.”

We think this is a rather generous account of environmentalism. The concept of ‘standard of living’ rarely enters the environmental debate except as frankly rather spurious claims about how much better our lives would be if we had greater access to more green space. Instead, environmentalism is premised on a catastrophe occurring if we do not observe its imperatives. It’s not as if there was a choice given about what kind of future we want.

“ it doesn’t mean that the underlying science is bad.”

What ‘underlying science’? The ‘science’ that ‘says’ ‘300 thousand people a year die of climate change’? The ‘science’ that ‘says’ that ‘climate change will be worse for the poor’? The ‘science’ that ‘says’ there are only X ‘years left to save mankind’?

“ unless I am mistaken you have taken what was said and turned it into something much more explosive for the sake of creating an interesting story or proving your point. Isn’t that exactly what Armstrong has done?”

If you think we’ve exaggerated the story, perhaps you could explain how in the comments section under the post in question. The links have probably expired.

“While you claim to be ‘agnostic’ about climate change what you don’t say is as important as what you do. At the risk of appearing rude; how can you claim to have a genuine debate when there are no articles supporting the opinions of climate change proponents?”

Well, we’re debating with you, aren’t we?

This is difficult to anwer. I am no expert in this field and like many people I rely on the reports from organisations such as WHO and Oxfam to provide the information. I imagine it is problematic to attempt to attribute deaths to climate change with sufficient precision to satisfy scientific rigour. Which seems to be your point. Does this invalidate the report or does it mean that more research is required?

You also ask ” ‘why is climate change a political priority’?”

From what I understand from reading reports from Oxfam and other aid agencies, climate change is seen as not only excerbating poverty but also hampering efforts to alleviate it.

It stems from the premise that human activities of burning fossil fuels and deforestation are contributing to changing the climate in ways that are detrimental to the most vunerable people. And will ultimately be detrimental for the not so vunerable.

This is why, I imagine, climate change is a political priority. But I am interested to know other viewpoints on this question.

So I think I’m beginning to understand your point. The number of links in the chain of reasoning is not what is important, it is the degree of uncertainty. We are led to believe by the media and environmentalists that what is posited as a possibility is a fact. OK agreed.

“Our arguments are that environmentalism isn’t a new form of Left-wing ideology,”

Agreed – environmentalism has been around for centuries and one of the major proponents last century was Adolf Hitler. The hijacking of environmentalism by the left wing has caused me to write posts on many different websites, and I think that the dreadlocked Earth mother/Gaia hippies have set back legitimate concerns for the environment by decades.

“We’re not particularly interested in challenging ‘sceptics’’ arguments, because they don’t have any influence over the political agenda. Climate scepticism is inconsequential in this respect.”

The fact that scepticism stands against climate change arguments means that it is extremely important in this debate; merely criticising one viewpoint does not substantiate the alternative. The idea that they don’t have any influence over the political agenda is untrue. The US listened to sceptics rather than the majority of climatologists for many years and as a result did not ratify the Kyoto protocol. Adverts by CEI aired in the US “they call it pollution, we call it life” have greatly influenced the state of public opinion over there and added legitimacy to the Bush administrations lack of action. Statements given by the novelist Michael Crichton were taken into account when congress debated climate change in 2005 (why should a novelist have any influence on the US policy on climate change?).

“Environmentalism, on the other hand, is deeply political. It asks for the reorganisation of the world” (and other comments to that effect)

This is an extremely complex debate. Firstly though let me point out that environmentalism is based upon the science of ecology in the same way that other political ideas are based upon the science of economics. Admittedly neither of these sciences are ‘hard’ sciences and it is difficult to use ecological or economic models to make realistic predictions. I think in both cases there are end points on a scale; in economics at one end there are infinite riches and the other bankruptcy, in ecology there is infinite ecological diversity and at the other there is planetary destruction. The two are obviously very different in a number of ways, but they are similar in that environmentalism seeks to improve our planet/standard of living through improving the environment in the same way that capitalism seeks to improve our planet/standard of living through wealth. Often the two political agendas collide and there are those who believe that one is more important than the other, but most rational people would agree that improving the environment where it has been degraded would be a good thing.

“So you’ve seen that the WHO acknowledges the great deal of uncertainty that is present in their estimation, and the number of assumptions that they have made. Now go and read the press releases that announced the study, and you will notice that any such caution will have disappeared. Then read the stories in the press, and you will see another level of caution removed again. Finally, read the words of activists such as Armstrong, and you will see that it has become an incontrovertible fact that ‘science’ has ‘proved’ that climate change causes 150,000 deaths a year.”

You’re right – the media don’t tell the whole story and it becomes exaggerated and distorted through successive retellings. But in my opinion that’s one of the reasons why there are sceptics – because intelligent people don’t get told the whole story and don’t believe the rubbish that the media spit out. I’m sure you’d agree with me that just because the media exaggerate a story, it doesn’t mean that the underlying science is bad.

It’s interesting that you point out how stories grow in a kind of Chinese whispers fashion from saying one thing is possible to it becoming an incontrovertible fact. Likewise on your site you have two articles, the first is called “56% of you are stupid” and the next is called “56% of you are fascist B***ards” the links in these articles don’t seem to work, but it would appear that unless I am mistaken you have taken what was said and turned it into something much more explosive for the sake of creating an interesting story or proving your point. Isn’t that exactly what Armstrong has done?

Like you, I want an honest media and an honest debate. But as far as I can tell there are no regulations on the media that require them to tell the real story. The problem here goes far beyond the climate change debate. Our very democratic system is strongly influenced by the media, and it seems no coincidence to me that whoever ‘the Sun’ supports gets into parliament at the next elections. I am very pleased that I can make posts on your website without being shouted down, and I’m very glad that you’ve taken the time to respond to my comments courteously.

In your “About” section you write

“demands for urgent action to mitigate climate change thrive at the expense of genuine, illuminating, nuanced debate about how to make the best of an uncertain future.”

Genuine, illuminating, nuanced debate. While you claim to be ‘agnostic’ about climate change what you don’t say is as important as what you do. At the risk of appearing rude; how can you claim to have a genuine debate when there are no articles supporting the opinions of climate change proponents? There is definite bias on this website which I would imagine deters climate change supporters and attracts sceptics. I am learning from this website and I’m very pleased that I have taken the time to look through it – but don’t you think that a more constructive, honest debate could be had if both sides were given a more equal say?

—-

Thanks Geoff – changed.

On steps in the chain of reasoning. It really doesn’t affect our point. The purpose of the diagram is not to offer an exposition of the argument in question, but to show the general problem with reasoning from given ‘scientific’ axioms to make moral and political arguments.

If you remember, it was Franny Armstrong’s argument that ‘one [asking people in the developing world to sacrifice their lives] follows the other [building the third runway at heathrow]’. She believed that she could reason with the given a priori knowledge, to a necessary conclusion, in just one step. (We were quite generous to her in unpacking it and actually giving it any semblance of rationality at all). The number of steps between the premise and the conclusion isn’t the point. The point is that the claims which are made ‘in the name of science’ do not carry the necessity that is claimed. That Armstrong had never stopped to subject the 150,000 deaths figure to any scrutiny is key here. She says ‘science says…’. But it’s got nothing to do with science – it’s not a scientific result. Miliband cannot answer her.

“I don’t see how the difference between global warming and climate change makes any difference to the end result”

The point ultimately is that there are differences between the two terms. They are used interchangeably, but global warming is more precise, but less consequential. Climate change is more vague, but more consequential. It will probably trouble you less if you stop thinking about it as an attempt to ‘disprove’ the anthropogenic global warming/climate change hypothesis, and an attempt to offer an exposition of a specific argument, and more of an attempt to show how we think chains of reasoning are constructed in moral and political environmental arguments.

If we wanted to understand what the chain of reasoning was, and to understand how a political argument for mitigation was founded (or not) on science, then it would be essential to assess the plausibility of each step. The argument is put forward that ‘global warming causes climate change’. This features in a broader argument that CO2 causes deaths in the developing world. In order to assess either argument’s plausibility, it is always necessary to unpack each premise, to see how the conclusion was arrived at safely (or not).

You can have one unsafe premise in a chain of three premises, or one unsafe premise in a chain of a hundred premises. Our argument is not that error is proportionate to number of premises.

I think the reason that I have assumed that you don’t believe in climate change is because of the title of the website (‘…challenging climate orthodoxy’), and the articles that I have so far read all appear to be pointing out what’s wrong with the current climate change conclusions rather than pointing out the problems with sceptics arguments. I have to explore your website further, but at first glance it appears to be a sceptics website. Do you have any articles that criticise sceptics arguments?

We have on occasion, criticised our ‘fellow sceptics’. Our arguments are that environmentalism isn’t a new form of Left-wing ideology, and that the climate debate won’t be settled by science, because environmentalism is a political phenomenon. We’re not particularly interested in challenging ‘sceptics’’ arguments, because they don’t have any influence over the political agenda. Climate scepticism is inconsequential in this respect. Environmentalism, on the other hand, is deeply political. It asks for the reorganisation of the world. We also argue that dividing the debate into ‘sceptics/deniers’ and ‘scientists’ is really very unhelpful, and it lumps people together who really don’t share much. Would you really lump Franny Armstrong, or, for that matter, the likes of George Monbiot, in with respected climate scientists, for instance?

I found the 2003 report (http://www.who.int/globalchange/publications/climchange.pdf) which clearly states how the figures were obtained at this stage – based upon models that were validated against actual cases of malaria incidence in Africa. It includes a thorough description of the difficulties with using these and other models to make worldwide predictions (Page 150 – 152)

So you’ve seen that the WHO acknowledges the great deal of uncertainty that is present in their estimation, and the number of assumptions that they have made. Now go and read the press releases that announced the study, and you will notice that any such caution will have disappeared. Then read the stories in the press, and you will see another level of caution removed again. Finally, read the words of activists such as Armstrong, and you will see that it has become an incontrovertible fact that ‘science’ has ‘proved’ that climate change causes 150,000 deaths a year. You will see that this kind of argument, put to Ed Miliband, carries some weight. He’s not able to say, ‘Look, Franny, you’ve overstated the significance and certainty of this study, and anyway, 42 million people die of other preventable causes, none of whom, including the 150,000, would have died prematurely, if we took development seriously’. He’s a senior politician. He won’t debate with the likes of us, but will happily take flack from Armstrong. This is because, ultimately, he’s happy that unfounded climate change alarmism legitimises his public role.

We are very clear about the possible value of the WHO’s method. We say in the post above:

Of course, we can say that increased precipitation causes better conditions for mosquitoes, generally. But the point is that, such a cascade doesn’t want us to understand simply the relationship between increased precipitation and mosquitoes, but between climate change and death.

And we said in the preceding post:

Perhaps there is a value in estimating the influence of climate changes on disease, based on assumptions. It might open up some discussion about strategies that might be followed to confront malaria, and where investments might be best made. Theoretical models aren’t in themselves, ‘bad’, and can be useful to testing existing knowledge, perhaps between different disciplines. But, look, these researchers aren’t as interested in the 98% of malaria cases which aren’t ’caused’ by climate change as the 2% that they assume is caused by climate change.

This systematic removal of the product of the WHO’s study from the context in which its terms make sense is what we’re looking at. Why aren’t they present in Armstrong’s argument, or her chain of reasoning? Why isn’t the possibility of abolishing malaria at the forefront of the WHO’s reports, and why do its press releases instead focus on the far less significant, and ultimately less safe attribution of deaths to climate change? Why are 150,000 theoretical deaths of greater significance than 42 million preventable deaths?

Why are you asking us?

Do you think that deaths can and have been successfully attributed to climate change?

Our argument is that if there was a response to the real problem of malaria, and development generally, there would not only have been 150/315 thousand fewer deaths, there may well have been 42 million fewer deaths a year.

Therefore, the important question in our view isn’t ‘does climate change cause deaths’, but ‘why is climate change a political priority’?