Dear Munisha, point duly taken! The A stands for Anthropogenic…. (Just for the record, I don’t doubt some global wamrming is happening, but I continue to blame the sun and its erratic solar flares for most of it. Plus, as vegetarians we are all massively on the side of limiting our own personal CO2 emissions anyway…. How many climate activists bend my ear and beat my metaphorical back with their beliefs, only to skiddadle for a quick burger or three! Ha! The wicked world eh? Kind regards. James.

They (we) are not speaking out because they (we) are afraid to, Munisha - simple as that, I’m afraid. The opprobrium is just not worth it. To disagree with a belief that has acquired a vehemence and almost totalitarian self-righteousness is to marginalise oneself in a very unpleasant way these days. The Left can be very vicious. I’m not of course saying Triratna members suffer from this vice. But I’ll bet you the vast majority of them are nominally Leftist and thus prone to antipathy  - albeit uncosnciously - towards AGW sceptics. It’s a bit of a watershed issue really. People - even Triratna members - divide over it. (Bit like Subhuti’s restatement of Bhante’s observations about the sexes’ spiritual aptitiudes in MWA!) I am apolotical myself - and believe Triratna should be too. Both left and right sicken me. As a good buddhist (ha!) I seek to assess every issue on its own merits. But I am in a minority. And that minority just keeps quiet over AGW. After all, there are larger concerns, to wit, one’s daily (dogged) attempts to prove oneself even halfways worthy of pursuing and practising Buddhist ideals of beauty and truth. KR again. James.

I’m very pleased to read James’ comments. Unfortunately the majority of people seem to have accepted the prevalent climate change rhetoric at face value, and this seems to include many - I suspect most - people involved with the Triratna Buddhist Community. I noticed that in one of the photos of the demonstrations shown in the Triratna News page, someone was holding up a banner with the words Actions Have Consequences. Yes they do, and this also goes for the actions of those who pressurise governments to take action against global warming. These actions are having consequences - governments all over the world are now taking action - and those actions will have consequences. Positive consequences if global warming really is a fact, and if it really has been caused by human action, but negative consequences if those claims are untrue. Climate change activists - do you really know what you’re doing? Have you done your research properly? Or are you merely acting on belief?

Yes, more than one critic of AGW acitvism has observed that it displays many of the characteristics of an evangelical religion: a group of people with a strong common cause - that cause being saving the world - a highly moralistic attitude, a fanaticism and closed-mindedness expressed in an unwillingness to listen to another viewpoint, and an often angry response to those who do dare to criticise their views, including the ascribing of dubious motives to them.

In my previous post I suggested that the policies that governments have instituted as a result of the very strong AGW lobby have negative consequences. To be more specific, they will cause an awful lot of suffering. Perhaps that’s acceptable if the earth really is warming, and if these policies really do prevent that warming, but if not, then that suffering is unnecessary, and unacceptable. Therefore it’s very important that those people involved in Triratna Climate Change activism do their research before acting. To read more about the negative consequences of climate change policies I recommend a paper called Unintended Consequences of Climate Change Policy by Andrew Montford: http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2015/01/Unintended-Consequences.pdf

Dear Candradasa,

Many thanks for these clarificatory notes: they offer much support to the notion that this subject can - and should - be debated without animus or disguised self-interest.
I disagree fundamentally with you about the skeptic’s position and his/her need to present an equivalence of verifible evidence to counter the AGW viewpoint. I think the weight of empirical responsibility lies firmly on the side of those who are trying to prove something exists. They have to show incontrovertibly that such and such a thing is the case. If they have not done so - and they have not: nb, warming has currently ceased, as even AGW believers admit; moreover Antarctic sea ice is at record levels, a fact again not disputed by AGW believers - then we are entitled to reject the theory as not having been empirically verified. This may change. But until it does, those who reject the general theory of AGW have the right to be treated to basic civility within respectful dialogue. But they’re not. I’m repeating myself I know, but the fact remains that the ridicule, obloquy and downright abuse to which skeptics are subjected reveals the quasi-religious nature of their opponents’ belief. It has become a literal blasphemy to deny AGW - punishable with social and, in some case, professional ostracism. Anything those with a Buddhist inclination for objectivity and fairness can do to subvert this kind of intellectual tyranny has to be a good thing. 

Indeed, I totally agree (!)  In one sense it seems to me that the whole debate is inherently fragile. The science varies so much (according to the parameters and criteria adopted by each side) that you can prove either argument using different data. In this context I could point you, Candradesa, towards a series of dissenting links and voices in the scientific community, but this would be boring for you. One thing I would ask you: given that one is not a statistician or scientist oneself (personally, I’m a poet, so couldn’t qualify less!), how can one test the truth of a claim whose ‘facts’ are inherently unobservable? If, for example, I am not personally experiencing AGW, why should I believe someone else who tells me I am? Moreover, it seems subtly dishonest to me to claim that I know objectively for sure global warming is manmade, if I have no scientific knowledge or acumen myself. And if I do not indeed possess the latter, to whom do I hand over responsibility for my position on the matter? And why? On what grounds? You see what I mean? It becomes a matter of trust, of abdicating responsibility for one’s own conclusions; becomes, in fact, a matter of ‘faith’. Yes, one can cite the phrase ‘scientific consensus’, but this seems to me no more than a ‘big brother’ authorisation taylored to suit the leftist narrative of our age. After all, the other side of the argument - there on the net if one wants to read it - is simply never broadcast on the MSM. Why not? Because it doesn’t suit the temperament of our unconsciously guilty age, which senses its own hollowness and materialistic cruelty and desperately wants to be able to point a finger, to cast blame, and thus justify a sense of conscience. Human nature has always been like this (in the West). To a large extent the ‘end of the world’ has always been ‘nigh!’ All this is understandable - but science it ain’t.  Bottom line (and I promise this is!) I feel that in the absence of any personal provable experience of the problem the most honest attitude is one of skepticism, of innocent until proven guilty. “The judgement of the future will now preside…”  

Dear Rantnaguna,

Thanks for that post. I must get myself that book for Buddhmas.

Kind regards,

James.

Hi Ratnaguna,

Thanks for this. To be clear, I wasn’t presenting NASA’s pages (in my exchange with James) as an example of “proof” - but as a model of how to present information on either side of the debate that is evidentially supported and independently verifiable, even by a lay person. I’ll look out for - and research - the book you recommend. Sounds interesting…

That said, I disagree with a couple of your assertions about NASA - and about the scientific method itself. 

Science is concerned with observable data. All the scientists in the world can be proved wrong by one piece of evidence, as has happened many times in history. … 

I think if the NASA Climate Change website were purely scientific, it would mention some of the science that contradicts AGW. Instead it dismisses it. Why? 

It’s true that science is concerned with observable data. And on that basis throughout history scientists have come to clear conclusions about given propositions (eg. “the earth is warming”, “human activity has some bearing on rising temperature”) and then presented those conclusions, having first looked at and weighed up all the evidence available through peer-reviewed, experimental research. A good scientist holds to such conclusions provisionally still (after all, further evidence may emerge that enhances existing understanding or even contradicts it) but they also are prepared to publicly stand by their conclusions while these represent the best set of understandings available.

That’s how I read what NASA is doing. It’s not pretending to be the definitive word on climate change. It’s saying in a public, non-scientific forum that is informed by a substantial body of research, “As a group of scientists this is our fully-researched set of evidence/experiment-based conclusions about climate change and the human factor in it. We’ve considered the peer-reviewed evidence for and against and this is what we think and are prepared to set out publicly for scrutiny. Here are our sources if you wish to review them.” I think to assert that NASA scientists are supposed (for objectivity’s sake) to set out both sets of evidence on their website - even when (as is presumably the case here) they consider the evidence against climate change to be flawed - is to risk misrepresenting the scientific method.

I suppose at this point one then has to make a judgment call about the reliability of a science-based governmental organisation like NASA in terms of what you refer to as politicisation. And about the integrity of the scientists working there with respect to empirical research and the conclusions reached. Perhaps I misunderstood, but you seem, in your argument, to elide very quickly into the suggestion that NASA’s site is an example of poiliticised climate-change argument. I suppose it might be the case that NASA’s conclusions are “highly politicised” in the way you describe. But where is the evidence of this? And what reason might NASA scientists have for continuing to propagate en masse scientifc conclusions which they, in that light, presumably know to be unsafe?

As it happens, NASA’s view of climate change has not long been aligned with the political consensus in the U.S. And as a scientific body rooted in proper application of the scientific method I’d contrast them favourably with the Global Warming Policy Foundation (sponsors of the paper you linked to earlier in the thread), which was explicitly set up to challenge the idea that climate change was happening and had a human-caused aspect to it. You’ll be aware that the UK Charities Commission ruled on this matter in 2014, noting that as an educational charity GWPF had breached impartiality rules. It also continues to refuse to disclose its sources of funding.

To be fair, the nature of the organisation doesn’t necessarily discount the vaildity of its papers - and I have seen mixed positive and negative responses to the work of Andrew Montford in making sure that scientists stay honest to the methods they are taught regarding experiment and conclusion, thereby avoiding the pitfalls you are properly concerned about. But to dismiss NASA’s public statements on climate change as simply a “biased website” is, I’d suggest, unwarranted…

Dear Ratnaguna,

Thanks for these obervations - definitive, in my view, of the state of the AGW debate (or public lack thereof!)

Can I add how refreshing it has been to exchange views on this subject without facing rabid opponents frothing at the mouth with indignation at the very idea of another side to the argument. 

I would close my own contribution by observing that where ‘views’ are concerned, one ought perhaps never to think one is behaving entirely objectively by holding to them, since one is very often attracted to a ‘truth’ by the hidden emotional appeal it exerts on one’s temperament. I’m with Nietzsche in this connection (he’ll be glad to hear), when he says that all truths attract believers appropriate to the quality of knowledge and the cause they promote. In accordance with this dictum, Nietzsche also believes that higher truths attract higher natures. This is not a species of spiritual snobbery since wisdom is, of course, indifferent to social class, but simply an observation that higher truths attract precisely those natures fascinated by the challenge (and beauty) they present. Conversely, it has been my experience to witness far too many zealots (present company excepted!) amongst the AGW cause, folk who like their moral causes in simple black and white so that they can then use that bit of the moral spectrum as a weapon with which to beat others about the head and shoulders.

It’s also perhaps no coincidence that one can usually predict the list of moral causes to which AGW types affiliate themselves: they will be predominantly leftist, pro-abortion, anti-capitalist, feminist, pro-palestinian, anti-Israel, anti-American, etc, etc.

Now I am no great right-wing lover of our status quo - I detest what the bankstas’ greed has done and is doing to the Body Politic in the West (and throughout the world), but something in me baulks when I see so many mediocre souls manifesting on one side of an argument (there seems no other way of putting this harsh assessment). No doubt in this I am displaying my own prejudice, but perhaps it contains a grain of truth… I leave others to judge.  

Anyway, great good wishes to you both for the seaon and for a fruitful New Year. James.

PS (Incidentally I have written a play about Nietzsche, called ‘To Hell in a Handcart  - [a summer in the life of Frierich Nietzsche]’, which you might both enjoy (as Subhuti was kind enough to confess to having done so recently - shamless plug which I am sure he will forgive… - or perhaps not!) It’s available on Amazon, published by Heretics Press, but I’d be pleased to send you each a free paperback copy if you’d like. Let me know. 

Many climate scientists agree that sunspots and solar wind could be playing a role in climate change, but the vast majority view it as very minimal and attribute Earth’s warming primarily to emissions from industrial activity—and they have thousands of peer-reviewed studies available to back up that claim.

Vested interests tell us not to do anything about the crass materialism that fires climate change, reassuring us that it is not our fault.  Just carry on breeding and buying.