The Flawless Symphony

Recently I received an email from a friend explaining how the IPCC made a mistake in their report, “Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability”. Apparently, New Scientist had interviewed an Indian glaciologist who'd speculated about the fate of the glaciers. An Indian report had cited the interview. WWF Nepal then cited the Indian report, which was then cited by a writer contributing to the IPCC Assessment Report #4.

You see it was a problem with footnotes. The writer working on the IPCC report didn't follow the three levels of citations back to their original and only source.

This mistake has been leapt upon by so-called Climate Deniers, just like a single office at a single university in England that issued inconsistent reports. In both cases, the Climate Deniers accurately identify that an error has been committed.

Yet, as I thought about it tonight I realized the Climate Deniers are being a bit unrealistic in their expectations of the humans writing these reports, especially in the case of the IPCC report. 

Expecting perfection from countless contributors each citing thousands of independent pieces of research (each with their own citations) to aggregate a whole and accurate picture of the earth's current climate is like expecting a symphony to play each of Mozart's 41 symphonies on sequential nights, 41 nights in a row, without making a mistake.

But whether such a feat is possible doesn't interest me nearly as much as the realization that at each symphony, some number of the ninety or so musicians will make a mistake. 

And, unless they all flub at the same moment, it won't matter a bit.

The symphony will still astound.

Spitting on Michelangelo

The Seattle Times published a letter I wrote to the Editor last week. There's many people who are skeptical of human-caused climate change, and many who view Climategate as vindication for their views. This Letter to the Editor is my response to them:

Conspiracy theorists are like suicide bombers — loud and dramatic — but there are only a few of them, and they are soon forgotten by all but those they injure [“Hacked e-mails heat up Capitol Hill,” News, Dec. 3].

In the case of Climategate, the conspiracy theorists are wearing WMD and may injure us all. They’re generalizing a few pieces of doctored data in an attempt to impede the entire sustainability movement.

While it may be true that a few scientists in the U.K. have manipulated data, and while it may or may not be true that the climate is warming, what is crucial to realize is that both climate-change science and Climategate are red herrings, distracting us from specific, vital issues that threaten humanity.

Whether in climate change humankind has created a monster or a myth couldn’t matter less. Beyond the issue of global warming, readily verifiable facts show we’re running out of fish, forests and fresh, clean water.

If we continue to abuse the Earth, we in the developed world will certainly encounter a drastic decrease in the quality of our lives, while witnessing the excruciating deaths by starvation and poisoning of hundreds of millions in developing regions.

To improve the likelihood any response is well-aimed, allow me to clarify: climate-change and sustainability are two different things. Climate-change as caused by the Greenhouse Effect is not the same issue as overfishing, acidifying oceans, deforestation and desertification, or the exhaustion and poisoning of aquifers.

The issues connect, though they originate from varying causes and are fallaciously generalized as a unified crisis ("Global Warming", et al). Thus, if you claim you can refute one of these crises, you have not achieved victory. You still must face all the others, individually.

One last question I'd like to add: I know many of you are Christians and believe that God gave earth to humanity, choosing Adam and his descendants to subdue the earth as its Steward. If I grant you that, will you explain to me how you justify current human behavior as "stewardship"?

As far as I can tell, we're all spitting on The David, which is like spitting on Michelangelo.