An Interview with Michael Crichton

To what extent is climate change happening, to what extent is it anthropogenic, and what should we be doing about it?

There has been so much disinformation about my position that I feel obliged to repeat what I said in my book. Yes, the globe is warming; the greenhouse effect is real; CO2 is a greenhouse gas; it is increasing from human activities; we would expect this increased CO2 to produce warming. All true.

But nothing in this sequence of statements implies that CO2 is the primary driver of the warming we are seeing. Not at all. It is one thing to say that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and is therefore causing warming; it is quite another to say CO2 is causing ALL of the warming that we see. There is good evidence (and good physical theory) for the first statement, and weak evidence, primarily computer models, for the second.

Despite all the huffing and puffing, the truth is no one knows how much of the current warming trend is caused by man. Some of it surely is. And some of that anthropogenic warming is caused by the man-made rise in CO2. But how much is attributable to CO2 is not known. In the absence of that vital knowledge, people speak of a consensus of scientists. That's a way to get around the lack of knowledge and the inability to predict (which is the conventional proof of scientific knowledge, hence the usual emphasis in science on testable hypotheses.) Perhaps people and nations will choose to act on the basis of a claimed consensus. They have done so in the past, sterilizing their poor neighbors in the name of eugenics, gulping milk for their ulcers, downing antioxidants to prevent cancer, and soon. But all those behaviors were ultimately proven to lack a scientific basis — in other words, they are superstitions.

If you take antioxidants, last year you were being sensible about your health. This year, you are engaging in superstitious behavior, wasting your money, and possibly harming your health. So what really matters is knowledge, not consensus..

full interview: The Daily Ablution