Interesting statement. But who claims 'global warming is a hoax on Hawkins' terms alone, and what is their argument?
We should recall that climate change was the latest in a series of claims about 'our common future' that a clearly identifiable movement made in its attempts to make the 'environment' the foundation of global politics, power & institutions.
Many of the claims that movement made -- including institutional science -- were false from the outset, and its dire predictions never materialised.
Meanwhile, the enduring characteristic of that movement's players has been utter intransigence.
Meanwhile, the enduring characteristic of that movement's players has been utter intransigence.
Nobody doubted that there was pollution, that some species were at risk, that there were better ways of doing things. But the demands of the movement were of a different order. They claimed that society faced certain doom unless it was given power to regulate productive society.
At the centre of their 'scientific' claims were not observations of the kind Hawkins lists, but computer simulations, including hastily constructed theoretical models of society's interactions with the 'biosphere'.
That understanding was epitomised in the movement's story of 'Spaceship Earth'. It said much less about how the natural world works than about how human society should be organised. It was a classic is-ought fallacy.
Because the movement was so well insulated from criticism, it learned very little about its failures. As it failures mounted, it moved on to new issues. From the 'population bomb' to climate change.
But it carried forward its errors, merely along a slightly different storyline. It searched for signs of 'imbalance' in natural processes. It continued to make absurd predictions. And it continued to ignore, and fail to understand its critics' arguments.
It might be that Hawkins believes all that he says: that the basis for all climate and energy politics & policies in the world depend on objective measurements of temperature, glaciers, sea level. But there is much else besides which he omits.
But he cannot claim that he has not been advised of what it is he omits: the excesses of the establishment green movement, the wild prognostication, and the failures of institutional science. In short: the politicisation of his 'science'.
Environmental politics precedes climate science, though climate scientists are especially poor at detecting environmental ideology. They are then perhaps the worst group of people to attempt to debunk claims that there is a 'hoax' - they being its main victims.
Which is not to say 'there is no climate change', nor that data does not show warming. It surely does. (Though it does not show as much sea level rise as Hawkins seems to believe.) He could leave it there. But climate politics does not leave it there.
It uses these claims to say that the world is on course for catastrophic change. Meanwhile, its critics point out that in fact the era of global warming has seen an unprecedented change in human development.
Humans, it turns out, are less dependent on the natural processes monitored by Hawkins and his colleagues than he imagines. And they are far more resilient than that movement claims. And they are capable of becoming far less dependent, and far more resilient.
The 'hoax' then, is not so much that data has been adulterated -- even though it seems to have been in a number of cases, and has been wildly over stated in many more. The 'hoax' is more that the claims in question have been given undue *political* significance.
The possibility of slightly more rain, of slightly higher sea levels in 1,000 years time, of slightly warmer spells... is the basis of an argument to suspend normal politics, and to cede control of productive life to a global political body.
That is a *hoax*, no matter the fidelity of Haskins' measurements, even if it is merely a delusion. It is a hoax because even if it is a delusion, it is the intransigence of climate scientists (among others) which prevents it being interrogated.
Rather than developing their arguments in the face of criticism, some climate scientists, who seem to want to influence the direction of policy, spend their time instead making pretty and alarming graphics.
So it seems to me that it *is* enough to say that 'global warming is a hoax' until there are signs that institutional science - which has £billions at its collective disposal - gets off its high horse, corrects its mistakes, addresses its excesses and lowers itself to debate.
Lots of people believe they are contributing to an understanding of 'climate' don't understand the debate they make clumsy interventions into.
Hawkins has learned no more or less in the last 24h than he can say he has learned in the last 24 years: almost zero.
Environmental ideology does not progress.
Environmental ideology does not progress.
