Climate Change Debate: Evaluating Alarmist vs. Skeptic Perspectives in the 2011 Heartland Institute Conference

MAJOR paper LAST NAME: FIRST NAME: PROGRAM CODE: DSDD COURSE CODE: TPH-499 PERIOD NUMBER: 6 INSTRUCTOR: Prof. Ebuziem
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Reviewing a climate change debate: GLOBAL WARMING ALARMIST Versus GLOBAL WARMING SCEPTIC

1. Introduction

Climate change is a complex topic which appreas frequently in discussions at local and global levels. Since the 1980s, it has raised the interest of many including environmentalists, development practitionners, researchers, human rights activists, scientists, policy makers, and several others. The discourse has influenced the formation of global agreements, treaties and bodies with specific roles related to climate change. Among them, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was established to support the global response to climate changewhile theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)is responsible of assessing the related science. Subsquently, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement are the main protocols to reduce greenhouse gases emissions believed to be the main cause of climate change.

This is the major paper for the course TPH-499. It is made of a review of a climate science debate from the points of view of a global warming alarmist and a global warming skeptical. It took place at the occasion of the sixth International Conference on Climate Change.The event was hosted by the Heartland Institute in Washington DC in 2011, under the theme Restoring the scientific method.The part of the event analysed in this paper was a lunch keynote debate between two debaters: the warming alarmist, Dr. Scott Denningfrom Colorado State University and the warming skeptical, Dr. Roy W. Spencerfrom the University of Alabama. The video of the full debate is available on you tube through this link.

2. The debate analysis

The analysis presented in this paper was done based on the general literature on debate. Specifically, it uses the guidance on the competitive debate from the book The Policy Debate Manual: A Comprehensive Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Competitive Debate by Dr. Joe Bellon and Abi Smith Williams. This paper, which is an analysis of a debate between a global warming alarmist and a global warming skeptic is limited to five aspects of the debate process including the opening, the affirmative and negative, the rebuttal/mutual questions, the closing arguments and the participation of the audience. A critical review based on my personal knowledge of the practice of debate is also added before the conclusion.

a. Background

The debate analysed in this paper happened in 2011 in the United States of America. One year before that event, the World Meteorological Organisationhad published a summary report that described the 2001-2010 period as a decade of climate extremes. The report further stressed that the first decade of the 21^st century was the warmest decade recorded since modern measurements began around 1850. It saw above-average precipitation, including one year 2010 that broke all previous records. Dramatic climate extremes were mentioned like heatwaves, hurricanes, cyclones, draiughts andfloods that hit the different parts of the world including the USA, Europe, South Asia, South America, and East Africa. The science behind these climate extremes is the change taking place because of increased concentration of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,resulting in a consistent raise in global temperature that threatens to exceed the bearable average temperature of 1.5^oC, thereby leading to various climate damages affecting billions of people.The widely spread explanation is that this change is happening because of human activities a stand shared by many including the UNFCCC, climate scientists and organisations like World Wildlife Fund in its definition of climate change. In these conditions, one can understand that the world was under pressure of debating the global warming. The sixth International Conference on Climate Change decided to do so based on the scientific method, but some participants were not in total agreement with the scientific data on the subject thereby creating two different views on the global change in climate patterns. The skeptic view (conservative) of climate change ignores the science while the alarmist (liberals) listens to the science and might over-react to it.Despite that diversity of thoughts, the climate alarmists and the climate skeptics were both gathered at the conference.

b. Participants: Debaters And Audience

At the time of the debate, the first debater, Spencer, was principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where he directed a variety of climate research projects. He is the author of several books, including most recently, The Great Global Warming Blunder. On the other side, the second debeter, Denning, was the Monfort Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University and an editor of Journal of Climate. His research interests include the interactions between the atmosphere and terrestrial biosphere and their effects on exchange of energy, water, and carbon dioxide. His research sponsors include the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the United States Department of Energy, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Spencer stands as skeptical in view of the causes of climate variability while Denning is an alarmist. These two slightly different views of climate change make the core of the debate.

The video does not clarify on the audience but the information available on the webpage of the conference specifies that the participants included dozens of think tank cosponsors and hundreds of scientists gathered in an effort to restore the scientific method in the debate over the causes, consequences, and policy implications of climate change.Through debates based on the scientific dethod, the conference reccognised that that the facts and predictions of climate extremes at that time, were informed by the post-normal science, (or an inclusive set of robust insights more than an exclusive fully structured theory or field of practice). Post normal science acknowledges uncertainly and diversity of perspectives and substitutes claims of consensus for the scientific method. Such a conclusion from the conference had negative consequences on science and society in view of climate change.

c. Opening

The moderator of the debate opens up by calling the audience to the debate. He gives a background to the debate, the format to follow and abbreviated bios of the debaters. He insists that for years, the participants to the International Conference on Climate Change have had many opportunities to listen to speakers who believe that humans are causing the emeinent global warming. However, he points out the need have different views, reason wahy he invites two spokespersons from different classes of thoughs in terms of reasons of global warming. He invites the audience to have an open mind and a willingness to look into ways you can be wrong, and if you are, adjust accordingly. He recalls having debated himself one of the invitees, Denning, and confirms that they have always reached the state where one of them would say hey, you are right and I am wrong. He wishes such a debate spirit could be in the room throughout. This call for rationality aligns with the thinking of Professor Grim, that the intuitive and immediate answers we jump to are often wrongespecially when we discuss concepts of such an importance like climate change.

In terms of the format of the debate, four steps to follow were announced which aligns well with the map of debate speeches according to Dr. Joe Bellon. Each speaker was communicated to be given twelve minutes for opening statement using a power point presentation, the moderator would asks a couple of questions to debaters, and thereafter the debaters would be given opportunity to ask each over a question before closing. The moderator proceeded with introducing the bebaters by reading their bios and called the first speaker to the stage.

d. Affirmative and Negative

Denning who is a global warmist, started by attacking the existing knowledge from skeptists. He presented his negative strategically by telling the audience that though he was invited to present a warmist case, and he was going to do so, he was not going against the skeptical thinking. He confirms that any skeptical scientist will look skeptically at the climate outcomes, and therefore, he presented the pieces of information about climate change that he personally calls myths to be very skeptical about. This is a way of attachikng the evidences of his oppoenent by suggesting that they have no causality relation.To mention some examples, the debater alluded to the myth that climate is complicated, not understandable by any person and you need to ask experts. He also points out the widespread saying that global warming is based on recent temperature trends and on computer models is false. Furthermore, he challenged the prediction that if we stop burning the coal, we will freeze in the dark is not proved. To me, this is a good way of applying the principle of clash by covering efficiently the argument of his opponent before the latter starts debating, as he was sure of his position already, the skeptical case of climate change.

From here, Denning presents a counter-definition of climate change concept. Thisis debate technique is defined by Dr. Joe Bellon as a way of responding to topicality by devising a different definition of the same word that makes your plan sound topical. He stresses that climate change is based on common sense and doesnt requires consulting experts to understand it and therefore, the importnance of being sckeptical. In support to this position, the debater emphasizes on new evidences about climate change to prove the limitations of the theories of skeptists. First, he affirms that climate change is all about heat generated from the CO₂ sent in the atmosphere. Second, he said that the way it is felt depends the geographical location of individuals. Lastly, he insists that the extra CO₂ emitted in the atmosphere can be canceled out by something else like the sun diming, the interplanetary clouds of fog. Finally, he adds on that climate change is very slow and very predictable contratry to what the skeptists say.

The second debater, Spencer, as scientist and reseaercher in climate change, chose to argument from authority by elucidating his claims by proofs from experiences and scientific data covering a period of aroound 2,000 years. This is an acceptable debate technique used by experts in subject matter. However, it doesnt guaranty that the opponent will be convinced, rather the claim might be taken as appeal to authority and hence fallacious. Firstly he made use of conceding technique which consists of agreeing with an idea of your opponent.He doesnt refute totally the arguments from his opponent around the causes of global warming but rather, he highlights that the difference between their views is the degree at which the global warming happens. For him, the two main causes of global warming are natural climate cycles and humanitys global greenhouse gaz emissions - and sometimes both, which goes agains the main claim of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that natural climate change doesnt exist.

According to Spencer, the oceans play a big role in determining the level of global warming. He explains that the heat we feel is the difference from two phenomenons, the forcing (CO₂, sun, natural cycles) and the feedback (loss of heat through ocean mixing). A definition I found online has helped me understand better these two climate change related terms:

A forcing is an variable, which acts independently of temperature, and causes changes to Earth's energy balance. A feedback is a variable which is influenced by temperature, and causes secondary changes to Earth's energy balance. If a feedback causes further temperature change in the direction of the original forcing, it is a positive feedback. If the feedback causes temperature change in the opposite direction of that of the original forcing, it is a negative feedback.

Spencer warns that the public and policymakers are being misled about the severity of and confidence in the human influence on the climate systems. In closing his argument, he challenges that tryly objective scientists should be willing to consider that more CO2 could be good for life on earth. Indeed, similar idea came from a study by the NationalAeronauticsand Space Administration (NASA) of the Unites States in 2016, which confirmed that a quarter to half of earths vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

e. Rebuttals/Mutual Questions

Joe Bellon, qualifies the rebuttals as the most difficult and important speeches in a debate.In fact, these are the final speeches of a debate. They are used to present contradictory argments with evidences to weaken the opponents position. Thought short, they must consider all issues debated to construct a final, convincing position to the audience before closing. It is believed that most judges base their decisions almost entirely on what is said in the last two rebuttals.In this debate, the moderator asked two questions and each debater was given two minutes to respond to a question. The first question was about other factors incfluencing the global warming beside the carbon dioxide while the second was about the amount of temperature change and timeframe that would be necessary for the debaters to start worrying and changing their minds.

Denning used the opportunity of responding to the first question to counter attack the theory of feedback advanced by Spencer as not enough to explain the amount of warming we feel on earth. The method used by Denning here to refute the position of his arguer suggests a reductio ad absurdum leading to unacceptable implications, in the terms of Dr. David Zarefsky.

Extra energy from the sky and the amount of snow are presented as other factors that can accelerate or reduce the amount of heat experienced. Spencer criticizes the response of his opponent by pointing out that people know better the temperature variations than they do for measuring the forcing that cause them. He insists that more attention should be given to establishing the way the climate models loose energy than the causes of warming. To the question of the degree of warming that can cause worries, the two debaters agreed around a situation where the world would experience consistent rise in temperature for a period of 30 years.

The series of collective questions from the moderator was followed by a space for cross-examoination, debaters asking questions to each other. The question from Denning was about the economic model of China and India, two countries with high population and rapid economic growth through the use of coal energy. What can we expect in terms of the percentage of CO₂ increase in the 21^st century if the two countries successfully industrialize using the coal and what would be the consequences? The position of Spencer was rather surprising. While he expects that at the current speed of gaz emission the amount of CO₂ woudl double by 2050, his position on slowing that pace would be to double the CO₂ level to generate alternative energy wich in long run will slow the emission. When it was his turn, he looked for a pit of doom.Instead of asking a question, indirectly, he choose rather to seek the alignment of his opponent to his own view by saying: I think Scott doesnt represent the IPCC position - which he has been against in his argumentation. He considered Denning as a realistic warmist in his appraisal of climate risks which the two scientists seem to agree upon.

f. Closing Arguments

The moderator of the debate gave five minutes to each participant for a closing statement. Cognisant that this was not the time for new arguments, Denning sticked on her initial position. He used the debate tip of re-telling the story by explaining climate change concept using the common sense that doubling the amount of CO₂ would result in additional four watts per square meter of earth consstently over years and the CO₂ would remain in atmosphere over decades even after the end of coal use. In fact, some researchers confirm that it can it can last for a century or moremore.He insists that without subsidy of cheep fossil energy, civilizations will crumble. On his side, Spencer remains close to his initial argument also, by emphasising that reducing the CO₂ is not the answer. Rather, he recalls the importance of weighing the risks and benefits of the CO₂ in atmosphere. He highlihts the contradiction in the positions of some debaters in climate sensitivity who complain about the risks of fossil fuel while they are in comfortable position of benefits from it. He advocactes for encouraging other nations to become prosperous as well. I appreciate this thinking which, to me, is a way of breaking the mental set that has been created around the direct linkages between carbon diaxide and global warming, which may go against our creative thinking and new ways of looking at climate challenge. Like Patrick Grim, with such a mental set, we are not able to change perspectives quickly enough to solve the puzzle.

g. Audience Participation

The audience to the debate was engaged throughout the session. The participation was evidenced by the constant reactions to the debate in form of applauses, laughters and other verbal expressions of satisfactions/dissatisfaction when eachof the speakers was ending his argument. At the end, the audience didnt allow the moderator to conclude the debate without asking questions and a time for questions and answers was opened. Six participants asked questions to the two debaters mostly around the rate of global warming, the importnance of man made CO₂ compared to what is contained in the greenhouse envelope and the cost and bebefit of subsidizing green energy.

3. Critical Evaluation Of The Debate

This evaluation is based on the general knowledge of the debate practice and the key learning materials used during the TPH-499 course. The aspects of debate considered include the structure, use of appropriate tactics to flowing the debate and evidences to support claims, the best practices in debates and the impact on the audience. The structure adopted for this debate consisted of a general introduction of the its rationale and the debaters. A session of asessies of affirmatives and negatives followed, before the rebuttals, the questions and answers, the final statements and a closing statement. This is an adequate structure respecting the order of speeches and responsibilities in a debate. In this case, allowing for a time for questions and answers was seen as an added advantage to engage better the audience, given that the debate was going to be still good in case it was going to be closed without this slot of time.

In terms of speaking style, the betters have adopted the hybrid model by avoiding to be too fast or too slow. This might have been influenced by the sensitivity of the topic and the audience. The debate was part of a scientific conference on climate change, a controversial theme in globak discussions , taking place in a university context. Combining the two might have required them to make few arguments that are substanticated by evidences to be convincing instead of many arguments that may rise questions and and scientific proofs. I support this as the right style to use while debating in academic settings. Staying organized from the beginning until the end and sticking to initial claims was a quality appreciated in the debaters and aligned with the theory of compretitive debate. Both opponents stayed in right side of the line in final rebuttals, to keep reminding about their argument,a debate technique supported by Bellon and William, and these consisted of explaining climate change using common sense for Denning and natural causes of global warming for Spenser. On the other hand, the use of power point presentations was a technique used to flow speeches. I believe that it has helped in better visualization of arguments in a more convincing way ina conference setting.

Throughout the debate, the reference to research, global reports and scientific data sometimes collected over a long period of time was used frequently in support to arguments. This is a practice hat I personally find useful, as it minimizes the occurrence of fallacious thinking and gives more authority on the subject being debated. I believe it has played a role in creating an impact on the audience which was evidenced by the critical questions asked by participants at the end. The questions were intending to search for more truth on the areas debated but none of them was opposing the truth exposed by the opponents. Last, there are best practices demonstrated that are worth commending. Among them, careful listening, respect, building on the opponents ideas, and final handshake at the closing of the debate were signs of professionalism in debate practice.

4. Conclusion

Climate change is a global concern. Almost half of the worlds population is feeling its impact in many ways, including draughts, flooding, cyclones, change in rainfall, heatwaves, loss of ecosystems and human lives. For this reasons, this debate was important and the topic was relevant, to help people build more knowledge on the causes of this long-term global changes in the climate. The debaters agree on the principle that the global warming is the main cause of the climate crisis that the world is experiencing. Also, they dont diverge on the fact that the warming can be due to human activities (such as the burning of fossil fuel, the emission of pollutants, the deforestation etc) and to natural factors. However, the alarmist attributes the change to the amount of CO₂ sent in the atmosphere by humans, while the skeptist considers the natural factors as the main cause.

While the two views remained relevant and made the debaters rational in the audience, the debate would have been more meaningful by giving equal consideration to both causes and impact of global warming on the humanity. Climate change is preventing countries and communities from realizing their aspirations to be a green, carbon neutral and climate resilient. Thinking about it scientifically or ampirically through argumentation process is good, but suggesting policy recommendations or practical actions is more beneficial. Talking about the importnance of argumentation, Zarefsky said that the main end of it is to serve as a means of collective judgment and decision making.I believe that such a debate should have gone beyond being fun and game, or aiming at you are right and I am wrong conclusion only. This is why I liked the position of Spencer towards the end of the debate, where he stressed the importance of encouraging prosperity of developing nations and the global initiatives that help them to transition quickly from use of fossil fuel to green energy. Like Aristotle, real knowledge of the world demands looking at what the real world is really like.

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