Source: Minnesota Atheists
URL: http://mnatheists.org/content/view/633/163/
Date: 31/07/2011
Event: Greg Laden, John Abraham and Kevin Zelnio on "climate denialism"
Attribution: Minnesota Atheists
People:
John Abraham: Professor of Thermal and Fluid Sciences, University of St Thomas School of Engineering
Mike Haubrich: Producer of radio show Atheists Talk
Greg Laden: Biological anthropologist and blogger
Kevin Zelnio: Marine biologist
Mike Haubrich: Good morning and welcome to Atheists Talk, on KTNF AM 950, the Voice of Minnesota. We appreciate all of you for tuning in to this show. Today is Sunday, July 31st 2011, and I'm your host, Mike Haubrich. My guests are Greg Laden, John Abraham and Kevin Zelnio. We welcome listener interaction during the live show, with your phone calls to 952 946 6205 or your emails to radio@mnatheists.org. Climate scientists have understood the process by which greenhouse gases are raising the global temperature and causing the climate to change in ways that are leading to huge problems for man and wildlife. The time for the argument over whether global climate change is related to human activity is long past, and yet we are mired in a debate about it, and not how to change but whether or not it's even happening. Greg Laden, Kevin Zelnio and John Abraham bring a level of expertise that will help clarify the issue today. Greg, Kevin and John, welcome to Atheists Talk.
Greg Laden: Thanks, Mike.
John Abraham: Thank you, Mike.
Greg Laden: Oh, shall we talk about global climate change. [Telephone dial tone noise.] Oh, Kevin's... sounds like he's a dial tone. He'll be back. That's actually the name of an old punk rock band.
John Abraham: Oh good, that's a good one.
Greg Laden: Okay, well... Well, John, can you tell us just a bit about your research, your expertise, your background? So we can get started, introduce yourself to the audience.
John Abraham: Sure. So, I'm a thermal scientist, professor at the university here in the Twin Cities area, the University of St. Thomas. And I work in any area with heat transfer or fluid flow, and my areas of study and research include what's called thermodynamics, which is how energy affects the environment. Heat transfer, that's how heat moves in the environment, and fluid flow, that's how fluids move and, as they move in the environment, they carry heat. So all the major processes that govern the environment are covered under my specific discipline. One of the two sub-disciplines that I work with are energy development - I do a lot of work on developing clean energy that can be used in the developing world for people who don't have coal-powered plant alternatives, like we have here. We work to provide a higher standard of living without degradating [sic] the environment. The other area is on climate monitoring. I work with NOAA, which is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to help them better monitor the energy in the ocean, to find out how much of this extra heat that is going into the environment, how much of that heat is being gobbled up by the ocean.
Greg Laden: That's okay. Kevin, now. Kevin, can you hear us?
Kevin Zelnio: Yes, I can hear you.
Mike Haubrich: Yes, we can. Greg was just asking John about what his background is, and what his expertise and what he brings to the global climate change communications.
Greg Laden: So maybe you can tell us where you're coming from, Kevin.
Kevin Zelnio: Yeah, I'm a deep sea biologist - my expertise is work in understanding the ecology of animals that live around hydrothermal vents in the very deep ocean. Also, I use genetics to understand how populations are connected to each other. That's my background in science. Currently, I'm a freelancer, science writer and communications strategist, and one of my interests in this is - really has to do with trying to structure messages we get across, what it is that we're really communicating and how to reach out to new audiences.
Greg Laden: Well, since hydrothermal vents are hot, isn't global warming good? [Laughter.]
Kevin Zelnio: You'd be surprised, we can laugh at it, but there are people, and there's actual [inaudible] and politicians have mouthed these words, that the increase in hydrothermal vent activity - well, let me rephrase it - there's an increase in hydrothermal vent activity in the last thirty years. And so why - how can this be global climate change warming our ocean? Isn't it an increase in hydrothermal vents? And you can laugh about that, but that's what we're facing. And they've confused the discovery of hydrothermal vents with the occurrence of hydrothermal vents. Hydrothermal vents have always existed in the ocean, whether we've been able to observe them or not. There's many more of them, I assure you, that exist out there, than we can even ever count -
Greg Laden: So there's not more activity, there's just more discovery of them.
Kevin Zelnio: More discovery, and the activity is always the same, you know, we still know how much is there, we can model it, and we can take all the mid-ocean ridges that are out there, where hydrothermal vents occur, and we can make models that show how much heat is being produced by them. But we have to remember that one major, major fact - the ocean, if you haven't noticed, is really big. There's a lot of cold water mixing with an amount of hot water, so... The contribution of hydrothermal vents to warming the ocean is rather small.
Greg Laden: Okay, well, one thing [inaudible] global - I mean, I would like this to be on record as the last conversation we're ever going to have on any radio show about global warming denialism, 'cause it really just has to end. And we have to move on with solutions. But let's talk about that a little bit. One of the things people say when they talk about global warming, they don't want to believe it, don't want to accept it, is that - this is a natural variation, or, even it is human-caused, natural variations occur anyway, so what difference does it really make? So I'd like you to issue [?], starting with John, to respond to that question. Isn't it just okay that global warming is happening, because it's within the range of what normally would occur, without our influence?
John Abraham: Well, there's a confusion that's made clear when someone makes a statement like that, because one of the things that you said was true. There is natural variation. No climate scientist is saying that all of the climate change we're seeing is human-caused. And we're also not saying that climate change in the past was human-caused. I mean, millions and millions of years ago, the climate changed pretty dramatically. And there weren't cavemen burning coal in caves that caused that climate change to occur. So what we've got is we have two things happening. Just because the climate changes naturally doesn't mean that humans can't also change the climate, and... So it's a bit of a straw man argument when someone makes a claim like the one you've suggested.
Greg Laden: Kevin, do you have a response to that kind of claim?
Kevin Zelnio: I really think it's a straw man, and we have to keep in mind, also, that we can actually peer [?] quite far back in Earth's climate, using ice cores, and sediment cores from the deep sea, as well. And so we can infer - it's not - yeah, we're not directly measuring temperatures but we can infer, and those inferences are pretty strong, pretty standard. So we have to keep in mind that we can actually dive pretty deep into climate history and get measurements, and the point I'd just like to make is, is that we can, um, that the variations that we're seeing today are still much greater than what we can detect in the past, at least in the past 500,000 years to more [?] ...
Greg Laden: Yeah, as a paleoanthropologist, I can attest to the fact that there are periods of time when the climate is different, that - in which the Earth is much less amenable to life by humans. There are large areas of the world that we know were occupied during certain periods of time, and not occupied during certain periods of time. And it connects to climate. And the other thing is, it's not so much necessarily a different climate that's the problem, it's the actual process of change itself, that causes trouble.
John Abraham: That's right, Greg, and it's also how fast it changes. I mean, we've had periods of climate when there have been ice continually, year round, over Minneapolis. We've also had climates where ocean levels were a hundred to 200 feet higher than they are today. Now the question we've got is, if we go to one of those two types of environments, what would that do to animal and human life, and society, on the planet? I'd argue that we're adapted for the climate that we're in right now, and if we move our climate substantially from where it is now, if there's tremendous economic costs. Things that many denialists forget is that there's costs to not doing anything. This summer we've seen a rapid - incredible amount of extreme weather. We've got flooding in the Mississippi, Missouri river valley, we've got flooding in North Dakota, we've got drought - terrible droughts in Texas. We've got these terrible heat waves. These things cost money. The drought in Texas this year is costing every working adult in Texas $400 this year. So, if we move our climate from where it is now, it's going to cost us money. And I'm - I'm a fiscal conservative. I want to do the things that are the cheapest. The things that will help solve this problem, with the lowest cost. And guess what? They are conservation, and they are developing clean and renewable energies. It is not delay, delay, delay.
Greg Laden: Er, we want to talk about implications of climate change. And one thing I'd like to know is: people often make a claim that climate change - that it was warmer in the 1920s. We had a dust bowl. We had droughts in the '20s and '30s. We've had - various other things have happened. One person claimed, there's an earthquake in, you know, 1500 that killed 10,000 people, so why do we worry about global - So some of this is crazy but - how long has CO2 been affecting the atmosphere? Is it something that hasn't happened yet? Is it something that's been happening for five or ten years? Is it something that's been happening for 100 years? How long has there been a measurable effect, do you think?
John Abraham: Well, let's take a walk through history's lane. We've known that CO2 is a greenhouse gas since the 1800s, so early to mid-1800s. In the late 1800s, a guy named Svante Arrhenius calculated the impact of increasing CO2 on the climate. So this is not a new theory. We've known it for 150 years. And CO2's been impacting the climate since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. So this isn't something that's been happening, you know, over the last decade or even over the last 50 years. It's been happening for longer than that. And guess what? The science is very solid. The science has not changed much since the 1800s. You want to know why? The folks in the 1800s got it largely right. So this is really well-known science.
Greg Laden: Uh, Kevin, have you seen - we only have about a minute before we go to break, but I want to start this discussion of um, you know, what are the impacts of - that global warming has had now? Have there been, you know - what are the positive or negative effects of increase in atmospheric temperature due to greenhouse warming that you see in the ocean, land systems, anywhere?
Kevin Zelnio: Well, in the oceans, a certain degree, but there's a lot. In the oceans, [inaudible.] And before we get into emissions implications after the break, I just want to make a point, that the ocean is a huge buffer zone. So what we do right now will last for a long time, because the ocean will carry that heat transfer -
Mike Haubrich: Okay, Kevin, we are going to go to the break right now, so please stay with us through the break and we'll return to Atheists Talk with our guests John Abraham, Kevin Zelnio, Greg Laden, and I am Mike Haubrich, and you're listening to AM 950 KTNF, the Progressive Voice of Minnesota.
[Break.]
Mike Haubrich: Welcome back to 950 KTNF, the Progressive Voice of Minnesota. This is Atheists Talk, I'm your host Mike Haubrich. Today's guests are Greg Laden, John Abraham and Kevin Zelnio. And then, before we cut you off, Kevin, you were just getting into how you are able to see the effects of global warming on the ocean.
Kevin Zelnio: Right, yes, so, I think the most major effect, of course, is the increase of carbon dioxide in the ocean. And this is quite substantial - I was making the point, before - the ocean is huge, absolutely enormous, big; 312, I think it's 312 million cubic miles of water in the ocean. So, it's really big, there's a lot of cold water sitting on top of the sea floor. Making that much measurable change in the ocean is quite astonishing, how much carbon dioxide you'd have to put in. So the problem is the carbon dioxide tends to sink into the polar climates because the water's cold, and gases tend to go into colder water a lot more easier than warmer water. And honestly, most of the carbon dioxide is being emitted into the atmosphere, is in the northern hemisphere. We think about Europe, we think about the major cities of North America, the North Atlantic especially, New York, Boston, et cetera. So there's a lot of carbon dioxide being emitted in an area where it's easier for it to get into the ocean. And going along with that, we can actually measure the impacts that it has already. It's only been a couple of hundred years since we've been emitting carbon dioxide, and we're already seeing damage to marine organisms, especially shelled molluscs called terapods. And these are a very important food source for very large organisms like whales, for instance, and even salmon, which, of course, the commercial fishing industry. So there's a lot of enormous effects going on with ocean acidification, including some things we all love to eat, you know, oysters, clams, fish that feed on these other shelled invertebrates in the ocean.
Greg Laden: But what is the worst-case scenario with ocean acidification? Is it possible that - isn't the ocean, like the rain forests, is also said to be the planet's lungs, I mean, don't we get a lot of our - the translation of CO2 into oxygen, doesn't that happen in the ocean? Is that going to be affected by this sort of thing?
Kevin Zelnio: Well, I think the thing you have to remember about the ocean, and I think this is the point I was trying to make before going to the break, is that the ocean is this huge buffer. So what happens in the ocean stays in the ocean for a very long time. This is because of the way the currents work. And the ocean is a global ocean. We like to think of it as separate place [?] and the Atlantic does its own thing, the Pacific does its own thing, the Indian, et cetera, but all these currents, all the whole water in the ocean is connected to each other, so there's nothing blocking off the Pacific from the Atlantic Ocean. Right, then. So everything that happens in the Atlantic sinks down there, because it's cold and dense water, sinks down and gets carried along the bottom of the entire world, essentially, and eventually, thousands of years later, will make its way back to the surface in another part of the world. So increasing acidity in the ocean now will affect the ocean for quite a long time. And this goes along also with moderating climate, as well, such as heat transfer, which John can talk about, much better than I can, sure -
Mike Haubrich: One of the issues -
Kevin Zelnio: Um, between the ocean and the atmosphere.
Mike Haubrich: One of the issues that I'd read about was the threat to the actual Gulf Stream, in the sense that the melting glaciers over Greenland, and so forth, because the water can be denser and colder, will actually interfere with the Gulf Stream and could create much colder weather over northern Europe.
Kevin Zelnio: Right, er -
Greg Laden: That relates to the - it's actually not so much the Gulf Stream as it is the Atlantic Conveyor, but the idea is that cold - warm water is distributed to the northern hemisphere, in the Atlantic Ocean, by a system that would be shut down if you decrease the salinity or the temperature of the northern ocean. By - this has happened in the past, whether this conveyor is running or not, is one of the main determinants as to whether or not we're having an Ice Age. So this is the premise of that famous movie The Day After Tomorrow - is that it? The one where the Atlantic Conveyor got shut down, and the Royal Family was instantly frozen in their helicopters, and - it wouldn't work quite that way, but that's the idea. So what about - what about sea-level rise? How high up can the ocean go? Like if the current - current configuration of the geology of the continents - if you melted all of the ice in the glaciers - I'm not saying that's happening, but if you melted all the - how much, how high could the ocean go?
John Abraham: If you melted both Greenland and Antarctica? Which mean [?] 293 feet.
Greg Laden: From the present.
John Abraham: That's right.
Greg Laden: That hasn't happened in - ah -
John Abraham: I mean -
Greg Laden: - in about, in the last five million years, there's been glaciers in both areas continuously, so I'm not suggesting that's going to happen.
John Abraham: But we are seeing sea levels rise. They're rising faster than people had originally predicted. What scientists are looking closely at is, are two areas. One is Greenland, and the other is the western part of Antarctica. The western part of Antarctica is a very unstable ice sheet, and it is subject to catastrophic collapses. In fact, we've seen parts of it collapse, the Larsen-B shelf and the Ross ice shelf have collapsed. And they collapsed very, very fast when the conditions were right, and those conditions becoming more and more prevalent. In Greenland we're seeing ice being lost from the periphery faster than anticipated. So, the - if you were to ask me where will sea level be by the end of this century, I'd say it's four feet above where it is today.
Greg Laden: Which is enough to do - to be pretty tricky for places like - when you raise the sea level a foot or two, you move it laterally, sometimes by thousands of feet.
John Abraham: That's right, and many people live just a few feet above sea level. And, you know, we had trouble dealing with a few hundred thousand refugees from New Orleans, and we're the richest nation in the country [sic] - what happens when you're Bangladesh and you've got one to two hundred million people, and -
Kevin Zelnio: Well, they're already seeing those effects in Bangladesh, as well. I'd like to just expand on that, and propose that it's not just the melting of glaciers that's important. What happens when you heat stuff up? On a chemical level? It expands. So what we're seeing in the ocean, that's probably - wasn't as predicted as just the influx of more water, is that the ocean itself is expanding, getting bigger, because it's carrying so much more heat. And when you have more heat, the water molecules dance a little bit more. And so they end up expanding more. So we're seeing what we call "thermal expansion". And there's a lot of water on top of an area of the ocean called a thermocline, which is the barrier, more or less, between cold water and warm water on the surface, that's being heated at the surface. And so we're seeing that the water - actually the warmer the water gets, the more it expands, on top of what is already being added into from glacier melt.
Greg Laden: So how high has the ocean risen in the last century?
John Abraham: Uh, that's a good -
Kevin Zelnio: I have -
John Abraham: Yeah, I don't know if either of us have the data with us, but I'd say it's - I'd guess - this is just a guess - a few inches.
Greg Laden: Yeah, I've studied sea-level change over the Holocene, quite a bit. And I can tell you that it's really, really hard to measure. Unless you go out and say "We're now going to measure how high the ocean is", and put up some satellites. Which then you can use... It's very hard to measure in the past, at that scale.
John Abraham: It is. Because a lot of what's been done in the past is sea gauges have been used, tide gauges. The problem is the land is not constant, the land is going up and down as it expands, so it's a very complicated project - process.
Greg Laden: When the ocean goes up, the land adjoining the ocean actually goes down. Because the ocean weighs something. And actually pushes the land down, makes it a lot more so.
Mike Haubrich: Please stay with us through the break and we'll return to Atheists Talk with our guests John Abraham, Kevin Zelnio, Greg Laden - I am Mike Haubrich, and you're listening to AM 950 KTNF, the Progressive Voice of Minnesota.
[Break.]
Mike Haubrich: Global warming scepticism is not true scepticism. Because, like creationism, the process is not to get to the truth but to use propaganda, to use it to obscure scientific facts. The denialists are casting doubt on the process of science itself. Welcome back to Atheists Talk on AM 950 KTNF the Voice of Minnesota. I'm your host Mike Haubrich, and if you have a question or a comment, please call us at 952 946 6205 or email to radio@mnatheists.org. Scientists, kind of, seem to be hard on themselves for not being effective enough communicators, and I don't really agree, I think that's a matter of really getting the communications out to where people really hear it in opposition to the denialists. And so I wanted to have this show today, to have Greg and John and Kevin on here, just as a way of getting more of the good communicators out there, so you know who they are. And I really want to thank you guys for being on this show.
John Abraham: It's a pleasure.
Greg Laden: I think, in a minute, I think we should definitely shift gears and talk about the denialism itself, just to have that one last, final conversation before moving on. But first, what's - can we get an update on the - from both of you - on the Arctic Ocean? John, didn't you just get some data e-mailed to you, like a few seconds ago, about this?
John Abraham: Well, I'm a real nerd, I've got the National Snow and Ice Data Center's ice data on my shortcuts or bookmarks recorded on my iPhone, and I check it periodically, and you can actually watch - you can go to their website, it's NSIDC - just search that and you'll get to the website - and you can follow the ice extent in the Arctic today. And you can compare it with past years. And there's a clear, clear and continuous decrease in Arctic ice. In fact, it's so severe that the director of NSIDC, Mark Serreze, said, quote, "Arctic ice is in a death spiral." Now for a scientist to use a phrase like "death spiral", especially reserved scientists, you know it's pretty serious. So, scientists are extremely concerned about how fast the ice has been lost in the Arctic. And one of the reasons is as long as ice is there, it reflects a lot of the Sun. But as the ice melts, open water is left and when the sunlight hits open water it's absorbed. So we call this a "vicious cycle." You have some heating which melts ice, and that melting of ice allows more heating, which allows more ice melt. So scientists are very concerned about vicious cycles like this, as they exist in the natural system.
Mike Haubrich: It sounds like the vicious cycle of the Arctic heating up, though, might help to shut down the vicious cycle of the Atlantic Conveyor reversal, so that might be...
John Abraham: Well, yeah, but if it does... This is one of the reasons why we use the phrase "climate change", not "global warming". Because not everything is just warming. For example, ocean acidification isn't warming. Becoming warmer - sorry, becoming wetter or drier is not warming, it's climate change. One of the strange things that could happen, is if the ocean currents in the northern Atlantic change, you actually could get a cooling of Europe. So Europe could, surprisingly enough, get colder if we continue on the path we're on. Now -
Kevin Zelnio: That's a good point, and part of that has, because there's a misconception that the Gulf Stream is bringing all this warm water to Europe, when it's actually the air currents, not the water currents. The Gulf Stream is warm, so that warms up the air a bit, and that brings a lot of warm air. Now if the Gulf Stream shuts down, or decreases in extent of latitude to where it is now, that warm air is not being brought to Europe.
Greg Laden: This all sounds very alarming, to me. And I noticed that global warming - or climate change - denialists call us "alarmists". And I think that I'm an alarmist. I think that I'm alarmed. It's - Kevin, do you have, in your efforts to refine the process of communication of this, you know, what are we - ah, we call them "denialists", they call us "alarmists". Both of those seem to be pretty accurate labels.
Kevin Zelnio: Actually, I prefer calling them "contrarians", because the data's very clear. It's not necessarily that - they call themselves "sceptics", but we're all sceptics, that's part of the scientific process. Every scientist is a sceptic. But really they're contrarians, they don't believe the data that's being brought in every day, that's being published in our peer-reviewed journals every day... Just about every day, anyway. So, really I call them contrarians because they're going against the flow for the sake - in my opinion - the pure sake of going against the flow. Because part of the problem is we've defined climate change as a liberal issue. And this is, of course, arguable, but when we've done that, we've done it with conservation as well, we've made these all, sort of, liberal ideals, and held them up to liberal standards. So by default then, the conservative viewpoint is opposed. And - so I think that's part of the problem right there, is that we've branded these issues as liberal issues.
John Abraham: Which does a disservice to conservatives. I mean, there are many conservatives who are concerned about this problem. I have a friend who's a professor at BYU, Brigham Young University, and he and I were talking. He said "Look, John. I don't like cap and trade. I wish there was a better solution, but my side doesn't have a solution on the table, so I have to go with cap and trade." The Vatican has come out very strongly on the importance of taking action, very quickly, on climate change. The Pentagon sent generals to testify to the U.S. Congress in November. So you have many, many people of different vantage points that are coming together, realising this is a problem. Hunters and fisher persons, you've got farmers, you've got some people of faith, they're motivated by religious convictions, you've got people in the military, you've got people in industry. You've got - the insurance industry is taking a very strong stand on this. But I want to get to that issue of messaging. You know, it seems like this is all doom and gloom and there's nothing we can do about it, but there are a few central issues we need to know. First, we know we have a problem. There's clear evidence, there's no doubt about that, but guess what? We can solve the problem with today's technology. We have the technology to handle this, right now. And, if we're smart, our solutions are going to create jobs, we all need jobs, it's going to improve national security, it's going to diversify our energy portfolio. What's the sense to send our sons and daughters to fight in Iraq when we can create the energy here in the United States? Who can be against this?
Kevin Zelnio: That's a great point. And I think that's part of the messaging campaign that needs to be more pronounced. Especially among our leaders in Washington that do support science-based climate change research, so how do we move now, though, from being, as Greg is saying, alarmists, and go to methods of positive message, showing that - let's just do this, let's get it done.
John Abraham: Why, what you need to do, you need to point out that there are other benefits that you can realise from taking action. Economic benefits and national security benefits. And the people listening today can do something right now. You can - there's three important things to do. One - you can get involved in the legislative process. Call or write to your representative. Let them know how important this is, to you. Two - you can talk to your family and friends. Let your family and friends know that this is an issue that is going to affect their lives. And three - you can take local action. I just want to give a quick example of how you can take local action. I'm involved in a group called Cool Planet - and you can go to their website coolplanetmn.org - and they're working closely with another group called mn350.org. And they're taking action at the local level, to make - to solve this problem with local individuals. And what's interesting is if you go to the mn350.org website, you're going to see a link called Moving Planet. And that's a day of action that's going to occur on September 24th. And you can go, and you can click on this link, and you can find out how you can participate in local action. And it's not just in Minnesota but it's going to be around the world. So you can take local action to help solve this problem.
Mike Haubrich: All right, I do have two quick email questions, both from August [?] and you can combine the answers, both of you, if you like. Could you list one or two simple things that we could point to, to demonstrate global warming to disbelievers? And are the fossil fuel industries behind a lot of the global warming denialism?
Kevin Zelnio: The second question - behind global warming denialism - it's bigger than the fossil fuel industries, in my opinion. There's a lot of people - there's a lot at stake for certain various industries, for climate change, insurance industry, fossil fuel industry, and, as I mentioned, any sort of conservative lobby, as well. So, it's much bigger than the foss- I think it's a little too conspiratorial just to say the fossil fuel industry is behind all this. It certainly has a part.
John Abraham: And I would agree with that answer. So I'll take that first question, which is really tough. The question was: what is a simple message we can give to prove or to demonstrate that humans are causing global warming. Amongst scientists, there are many different pieces of evidence, it's certainly like a crime scene. Scientists - it's like you watch C.S.I. and you see a video camera of someone walking down a hallway, and they've got some lock-picking tools in their hand. And an apartment door's been broken up - into - and something's been stolen, and the merchandise is found in someone's apartment - the perpetrator's apartment. And you put all those pieces of evidence - pretty clear what the story is. Now the perpetrator may say "Well, you didn't see me do it. You didn't see me actually grab the jewellery out of the jewellery case." But that's not the standard of evidence that we use, when we make daily decisions, so it's very hard for me to point to one piece of evidence that can satisfy this request but - I'll try. Here's the evidence. It's getting hotter.
Mike Haubrich: I think that's pretty good. And that's another area that ties into the idea of creationism, where creationists say "Well, you weren't there 50,000 years ago, when man learned how to, you know, build fire, to make food, increase brain size [?], whatever happened." But we can look at the changes, historically, and put the pieces together to demonstrate it.
Greg Laden: It's interesting - you mention that all experiments - and people say you have to do modern experiments in the lab for it to be real science. There is no real scientific data from the past. All experiments are in the past. Every single one of them has been done in the past. There's no direct evidence of anything. The thermometer that you put on your wall, with a liquid in it, does not measure temperature. The little scale on the side measures how much some liquid expanded. And we have science that tells us it expands in relation to temperature. And there's things that are other factors, like the barometric pressure will actually cause temperature indicator to change slightly. But we've worked that out with our technology and our science, so we don't include it in our consideration. Everything is indirect and everything's in the past.
John Abraham: And it's funny how much trust we put into science, in some areas like our car or our cellphone, or a stent put into our heart to open up a blocked artery. But something is strange with this science, that somehow - look, 97% of the world's best climate scientists agree we have a problem. Now let's say you go to a doctor and you've got a tumour and they do a biopsy. And 97 doctors say you've got cancer. Two say "We don't know, let's wait and see." And one says "Go home and play with your kids." Now what would you do? You'd go with the strong consensus. I mean, there's - it is incredible how we dismiss climate science, where we don't dismiss other sciences.
Kevin Zelnio: The frustrating part for me is - um, about that - is you look back in time, in the last 50 to 70 years, the Republican Party has been a very strong party for science. So that tells you something. You know, they had - they - the example I like to give is that President Bush is the best President that ever happened, for marine conservation. Because he set aside so - more ocean for protection than anyone else. Granted, it was all in areas that there wasn't oil, or anything like that [laughter] but still he did it, right?
Greg Laden: Right.
Kevin Zelnio: Theo Roosevelt was a conservative, essentially, and he started the whole National Parks system -
Mike Haubrich: Well, please stay with us and we'll return to Atheists Talk with our guests John Abraham, Kevin Zelnio and Greg Laden - I am Mike Haubrich, and you're listening to AM 950 KTNF, the Progressive Voice of Minnesota.
[Break.]
Mike Haubrich: Thank you for tuning into 950 KTNF, the Progressive Voice of Minnesota. I am Mike Haubrich. Before we go back to Greg Laden, Kevin Zelnio and John Abraham, I wish to thank our sponsors Q. Cumbers restaurant at 7465 France Avenue South in Edina, and the Humanists of Minnesota. We surely appreciate your support and the support of all our contributors, no matter how much you give. Our music is composed by member Brent Michael Davids. If you have an interesting story to tell about your experience with atheism, you're invited to submit essays for inclusion in a book to be published soon, as a fundraiser for the Minnesota Atheists. We have an article that explains the project, on our website, mnatheists.org. We're also seeking volunteers to help edit, proof-read and put the book together. Finally, I surely appreciate the popular support for this show. In a recent fundraiser, we had some amazing people send us money to help the Minnesota Atheists to continue to provide the radio show for our listeners. It was up to almost $4000 - so thank you very much. And now, I wanted to go back to Kevin Zelnio, Greg Laden and John Abraham, but one of the things that led me to bring John onto this show was that there was a presentation that denialist Chris Monckton had made, here in the Twin Cities, about a year and a half ago, or so. And then John made a presentation to correct some of the errors, or some of the misinformation that Monckton had brought out - can you talk a little bit about that, John?
John Abraham: Yes, sure, it was a pretty interesting seg- part of my life last year. As you mentioned, a guy named Christopher Monckton, who is from the UK, gave a talk at a university in Minnesota, and in that talk - he's a great speaker, he's got a British accent so he sounds smart, he's got some self-deprecating humour - but he presented a lot of data that didn't agree with my understanding of climate change. So I did some investigation, and the things you want to know about Chris Monckton is his science is really bad, and his padded resume is really bad. What I did is I read the articles he cited, and I thought to myself: well, they don't quite say what he says they said. So then I did something crazy, I wrote to the authors, and 16 out of 16 that I wrote to all agreed that Chris Monckton either did not understand their work or misrepresented it. And I published it, and it's online, and you can look up, you know, "John Abraham" and "climate change" and you'll be led to a presentation on the university's website. Or you can go to my university, which is the University of St. Thomas, and you can find me, it's very easy to find. So Chris Monckton is pretty well-known, though, because he is - he is a - one of these climate deniers who goes around the world giving talks, and he's now in Australia and New Zealand giving talks, but he's interesting because he not only doesn't understand the science but he doesn't understand his own resume. For example, he has claimed to be a Nobel Laureate. And he's not a Nobel Laureate. In fact, he's trying to say that he was just joking, but if you go to his biography, on his website, it claims he's a Nobel Laureate. He claims he's a member of the House of Lords, but recently the House of Lords has published an open letter saying he has to stop calling himself a House of Lords [sic]. He's used the symbol of what's called the portcullis - it's a symbol of Parliament - they've told him to stop using that symbol. And then, finally, he's said he has published a peer-reviewed paper. He published an opinion piece paper in a - in a website called APS American Physical Society, I think it was - and they have a disclaimer above his paper saying this was not peer-reviewed. So, now, just because he pads his resume, or he doesn't understand his own experience, that doesn't mean that he's necessarily wrong on climate change. But the fact that the scientists he cites don't agree with him, that's pretty damaging.
Greg Laden: So, this has got to be a fake, right? I mean, this guy is obviously one of us, and he's out there making the science denialists look bad, because he's so extreme.
John Abraham: Well, I mean he - he is a one-man wrecking crew for credibility of the denialists. And if he wants to put himself up as their chief spokesman, that's great, because he is - he's about the worst chief spokesman that you can have. So, I mean, my feeling is: let him keep talking, because he just makes it easier for us to point out the incredulity [sic], the incredulity of the other side. It is - it's a bit comedic, and maybe in a few years we'll discover he was making this all up, but I don't so - it's the case. By the way, I think the BBC did a movie about him called Meet the Climate Sceptics, and if you can get a copy of that movie, it's a great watch.
[Several people talk at once.]
Kevin Zelnio: - interesting. I'm sorry -
Greg Laden: No, go ahead, Kevin.
Kevin Zelnio: That was an interesting background, John, and makes me wonder - you say he's a - you hope that he's a spokesman for the climate denialist community. But who is he reaching? We have to understand that, you know. What members of the public is he -
John Abraham: Well, good question. He spoke as an expert to our Congress twice. Now he's not a scientist, he's never published anything, he's a - he's got a degree in Classics, or something. So he speaks really good Latin, but not very good science. He was invited twice to our Congress, and then he deals with testimony to set up legislation. What's interesting is his last appearance in Congress was May 2010, and I, along with 25 other climate scientists, broke his testimony into nine key assertions, and we wrote a detailed rebuttal, and I'd be happy to send that rebuttal to anyone. But it was devastating, I mean - these scientists used words like "Chris Monckton is full of chemical nonsense". I mean, these scientists were at a loss for words to describe how bad his testimony is. And I should mention, if people want to contact me, to get more information, either on Chris Monckton or any denialist arguments, you can feel free to do that, just go to University of St. Thomas and look me up, or just look up "John Abraham", "climate change" and you'll find me. Now there's a really good-looking John Abraham who's an Indian actor, and you'll find topless pictures of him all over the website. That's not me - I wish it was, I wish I had that kind of body, but that's not me.
Mike Haubrich: But you've got nice glasses, John.
John Abraham: Thanks.
Greg Laden: So, in the last - we've got a couple of minutes left. What should people be doing? I want to hear more about that, we talked before about activism, and one thing I'm concerned about, is I've come, in the last few years, to realise that raising awareness is almost never a good idea, if that's your only plan. 'Cause all raising awareness does is gets people used to the fact that there's a problem, and they forget about it. There has to be some kind of actual bite to things you do. Should people be focussing on the next Congressional election, for example, in the U.S.?
Mike Haubrich: We don't have a minute.
[Several people talk at once.]
Greg Laden: - yes or no?
John Abraham: I'll just use three quick things. One - get involved in the legislative process. Two - talk to your family and friends. And three - just know that the solutions are available now, and we can take action to implement them right now, with today's technology.
Greg Laden: Kevin?
Kevin Zelnio: And just to finalise on that, the one thing that needs to happen by scientists is to get out there and talk. Talk your ears off. Talk as much as you can about - your jobs and your funding depend on the public's opinion of your research. So get out there and talk, bust your butt and make the call to Congress, get out there and increase the public awareness of what you do, and how important it is to society.
Greg Laden: And blog, and tweet and use Google Plus, and Facebook and everything you possibly can to get -
Kevin Zelnio: Anything.
Greg Laden: Yeah.
Kevin Zelnio: Just get out there.
John Abraham: And remember Moving Planet, and national date of action September 24th.
Mike Haubrich: All right, thank you very much. And thank you, Greg, for running this little circus we have here. I would like to thank our audience for tuning into Atheists Talk. This is Mike Haubrich, your host. Join us again next Sunday, when I'll be talking to CJ Werleman, about his book Koran Curious. Stay tuned on AM 950 for the Twin Cities Real Estate Show coming up next. I'm happy to be on the air with the Minnesota Atheists, and hope that you appreciate the show. This show depends on the generous support of our members, our sponsors and donors. Please consider supporting this show through the donation link at mnatheists.org. This has been Atheists Talk on AM 950 KTNF, the Voice of Minnesota. The podcast for this show will be on our radio page later today. Have a nice Sunday.