Simon T. Kaye

With the Copenhagen Summit underway and the low rumble of discontent over the hacked emails debacle still audible, I feel the need to communicate my feelings on all the claims and counter-claims on the ’science’ of global warming.

I marched on the ‘Copenhagen Wave’ last weekend, along with tens of thousands of other people from all around the UK. It’s a worthwhile cause, I’m strongly in favour of firm emissions reduction targets, and I believe that human activity is responsible for the climate change going on around us. Note, however, the use of the word ‘believe’ – I don’t know anything – not scientifically, anyway.

‘Scientific facts’ are curious beasts. Science may be said to be incapable of producing hard-and-fast facts. One formulates a hypothesis; one tests it; if the hypothesis is upheld, and is upheld repeatably, then surely we have a scientific fact on our hands? Well, yes and no.

Within the framework of the experiment, we have shown a ‘fact’ – but it’s possible that laboratory conditions or the specific arrangements of a test differ from what we’d assume to be ‘normal’ conditions. Test conditions are capable of presenting spurious, irrelevant or simply untrue ‘facts’. It works the same way as the framing of verbal logic.

So, scientific facts prove only the specific hypothesis which are tested. More importantly, they can only be assumed to do so temporarily. Facts have use-by dates. The first relevant experiment to come along and throw new light on a question or display slightly different results will once again throw doubt onto any ’scientific fact’, and it is a part of scientific method to assume that proofs are finite in this way. A statement is true until proven false, just as the accused is innocent until proven guilty. The difference is that reasonable doubt runs the other way: if there is reasonable doubt as to the truth of a scientific statement, then it cannot really be called a fact. For this reason, there must be much, much more evidence in support of a claim of scientific fact than there need to be made against it in order to ‘disprove’ it – which is parallel to our legal metaphor, where the onus lies with the prosecution to eradicate reasonable doubt.

The third important point about scientific facts is that, in an important way, they can never get beyond inference. We may observe the correlation between two different things a hundred times in experiments – but all we’ve really seen is the same correlation, a hundred times. So even with the non-existence of contrary evidence, ’scientific fact’ requires someone to look at the evidence and draw a causal conclusion about it all – to claim “these things are not coincidental: one causes the other”.

These three question-marks can help us to look at the human-caused (‘anthropogenic’) global warming argument objectively:

First of all, anyone who tells you that anthropocentric climate change is proven, certain, a done deal, is either lying to you, or doesn’t know much about science. These will be the sort of people who say ‘climate change deniers’ instead of ’skeptics’. Even in so far as there is any such thing as a ’scientific fact’, I cannot in good conscience write that anthropogenic climate change is one – no matter how useful that could be politically.

Why isn’t anthropogenic climate change a scientific fact? First of all, our planet’s atmosphere does not constitute a nice, stable test condition. It has its own ups and downs, is sensitive to the activity of the sun and to its own internal weather patterns, such as el niño. Even today our weather and climate can be altered by unpredictable, freak occurences. Trying to draw a general trend out of this mess, even over fairly long periods, is very hard work. Even worse, climate change scientists will always be frustrated in their efforts to project changes into the future, and a key element of scientific proof is in the success of a model: can we extrapolate our findings into a means to predict what will happen next? In this case, the short-term answer is no.

Instrumental data on warming. The range since useful records began is about 1 degree centigrade in total. From Wikicommons.

Secondly, even with something like an upward trend (which is more or less visible in the data – see the diagram above), there is the problem of cause-attribution. This is made a bigger issue by the fact that the two curves under scrutiny here do not scale particularly well together.

I take as absolutely true that greenhouse gas levels are increasing significantly in the atmosphere, and that these gases are being released because of human activity.

More difficult to prove, but still, in my opinion, true, is the general trend of a warming climate over the last fifty years or so.

But these facts together signify only correlation. I, personally, believe that there is enough evidence to link them causally. This third leap is required for ’scientific fact’. But the problem is that the rate of the increase in temperature does not match in terms of scale the rate of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, or adhere to the predictions of scientists. There can be little doubt of an increase in CO2 levels – whereas warming levels can be attributed to other causes, such as solar activity or the (thus far barely understood) planetary rhythm of ice-age to warm-patch.

One word of warning  – stick to the instrumental data. Information on the ‘medieval warm period’ is worse than useless, because of course there is no reliable measurement information from that far back. We are limited to the last hundred years or so, and this is both bad news and good news for climate change scientists. It means we must discount the geological probabilities that this planet has been considerably warmer and considerably cooler than it is now at various points in its history, over the course of millions of years.

But these ‘good’ records do show a temperature increase, and it corresponds in terms of timeframe with the start of human industrial activity in earnest. This is enough for me.

Skepticism, it must be noted, is a good thing. It is the scientist’s responsibility to be skeptical, which is why the activities of the UEA scientists is particularly reprehensible. But skeptics must be skeptical always: there is far, far less evidence for ‘alternative’ causes of temperature increase than there is for the greenhouse effect argument, and this is what must be said at the Copenhagen summit.

It is with healthy skepticism that we ought to take action against CO2 emissions. We don’t know anything for certain – but shouldn’t we hedge our bets? I don’t think that scientific rationalism should ever form the basis, by itself, for public policy. But the intuitive response to all this information is to detect a cause, and the response to that intuition is clear.

And wouldn’t it be a noble human objective to cut down on pollution regardless of its relationship with climate-change? Why does no-one ever make that argument?

Well, I’m back. Always after a long trip there’s that strange surreality to every familiar sight and sound. Everything ought to have changed, but is in fact stubbornly identical to how you left it. The disappointment- if it’s not just a cover for relief at stability- is not because you expected the world to turn in your absence, but rather because you would’ve hoped that travel would have changed you. You pray that the distances covered will have altered your prespective.

In the real world, of course, it doesn’t work that way. As versatile and adaptable as humans are, their reactions to travel seem to indicate that they are also curiously unyielding to external stimulus after a certain point. The external vision can become nothing more than an extention of that which we expected to find, a projection, or a filtered version of the input we actually received, eliminating those parts of the spectrum that some unconscious process decided was unworthy.

But surely there is something that I have brought home with me? I have read nothing, in my absence, in fiction, science or research, except material that emphasised the extent to which we are constructed beings, nurtured and constantly changing. So how have I- or at least my understandings- changed?

I was thinking- how can I tie this story off? All the way home, through north France, under the Channel, blasting through the suburbs of London. Do I, after these travels, have anything even approximating a conclusion to offer? Has my journey actually changed my understanding, or my self, in any way? Or has this whole thing just been an exercise in shallow tourism?

Why, in short, did I go?

Maybe I’ll get back to you on that one.

But here’s an outline of what I have learnt:

1. The easiest distinction to be made in continental Europe is not between East and West, but between the Mediterranean nations and everywhere else. East to West, particularly with the reach of the modern EU, the main distinctions can be drawn from economic differences, rather than massive variations in national temperament. If the EU does its job, and the economies of the poorer nations are raised to match those of France and Germany, then a survey of the entire Union will seem more than anything else like a trip across the United States of America. Each individual state shall have its own traditions, certainly, and its own demographic mix of religions and races, and wildly varying climates. But, as in America, these differences shall surely become ever more historical. The Euro Zone will encompass every member-state, in time. The similarities between countries will massively outweigh the differences, as is already true in any of the major cities I have visited.
2. This homogenising effect is not entirely negative- at least, not in the way that the Daily Mail would have us believe. Historically speaking, the continent of Europe has veered constantly between political super-union and massive interstate fragmentation. The fragmentation has rarely been along ‘logical’ cultural or geographic lines, and the formation of individual nation-states has barely ever been representative of a re-assertion of some historical imperative- at least, not beyond the realms of propaganda. The world to come – surely a multi-polar one - will be one that holds far more respect, economically and politically, for strong unions than for smaller independent states.
3. To fulfil this, its strongest reason for existence, the EU needs to reorganise. The prevention of war is no longer the resounding and universally convincing reason for its existance as it once was, and simple economic common sense is not sexy enough to make the Union popular. But in its role as a strengthener and a bringer of equality and opportunity, the EU could find again the support that it has lost so conclusively in recent years. To accompany this reorientation, the actual work of the Union should be focussed upon the strengthening and economic reconstruction of the Eastern states. Romania and Bulgaria are, in many ways, still desperately poor nations: I have seen this first-hand. The EU shall always be failing as long as the French farmers are put ahead of the peasantry in the former-Soviet member states.
4. Turkey’s acceptance in a newly refocussed EU is almost inevitable. The Union will at that point cease to be ‘European’, so perhaps a rebranding would be in order. Culturally, religiously and geographically, the European buck stops just east and south of Istanbul. This should not be decried, nor should it be a point of contention. Turkey’s efforts to continue to see functional Islamism working as part of a real Democracy is only the beginning of its uniqueness, a uniqueness that ought to be celebrated. But Turkey is still ‘behind’ Europe in many ways: a young nation, as I was reminded when I was there. Just today, the whole of the blog site that hosts my own little effort was blocked by Turkey altogether, over a few blogs that insulted a single individual there. Turkey must learn to respect freedom of speech, whether it is about the Kurds, a beration of Ataturk, or an accusation of genocide against the Armenian people, or something else entirely. The best way to ensure this progress is through Turkey’s EU candidacy. I am here only repeating the sentiments and theories of a friend who has said this to me many times. Only after visiting am I absolutely certain that he is correct in this.
5. Okay, enough politics: In Eastern Europe, it’s amazing how quickly get sick of eating stuff with paprika all over it.
6. History is behind glass and ropes in Germany and France, but used to eat lunch off in Italy and other countries.
7. The best cafe in the world (that I’ve been in so far) is in Prague. Other than this, Prague is a bit like Paris, only less. Less everything.
8. Budapest is the best city I’ve ever been to (apart from London, of course!)
9. Bucharest is not the Paris of the East. It is the Bangkok of the West.
10. Best glass of white wine: Local Pinot Grigio, Verona. Best glass of red wine: A Burgundy Gamay rouge.
11. As baffling as it is to believe that the people of Italy can have had such a decisive and regular effect on the course of history, it simply must have to do with their women. Italian women are magnificent, determined, stubborn, hard-working, tough and ambitious. Behind every great Roman or Renaissance hero there must have been a very, very Italian woman.
12. Men on the continent are a lot more… modern than those in Britain. They are coiffed, well-presented, slim, fit, smart and so on. Vanity, all is vanity. I never felt more than scruffy in their presence, though Germany felt a little closer to home.
13. In fact, more than any other nation in the world, Britain is similar to Germany.
14. And finally the environmental bit. I am delighted to report that I return from my voyage considerably happier about the state of the European eco-systems and natural environs. The sheer magnitude of the wild spaces and wildernesses in Turkey and Eastern Europe is hard to get across adequately. My trip north through France was practically unobstructed by human development. Forests prevail across Bavaria. The mountains in Austria remain, for the most part, bare and raw. This continent is vast, and despite thousands of years of human activity, use and abuse, it remains primarily as beautiful as ever it did. If one specific country flashed an environmental warning in my head, it would be Italy. But let’s not linger on that.

 And, after all that, we come to the end. I have travelled 5,600 kilometers (3,500 miles). I have walked through forests and beaches, arid almost-deserts and cities. I have seen the ruins of Greeks and the monoliths of Ottomans, slept in soviet-era sleeper trains, compared some of the greatest capitals in the world.

There’s no place like home, though. Good to be back.

Thanks for reading.

‘The twentieth century saw an average global temperature rise of a little over half a degree centigrade, which doesn’t sound like much- but it is, as the summary explains, likely to be responsible for “decreases of about 10 percent in the extent of snow cover since the 1960s,” and “a reduction of about two weeks in the annual duration of lake and river ice cover… in the northern hemisphere.” Winter, in other words, is now two weeks shorter than it used to be.‘

 I just rediscovered this piece, written by a slightly younger and considerably more earnest yours-truly. It was officially published by a higher-education website that nobody ever reads. So here’s a nice link.

 Stuart Parkinson was actually a great guy to interview, and a man of no small importance in the battle over hearts and minds in the great Global Warming debate.

‘HERO’ is a website designed to benefit students, and often contributed to by students. Which is all well and good, but I’m not mad about some of the little grammatical stretches and typos that have been engineered into this piece between my emailing it off and it appearing, all pretty, on the website. C’est la vie, I suppose.