Climate Change and the Rising Tide of Distrust in Climate Science

In this piece, I conclude that in the USA today there is widespread confusion about the difference between (a) the science of anthropogenic global warming and (b) debates about the kind of response that is necessary. Understanding this confusion, and its causes and consequences, is critically important if we are to understand why discussions about global warming rarely seem to generate agreement.

I have been following the topic of climate change (also sometimes referred to as global warming) for years, through both print and broadcast media and online.  I occasionally share interesting articles or ideas with my friends on Facebook, and sometimes those posts elicit lively discussion about whether global warming is actually occurring or whether the human contribution to global warming (known as anthropogenic global warming or AGW) is major, minor, or nonexistent.  Oftentimes, these conversations focus on the degree to which a consensus exists among scientists, the interrelationship between climate science and politics, or the things that individuals or the larger community can do to limit AGW or its likely effects.

Most of my Facebook friends pretty much agree with my overall "take" on these issues (on which, see here), but a few of them (and some family members) have very different views.  Generally, discussions among us remain cordial and focused on the topics at hand, although there have been times when discussion has turned into vigorous debate and even vociferous argument.  Eventually, most people with views different from the majority of my friends decide that there is little or nothing they can do to "win over" others to their point of view, and they usually stay out of future discussions on these topics.

I myself often feel at a loss as to how to prevent discussions from becoming arguments, especially when people take completely opposite positions on such fundamental questions as what counts as evidence or whether a particular line of argument follows the rules of logic. The teacher in me sometimes wishes to take the participants aside, sit them down in front of a chalkboard, and take them through some elementary exercises in logical analysis or the steps in the scientific method.  However, few (adult) people are willing to believe that they are in need of such instruction, and I've found that I'm very likely to be charged with arrogance, elitism, or worse if I insinuate that any person's point of view is illogical or unsupported. Even if I take pains to adopt a friendly, agreeable tone or point out aspects of another person's perspective that are correct, almost no one has been willing to say something like "Ah, I see your point," or "I hadn't considered that."  Typically, what happens is either complete agreement or some variation of agreeing to disagree followed by the withdrawal of one or both parties from further conversation about the topic.

I find it very interesting that climate change in particular is especially likely to lead to loggerheads in discussion. Certainly there are other topics upon which agreement seems difficult: religion comes especially to mind, or anything associated with religion such as evolution vs. creation (or what should be taught in schools) or whether gay marriage should be permitted. But climate change isn't a religious issue--at least not explicitly so (but see below).

However, the topic of climate change does seem to be infused with that other third rail of polite conversation: politics.  Perhaps this is one clue as to why people's opinions about it seem so deeply ingrained. Just as it's nearly impossible to convince a dyed-in-the-wool limited government person to accept that increasing government spending on anything other than defense is good for the economy (despite any evidence that it might be), it also seems nearly impossible to convince someone who doesn't believe that AGW is a factor in climate change to reconsider that position in light of a newly-released study or report.  It's almost as if the issue is determined not by the facts (or any argument supported by evidence of any kind) but by a fundamental choice made primarily on the basis of intuition, emotion, or personality.  "I don't believe in AGW" or "AGW is clearly occurring" are like statements of fundamental values or commitments like "give me liberty or give me death" or "non-violence is always better than the alternative." Just as American politics can be characterized as an increasingly intractable chasm between progressives and conservatives (or "blue" states and "red" states), climate change--something which on the face of it ought to be a scientific issue--at least in the US can be characterized by an increasingly insurmountable divide between those who fundamentally believe that humans cannot alter the future of the Earth and those who believe they we already have. 

Notice that belief in AGW has actually decreased among Americans since 2008, even as Gallup has found that Americans believe that they understand the issue increasingly well. Indeed, large numbers of Americans believe that global warming as a problem has been generally exaggerated.

Interestingly, this divide doesn't appear to be nearly as deep or as insurmountable in Europe, where 89% of adults believe climate change is at least a fairly serious problem.

This divide among Americans in their views of the human contribution to climate change is highly correlated with the increasingly intractable political chasm mentioned above.  Seventy-one percent (71%) of Democrats believe that the current "rise in the earth's temperatures [is] due to pollution from human activities" (i.e. they believe in AGW), while only thirty-six percent (36%) of Republicans believe this (source).  While one's political party is not completely determinative on this matter (as it seems to be, for example, in the case of support for increased government deficit spending to help the poor), beliefs about AGW reflect--at least in part--the same fundamentally important beliefs that lead someone to choose their political party.

Why is this?  While some people's political viewpoints are less easily characterized as conservative or liberal--for example, I have a gay Republican friend who strongly favors gay rights but also strongly wants to limit the size of government--it's fairly easy to understand why a conservative person might be against further deficit spending to help the poor, or why a liberal person might in favor of granting increased rights and social acceptance to homosexuals. However, it's not immediately obvious why belief in AGW would be determined (at least in part) by political beliefs.

Let me put this into perspective. In a quick search, I couldn't find any poll data showing that Republicans and Democrats differ on, say, the cause of cancer or the size of the universe.  If such differences do exist, no one has deemed them sufficiently interesting to study. I'm guessing that there is wide acceptance among Americans of all political persuasions that these questions are empirical questions, to be answered through the typical processes of scientific inquiry, including observation, experimentation, creating and testing theories, peer review of publications, meta-analyses, and so on. Few people would claim that a particular scientist's opinion about how smoking leads to lung cancer or the speed at which the universe is expanding reflects that scientist's political views at any level.  And while some people may distrust a particular scientific finding due to suspicion that a scientist or team has cooked the numbers to secure external funding or promotion, very few people think that science itself--or any particular branch of science--is irretrievably tainted by such factors.

But plenty of people believe that the science behind AGW is tainted by non-scientific factors.

Take this truly interesting example of people arguing that scientists who believe in AGW are tainted by non-scientific (i.e. political) concerns, recently published at the Weekly Standard. The authors (one of whom is a psychiatrist who teaches courses about conspiracy and groupthink at Harvard Extension School) base their argument in part on what they see as a shift in language from the phrase "global warming" to the phrase "climate change" during the past few years.

These recent winters have been cold, and the summers themselves not so hot. That, in turn, creates a problem, for no sense of impending apocalypse survives widespread disbelief. And so​—​right around the point where it all started to seem a little hard to swallow​—​the phrase climate change, more generic if less picturesque, began to slip into public pronouncements, supplanting the old, falsifiable term global warming.

"Climate change," the authors say, is unfalsifiable and therefore is a convenient catch-phrase for the pseudo-science behind AGW:

...the concept of falsifiability still grants some insight into the vagaries of modern environmentalism. In politics, the notion that climate change can’t be falsified​—​everything only serves to confirm it, nothing imaginable can contradict it​—​has been a marvelous boon. In science, the fact that climate change can’t be falsified seems to prove, mostly, that climate change isn’t science: There’s no way to test for it, no way to quantify it, and no way to demonstrate it.

Read that again: "climate change isn't science." Then what is it? The authors are clear:

The research enterprise in the modern world is a large-scale activity. Difficult questions are raised, and hypotheses are generated to move toward an answer. This requires hiring staff, recruiting experts and consultants, purchasing equipment, and putting all of it in a building, preferably on a university campus. Most of all, what’s needed for this kind of research is oceans of money. And where money is the driver, politics is the unavoidable road down which the scientist has to race. Grant-making authorities, whether in government, industries, or foundations, tend to have a preferred perspective on the process and outcome of research. These preferences are not lost on the applicant researchers.

And, according to the authors, the obvious "preference" of funding agencies in climate science is to believe that warming is occurring, that it is largely man-made, and that it's going to cause big problems.  The first two of these beliefs are captured in AGW; the third, which can be thought of as extreme AGW or "catastrophic AGW" is a somewhat different animal than AGW itself, but it's often conflated with AGW itself when it suits an author's purposes, as here:

As the grant-achieving scientists congealed their opinions around the hypothesis (and now doctrine) of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming​—​warmed, themselves, by their presumptive guardianship of truth and virtue​—​some have succumbed to the temptation to cut corners. Dissenting investigators have been marginalized, their research papers viewed with prejudice by academic journals. The principle of free availability of raw data has been ignored. Peer review has degenerated into pal review. Cases of data destruction and tampering have been documented.

I think it's fairly obvious how the addition of the word "catastrophic" changes the debate. The word implies that a person's views are not entirely based on empirical fact; that the person is showing an unscientific faith, or belief, in forecasts or prophecies of imminent doom; that the person intends not to illuminate a discussion with facts, but to induce panic.  The "catastrophic" version of AGW certainly serves these particular authors' purposes better than mere AGW:

Perhaps the greatest reason for any of us to feel skepticism about climate change, however, is the unchanging politics of those who employed it to advance their agendas. Are we wrong to suspect that most global warming activists are merely using global warming as the latest in a long series of tools with which to demand fundamental changes in Western civilization?

Think of it this way: The premise of catastrophe produces the conclusion that the political and economic underpinnings of Western civilization must be discarded. Governments must take control of economies. Capitalism must give way. All decisions must be made by our scientific and political elite, for only they can save us from doom.

Now, in a purely logical world, the rejection of the premise would mean that we don’t have to accept the conclusion. If A, then B and not A together produce nothing. But the people who’ve been lecturing us for more than a decade now about global warming and climate change didn’t start by holding A. They began by holding B​—​the conclusion, the proposition that Western civilization must change. And it is, literally, a nonfalsifiable proposition: If global warming and climate change help lead to it, then hurray for global warming and climate change. If not, well, then, they’ll find something else.

Well, look at that!  Without even trying very hard, we've found one reason that beliefs about AGW may be correlated so tightly with political beliefs. There are a couple of interesting points to be made: 

First, notice that somewhere in the article the authors shifted from talking about whether climate science is real science--which would actually demand that they discuss the science itself, an increasingly difficult task, as can be seen in any effort  to do so for the general public, as you can see here--to talking about the political agenda of "global warming activists ...who've been lecturing us for more than a decade."

Second, no longer is the debate about whether the earth is warming or whether individuals or society as a whole ought to do something about it. It's become, rather, about whether "the political and economic underpinnings of Western civilization must be discarded."  WHOA! ... What?!? Clearly this is no longer a scientific question (at least not as it's framed here). 

Third, there's no effort in the piece to show any collusion among actual climate scientists, funding agencies, journal review boards, and this alleged agenda. (Indeed, despite many people alleging bias in the field, there seems to be very little such evidence, as discussed by a science reporter for the BBC here.) Rather, the link is taken as obvious: "elites" who "lecture us" and want to "make all decisions" clearly (?) want the government (their government) to take over the economy and destroy (our) capitalism.

I think what this illustrates, quite concretely, is that when some people hear "global warming" or "climate change," what they actually hear are "cataclysm" and "government control." Even the bare notion that humans may be causing measurable changes in the earth's climate (i.e. that AGW is true) raises the fear that someone is about to take something very important away.

Let's look at another example of the claim that AGW is a political, rather than a scientific, conclusion.  In this piece, one Karl Schmidt painstakingly shows, with links and graphs and charts, that "the global warming crowd" relies primarily on "speculation" rather than "real science." Schmidt draws a distinction between what "can be measured" and what cannot. 

But do you know what I see in [the] data? (And I'm really good at looking at statistics) - Not much that is significant -- mostly some noise - noise that is much higher than any trend. You could pick selected start and end points to show either cooling or warming. There is obviously no hokey-stick.

(I'm thinking that "hokey-stick" is a pun.) The source for this graph is not given in Schmidt's piece, although I traced a broken link to http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2/readme.15Dec2006 by cutting off the ending, and found this later readme file, which is somewhat difficult to interpret, but I did find this sentence:

At this time we are merging AQUA into the time series while keeping
NOAA-15, with its slight, spurious warming, in the mix through the
present.  

I did a little investigation of this sentence (pasted it into Google and looked around a bit) and found the web site of Dr. Roy Spencer, and an article "On the Divergence Between the UAH and RSS Global Temperature Records," which contains the following:

Anyway, my UAH cohort and boss John Christy, who does the detailed matching between satellites, is pretty convinced that the RSS data is undergoing spurious cooling because RSS is still using the old NOAA-15 satellite which has a decaying orbit, to which they are then applying a diurnal cycle drift correction based upon a climate model, which does not quite match reality. We have not used NOAA-15 for trend information in years…we use the NASA Aqua AMSU, since that satellite carries extra fuel to maintain a precise orbit.

Of course, this explanation is just our speculation at this point, and more work would need to be done to determine whether this is the case. The RSS folks are our friends, and we both are interested in building the best possible datasets.

But, until the discrepancy is resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, those of you who REALLY REALLY need the global temperature record to show as little warming as possible might want to consider jumping ship, and switch from the UAH to RSS dataset. (emphasis added)

Hmmm....as I poked around a bit more, I learned that UAH is the University of Alabama at Huntsville and that RSS is a company called Remote Sensing Systems.  Both UAH and RSS generate periodic graphs based on temperature data derived from satellite measurements of microwave radiation. Wikipedia tells us:

Satellites do not measure temperature. They measure radiances in various wavelength bands, which must then be mathematically inverted to obtain indirect inferences of temperature. The resulting temperature profiles depend on details of the methods that are used to obtain temperatures from radiances. As a result, different groups that have analyzed the satellite data have produced differing temperature datasets. Among these are the UAH dataset prepared at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the RSS dataset prepared by Remote Sensing Systems.

Also according to Wikipedia:

Research by Carl Mears and Wentz, both of RSS, highlighted errors in the early satellite temperature records complied by John Christy and Roy Spencer at UAH. The UAH data had previously showed no significant temperature trend, bringing the derived satellite data into closer agreement with surface temperature trends, radiosonde data and computer models. The UAH data is now closer to the RSS data but differences remain.

What's clear is that "the process of constructing a temperature record from a radiance record is difficult" and that there are alternative methods of doing so.  More from Wikipedia:

For some time the only available satellite record was the UAH version, which (with early versions of the processing algorithm) showed a global cooling trend for its first decade. Since then, a longer record and a number of corrections to the processing have revised this picture: the UAH dataset has shown an overall warming trend since 1998, though less than the RSS version.

Thus, both UAH and RSS data show a trend of warming in the lower troposphere, which is consistent with AGW.

But what about Schmidt's graph?  The graph shows the UAH data in raw form.  The UAH's Dr. Spencer (on whom more below) gives the latest data in a slightly more readable form, here:

I wonder if Schmidt would say the same thing ("do you know what I see in that data?...Not much that is significant -- mostly some noise - noise that is much higher than any trend") about this version?

Schmidt does say something else:

To claim as a "fact" something from a trend who's amplitude (and direction) can be changed by changing end points due to the noise involved not science; it is politics.

This issue comes into play whenever anyone looks at a given set of data such as this and tries to fit a straight line to it.  By choosing particular end-points for the line, you can pretty much choose which trend you would like to see.

Scott Mandia at SUNY-Suffolk discusses this phenomenon is great detail here, and includes a very cool Java applet that lets you decide how many years of data you wish to include, and draws all the possible trend lines, showing "cooling" trends in blue and "warming" trends in red. (You can also choose which of two data sets you want to see.)

Here's what the applet looks like using 10 years:

And here's what it looks like using 60 years:

Clearly, there is quite a bit of variation in what people will conclude from the data, depending on how it is presented. For example graphs which include surface temperatures as well as atmospheric temperatures (different data sets are distinguished by color) show an obvious warming trend.

So, is it a political choice as to how the graph is interpreted, as Schmidt alleges (and as is implied in the Weekly Standard article)?



In trying to understand better the link between politics and science in relation to AGW, I think it's instructive to look specifically at other scientific concepts that cause similar reactions. The most obvious is the idea that humans evolved from other animals. Many people found this idea threatening when it was first published by Charles Darwin in 1859.  Many people still found it threatening at the time of the Scopes trial in 1925. Indeed, many people (particularly Americans) still find the concept of evolution difficult to accept.

Belief about evolution and about climate change are pretty equally distributed through the political spectrum, with the most consistency seen among evangelical Christians. Again, American beliefs are more divided than those found elsewhere:

This pattern is different from that seen in Europe and Japan. ...[S]ignificantly...more adults in Japan and 32 European countries accepted the concept of evolution than did American adults.... Only Turkish adults were less likely to accept the concept of evolution than American adults. In Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, and France, 80% or more of adults accepted the concept of evolution, as did 78% of Japanese adults.... A third of American adults indicated that evolution is "absolutely false"; the proportion of European adults who thought that evolution was absolutely false ranged from 7% in Denmark, France, and Great Britain to 15% in the Netherlands.

How can we explain this?  One explanation is implied in the finding that evangelical Christians are both much less likely than the average person to believe in evolution and also much less likely to believe in AGW.  And the US as a whole is much more religious than Europe.

But this doesn't take us quite far enough.  There's a rather obvious connection between being very serious about believing in the literal truth of the Bible (i.e. being an evangelical christian) and not believing that humans evolved from the animals.  Specifically, evolution seems to be directly contradicted by the story of creation in Genesis. But why would someone who believes that the Bible is the Word of God find the concept of AGW unacceptable?

(As an aside, it's important to acknowledge that being religious doesn't in and of itself lead people to reject climate science. See this story about religious leaders meeting to craft a coordinated response to climate change.)

For an answer, I turned to the Yale University Project on Climate Change Communication, which has developed a "Six Americas" framework for understanding differences in public opinion on the issue. Americans can be categorized along a spectrum ranging from  "Alarmed" to "Concerned" to "Cautious" to "Disengaged" to"Doubtful" to "Dismissive", with the categories ranging from believing in AGW (and very motivated to do something about climate change) through not believing (and very unmotivated). This graph (2009 data) is instructive:

The relative proportion of the population in each group has varied in the years since 2008, with the Alarmed representing 18 percent of the population in 2008 but only 12 percent in 2001, and the Dismissive ranging between 7 percent in 2008 but 10 percent in 2011.

While the entire report is fascinating and worth reading, I am especially interested here in the Dismissive group. The description tells us more:

The Dismissive have a specialized media diet, with a higher than average preference for media sources that reflect their own political point of view. While they are high consumers of political news, they do not trust most sources of information on global warming, including the mainstream news media, and they are more likely than average to turn to conservative news commentators and the Internet. They are most likely to trust their own friends and families as a source of information about global warming, with scientists and religious leaders well behind. (emphasis added)

More:

The Dismissive are distinguished by their certainty that global warming is not occurring. They have thought about the issue a good deal and consider themselves well-informed. They are quite certain that even if it is occurring, it is not caused by human activities. They believe scientists are in disagreement on the issue, and quite a few believe that there is a consensus among scientists that
global warming is not occurring. They believe that no one is in danger of being harmed and anticipate that there will be no impacts on people or the environment.

And...

More than half the Dismissive are concerned that action to reduce global warming will lead to more government regulation (70%).

Finally, 

The Dismissive hold the strongest individualistic values of the six groups: 88 percent believe that people should be allowed to make as much money as they can, even if it means some makes millions while others live in poverty. They strongly oppose government intervention: 87 percent say that government regulation of business usually does more harm than good; 86 percent believe government interferes too much in people’s lives and that government tries to do too many things for too many people; and 85 percent feel that we’d be better off if government spent less time trying to “fix everyone’s problems.”

Conversely, the Dismissive strongly disagree with egalitarian values: they don’t believe wealth should be divided more equally, that government should meet everyone’s basic needs, or that discrimination against minorities is a serious problem. Seventy percent oppose government programs to get rid of poverty.

In areas where religion and science conflict, the Dismissive hold traditional religious beliefs more strongly than any other segment: Less than a quarter (23%) believe in human evolution, compared to 47 percent nationally. Almost two-thirds believe the world was created in six days (62%), compared to 54 percent nationally. Regarding the overall value of science, however, 81 percent disagree with the statement, “Overall, modern science does more harm than good.”

Very interesting, indeed.  So the Dismissive group isn't anti-science in general. Yet with respect to climate change, only 8% of Dismissives strongly trust scientists as a source of information. And (as an aside), "they are much more likely than average to watch Fox News, Hannity & Colmes, or Bill O’Reilly, and to listen to Rush Limbaugh."

But again, what's the real problem that the Dismissives in general (or evangelicals in particular) have with the science of climate change?

It is because, in their minds, the science is tainted by a "false religion." Larry Bell, writing a column in Forbes, makes the "false religion" charge forcefully:

Global warming (aka “climate change”) has become a religious mantra, a call for action in a crusade against larger evils we have perpetrated against nature, a punishment for our sins. Author Michael Crichton articulated the essence of this creed in a 2003 speech in which he observed:

There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with Nature; there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result from eating from the tree of knowledge; and as a result of our actions, there is a judgment day coming for all of us. We are energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment, just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs imbibe.

Bell plays this out further.  Feeling guilty for humanity's allegedly arrogant attitude towards nature since the start of the Industrial Revolution, climate change zealots are simply too ready to believe that "nature" will exact some kind of retribution in the form of catastrophic climate change. (The unwillingness of evangelicals to treat "nature" as worthy of religious respect--and their concomitant distrust of "environmental do-gooder flower children" or those who believe in "new age" religion--may be another reason for their distrust of climate science. See here.)

Bell continues:

Global warming zealots have launched an aggressive jihad against those they brand as “deniers”, often asserting presumed fossil energy affiliations to those who don’t buy into their hysterical pronouncements. Another tactic is to conflate rejection of unfounded human-caused climate crisis alarmism with an absurd denial that climate changes regularly occur, or that human activities may have some influence (however incalculably minuscule, either with respect to warming or cooling, those effects may be). They would also have us believe that periods of global warming are assuredly “bad”, and have even caused recent global cooling! In other words, all climate change is bad.

In the church of climate change, most or all unfortunate events that occur are attributable to human causation. Eco-elitists seize upon this dogma to argue that economic growth, promulgated by spurious corporate interests, is the enemy of the environment.

(Notice the charge of elitism again.)

Whether or not we subscribe to a particular orthodoxy, religion plays a vital, if not central role in most of our lives, guiding us to believe we are all part of something much larger than ourselves. It provides age-old lessons that teach us the importance of taking responsibility for our actions, constantly motivating us to do better. Faith in those universal principles binds us together as stable, functioning societies.

Science also has a vital, but very different role. When purported “scientific experts” emulate spiritual prophets they overstep their bounds, and we can no longer trust them.

Of course, Bell's essay ignores the fact that one can actually separate the findings of science (global warming, possibly anthropocentric) from the political prophecy of a global warming catastrophe. But just as the essay in the Weekly Standard (mentioned above) makes a leap from AGW to "catastrophic AGW" and uses that leap to justify disbelief in AGW itself (and by association the entire field of climate science), Bell also uses the fact that some people are "global warming zealots" who think "economic growth, promulgated by spurious corporate interests, is the enemy of the environment" and that AGW requires an immediate coordinated response as reason not to trust the scientists themselves. (Notice:  Bell himself raises the issue of trust here.)

Another view of environmentalism as a "religion" (albeit not a false one) is given by Freeman Dyson in a 2008 essay in the New York Review of Books.  Dyson writes:

All the books that I have seen about the science and economics of global warming, including the two books under review, miss the main point. The main point is religious rather than scientific. There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible. The ethics of environmentalism are being taught to children in kindergartens, schools, and colleges all over the world.

Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future. Environmentalism, as a religion of hope and respect for nature, is here to stay. This is a religion that we can all share, whether or not we believe that global warming is harmful.

(I have some more to say about Dyson's essay, below.)

Another--and fairly conclusive--clue to the religious basis of disbelief in AGW is found here:

As reported in the New York Times article “An Evangelical Backlash Against Environmentalism”, a non-profit evangelical organization called the Cornwall Alliance calls the environmental movement a “false religion”, and has issued an educational program titled “Resisting the Green Dragon” to warn Christians that the forces of radical environmentalism are seeking tyrannical control over all other beloved institutions such as God and country. 

If Christianity is taken as the "true religion," and the environmental movement is seen as a "false religion," then there is clearly a motivation for evangelicals to resist environmentalism in general (and to resist calls for doing something about AGW in particular).

Interestingly, one of the members of the board of advisors to the Cornwall Alliance and a signatory to the declaration is Dr. Roy Spencer, of UAH (mentioned above).  Spencer believes that the atmosphere has been warming, as shown in the UAH data, but he does not believe this warming has been primarily caused by human activities.  He writes:

“Global warming” refers to the global-average temperature increase that has been observed over the last one hundred years or more. But to many politicians and the public, the term carries the implication that mankind is responsible for that warming. This website describes evidence from my group’s government-funded research that suggests global warming is mostly natural, and that the climate system is quite insensitive to humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions and aerosol pollution.

Believe it or not, very little research has ever been funded to search for natural mechanisms of warming…it has simply been assumed that global warming is manmade. This assumption is rather easy for scientists since we do not have enough accurate global data for a long enough period of time to see whether there are natural warming mechanisms at work.

Spencer believes that bias is the primary reason that research similar to his own has not been generally funded. Through books, articles, and appearances in the media, Spencer has done more than perhaps anyone else to raise questions about the science of AGW. Yet, as we've seen, he believes in global warming. What he doesn't believe is that humans are the primary cause. He writes, "Because small, chaotic fluctuations in atmospheric and oceanic circulation systems can cause small changes in global average cloudiness, this is all that is necessary to cause climate change."

According to Wikipedia, Spencer thinks that "small cloud variations connected with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation can explain 75% of global warming in the twentieth century." This can be confirmed by looking at Spencer's web site:

A simple climate model forced by satellite-observed changes in the Earth’s radiative budget associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is shown to mimic the major features of global average temperature change during the 20th Century – including three-quarters of the warming trend. A mostly-natural source of global warming is also consistent with mounting observational evidence that the climate system is much less sensitive to carbon dioxide emissions than the IPCC’s climate models simulate.

The theory espoused by Spencer is not supported by most climate scientists; indeed, it's just one alternative theory to AGW. But what I really want to know is what makes Spencer so interested in finding "a mostly-natural source of global warming"? Why is this more desirable to him than a mostly-man-made source? Wikipedia provides a clue:

In an interview with conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh on February 28, 2007, Spencer stated that he doesn't believe "catastrophic manmade global warming" is occurring. He also criticized climate models, saying "The people that have built the climate models that predict global warming believe they have sufficient physics in those models to predict the future. I believe they don't. I believe the climate system, the weather as it is today in the real world shows a stability that they do not yet have in those climate models."

Fair enough; as with all predictive models, there may be erroneous assumptions.  But this doesn't answer the question of why climate stability is so important to Spencer.

Interestingly, despite his credentials as a scientist, the fundamental reason seems to be his religion. Spencer is a signatory (confirmed here) to "An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming," issued by the Cornwall Alliance. That states, in part:

We believe Earth and its ecosystems—created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence —are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory.  Earth’s climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history.

And:

We deny that Earth and its ecosystems are the fragile and unstable products of chance, and particularly that Earth’s climate system is vulnerable to dangerous alteration because of minuscule changes in atmospheric chemistry. Recent warming was neither abnormally large nor abnormally rapid. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human contribution to greenhouse gases is causing dangerous global warming.

(Notice that the Alliance does not deny recent warming.  Notice also the shift that we've seen before from talking about global warming to talking about "dangerous" global warming.)

In an in-depth analysis that accompanies and justifies the Declaration, the Alliance discusses what they call "global warming alarmism." Notice the inclusion of the word "alarmism," indicating that it is activism around global warming (and its implication that immediate coordinated action is needed) that is their target, more than the science of AGW.  In any case, the Alliance finds that global warming alarmism

fails the tests of theology, science, and economics. It rests on poor theology, with a worldview of the Earth and its climate system contrary to that taught in the Bible. It rests on poor science that confuses theory with observation, computer models with reality, and model results with evidence, all while ignoring the lessons of climate history. It rests on poor economics, failing to do reasonable cost/benefit analysis, ignoring or underestimating the costs of reducing fossil fuel use while exaggerating the benefits. 

They continue:

Our examination of theology, worldview, and ethics (Chapter One) finds that global warming alarmism wrongly views the Earth and its ecosystems as the fragile product of chance, not the robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting product of God’s wise design and powerful sustaining. It rests on and promotes a view of human beings as threats to Earth’s flourishing rather than the bearers of God’s image, crowned with glory and honor, and given a mandate to act as stewards over the Earth—filling, subduing, and ruling it for God’s glory and mankind’s benefit. It either wrongly assumes that the environment can flourish only if humanity forfeits economic advance and prosperity or ignores economic impacts altogether. And in its rush to impose draconian reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, it ignores the destructive impact of that policy on the world’s poor.

(Again, "alarmism" is the target of this.) The Alliance specifically contrast the Bible with "the environmentalist world view":

The Biblical worldview contrasts sharply with the environmentalist worldview—whether secular or religious—in many significant ways. Among these, four are particularly germane:

Environmentalism sees Earth and its systems as the product of chance and therefore fragile, subject to easy and catastrophic disruption. The Biblical worldview sees Earth and its systems as robust, self-regulating, and self-correcting, not immune to harm but durable. 

Environmentalism sees human beings principally as consumers and polluters who are only quantitatively, not qualitatively, different from other species. The Bible sees people as made in God’s image, qualitatively different from all other species, and designed to be producers and stewards who, within a just and free social order, can create more resources than they consume and ensure a clean, healthful, and beautiful environment. 

Environmentalism tends to view nature untouched by human hands as optimal, while the Bible teaches that it can be improved by wise and holy human action. 

Environmentalism tends to substitute subjective, humanist standards of environmental stewardship for the objective, transcendent standards of divine morality.

I think here we see pretty clearly that the Cornwall Alliance's fundamental commitment is not to science, but rather to religion--and to a particular religious perspective that takes the Bible as the literal truth and anything contradictory to that as false.

A crucial element of the environmentalist worldview is that Earth and its habitats and inhabitants are extremely fragile and likely to suffer severe, even irreversible damage from
human action. That view contradicts Genesis 1:31. It is difficult to imagine how God could have called “very good” the habitat of humanity’s vocation in a millennia-long drama if the whole thing were prone to collapse like a house of cards with the least disturbance—like a change in carbon dioxide from 0.027 to 0.039 percent of the atmosphere (the change generally believed to have occurred from pre-industrial times to the present).

(This is the 40% increase in carbon dioxide that is widely cited in the literature.) And,

The Biblical worldview instead suggests that the wise Designer of Earth’s climate system, like any skillful engineer, would have equipped it with balancing positive and negative feedback mechanisms that would make the whole robust, self-regulating, and self-correcting.

This is a faith statement, based on a literal reading of the Bible. It is a view that comes specifically from people who believe that the Bible is literally the Word of God.  And it is a view that denies even the possibility that other religions are correct:

Nonbiblical religions and worldviews teach contrary views of God and creation.

• Hinduism, Buddhism, and other forms of pantheism deify nature, implying that it is a proper object of worship and depriving humanity of its unique position as bearing God’s image and uniquely called to exercise dominion.

• Animism, polytheism, and spiritism invest creation with independent, unpredictable spirits, undermining confidence in scientific experiment, exploration, and technology, and in the exercise of human dominion.

(Human "domination."  Hmmm.... a concept also threatened directly by the theory of natural selection, which supposes that humans are subjected to the same physical and biological forces as other animals.  I'd say the concept of "domination" is also what's behind the views of those who think that capitalism is not only just but noble. This isn't the only conceptual link behind the religious and political bases for disbelieving in climate science.  More below.)

The Alliance believes there is no need to fear any negative impacts on the environment by human activity in the long run:

Fear of environmental catastrophe grows out of lack of the fear of God. That is the real root of the many false or exaggerated environmental scares that have plagued the modern world. And such fears will continue—with or without scientific basis—until people repent and fear the Lord. “Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the LORD. . . . Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose hope is in the LORD. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit” (Jeremiah 17:5, 7–8).

It is this image--of humans as a kind of supra-natural being, not subject to the influence of heat or flood--that is being promoted here. Like the larger belief that the Bible is the literal Word of God--that it is both literally true and not subject to interpretation or amendment by science or any other form of evidence, and that the fear of God is the only fear that can possibly be justified--a position based on faith to be sure, rather than a scientific claim--that is behind Spencer's (and others) search for a "natural" cause to global warming. (Sure, there may very well be natural causes...indeed, there most definitely are natural causes for climate change.  But according to the theory of evolution and pretty much all of modern science, "humans" are natural, too. And as part of nature, what humans do always affects nature.  Isn't this obvious?)

Above I quoted from an essay by Freeman Dyson in which he applauds environmentalism for its ethics.  However, Dyson follows the section I quoted above with a warning:

Unfortunately, some members of the environmental movement have also adopted as an article of faith the belief that global warming is the greatest threat to the ecology of our planet. That is one reason why the arguments about global warming have become bitter and passionate. Much of the public has come to believe that anyone who is skeptical about the dangers of global warming is an enemy of the environment. The skeptics now have the difficult task of convincing the public that the opposite is true. Many of the skeptics are passionate environmentalists. They are horrified to see the obsession with global warming distracting public attention from what they see as more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet, including problems of nuclear weaponry, environmental degradation, and social injustice. Whether they turn out to be right or wrong, their arguments on these issues deserve to be heard.

Surely Dyson is correct that differing points of view about how to respond to global warming deserve to be heard.  As a scientist, Dyson makes a strong distinction between science and religion.  But he does not question global warming itself--just the view that global warming may very well not be the worst threat that the environment faces. He draws a line between the belief in global warming (AGW) and an alarmist response to it.  That line, you'll remember, is the one that was so easily crossed in the Weekly Standard essay.

Discussion, or Demagoguery?

In my most recent post, I shared a letter that I had written to my parents and close friends endorsing Barack Obama for president. I got a lot of positive feedback about the letter, especially from my friends, including one person who remains "on the fence" and found it persuasive. A number of my friends sent it around to THEIR friends, which is gratifying. I'll be happy if it helps to convince even one person to choose Obama over McCain.

From my family, I got a variety of responses. My younger brother sent me a private email saying simply "I'm wid ja Bro!". Very glad to hear that. My older brother never responded. (Typical.) My mother also wrote privately to say that she's leaning toward Obama (Yay!) and that she appreciated receiving my thoughts. (Mom is definitely an "independent" in her political leanings, having voted in the past for both George Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton. The fact that she's leaning Obama says a lot about the campaign Barack has been running in comparison to that of McCain.)

My mom's sister responded with a very nice familial email in which she said that she and my uncle "will vote for the Republican candidate because we just cannot support Obama. If the polls are correct, he may well be our next President, but not because of our vote. Let’s hope the better man wins and can turn around this trend toward an economic abyss our country is heading for." The "just cannot support Obama" part is a bit vague, although I suspect it has to do with Obama's position on a woman's right to choose an abortion, since they are pretty strongly Catholic. I hope it's not because Obama isn't white.

My father (who has been divorced from my mother for 20 years) responded to "all" (that is, all family, not my friends, who were BCC'd), taking advantage of my "public" endorsement to argue publicly and vociferously against Obama and for a conservative viewpoint. He included at the end an exchange that he and my younger brother had been having, and responded to both of us.

You have to understand that my father has in all likelihood NEVER voted for a Democratic presidential candidate. His strongly Republican views come through loud and clear in his response. Indeed, I think one could say that he epitomizes the secular right-wing viewpoint on most issues.

Here's his email, which is as classic a statement of conservative political views as there ever was:

First, I lean to the right because I believe in human rights and the belief that our Constitution upholds those rights. I believe fully in the Bill-of-Rights and will vehemently fight to preserve them, especially the right to speak freely and the right to carry arms, both of which the left is against - more on that later. This discussion couldn't take place in most countries. This discussion doesn't take place in the leftist parlors either because the left is aligned with socialist principles; meaning, more government, more regulation, and more "spreading the wealth."

[I am not really sure what "socialist" has to do with the absence of free speech, but there it is.]

Second, I lean to Republicans because of what I said with the First reason. Most Republicans support free speech. Democrats do not! Democrats want to pass the "Fairness Doctrine" This is a great sounding bill that has a communist undercurrent to control the free press as well as the "free" radio and TV media. The Doctrine says that all media that is licensed by the Federal Government MUST present the issues fairly and evenly to all points of view. This means that: Unless the Federal Government approves of what is said on a TV or radio station, it can shut the station down or fine it severely until it complies with what Government feels is fair or that it presents it's point of view. Also most Democrats want gun control. There are great arguments for controlling the issuing of licenses for carrying guns and I concur with most of those, but the kind of argument that will take guns, of any kind, away from private citizens is not OK. The Courts overturning of the gun control in Washington DC was a victory for the Constitutionalist and the Right-wing.

[Of course, Obama also supported the recent decision regarding the Washington DC gun-control law, although he believes that stronger measures need to be taken to remove illegal guns from the hands of criminals.]

Third, - the economy: I firmly believe in laissez-faire capitalism. I know, we have never had a fully capitalistic economy; government has not allowed it to happen. Anytime a company has become "too" successful because of its so called "greed" the congress has reeled the company in by overtaxing it or brought it's executives before a left leaning congressional committee to ask it to explain its profits. Folks, please, I appeal to you, it is precisely because of profits that have helped this country to grow to the stature it has today in the world. I give you China - most people don't know that the tremendous growth over the last few years in China is because the communist regime understands the principles of Capitalism and has poured all company's profits, (that's right, I said all,) back into the companies and into China's economy. Obama does not understand that and McCann does.

[My dad misspells McCain's name consistently. That's okay...he often misspells MY name. In this last paragraph we see very clearly that my Dad has a black/white view of political issues. If you don't believe in laissez-faire capitalism, you don't believe in profits. And Chinese capitalism--hardly laissez-faire!--is good regardless of the human rights issues that might be involved.]

Since the bailout was passed by a Congress bought with "Pork," and Obama has promised to "Spread the Wealth," the "Market" has taken a nosedive. Investor's belief in our economy is at an all-time low. Is that because of the Bush policies? I think not. I think, as long as Obama is ahead in the polls, the Market will not improve, and, I believe that if Obama gets in office, we are in for a very, very long recovery, especially when he gets his tax plan passed to increase taxes in all categories, in an unopposed Congress, especially capital gains. Folks - we do not need more taxes, anywhere, in this economy - taxes of any kind will kill any economic growth. Also, the World Markets stand to lose as well, because of the Democrat's position on trade protectionism.

[Evidence that the stock market decline is due to Obama's lead in the polls? None...but here it is taken as prima facie evidence. Did Obama promise to "Spread the Wealth"? Well, yes, he did, and it's been taken as proof of a secret agenda.]

Fourth, trust: I do not know Obama. Craig, I know that you have a personal relationship with Obama and I'm sure that the liberal circles you live and breath in has tainted your perception of him, yes, I said tainted, I didn't want to use brain-washed. Your appeal to us to accept your perception of him, by your leftist views, just doesn't appeal to me. I do not know Obama, but I DO NOT trust him, or his judgment. I agree with Biden that he will be tested and I don't trust his instincts to do the right thing for this country. I don't want to place our economy in the hands of someone that has said that he "wants to redistribute the wealth." This does not represent, to me, a fresh approach for America. This is not the kind of "change" I want. It's the Hoover, FDR, Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson and our present congress with tax increases, New Deals, Great Societies, all of which have never made this country better economically or improved our stature in the world. You can, as every Obama supporter does, blame the present administration for all of our present troubles in the economy, but if you're a student of placing the blame, your argument doesn't hold any weight. If you are open to learn where the blame really lies, it always turns up with the Democrats and their "Great" plans to help the poor and the "little" people and raise the taxes on those who earn their money by being creative and working hard.

[Wow. "Tainted." When I called him on this in a response, he offered this: "I'm sorry I called you tainted. You're not a piece of rotten meat. I wish I knew of a better word to describe our "Liberal" education system beyond high school. Persuaded? Brain-washed? Hammered with principals that teaches you that the "individual" is not as important as the "collective." That corporations are essentially and inherently bad and do evil things. That the word "Capitalism" is not something that is good in it's principals. That there is some good in everything - that somehow you can find charity within a dictatorship, that somehow a system that is based on socialist values is good for me and America. That the lower class of people (liberals definition, not mine) are needy and that as long as we continue to take from the wealthy and give to the needy, it's OK. Your generation and newer now have the idea that you deserve a hand out from the government.

[Again, it's the black/white thinking. Because I think "laissez-faire capitalism" is a myth--even he admitted it's never happened--I think "capitalism is not something good"?!?! That I'm willing to find good in many different forms of government, I "somehow find charity within a dictatorship". And I "deserve a handout from the government"!!!?! What?]

Fifth, being an American first: Obama says that he is a Citizen of the World. What does that mean to me? It means that he isn't going to put America first. He says that the symbol of the American Flag in the "World's" eyes has negative connotations and he doesn't wear it for that reason. I will not vote for a man or woman that doesn't feel that it is their patriotic duty to salute or show off the American Flag as a symbol of Freedom and the American dream and ideal. I will never put my well-being and my trust in someone that doesn't feel that America is their country to defend and to uphold in every situation. Craig says that he is: "Barack is as pro-American as any American." I believe that it is precisely why nations hate us; it's because of the freedoms we give our citizens and the way we continue to promote freedom wherever we can. It is the socialist governments and it is the Islamic ideals that wish to crush America and what we stand for. It is the countries that have a slightly higher growth rate in the population of Muslims that hate America. Radical Islamist are very active in those countries where they reside to move the rest of the population to hate America. (I wish I had the time to place my references in this.)

[Wow. we go from Obama is a "citizen of the world" to hating America. Again, there's no subtlety here.]

I, like Craig, hope all of you vote. But, unlike Craig, I want you to vote for the Republican ticket. I want my Grandchildren to have choices in their future. The problem is: our children are being taught that the government will provide them a free lunch which is what Obama is offering. I want children to have the freedom to chose whatever they want and to be taught to assume responsibility for their own welfare. I believe that it's governments responsibility to protect us, providing an environment to succeed at whatever we want to pursue within the cover that our Constitution provides us.

Like you Craig, I have studied the issues from both the left and the right, not for a few months, but for most of my adult life. I must admit to leaning to the right in my thinking, but only because it serves my views on politics and the way I want to leave this country for my Grandchildren. I must say that the McCann' ticket doesn't excite me very much and I wish that there was a real conservative running against Obama for a clearer choice. I will vote for McCann, however, because he is a Neo Conservative and will make the correct choices in foreign policy. (see my take on the neocons below in [your brother's] email thread.)

My Dad and I went back and forth on a few of these issues in a few more emails, but never really got anywhere. I tried to argue that "liberal" means--in part--understanding that any viewpoint on any topic reflects the particular perspective of those who take it, and that we should recognize that one can hold positions at various points on the political spectrum and still be "pro-America," and that progressive taxation isn't "socialism." But I should have realized it was all for naught: my Dad wasn't going to change his views, and I wasn't going to change mine.

Meanwhile, my dad's sister chimed in in response to his first long email. This aunt lives in a rural southern state, where she has embraced what I (being the urbane liberal that I am) might call a rural southern mentality. Her input takes on a different flavor from my father's, because she doesn't discuss core political issues:

Very well said my brother! I could not have stated my position any better.

Craig, I have to agree with my brother. He has stated my views, feelings about this election very well. I acknowledge that you "know" Barak [sic] Obama and that you apparently circle the same "neighborhoods". But my gut does not trust the man. The issues that [my brother] has mentioned are only the tip of the iceberg for me. There is something that gut wrenches me every time I hear the man speak that tells me he is not ringing true. He is very eloquent in stating his agenda in a way that says to me he is trying to make me believe that he is on my side and all will be well, but my gut tells me that it is not all above board. Why will he not come forth with all the documents that the public has asked for?? I cannot put trust in a person that will not show all that is asked of him. If he has nothing to hide, why doesn't he provide the birth certificate, college records and medical records that have been asked of him? He blames everything on the present administration - what about the Democratic congress that has been in "power" the last four years??

I will close for now, since [my brother] has stated my beliefs very well. I do not trust Obama, I do not agree with his agenda or ideas, and I do not feel he has the judgement needed to lead America and make the right decisions for America in the global theater presently or the future. He will be tested and he has NOTHING to help him, including his party.

I will vote for the Republican ticket. I do not agree with and cannot support the left wing Democratic Party. I pray that Americans will wake up and really hear what Obama is offering before they vote for him.

Sigh. Here, we have something more than political disagreement. We have "gut wrenches" that tap deeply into emotional undercurrents. Perhaps it's fear; perhaps it's anti-intellectualism; perhaps it's a deep distrust of people who appear to be rootless; perhaps it's racism. One cannot tell. In any case, this aunt isn't really considering whom to vote for; she "knows" intuitively, and isn't interested in the issues.

But what really caught my attention here was the innuendo. She asks "why doesn't he provide the birth certificate....that [has] been asked of him." I hadn't heard that Obama hadn't provided his birth certificate. So I did a little research. I discovered that yes, on June 13, 2008, the Obama campaign had released his birth certificate, but that this did not satisfy many on the right, who want to believe that Obama is really a Muslim, or an Arab, or was really born in Kenya, or Indonesia, and that somehow if he became president he would be illegitimate because he wasn't born in the United States.

It's quite amazing, really, this speculation. Go ahead, do the Google search. In addition to the snopes.com and factcheck.org refutations of this speculation, and the St. Petersburg Times' detailed investigation of the authenticity of the birth certificate that the campaign provided (more here), you get all sorts of claims about how it is an "absolute forgery" because, again entirely speculatively, it appears to have been printed on a laser printer, and doesn't show a signature or seal, and includes the word "African" under "Father's Race" when clearly (!) Obama's father was an "Arab."

So I read through some of this stuff, and sent an email back to my aunt (copying everyone in the family) saying that in fact Obama HAD released his birth certificate and it had been found to be authentic by a variety of investigations, and that this allegation undermines the credibility of anyone who uses it as a "reason" for not supporting Obama. I even included an image of the released birth certificate.

My aunt, not too surprisingly, didn't respond to that email. (I think she just finds my responses to be liberal rants.) My Dad responded with this:

There are some who say [emphasis mine] that this birth certificate is not real. That it was/is produced on a modern laser printer which did not exist in 1961, and why is the certificate # blacked out - what's to hide here? This appeared on the LA Times Blog. Obama didn't produce this as required. I'm not saying that he must personally produce it, but it's odd that when he registered to become President two years ago that he didn't produce it then or was asked to produce it. This is all conjecture on my part [emphasis mine] because I don't have first hand knowledge of whether this is Obama's Birth Certificate. Problem is, no one else knows for sure that it is either.

BTW, Obama's mother - was she a US citizen the required number of years to produce a natural born American child. Does anyone know? I do know that Obama's father was Kenyan, an Arab [!!!}, not African as the certificate says. Is Africa a country; I thought it was a continent?

Wow. "There are some who say" and "All conjecture on my part"--but he's going to make the allegation anyway. "Arab"?!??!? What? So, I responded with some specifics:

Dad,

The more you and your sister talk about this, the less credibility you have. Indeed, it merely serves as evidence that you will believe anything as long as it serves to buttress your political beliefs.

Why would the candidate of a major political party base the legitimacy of his campaign and possible [i wrote "pregnancy" here, but clearly meant "presidency"] on a lie that could be EASILY disproved through medical records?!??!?!

Since I have been taught to use evidence to back up my claims, here’s some proof:

I already sent you the Snopes link, which debunks this myth. Did you read it? http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp

How about this one: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html.

About FactCheck.org Our Mission “We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding.”

And Obama’s father was African, NOT an Arab.

“Arab, Arabian (a member of a Semitic people originally from the Arabian peninsula and surrounding territories who speaks Arabic and who inhabits much of the Middle East and northern Africa)” http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=arab

Obama’s father was Muslim, but not Arab. He was a member of a Kenyan tribe, the Luo. “They speak the Dholuo language, which belongs to the Western Nilotic branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family spoken by other Luo-speaking peoples such as the Lango, Acholi, Padhola and Alur (all of Uganda).” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joluo

They don’t speak Arabic. And Kenya isn’t in Northern Africa.

So Obama’s father was African.

As you MAY know, demographic categories are ARBITRARY for the most part. Who decides, for example, whether a person is “Hispanic,” or “latino,” or “Caucasian.” Obama’s mother filled out the form for the birth certificate in 1961 and said Obama’s father was “African.” (She probably felt strongly that he wasn’t a “black,” or “negro,” or “coloured” person, because he wasn’t an American. He was an African student.) The Hawaii Department of Health accepted that designation.

Obama’s campaign released his birth certificate on June 13, 2008. It LOOKS just like other Hawaiian birth certificates of the time. These articles discuss the fact-checking done by one organization on this issue.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/13/obamas-birth-certificate/

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/27/obamas-birth-certificate-part-ii/.

READ these articles!!!!! Or, frankly, stop spouting off about this ridiculous issue as if it IS an issue.

Now, I understand that someone who doesn't really care about "evidence" such as this would find this email to be perhaps heavy-handed: piling it on. After all, quoting all these sources might simply indicate a tenaciously adamant attitude rather than a careful consideration of facts. In theory, after all, someone who was arguing on the other side might offer a similar pile of evidence. This being the case (one might say), why should we pay any attention to this at all?!??!

So how did my dad respond?

Let's agree to disagree about the importance of the birth certificate issue. I'm sure any source that you come up with will, in your mind, support your feelings on this, and visa-versa.

now let's talk about the issues.

Oh. My. God. So, rather than either offer his own evidence, or concede that my evidence is compelling, or even admit that the initial speculation was wrong, my dad basically accuses ME of being willing to accept any evidence at all. I was furious. Rather than respond right away, knowing that my anger might cause me to say something I would regret, I decided to sleep on it. (Not that I slept well...interspersed in wierd dreams about my friend Willie and a Ford Mustang, it kept coming back into mind.)

So, this morning, I wrote the following:

So, this is the way it is, huh? You throw around speculative bullshit about Obama being not what he says he is. I supply evidence that he IS what he says he is.

Rather than supplying any evidence at all that your spurious allegations are correct—and rather than even RESPONDING to my evidence or even trying to deflect it—you accuse ME of “accepting any source” and refuse to engage the issue. (This, despite the fact that I spent an hour finding the best evidence I could find…..and even supplied credentials of one of the organizations involved.)

Dad, that’s not political discussion or argument. That’s demagoguery.

I quit.

Before I sent this, I wanted to be sure I wasn't using "demagoguery" incorrectly. So, I typed "define demagoguery" into Google. Basically, demagoguery refers to an approach to political speech that emphasizes the emotions and passions of the mob, rather than rational discussion of issues. (See also Wikipedia article.) There are all sorts of methods that count as demagoguery, including mixing apples and oranges, using half-truths, citing false authority, creating a false dilemma, demonization, straw man, loaded questions, unrelated facts, emotional appeal, and personal attack.

My father's response was demagoguery in several of these senses (false authority, loaded questions, half-truths), but primarily because of its use of speculative innuendo (an indirect or subtle, usually derogatory implication in expression; an insinuation).

My father's response to this last email was somewhat gracious, but also predictably weaselly. Rather than respond to "all" (as we had been doing all along), he responded privately to me, and wrote:

I'm sure that your sources are credible, just as I'm sure that anything I throw back at you will be completely baseless and unfounded. This discussion between us isn't unique. It's been going on for ages and ages. Your responses to a conservative viewpoint aren't new and refreshing to a conservative. The arguments that we've had aren't winnable and neither side will ever seem reasonable. Only the votes will tell.

The main reason I responded to your first email was because you found it in your heart to tell our whole family what's best for them and how they should vote and how deeply you felt that a vote for McCain would be a waste and "wrongminded."

[Um, I don't think I used that word.}

Craig, I love you. You're bright and a great family man and I'm sure that your students really get a fine education from you. But, you're also a college liberal, through and through, and I never expected anything from you other than what you did and said. It's just that I don't like the fact that liberals think that they know what's best for the average American and that they will provide for them with governments help and my tax dollars. ---- The poor have been voting for the Democrats forever because of promises made - they're still poor.

I'm through too. This has been a rigorous experience for me and very tiring. I'm not a natural writer and these responses have taken hours and hours to formulate and write. ( even this little note has taken me more than an hour and I haven't had breakfast yet!) But, I don't regret having done it. It's shown me that my convictions are strong and on the mark. And it's shown me how much your convictions (though wrongminded :) are strong and that you stick up for what you believe.

Please don't be angry with me, my son. As you are, I'm just sticking up for my convictions.

love,
Dad

PS: I'm sorry about the birth certificate response; it wasn't fair, and it was sort of "demagoguery" wasn't it? Personally, I wasn't going to bring up the issue with the birth certificate anyway, but [my sister] said something and you responded. My response was trying to just push the issue aside and get on with the real issues, not "refuse to engage the issue."

So, there we have it. Demagoguery admitted, "sort of." But privately. My dad won't say this to everyone. And, rather than concede anything at all about my argument, he closes the discussion with a last dig at me, a "college liberal, through and through," who (even though he can't cite any evidence of this other than his own feelings that I'm condescending to his point of view), believes (again, by implication, not evidence) "that [I] know what's best for the average American and that [I] will provide for them with governments help and [your] tax dollars."

I guess the moral of this story is one of two things.

1. It's not only impolite but impolitic to discuss politics (or religion) with your family members (but see)

or

2. Never try to argue an ideologue out of his firm convictions. At the end of the day, ideologies aren't about evidence (also here); they are about a person's entire World View.

This latter point applies as much to me, as to my dad.