I'm just going to post this here, so I can link to it easily in conversations.
For 7-8 years now, every time new dire information about the catastrophic state of the world's climate comes out in the general media, I post essentially the SAME question.
Referencing the following data from the EPA:*
That we are in a warming period, there is no doubt.
However, about every 100-120k years for nearly the last million years, there has been an almost-identical spike in temperature. And they sort of seem to be increasing in amplitude.
The question for those proposing an anthropogenic (human-created) source for the warming is this:
"What makes THIS temperature spike unique compared to the repeated examples in the record?"
This question remains unanswered to this day.
Because if this current spike is unique, you're actually making TWO assertions:
- the previous cyclic behavior has stopped (why? how?)
- a novel element (human activity) has replaced it coincidentally both to the exact same degreeand at the right time chronologically.
Some have tried to argue it away, but their response has been essentially "We should have already been declining, but human activity has prevented it." This is specious on multiple levels:
1) the inherent sketchiness of drawing century-scale conclusions from annual data make it impossible to say that this is true. One can cherry-pick the years, the averaging spans, etc to draw almost ANY conclusion.
2) the record itself shows double-bump and extended warm eras far in excess of the span we've currently experienced.
3) the 'public argument' is that humans are CAUSING the warming. To misstate this is either naive or disingenuous. The headline "Humans making natural warming last longer" is far less histrionic, and likewise far less likely to make anyone care.
I'm not a scientist, but I believe I'm reasonably clear about the scientific method.
Extraordinary conclusions require extraordinary proof.
The
simplest explanation for the current warming spike is that it's more or less the same as what's happened several times before. It's entirely possible, in fact plausible, that 7 billion humans' industrial activities *have* had some impact, certainly. But the overall general effect? I remain unpersuaded that it's human-
caused.
*I used to always reference Wiki data below but that graph was both harder to explain given its changing scale (inflating the importance of recent data, which a cynic might view as
usefully misleading if one wanted to convince someone of Global Warming...) and more-easily doubted as it's from Wiki (regardless of how well-referenced and factually correct it is):
