This is a copy of a letter to the editor that I sent to Australia’s weekly Medical Observer mag in response to a letter they published denying the existence of climate change. As far as I know the letter wasn’t published (please let me know if it was), so I publish it here for your information…..
EDITOR: It was with fascination and increasing disbelief that I read the letter by Dr XXXXX XXXXXX titled “Climate change action misguided” (Medical Observer 7 August 2009).
I was fascinated that a highly-trained medical professional could dismiss the mass of rapidly accumulating, peer-reviewed data about the effects of anthropogenic climate change so easily. I was in disbelief that a publication like yours, with an obvious focus on climate change mitigation, could publish such a letter without investigating its claims.
Denying climate change is incredibly dangerous for our planet and society
The letter’s main claim is that there is a seemingly large group of experts (the so-called ‘Oregon Petition’) that have signed a document expressing their “disbelief” in the idea of catastrophic human-induced climate change. Based on current evidence, that is clearly not so.
The petition has been widely criticised, by organisations including the US National Academies of Science, and publications such as Scientific American. There are several reasons for this:
Only 2100 (of a claimed total of over 31,000) petition-signers identified themselves as climatologists, physicists or geophysiscists. Scientific American estimates that of those, there are only around 200 actual climate scientists.
The other signees required a science-related degree to be eligible to sign the petition. Sign-up was initially conducted by a mass mailing, and later one could also opt-in via the internet. Both methods appear to have been unregulated, and there has never been independent verification of signee names, academic affiliations or qualifications – in fact in more than one instance a fake name (such as ex-Spice Girl Gerri Halliwell) has been used.
The initial mail-out included a pseudo-scientific paper formatted to appear as though it had been published in a peer-reviewed journal by the US National Academy Of Science. In fact the paper had not been (and apparently has never been) subjected to peer-review or published. The mailing of the paper prompted the Academy Of Science to strongly denounce the paper, stating that:
Another point raised by Dr Allen is that mean global temperature has dropped over the last decade. Figure 1 shows that it is the global trend over decades that shows strong warming: not every year will be warmer than the last, but over time there will be a clustering of hotter years (as happened in the last 15 years). Note also that warming began relatively soon after coal started to be burned in large amounts during the Industrial Revolution.
Global temperatures have been increasing since the Industrial Revolution started pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.
Climate change deniers often emphasise events that have not appeared as modeled as evidence that climate change is not occurring – this is akin to denying the diagnosis of Raynaud’s phenomenon if only nine fingers are affected, and the tenth is not.
In the same class of faulty logic is pointing to somewhere on the globe that is not melting, warming or drying as evidence that global warming is not occurring. It is easy (but invalid) to do this because the effects of climate change are heterogenous, much like many other biological and pathological processes – for instance, evidence shows that the Northern Hemisphere is warming faster than the Southern; that the poles are showing more effects than the tropics, and that land-masses are warming faster than the oceans.
Additionally, climate change has progressed to the point where there is adequate evidence from the physical world of its effects – unfortunately we no longer need to rely on climate models to determine its existence. Consider the following evidence, published in peer-reviewed journals since the last IPCC Assessment (2007):
Finally, I would like to appeal to medical professionals to make up their own minds on climate change, based on the best available science rather than propaganda from various self-serving lobby groups. There is ample evidence on government websites (www.epa.gov and www.climatechange.gov.au) and respected scientific publications (for example www.newscientist.com). Information about the Oregon Petition can be found at wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition) and Source Watch*.
While debate about any issue is healthy and welcomed as a way of finding consensus and generating new ideas, I suggest that denying the existence and effects of climate change at this point in time exposes humanity to even more danger and cost from its largely negative health and economic effects (McMichael et al 2006) as it delays the formulation and implementation of effective mitigation and adaptation strategies.
McMichael AJ, Woodruff RE and Hales S. Climate change and human health: present and future risks. Lancet 2006; 367: 859-869.
