- There is warming.
- Humanity is contributing to that warming.
- This warming will create significant harm if left unchecked.
Table 1: Professional Societies and Major Relevant Research Institutions on whether humanity is driving climate change
anyone who asserts that they know everything about energy and climate change, definitively, and knows every single answer is, well, simply not someone worth listening to about these complex domains.
Thus, a critical skill set is developing a sense as to who to trust and who is untrustworthy for consideration.
And, this "skill set' can be used as a guide for where one might have uncertainty.
- Professional societies
- Government Reports
- University Research Programs
- Think Tanks
- Advocacy Organizations
- Individual Professionals
- Individual Lay People
And, if an institution speaks in a way that contradicts its normal bias (like a tobacco company stating that smoking tobacco causes cancer or a fossil-fuel company stating that CO2 is a major threat to humanity and we need to reduce the burning of fossil fuels), then it should be given stronger weight.
Craven lays out why professional organizations are at the top of the credibility spectrum:
professional societies are organizations that exist not to advance a particular agenda but to simply serve the communication and training needs of a particular profession. ... With these groups, bias and political leanings are going to be small as can be expected in any human endeavor.
The level of expertise is fairly high because these groups are made up of people who know more about the field than anyone else; furthermore, fur such an association to come out with a statement, most of the members would need to agree with it, so what you're getting is general agreement from a whole bunch of experts -- no small thing. And, the longer an organization has been around or the mroe prestigious it is, the bigger the reputation it has to protect. You can be fairly confident that an organization has been quite thorough in making sure it doesn't say something that later makes it look silly.
Now, "argument from authority" is a touchy subject. Just because the American Medical Association says today that X causes Y disease doesn't mean that it won't turn out that further research will uncover that X is unrelated to Y. Even so, when trying to figure out how to avoid Y disease, today, would we find it more likely that the AMA or a community glee club would have more relevant information and advice? "Authority" doesn't mean certainty but, as Craven lays out, there are reasons to give some credence to such perspectives.
Table 2: Structuring a Table re authorities re humanity have a role in driving climate change
Table 1 above is an attempt at filling in Table 2.
And, with that truly independent association of people who have zero interest in perpetuation of a fossil fuel economy standing out as a clear exception, how does the Association of American Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) introduce its recommendations about climate change?
In the last century, growth in human population has increased energy use. This has contributed additional carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases to the atmosphere. Although the AAPG membership is divided on the degree of influence that anthropogenic CO2 has on recent and potential global temperature increases, AAPG believes that expansion of scientific climate research into the basic controls on climate is important.
And, for those who still are wondering 'but what about all those scientists who challenge that consensus,' spend a few moments with Peter Sinclair looking at 32,000 (pseudo-)scientists challenging those institutions in the first column:
Note: This is a modified reposting of Considering Institutional Authorities and Climate Change.
MUST READ! Massively powerful LA Times editorial on climate science education.
