Causes of Global Warming – Are We Fooled By Hubris?

According to Nassim Taleb in Fooled by Randomness we like to tell ourselves stories, perhaps to aid in remembering otherwise unrelated events. Often these stories can mislead us because we tend to assume that events which come first are the cause of events which come after even though the events may actually be either unrelated or both the independent results of some unknown third event. Philosophers are sufficiently aware of this fallacy to give it a Latin name – post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Among other examples, Taleb, who is a trader, points to the absurd sound bites in the daily financial press which ascribe a cause to every statistically insignificant market move. If the market moves fast enough, the same cause is often used for the move in both directions.

Taleb points out that scientists are no more immune to bad logic and group think than the rest of us. Those who mistook scientific consensus for proven fact “knew” that the earth was flat and that the sun circled it.

We have another tendency in our storytelling according to me: we humans like to be the cause of everything. We hate being helpless. Think of all the stories about the wrath of various gods in all the mythologies of the world. The people were sinful so God destroyed the city; the woman was vain so the Goddess punished her; the sacrifice was not properly prepared and therefore…

What these stories really say is that we control the gods and not vice versa. My friend W, who prefers to remain anonymous, pointed out to me that the sale of indulgences to those who felt a need for some kind of forgiveness is another example of man controlling God. He also pointed out that there are resemblances between individual purchases of carbon credits and indulgences. Hmm….

The arguments in favor of the hypothesis that human-caused increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are unfortunately laced with post hoc ergo proctor hoc thinking:  many past warming cycles have been accompanied by a significant increase in CO2 (fact); therefore, the current increase in atmospheric CO2 (which is probably attributable mostly to human activity) MUST be causing the causing the recent short-term (so far) acceleration in global warming (conjecture) and that warming will continue unless humans reduce their production of CO2 (prediction).

It is quite possible that all of the above hypothesis, conjectures, and predictions are right. It is also possible that some or all of them are wrong. Unfortunately, it is critically important that we figure this all out. For example, if the oceans are going to continue to rise no matter what we do (as they have many times in the past clearly without our help because we weren’t there) and if anthropogenic CO2 emissions are NOT causing global warming, we should be spending money directly on plans to deal with billions of coastal refugees rather than on reducing coal burning or in carbon sequestration (or on rebuilding coastal properties destroyed by storms in the same about-to-be-inundated places).

It hurts to believe that we have almost no control over our environment. Somehow it’s psychologically more comfortable to believe that it’s all our fault (or at least the fault of our neighbors with SUVs) and we have it within our control to placate the gods or nature with some well-designed sacrifice.

The assumption that climate is within our control is hubris even though it may eventually be true. There is stuff – lots of stuff – that we neither understand nor control. Many civilizations spent much of their declining fortunes in rituals and monuments designed to ward off the effects of climate change and other catastrophes they didn’t cause – but wanted to believe they were in control of. Everyone knew that witches were responsible for crop failures – most people even “knew” who the witches were.

We have to answer critically important questions like is the current warming trend short or long-term? Is it reversible? Did we contribute to it or cause it? In either case, can we reverse it? if warming continues, will seas continue to rise (not  a given because snowfall patterns as well as temperature govern glacier extent)? We’ll have to takes many actions before all the results are known since no action is an action in itself.

This will all take our best thinking but Nassim Taleb’s point is that we are not actually designed to think very well. We have the same brains as the people who believed the earth was flat and who conducted witch trials. In order to do good thinking, we have to be aware of and fight against our tendency to tell ourselves stories when no story line actually exists. I’d add that we also have to watch our tendency to cast ourselves as major characters – even villains – rather than believe that we are just bystanders.

Does skepticism imply inaction? Nope – next post.

Comments

[Outdoor1s]

Thought-provoking post. A facet of the debate that seems not to get discussed much (at least from my perspective) is that we have a much stronger foundation on which to rest any drive toward carbon neutrality: Energy Security/Independence. If we accept the fact that particulates and toxins associated with burning coal are sufficient grounds to impel us to look at alternatives, then the energy security argument justifies looking at alternatives to petroleum-based energy sources (responsible for most human-generated CO2 emissions). And the POSSIBILITY that we also are having an impact on global temperatures is frosting on the cake.

[Ranjit Mathoda]

Freeman Dyson has a skeptical viewpoint on global warming being necessarily caused by humans. You may find my summary of his perspective interesting:

http://www.mathoda.com/archives/125

[Ranjit Mathoda]

Freeman Dyson has a skeptical viewpoint on global warming being necessarily caused by humans. You may find my summary of his perspective interesting:

http://www.mathoda.com/archives/125

[Tony Arcieri]

The present theory regarding the attribution of climate change is based on intense research into both the earth's climate system and the physics involved, which is decomposed into a number of "radiative forcings" which are presumed to alter the earth's radiative balance (energy coming in and energy going out) over time. Hypotheses regarding these forcings are used as inputs to general circulation models (GCMs) which perform multi-decadal simulations of the earth's climate system. This allows climatologists to test their hypotheses using a scientific model. What makes the argument so compelling is there are many GCMs which have been independently developed, and over time they've started giving similar answers.

For more information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change#Attribution_of_20th_century_climate_change

[Jay Parkhill]

Interesting post. The trick with climate is that it's a real-time experiment. The system is too complex to model perfectly, so the only way to know if warming is short term or long-term (for example) is to wait it out and see.

Tack on questions about remaining supplies of oil, coal and gas and the problem looms even larger.

Without (clean) alternative fuel sources, society will collapse and have no fuel sources left with which to rebuild.

To me, this says its time for study *and* action. We may be able to iterate as we learn, but if we wait too long we'll lose the chance completely. Forever.

[kid mercury]

people need to understand that mainstream media is a complete joke, and thus relying on mainstream media for information leads to an uneducated or, even worse, falsely educated population.

the truth is that man-made global warming as a result of CO2 emissions is completely lacking in scientific grounding. it's designed to sell people on the need for a carbon tax. over taxation is the real threat to mankind.

the truth on global warming:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2007/130207globalwarming.htm

[AdrianCockcroft]

The biggest problem we face in climate change is not the absolute levels of temperature, CO2 levels or sea levels (which have varied over a wide range in the past) but the *rate* of change (which is unprecedented). The impact of population growth and industrial activity from low levels to billions of people in an extremely short time period is the unprecedented reason why we have this problem now.

There is a consistent and broad scientific consensus embodied in the IPCC reports. The global warming denialists are a small vocal minority who have been repeatedly shown to be cranks or have vested interests. There are also an increasing number of groups who are overstating the problem and confusing short term weather with long term climate change. For a skeptical and scientifically sound viewpoint I recommend tracking the Stoat blog http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/

Governments need to be upgrading levees and sea defenses in areas at risk, we should expect more disasters due to larger fluctuations in weather patterns, and we should be reducing CO2 levels. At a personal level solar power costs about the same to install as a new car, go for it and become part of the solution...

[Mike Kowalchik]

I suppose, now that I've commented, I should actually contribute to the conversation at hand rather than nit-picking a minor point. :)

I agree that there is a tremendous amount of hubris in believing that we are in control of our climate / environment. I also have a personal theory (I'm sure shared by many others) that human beings are *awful* at understanding complex systems with lots of interacting variables. We're terrible at understanding real cause and effect as you point out.

We invented the scientific method essentially to combat this deficiency in the way our brains are wired. Isolating variables, use hypothesis and test, are all ways of deconstructing complex problems. I always think back to physics word problems, "imagine a frictionless universe, no air, and perfectly spherical projectiles, etc.. etc..."

This does however bring up a problem with the argument you're making. Like you say, there is a possibility that we *are* causing global warming. There is no way to use the scientific method to prove or disprove this hypothesis however. It's not a system we can reduce, or isolate variables effectively. There is also only one climate, so experimentation is impractical as well. This is one of the reasons "the science isn't conclusive" argument put forth by many people really bothers me, it will never be conclusive.

If we have no control over climate, then so be it, but if we *do* isn't it worth it to try to control the variables we can? I have my doubts whether we truly understand what's going on, but if we control only a few of the inputs to the system, I think it behooves us to try and reduce and/or manage those inputs.

Being pro-active may achieve nothing, on the other hand it may be the solution to the problem. If our options are try something that might not work or just assume we have no control and prepare for the worst, I choose the former.

Now the irony of my position (which is not lost on me) is that by being pro-active with a system that's impossible for us to understand we may indeed cause unintended consequences that may not fix the problem and possibly cause other potentially worse issues. I'd still willing to take that chance.

[Mike Kowalchik]

Hi Tom. Long time reader/lurker. I usually find your posts quite thought provoking, even if I don't always agree. While I don't usually comment, a throw-away line in your post is kind of a pet peeve of mine.

"Those who mistook scientific consensus for proven fact “knew” that the earth was flat and that the sun circled it."

While a geocentric cosmological model was an example of what you're talking about, most people with any kind of scientific education (as it was the scientific consensus), knew the earth was round. Depending on your definition of science, even some of the earliest natural philosophers knew the earth was round and even had some pretty good numbers for it's size.

While the general populace might have thought the earth was flat, the general scientific consensus was that it was a sphere.

This also falls into the "fact" that Columbus proved the earth was round mis taught to many schoolchildren. The reason he was ridiculed for his ideas was that he was *grossly wrong* about the size of the earth, and had the Americas not luckily been in the way, the voyage he was proposing would have been doomed.

I'm sure you're aware of all this and merely using an offhand comment to make a perfectly valid point, the "flat earth" thing just irks me.